Franklin Roosevelt set the benchmark for the first 100 days of an incoming president in 1933. He pushed a flood of legislation through a compliant Congress amid a heightened sense of national emergency in 1933. In 2009, the urgency is once again genuine. In acting to curb what threatens to be a deep and protracted recession, speed will be crucial.

Barack Obama is determined that his own first 100 days will be equally bold. Most likely, on timing at least, he will get his way. True, Congress has refused to be written out of the story. It quickly dashed the early hope that the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan” would be ready for signature as soon as Mr Obama moved into the White House.