How is alarmism a leadership quality?

This article in USAToday starts off with a rather stupid statement from our new President. After all, he has supposedly said that this recession will turn into an economic catastrophe if a stimulus bill is not passed quickly. This isn't a true quote, the article only quoted "economic catastrophe". However, I want to ask a few things. One, has our current President ever heard of self-fulfilling prophecy? If the President goes before the country and says a disaster is coming, people believe him, so I find the statement a bit irresponsible. Two, isn't our economic situation already a catastrophe? I mean really, this is the worst it has been in recent memory, probably since the Great Depression. I'd call that a catastrophe, but I don't need to hear it on the news every day. Third, who really believes that a congressional "stimulus" package can really do a darn thing to help? So, isn't having to hear increasing statement of gloom and doom from our "leaders" from the President to members of Congress just alarmist overkill? Okay, all that said, I actually read in this article that one thing being proposed as an addition to this overbloated package is to give everyone who buys a home, this year, a 15000 dollar tax credit. WOW, that's quite a chunk of change. That is how you go about solving the housing crisis. You get people out there wanting to buy. Of course, that only solves one side of the issue. Nobody will lend money to any of these people because the banks have frozen up the credit market. So, we are still going to have to raise interest rates or provide other incentives to banks to get them to start loaning people money. But hey, if a lot of people can expect a 15 grand tax credit, they'll go out and buy their house this year, which will go a long way to help. It sounds to me like there might be one or two Senators who are actually thinking.