WASHINGTON (AP) – President Barack Obama hailed Wednesday's one-year-old economic stimulus law as an accomplishment that staved off another Great Depression and kept up to 2 million people on the job.

Still, with millions still out of work and losing patience, Obama acknowledged that to them, "It doesn't yet feel like much of a recovery."

Marking the anniversary of the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Obama aimed his message at people skeptical about the expensive relief measure and Republican lawmakers who voted against it and continue to hammer him about it.

To the public, Obama explained, as he has many times before, that the stimulus plan was composed of tax cuts for most Americans along with help for state governments, extended social service benefits and huge investments in energy, education and infrastructure.

"One year later, it is largely thanks to the recovery act that a second depression is no longer a possibility," Obama said.

To his Republican critics, who say the bill was a costly, debt-financed blunder that has not delivered on the promise of job creation, Obama challenged them to take up the case with people who have stayed employed or have found help solely because he and the Democratic-run Congress acted.

Obama even delighted in recounting a section of his State of the Union address last month in which he talked of the tax cuts from the stimulus plan and watched Republican lawmakers fail to applaud the idea.

"They were all kind of squirming in their seats ... It was interesting to watch," Obama said.

And Obama made sure to commend himself and his own team for taking action.

The United States has lost an astounding 8.4 million jobs since this recession began in December 2007.

Obama said the stimulus plan is on target to create or save 1.5 million more jobs, bringing up the estimated total to 3.5 million.

But he sought to remind people that the goal of law was never to restore every job. The government can build confidence and demand and rescue people in hard times during a severe economic slide, Obama said, but it will always be businesses of the private sector that ultimately generate jobs and a recovery.

Obama made repeated references to how well, in his view, his government has done with the stimulus.

"There has never been a program of this scale, moved at this speed, that has been enacted as effectively and as transparently as the recovery act," Obama added. Referring to Vice President Joe Biden and the other top aides, Obama said, "This team has done an outstanding job."

Biden, who has led the stimulus implementation, took his own swipe at critics. "They're unwilling to step up," he said. "Well not us."

The Week of Feb. 19-25:

February 19

FREDERICK DOUGLASS

1919—The “first” Pan African Congress is held, bringing together prominent Blacks from throughout the world to chart a program for Black unity and betterment. African-American scholar and activist W.E.B. DuBois was the chief organizer. The gathering was held in Paris, France, and drew 57 distinguished delegates including 16 from the United States, 14 from Africa and others from the Caribbean, South America and Europe. [The 1919 Congress is considered by many the “first” but another such Congress had been organized in 1900.]

by Errin Haines

ATLANTA (AP)—The message on dozens of billboards across Atlanta is provocative: Black children are an “endangered species.”

The eyebrow-raising ads featuring a young Black child are an effort by the anti-abortion movement to use race to rally support within the Black community. The reaction from Black leaders has been mixed, but the “Too Many Aborted” campaign, which so far is unique to only Georgia, is drawing support from other anti-abortion groups across the country.

RACE-BASED STRATEGY —This this Feb. 11 photo shows an anti-abortion billboard in Atlanta. The eyebrow-raising ads featuring a young Black child are an effort by the anti-abortion movement to use race to rally support within the Black community.

An Emory University Hospital spokesman said Sunday Rev. Lowery was released Saturday night.

The 88-year-old Lowery was admitted to the hospital two weeks earlier with a blood clot in his lung.

Rev. Joseph Lowery