Admitting that the stimulus bill is not perfect, President Obama made an urgent appeal for the passage of the plan at a town hall meeting in Indiana this afternoon and said that if not addressed soon, the economic crisis may be irreversible.

Obama took to the stage in Elkhart six months after visiting the town during the presidential campaign, returning, he said, to show that he intended to keep his promises. And he argued that through the election, Americans had sided with him in supporting the kinds of ideas the recovery plan would put to action.

"We can't posture and bicker and resort to the same failed ideas that got us into this mess in the first place - that was what this election was all about," he said. "The American people rejected those ideas because they hadn't worked. You didn't send us to Washington because you were hoping for more of the same. You sent us there to change things. The expectation that we would act quickly and boldly to carry out change - and that is exactly what I intend to do as President of the United States of America."

In his opening remarks, Obama tried to change what he said were some misconceptions about the plan by listing specific provisions of the bill. He flatly denied a claim that the legislation would boost government and not private-sector employment, and also repeated his contention that there were no earmarks. And he offered another stark warning about what would happen if lawmakers failed to act, saying that the nation could "sink into a crisis that, at some point, we may be unable to reverse."

"Now let me be clear: I'm not going to tell you that this bill is perfect," he said. After all, it is "coming out of Washington." But he said it is the "right size" and "scope" and would set the stage for future growth.

"I can't tell you with a hundred percent certainty that every single item in this plan will work exactly as we hope. But what I can tell you is, I can tell you with complete confidence that endless delay or paralysis in Washington in the face of this crisis will only bring deepening disaster."

During the Q&A session, Obama was put on the defensive when asked about the tax problems of some administration appointees. Some in the crowd booed the questioner, but the president defended it as a legitimate criticism. He did say that he thought the problems were "honest mistakes," and sought credit for admitting his own mistake, something he said you "sometimes don't hear from politicians."

"One of the things I've discovered is, if you're not going to appoint anybody who's ever made a mistake in you life, then you're not going to have anybody taking their jobs," he said. He also pointed to the "very high bar" he has set in terms of ethics rules for his administration.

Obama returns now to the White House, where he'll hold his first prime-time press conference. Tomorrow he'll hold a similar event in Fort Myers, Fla., and then another in Peoria, Ill., on Thursday.