America saved from economic ruin: Obama

A year after his historic election President Barack Obama told Americans Wednesday he had saved the nation from economic ruin and launched sorely needed and far-reaching reforms.

"The work continues, but we are moving in the right direction," Obama pledged at a speech to a school in northern Wisconsin.

"And we are going to keep on fulfilling our obligation to do every single thing we possibly can to pull this economy out of the ditch and to make sure that people can find jobs that pay good wages. That's our top priority."

On November 4, 2008 Obama turned a page in American history when he became the first African American to be voted into the Oval Office, defeating veteran senator and staunch Republican John McCain.

"One year ago, Americans all across this country went to the polls and cast ballots for the future they wanted to see," he told the crowd in the Madison school, which leapt to its feet in a standing ovation.

"Election Day was a day of hope, it was a day of possibility, but it was also a sobering one because we knew even then that we faced an array of challenges that would test us as a country."

Obama was swept to power on a promise of change just as the United States was confronting its worst economic crisis in decades, and with US troops fighting two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

His administration, sworn in after his inauguration on January 20, had "two fundamental obligations," the US president said.

"The first was to rescue the economy from imminent collapse. And while we still have a long way to go, we have made meaningful progress toward achieving that goal."

The actions taken by his administration such as implementing a 787-billion-dollar stimulus plan and introducing tax cuts "contributed to the first quarter of economic growth that we've had as a nation in over a year."

The second obligation was "to tackle problems that had been festering, that had been kicked down the road year after year, decade after decade."

Issues such as health care reform, education reform and the need to battle global warming are on the top of Obama's agenda.