President Barack Obama held the first press conference of his presidency, in prime time, Monday night to press the importance of swift action to save the ailing economy. Obama urged Congress to approve the “recovery and reinvestment package,” warning that without swift action it “could turn a crisis into a catastrophe.”

With job losses accelerating and the economy spiraling deeper into an already long recession, Obama discounted Republican criticism that it is loaded with Democrat pet projects.

He said the plan calls for an unprecedented level of transparency – all Americans can view online where every dollar is spent – and the stripping of all pet projects and earmarks found objectionable by both parties.

“The plan is not perfect,” the president said, addressing the nation from the East Room of the White House. “No plan is. I can’t tell you for sure that everything in this plan will work exactly as we hope, but I can tell you with complete confidence that a failure to act will only deepen this crisis as well as the pain felt by millions of Americans.”

Addressing criticisms that the package is all about spending and not about stimulus, Obama said the government was the last force capable of saving the economy.

“At this particular moment, with the private sector so weakened by this recession, the federal government is the only entity left with the resources to jolt our economy back to life,” Obama said.

Obama said his main goal for the stimulus package is getting American workers back to work, citing 4 million jobs created or saved as a benchmark.

He said that 90 percent of the jobs created would be in the private sector including rebuilding crumbling bridges, fixing levees to avoid future disasters, creating modernized classrooms and labs for school children, and paying the salaries of police and firefighters.

The common theme was the severity of the economic situation.

“This is not your run of the mill recession,” he said. He compared the US to Japan in the 1990s and hopes to avoid the “lost decade” the island nation experienced.

The plan calls for $838 billion in spending initiatives and tax cuts. Many economists are critical of creating massive budget deficits for short term fixes.

SMU economics professor Thomas Osang said he is concerned that we are trying to fix our problems in the short-term by creating long-term problems for future generations through huge fiscal deficits.

“It is just taking us from one unsustainable path and putting us on track for another,” Osang said. “Eventually we will get off of the government’s paid high and will be back at ground zero.”

Although he is weary of the massive amount of spending that would take place, Osang said the plan could have merit saying he is “not opposed to spending on things that improve the long term health of the economy.” He said that vastly improving infrastructure is long overdue and can help improve productivity and growth.

Obama said that initial measures of success for his plan will be three fold. Beginning with “the bottom line” of creating 4 million jobs. He said this will allow people to go back to work, gain confidence and begin purchasing again, leading to the same from businesses. Next will be smooth flowing credit markets, and finally stabilizing the housing market by stemming foreclosures.

The overall message of the press conference was the dire straights the economy is in and urgent action is needed.

“The party is over,” Obama said. “The time to act is now.”