Leaders like President Obama,however, argue that the recession would have been much worse without the spending.

VOA: special.2010.07.02

The situation grew much worse after he won a second term.

VOA: special.2010.02.25

"And you have got an economy that his recovery plan has kept from being much worse and that will be growing."

VOA: standard.2009.12.15

"The banks that came closest were Citibank, Bank of America and if those had not been supported by the government, I think it might have caused a cascading crisis that would have been much worse than the one we actually had,"

VOA: standard.2009.12.20

The Syrians straddle the fence between the order of conservative nations on the one hand and this alliance with Iran on the other and it would make perfect sense for Bashar al-Assad to pose as the mediator with the Iranians, which means: hey,if you folks think I'm bad, think of the Iranians,they're much worse, but I have credit in their bank and I can deal with the Iranians."

VOA: standard.2009.03.18