White House defends postrecession economic policies

The White House marked the fifth anniversary of the financial crisis Sunday with a new report commending the "bold" economic rescue measures undertaken by the Obama administration that, it said, worked better than anyone expected.

Administration officials also used the opportunity to warn Republicans of negotiation limits before a looming debt-ceiling showdown.

Gene Sperling, President Barack Obama's top economic adviser, told reporters during a conference call that the difficult decisions the administration made across the banking sector and in the auto, housing and finance industries stabilized the U.S. economy.

"The president undertook a series of bold, unprecedented and politically difficult measures in 2009 that have performed better than virtually anyone at the time predicted," said Sperling, director of the National Economic Council.

The White House's report extolled Obama's speedy response to the economic crisis, which began before he took office in January 2009. At the time, the U.S. economy was losing 800,000 jobs per month, and the possibility of a depression loomed.

The report said measures like the Troubled Asset Relief Program, inherited from George W. Bush's administration, stabilized the financial system, recouped the Treasury Department's investment and kept credit and lending open.

Stress tests that Treasury established for U.S. banks saved the banking system and are now a model for the rest of the world, the report said.

It also touted the U.S. auto bailout, controversial at the time, for helping General Motors and the Chrysler Group emerge from bankruptcy and create 340,000 jobs since 2009, in a new period of prosperity for the iconic U.S. industry.

Sperling said the auto bailout was the "right and politically difficult call," adding that no one predicted the survival, let alone the profitability, of the Big Three U.S. automakers -- General Motors, Chrysler and Ford.

On Monday, Obama is scheduled to give a speech at the White House as part of a series of economy-related events this week aimed at highlighting the administration's achievements on the economy.

Sunday marked the fifth anniversary of the collapse of the investment bank Lehman Brothers, which accelerated the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, and the report's release was an opening shot in the upcoming fiscal showdown in Washington.

Obama warned on Sunday that he would not negotiate with Republicans seeking budget concessions in return for raising the $16.7 trillion U.S. borrowing limit -- without which the government will default on its debts.

"What I haven't been willing to negotiate -- and I will not negotiate -- is on the debt ceiling," Obama told ABC News.

Sperling added Sunday that it would be irresponsible to risk progress made since the recession with a spell on the "high wire" of a threatened default.

"We came back from the brink. We avoided a second Great Depression. But we all agree that we have a lot further to go to get jobs growing, to get unemployment down to where we need it to be," he said.

A confrontation is also looming between Obama and Republicans on the government's operating budget for the next fiscal year.

If no deals are reached, the government could be shut down by the beginning of October, and it could begin defaulting on its debts by the middle of the month.

Though the economic crisis has passed, home prices remain well below their prerecession peak, and unemployment, which had risen to 10 percent, is at 7.3 percent.

Meanwhile, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll released Sunday, Americans remain angry at firms on Wall Street for their role in the financial downturn.

According to the poll, 44 percent of Americans say the federal government should not have bailed out leading financial institutions, and 53 percent said not enough has been done to prosecute crimes perpetrated by bankers.

Al Jazeera and wire services