Hey everyone! Happy Friday!
I posted a diary a couple of days ago about how President Obama feels his regret for the first year is that he hadn't been talking to the American people as much as he'd like and seemed somehow disconnected. Well today we're seeing the return of "Candidate" Obama and he is doing a TownHall in Elyria, Ohio
He's speaking Now, I'll update after the speech (I'm sure there will be a transcript so I won't do that live)
You can watch it live on the White House website
It's also on MSNBC, FOX News, CNN, and CSPAN!
Update [2010-1-22 14:59:5 by Muzikal203]:: Right now he's talking about how he appreciates being out talking with the American people, and the crowd yells "We Love You!" and he said "I love you back"
Update [2010-1-22 14:59:5 by Muzikal203]:: Now he's talking about how they had to make unpopular decisions to fix the economy. I'm looking for a transcript of the speech now.
Update [2010-1-22 14:59:5 by Muzikal203]:: He said he ran for President to confront challenges, not to kick them down the road. He's actually fiery right now. I don't normally do this, but please rec this diary, I think it's important to see what Pres. Obama says to the American people, and this is a TOWNHALL not a rally, so there will be questions.
Update [2010-1-22 14:59:5 by Muzikal203]: Now he's pointing out that he's been focusing on the economy from the beginning and for those who said he shouldn't focus on healthcare, health care is part of the economy. Calls healthcare reform an "ugly process" and points out all of the BS he's had to deal with including "partisan politics" and the "longer it takes, the uglier it looks" so he understands why people have reservations now even though they know what they have isn't working.
Update [2010-1-22 14:59:5 by Muzikal203]: Says healthcare is not about him, it's not about boosting poll numbers because the way to boost poll numbers is to do nothing. Then he said that if he wasn't doing anything the people in Washington would be saying "what a genius!" LOL. Also states that "I win, when YOU win". this is a cool speech, sounds like he's just talking to people and not reading a speech.
Update [2010-1-22 14:59:5 by Muzikal203]: "As long as I'm President, I won't stop fighting for you. I will take my lumps, but I won't stop fighting" Points out that he's calling on Congress to put more Americans back to work building off of the Recovery and Reinvestment Act
Update [2010-1-22 14:59:5 by Muzikal203]: Remarks as prepared:
Remarks of President Barack Obama—As Prepared for Delivery
Lorain County Community College Town Hall
Elyria, Ohio
January 22, 2010
Remarks as prepared for delivery
It's great to be here in Elyria. It's always nice to get out of Washington. For two years, I had the privilege of traveling across this country, talking with folks like you about the challenges you face in your own lives, and the challenges we all face together as a nation.
In fact, the hardest part of being President, as great an honor as it is, is not being able to do that as much anymore. The White House is a wonderful place to work. You live above the store. I can see my kids when they wake up every morning and eat dinner with them every night, and that makes everything else so much better. But the truth is, being President is also a little confining. I can't just walk around and visit people like I used to. I can't just go to the barber shop or sit at a diner.
So, I appreciate the chance to come out here and spend a day – to visit plants like EMC Precision Machining and the clean energy job training program here at Lorain County Community College. I appreciate the chance to spend a day with all of you.
I know these have been difficult and unsettling times for people in Elyria, in Ohio, and across our country. I walked into office a year ago in the middle of a raging economic storm that was wreaking devastation on your town and communities everywhere. We had to take some difficult steps to deal with that mess, to stave off an even greater economic catastrophe. We had to stabilize the big banks, which, given their role in creating this mess, was a tough pill to swallow.
I knew it would be unpopular – and rightly so. But I also knew that we had to do it because if they went down, your local banks would have gone down, too. If the financial system had gone down, it would have taken the entire economy and millions more families and businesses with it. We would have been looking at a Second Great Depression.
In my first months in office, we also helped save two of the big three automakers from collapse. Some people weren't happy about that, either. They felt that if you make a bad decision, you ought to reap the consequences, just like any business would. But if we had let GM and Chrysler simply go under, hundreds of thousands of Americans would have been hurt, not just at those companies themselves, but at other auto companies and at their suppliers and dealers, here in Ohio, up in Michigan, and all across this country.
So, we said, if you're willing to take the tough and painful steps to make yourselves more competitive, we're willing to invest in your future. And earlier this week, we heard that the auto industry planned to make almost 3 million cars and trucks here in North America in the next three months – up 69% from the first three months of 2009.
We also passed a Recovery Act to pull our economy back from the brink. We cut taxes for 95 percent of working Americans – 15 different tax cuts for working families and 7 different tax cuts for small businesses so they can start up, and grow, and hire. We extended and increased unemployment insurance. We made COBRA cheaper. We gave aid to states to help them through these tough times. We made the largest investment in infrastructure since the creation of the Interstate Highway System, putting Americans to work rebuilding our roads, bridges and waterways, doing the work America needs done.
Today, because of the actions we took, the worst of this economic storm has passed. But families like yours and communities like Elyria are still reeling from the devastation left in its wake. Folks have seen jobs you thought would last forever disappear. You've seen plants close and businesses shut down. I've heard about how the city government here is bare bones. And how you can't get to work or go buy groceries like you used to because of cuts in the county transit system.
And this, after one of the toughest decades our middle class has faced in generations. This has been a decade where some Americans made huge amounts of money, while many others pedaled faster and faster, only to find themselves stuck in the same place, or even slipping behind. Even as you've found your paychecks shrinking, even as you've found the value of your biggest asset – your home – falling, the cost of everything has gone up. The cost of groceries. The cost of sending your kids to college. The cost of saving for retirement. And another pressure you've faced is the breakneck, unrelenting climb of costs for the health care you need.
I didn't run for President to turn away from these challenges. I didn't run for President to kick them down the road. I ran for President to confront them – once and for all. I ran for this office to rebuild our economy so it works not just for a fortunate few, but for hardworking people in this country. To create good jobs that can support a family. To get wages growing and incomes rising. To improve the quality of America's schools and lift up great community colleges like this, which are so important to our future. To make that higher education affordable for the children of working families. And, yes, to deal with the problem of runaway health insurance costs that are breaking family budgets, breaking business budgets, and breaking our national budget.
No, I had no illusions when I took on health care. It was always going to be hard. I knew from the beginning that seven Presidents had tried it and seven Presidents had failed. But I also knew that insurance premiums had more than doubled in the past decade, that out-of-pocket expenses had skyrocketed, that millions more people had lost their insurance, and that it would only get worse.
I took this up because I want to ease the burdens on all the families and small businesses that can't afford to pay outrageous rates. I want to protect mothers, fathers, children from being targeted by the worst practices of the insurance industry.
Now, we've gotten pretty far down the road, but I have to admit, we've run into a bit of a buzz saw along the way. The long process of getting things done runs headlong into the special interests, their armies of lobbyists, and partisan politics aimed at exploiting fears instead of getting things done. And the longer it's taken, the uglier the process has looked.
I know folks in Washington are in a little bit of a frenzy this week, trying to figure out what the election in Massachusetts the other day means for health insurance reform, for Republicans and Democrats, and for me. This is what they love to do.
But this isn't about me. It's about you. I didn't take up this issue to boost my poll numbers or score political points – believe me, if I were, I would have picked something a lot easier than this. No, I'm trying to solve the problems that folks here in Elyria and across this country face every day. And I am not going to walk away just because it's hard. We're going to keep on working to get this done with Democrats, Republicans – anyone who is willing to step up. Because I am not going to watch more people get crushed by costs, or denied the care they need by insurance company bureaucrats, or partisan politics, or special interest power in Washington.
Let me tell you – so long as I have the privilege of serving as your President, I'll never stop fighting for you. I'll take my lumps, too. I'll never stop fighting to bring jobs back to Elyria. I'll never stop fighting for an economy where hard work is rewarded, where responsibility is honored, where accountability is upheld, where we're creating the jobs of tomorrow.
That's why I'm calling on Congress to pass a jobs bill to put more Americans to work rebuilding roads and railways, to provide tax breaks to small businesses for hiring people, and to offer families an incentive to make their homes energy efficient, saving them money while creating jobs.
And that's why we enacted incentives that are beginning to give rise to a clean energy economy, that are starting to translate into real jobs making solar panels, making windmill blades, making cutting-edge batteries. In fact, almost $25 million of our investment went to a plant right here in Elyria that's helping produce the car batteries of the future.
So long as I'm President, I'll never stop fighting for policies that will help restore home values, to redeem the investment that folks have made. I'll never stop fighting to give our kids the best education possible; to take the tens of billions of dollars we pay banks to act as middlemen on student loans and invest that money in the students who need it.
I'll never stop fighting to give every American a fair shake. That's why the very first bill I signed into law was the Lilly Ledbetter Act to uphold the principle of equal pay for equal work for men and women alike. Especially in this age when so many families need two paychecks to get by.
So long as I'm President, I'll never stop fighting to protect you from the kind of deceptive practices we've seen from some in the financial sector. That's why I signed a Credit Card Bill of Rights into law to protect you from surprise charges, retroactive rate hikes, and other unfair rules. And that's why I'm fighting for a tough Consumer Financial Protection Agency to protect you against those hidden overdraft fees that can make a single ATM withdrawal cost thirty dollars or more.
I'll never stop fighting to open up government. That's why we put in place the toughest ethics laws and toughest transparency rules of any administration in history.
So long as I'm President, I'll never stop fighting to cut waste and abuse in Washington; to eliminate what we don't need – to pay for what we do; to rein in exploding deficits we've been accumulating for too long.
And I'm going to keep up the fight for real, meaningful health insurance reforms. That's why we expanded the children's health insurance program to include four million more kids. And that's why I'll continue fighting for reform that will hold the insurance industry accountable and bring more stability and security to folks in our health care system.
These are some of the fights we've had. And I can promise you, there will be more fights in the days ahead. We're having one of them right now – because I want to charge Wall Street a modest fee to repay taxpayers in full for saving their skin in a time of need. You can rest assured, we're going to get that money – your money – back, each and every dime.
You know, I said at the beginning how much it means to me to travel this country; how much it means to me to be here in Elyria. That is more true now than ever before. Because it's easy to get a pretty warped view of things from Washington. But when I get out here and talk with folks like you, I'm reminded of the strength – the resilience and perseverance – of the American people. I'm reminded of the fundamental character of the Americans I am so privileged to serve. It's that character that has borne our nation through seas far rougher than the ones we face today. And it is that character that will carry us through this storm to better days ahead.
Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.
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Update [2010-1-22 14:59:5 by Muzikal203]: Question time!
Update [2010-1-22 14:59:5 by Muzikal203]: Question #1 (woman): She works in financial services office and tries to help students find money to go to college and they really appreciate the extra Pel Grant money. Question: Will the administration support continued increases to the pel Grant
Answer: Yes. The Congress and Administration has made an enormous contribution to higher education and significantly increased the money in current Pel Grants and so they could have more. Too many banks are serving as "middle men" in the Student Loan process and he'd rather have the loans go straight to the students (Muz note: Boy I wish that was around when I was still taking out student loans). They are also reaching out to University Presidents/Administrators to reduce the inflation. The only thing that has gone up faster in cost than health care is higher education. If we're not thinking of ways to curb the inflation the money we put in is worth less and less no matter how much we put in. And part of the reason colleges and unviersities are jacking up costs is because they can't get as much money from states now. But generally their cost of operating has gone up.
Update [2010-1-22 14:59:5 by Muzikal203]: Question #2 (man): What are your interests in the steel mill?
Answer: Doesn't have all of the information about their specific steel mill. Wants to focus more on manufacturing. A lot of the jobs that are gone are not coming back because the global economy is so connected. We need to find the a way to develop specialty items that only we can do.
Update [2010-1-22 14:59:5 by Muzikal203]: Question #3 (woman): Supporter, glad to meet him, feels he has good intentions, Rome wasn't built in a day. Single mother of three with two issues. One of the kids got lead poisoning and no one from the EPA has called her back (Obama: I can guarantee you that someone from the EPA will call you probably before you sit down). Second thing, unfair labor laws in some of the industries regarding discrimination that doesn't seem to get addressed by bigger companies.
Answer: Lead poisoning from mostly older homes is something that we have to be more aggressive on. With regard to labor laws, his administration has been enforcing laws we have more aggressively. It's pathetic that there is still an issue of women not getting paid as much as men. I want my daughters to get paid the same way as your sons
Update [2010-1-22 14:59:5 by Muzikal203]: Question #4 (man): An inventor (I missed the patent number). Makes a sales pitch that he should use the patent in his next election. (Muz Note: Get your hustle on!) Question about free trade, how can he deal with extending patent rights to foreign countries so he doesn't have to worry about filing everywhere.
Answer: Our competitive advantage will be people using their minds to create new products and services. One of the problems we've had is insufficient protection for intellectual property rights. There's nothing wrong with sharing, we juts want to make sure people are getting paid. We're using the export arm of the government to help protect people's rights. We need to boost exports, it's not enough to just import. If we're going to have successful manufacturing economy, we need successful exports. That's why he was traveling to China, we will find more jobs by increasing our exports to their country. If we did this by 1%, that would be hundreds of thousands of jobs in this country.
Update [2010-1-22 14:59:5 by Muzikal203]: Question #5 (woman): Her name is Joann, she's 83 and doesn't look it (Obama: you don't, you look great!). Concerned about Social Security. She understands that Congress has given themselves a raise but denied the American people COLA (Cost of living allowance). Also, why weren't seniors prioritized for H1N1? What can he do about that?
Answer: To make sure SS is sustainable over the long term we need to make some changes to keep it stable. Compared to Medicare SS is in reasonably good shape that can be fixed with small adjustments, so SS is not going anywhere.
The problem with COLA, because of the recession, we didn't have inflation there was deflation (on average), so prices actually fell last year. As a consequence, technically Seniors weren't eligible to have COLA go up. Congress did vote to provide a one time payment of $250 dollars to Seniors, so it was almost the COLA, even though it wasn't COLA. (LOL!) They didn't forget Seniors because they vote at very high rates and changed our diapers.
H1N1: Seniors weren't prioritized because H1N1 was deadliest in young people and children, not older people. PSA: if you haven't gotten the flu shots yet, make sure you get them, especially H1N1 for children.
Update [2010-1-22 14:59:5 by Muzikal203]: Question #6 (man): his name is Jordan Brown, he wants to know if he can shake Obama's hand.
Answer: Yes, if someone lets you through
Update [2010-1-22 14:59:5 by Muzikal203]: Question #7 (man): Name is Javar, he's 29, he's been to jail, and he's never had a job. Is there a program for felons to help them get jobs. He wrote a poem for Obama and wants to give it to him.
Answer: It's never too late to start working. People make mistakes, especially when they are young, and it's in our interest to make sure they can work when they get out. The Congress passed a "Second Chance Act" to help people in Javar's situation. It's smart for taxpayers to give these people a second chance to eliminate some recidivism.
Update [2010-1-22 14:59:5 by Muzikal203]: Question #8 (woman): Woman who started a truck-driving school. They've placed 70% of their graduates in jobs. They no longer have the money to train truck drivers, wants to know why
Answer: the Recovery Act put a lot of money into re-training, and they will put something else into the budget. He doesn't know specifically about why money is being taken away from truck driving school. People need help, we need to provide them a helping hand.
Update [2010-1-22 14:59:5 by Muzikal203]: Question #9 (man): Last question: thank you for coming. 52 year old businessman from Akron who wants to create more jobs. He has rights to manufacture a turbine in Ohio. He's not asking for a hand-out, he just wants a loan he'll pay it all back. GE has a patent and created a wall where they won't let people build turbines in the US. Are there any federal programs that can help him get the money to build the factor and create jobs?
Answer: One of the things they've seen coming out of the financial crisis is that banks still aren't lending to small businesses enough. Banks say they are doing it because demand is down, which is true in some cases, for other cases they don't want regulators looking over their shoulders. They can't mess with independent regulators, but we need to make sure they haven't jumped the shark where before they'd lend to anyone and now they won't lend to anyone. Their small business lending has gone up 70%, they've been waiving fees and trying to make the process more efficient.
With regard to the patents, we need to protect intellectual property, but we also need to have a system that encourages innovation and doesn't lock out other people. Drug companies do this, they lock up the patents as long as they can costing consumers billions of dollars, and they are sneaky. We want a patent system that doesn't discourage competition but encourages innovation.
Update [2010-1-22 14:59:5 by Muzikal203]: Obama's final comments are on what the House and Senate bills are trying to accomplish:
- if you have insurance we will make sure you are getting your money's worth, that means no lifetime caps.Cap on out of pocket expenses. If you have a pre-existing condition, you can still get insurance. Your kids can stay on your insurance until they are 26/27
- Set up an insurance exchange to put everyone in the pool to drive down costs.
- Reduce costs overall, health care is inefficient.
Some people ask why they don't just pass that and forget everything else? Well, they can't do that because they have to have the mandate to make the other stuff possible.
The process has been "less than pretty" but when you're dealing with 535 members of Congress, it's going to be an ugly process because Congress Critters are all trying to look out for their constituents, but when you put it all together it starts looking like a monstrosity that scares people. There are things that HAVE to get done, and this is our best chance to do it, we can't keep putting it off. Even if you have insurance now, your premiums are going to get out of control. If we do nothing, Medicare will be broke in 8 years.
These are complicated issues, and doing them right is hard. Energy, he's for more oil production and new forms of energy and a safe nuclear industry, but we also have to acknowledge that if we're going to have an energy independent economy we can't keep doing the same stuff. We can't shy away from the big issues and say that they should only do the things that are safe. If we do that we won't meet the challenges of the 21st century. We're going to take these big things on, and we're going to do it because we know we want to leave a better America for our children and grandchildren. That doesn't mean standing still, that means moving forward.
THE END!
LOL, thanks for all who participated. My fingers are tired now.