Washington, March 25, SPA -- US President Barack Obama defended the spending outlined in his budget Tuesday, saying investments in health care,energy and education are essential to long-term economic growth andeventually bringing deficits under control. Obama defended the 3.6-trillion-dollar budget proposal. "What we've said is, let's make the investments that ensure thatwe meet our growth targets that put us on a pathway to growth asopposed to a situation in which we're not making those investmentsand we still have trillion-dollar deficits," Obama said in the secondprimetime news conference of his presidency. Obama also said his 787-billion dollars economic stimulus andefforts to unlock the credit crunch behind the financial crisis thatdragged the economy into a recession are beginning to work, according to a report of DPA.--MORE www.spa.gov.sa/647861