"Will President Obama change the economy?" asked Jalen Deere, 11, a fifth-grader at O'Plaine School in Gurnee.

Last year, gas prices shot up to $5 a gallon. In the fall, major investment and banking institutions announced that they had run out of money. Stocks prices tumbled. Soon after, the car manufacturers said their funds were running low and they needed more money to so they could pay their employees.

With high prices at the pumps, grocery bills and prices for most other consumer goods and services soared. When banks, investment companies and car manufacturers said they could no longer pay their bills, people all over the country began to lose their jobs. Some experts say this financial crisis is as bad as the Great Depression, when 30 percent of the workers had no jobs, and the nation's gross national product dropped by half.

Today's economy is weak. Our government has borrowed large amounts of money from other countries to keep American businesses operating. We are living in tough times, but the President of the United States can help to improve the situation.

Dr. Michael Miller, economics professor at DePaul University, described how President Obama can change the economy.

"The government can have an effect on the economy by changing spending decisions and taxing decisions. That's called fiscal policy. President Obama provides the leadership and the ideas for this policy, but he must work with Congress to make changes; he cannot do it alone."

At the same time, President Obama and both the House and the Senate can create laws that will help businesses, employees and the economy.

"President Obama has an important role to play in helping the economy get out of this bad recession," Dr. Miller said.