obama-barack1President Barack Obama is dealing with the “worst economy since” the Great Depression, according to USA Today, given cash-strapped banks, a stock market worth half what it used to be, and millions of Americans losing their homes. His response has been to spend billions of dollars in an economic stimulus package and, last night, in an address to Congress and the nation, Obama added that the country needs an overhaul of its health care system to rein in the national debt.

But he also spoke on a familiar theme–bailing out the banks. He tried to make the case, as The New York Times points out, that “it’s not about helping banks, it’s about helping people.” If banks are stabilized, he said, Americans will have credit for loans to buy cars and houses versus a decade of hard times.

Colorado Republican Party chairman Dick Wadhams heard Obama’s words about fiscal responsibility but chided the president for signing the stimulus last week in Denver. “He’s defying gravity, talking about reducing the deficit while he’s piling up one federal program on top of another,” Wadhams tells the Pueblo Chieftain.

Colorado’s delegation to Congress responded in predictable partisan fashion, according to statements assembled by The Colorado Independent.