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Many Americans have lost faith in their government, US President Barack Obama admitted Wednesday, tackling a pervasive sentiment hobbling his hopes for enacting sweeping reform.
American suspicion of government was deepening, he said in a speech from the heartland state of Missouri, where he pushed his endangered health reform drive that has been branded by Republicans as a government takeover.
"People have lost faith in government -- they had lost faith in government before I ran (for president), and it has been getting worse," Obama said at a rally in St. Louis.
He quoted his political hero, US Civil War-era president Abraham Lincoln, as saying that the role of government was to do what needed to be done but could not be done by citizens themselves without help.
"That pretty much sums up my attitude," Obama said.
The president used the trip to roll out a plan to crack down on waste and fraud in federal health programs for the poor and senior citizens as well as other government spending, which he said amounted to billions of dollars per year.
"I don't accept business as usual... and the American people don't accept it either," Obama said, adding the plan would help cut massive long-term deficits casting a shadow over economic recovery hopes.
In many ways, Obama's entire political program represents a bid to show that government can work, despite inbred US skepticism about federal power and Republican claims that he wants to orchestrate a takeover of much of American life.
Obama has embarked on a fierce week-long campaign to secure crucial votes in Congress on his health care plan before he leaves on a trip to Indonesia and Australia on March 18.
In a bid to evade Republican blocking tactics, he wants the House to ditch legislation it approved in November and pass the Senate's version of health care reform coupled with "fixes" to that bill.
But the approach is high-risk as some conservative Democrats oppose it and others have a wary eye on the polls, with a third of senators and all of the House of Representatives up for re-election in November's mid-term elections.
