For many of us, this is a first. In New Hampshire, we are feeling the harsh effects of a global financial collapse. Middle-class families are hurting like never before.

This presents us with two challenges: How do we create jobs now and help people who are struggling? And how do we build a working economy that can sustain us for the long term? We must take bold short-term actions with an eye on the long-term changes necessary to rebuild our economy and give middle-class families the opportunities to live their dreams.

The seeds of our problems were sown over many years and worsened during George W. Bush's tenure: slowed investment in our own productive capital, runaway spending and lax financial regulation. The combination of these and other forces led to a combustion in our economy.

One way or the other, the economic world is changing, and this generation must rebuild it for the 21st century. We need to reinvest in our own country and our own people, and we need to be prepared to work hard to be part of the solution. President Obama knew that when he said in his inaugural address that we must usher in a "new era of responsibility."

Under Obama's leadership, we have begun the task of stabilizing our economy and providing immediate relief while we rebuild our economy for this century. The Obama Jobs and Recovery Plan that Congress passed last week is the first step toward those important goals.

The plan has the largest middle-class tax cut in our nation's history. It invests in new green-collar jobs and creates millions more by rebuilding our crumbling roads, bridges and schools. It will create more than 16,000 new jobs for New Hampshire families.

In the last 13 months, we have lost more than 3 million jobs nationally. If we delayed action, millions of Americans would have lost their jobs and our economy would have plunged deeper into recession.

While this plan is not perfect, it is the necessary first step toward stabilizing our economy.

But this plan also is a down payment on a new working economy. And it is only a first step. We must restore fiscal integrity at all levels of society while we invest in better education, technological advances and new green jobs that can power our economy.

We can no longer fuel our economic growth with the fossil fuels that drove the 20th century. This is an urgent matter of national security.

We can and will change the policies of the past which chain us to our enemies in the Middle East instead of relying on American ingenuity to create jobs and power our economy.

The Obama plan invests in alternative energy in New Hampshire. It can help the North Country invest in a new power grid to bring biomass industries that will create good-paying jobs for that distressed region and benefit the entire state. And the plan gives alternative energy companies the tools to get off the ground by extending the renewable energy production tax credit that gives a tax cut for each megawatt of renewable energy produced.

The plan also will invest in other New Hampshire needs that can help build our economy for the long-term. It helps to build infrastructure, like clean water systems, roads, bridges, and the rail line from New Hampshire to Lowell, Mass., that will help bring industry to southern New Hampshire and help the environment. This is the type of long-term investment that New Hampshire needs.

Recognizing that we depend on an interconnected global financial system to fuel a working economy, we will update the financial regulations that led to this economic collapse. We need to put tough, smart regulations and oversight in place that reward success, not reckless behavior. The way Wall Street does business has a direct effect on Main Street.

The Obama plan is not a magic cure, but it is the necessary and right step toward stabilizing our economy and creating millions of jobs for Americans sitting around the kitchen table worried about how they will make it through this economic crisis. Perhaps just as important, it is the down payment on rebuilding the American dream.

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