President Obama's speech in full

President Obama declared today that America faced its "day of reckoning" in a primetime address to Congress in which he also promised an anxious nation: "We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before."

In a speech delivered to a joint session of the House and Senate with all the pomp and ceremony of a State of the Union address, Mr Obama said that America faced its "day of reckoning" as he gave his most detailed vision of how he intended to steer America out of the crisis.

He decried the age of greed and irresponsibility, where “short-term gains were prized over long-term prosperity; where we failed to look beyond the next payment, the next quarter, or the next election”.

Amid the applause, Mr Obama's wife, Michelle, blew him a kiss and mouthed that she loved him. Yet the political reality of his first attempt to save the economy, his $787 billion stimulus package, was also clear. When he championed the stimulus, Democrats stood to applaud; Republicans, who overwhelmingly opposed it, remained seated.

At the outset of his speech, Mr Obama said: “Critical debates and difficult decisions were put off for some other time on some other day. Well that day of reckoning has arrived, and the time to take charge of our future is here.”

Laying out an extraordinarily ambitious agenda that Republicans and some economists have said is unattainable, he called for the economy to be kick-started through massive stimulus spending, while expanding health coverage, reforming education and creating new sources of alternative energy — simultaneously cutting the ballooning federal budget deficit in half within four years.

"Now is the time to act boldly and wisely - to not only revive this economy, but to build a new foundation for lasting prosperity. The weight of this crisis will not determine the destiny of this nation. The answers to our problems don't lie beyond our reach.

"Those qualities that have made America the greatest force of progress and prosperity in human history we still possess in ample measure. What is required now is for this country to pull together, confront boldly the challenges we face, and take responsibility for our future once more."

There are ominous signs that his Administration is still scrambling for a plan to avert a catastrophic collapse of the US banking sector. Senior administration officials indicated that a temporary part nationalisation of some of America’s biggest banks might be required to stabilise the financial sector, which is still in freefall.

The banks, hobbled by a collective debt of “toxic” assets — mostly mortgage related — estimated at $2 trillion (£1.4 trillion), is at the heart of the economic crisis. Stabilising the bedrock of the entire US economic system has become the overwhelming priority for Mr Obama and his financial team.

The problem for Mr Obama is that the country's bankers are some of the most vilified figures in the US. Laying the ground for more massive government aid to the banking sector - which polls have shown is overwhelmingly resisted by voters - Mr Obama said: "I know how unpopular it is to be seen helping banks right now, especially when everyone is suffering in part from their bad decisions. I promise you, I get it."

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