Archive for April, 2009:
Sen. Specter Switches Party over Recovery Act Rift
When I supported the stimulus package, I knew that it would not be popular with the Republican Party. But, I saw the stimulus as necessary to lessen the risk of a far more serious recession than we are now experiencing.
Buy Accutane /> The Recovery Act, which President Obama signed into law, aims to jumpstart our economy by saving or creating 3.5 million jobs, while also providing tax relief to 95 percent of working Americans and their families.
A Foundation for Change
We're one day out from President Obama's 100th day in office. In this short time, he has begun confronting head-on America's toughest challenges and delivering the change he promised -- and voters demanded -- during the campaign. Not only has he taken immediate steps to address the economic crisis in the short-term, but he also has set us on a path toward sustainable, long-term prosperity by investing in clean energy technology, our education system and healthcare Buy cheap online Provigil infrastructure.
To jumpstart our economy, President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act into law just two weeks into his term. This sweeping legislation saves or creates 3.5 million jobs, provides tax relief for 95 percent of working Americans and protects about 20 million people at risk of losing Medicaid or SCHIP eligility due to budget shortfalls.
To further help everyday American struggling to make ends meet, President Obama also announced a foreclosure prevention package, which allows up to 9 million homeowners to obtain better mortgage terms. Learn more about what action the President has taken since coming to office on a host of issues, including the Iraq War, fair pay and national service.
The impact of the President's investments, reforms and policies can be felt in communities across the country. Click on our interactive map below to see what changes are already happening in your state:
The reality is that we still have a lot of work to do to get our country to where it needs to be. President Obama has done an amazing job laying a foundation for change, but it's going to take more than one man to remake America. That's where Organizing for America comes in. We'll be continuing to mobilize everyday Americans in support of the President's bold agenda of change. Look for more opportunities to get involved in the coming weeks and months.
Video: President Obama on Making College More Affordable
In case you missed it, the President gave a major education policy speech on Friday in which he outlined his proposal to make college more affordable by changing the way the government runs its student loan program. Read the full text of the speech or watch the video of it below...
Listening Tour: Volunteers Help Shape Organizing for America
Our OFA staff on the ground have been holding Listening Tours across the country, asking for supporters' input as we build on the grassroots organization Buy cheap Accutane Online started during the campaign. Susan from Columbus, GA, who is an Independent, recently attended a Listening Tour event in her area and had this say:
I am grateful for Organizing for America and it's mission to support President Obama as he works to fulfill the pledges he made to the American people. His job is going to be tough; it's going to be difficult to change 'policitics as usual' in Washington. He will need Organizing for America to mobilize the grassroots support necessary to contact Senators and Congressman to push his agenda through.
I believe OFA needs to reach across party lines and reach out to individuals with diverse political affiliations. With the country equally divided between the two political parties, it has been us independents and swing voters who have tipped the scales in favor of one candidate or the other...
I was greatly impressed with the skill and grace of OFA staff that hosted the meeting in Columbus. They kept the discussions on track and refocused the group with ease.
Can OFA be successful? I believe the answer to that is a resounding "YES!"
President Obama was an unlikely candidate for the highest office in the land; detractors said he was too young; too inexpereinced; his opponents were too skilled; America was not ready for a person of color to be president. "Obama for America" overcame all the obstacles and proved the detractors wrong. I believe Organizing for America can expereince the same success.
We've been seeing crowds of more than 150 people at some Listening Tour stops. Check out photos from recent events:
President Obama Makes Commitment to Increase Research and Development Funding
Speaking before the National Academy of Sciences earlier this morning, President Obama emphasized the need to get America to lead again in science and technology. After years of watching other countries catch up to us as we made fewer and fewer investments in those areas key to America's prosperity, President Obama announced his commitment to dedicating more than three percent of our GDP to research and development.
At such a difficult moment, there are those who say we cannot afford to invest in Buy cheap Cialis Online science. That support for research is somehow a luxury at a moment defined by necessities. I fundamentally disagree. Science is more essential for our prosperity, our security, our health, our environment, and our quality of life than it has ever been. And if there was ever a day that reminded us of our shared stake in science and research, it’s today.
In his speech, President Obama also announced members of Science and Technology Advisory Council, a group of the nation's leading scientists who will counsel the President on how to help reinvigorate the economy and create sustainable prosperity.
Science and technology has been one of the President's top priorities since coming to office. More than $21 billion in The Recovery Act is going toward research and development, the largest increase in our country’s history. Additionally, The Recovery Act makes major investments in broadband networks, clean energy technologies, and health information technology.
The President’s fiscal-year 2010 budget also reflects this priority, including funding to:
- sustain increases in basic research
- make the research and experimentation tax credit permanent
- triple the number of the National Science Foundation’s graduate research fellowships
Read the full-text of the President's remarks today…
Indianapolis Listening Tour: “Do Something”
Yesterday I had a chance to sit in on an OFA Listening Tour in Indianapolis, Indiana. Fifty-seven people gathered at a local community center for the afternoon meeting. But in fact, this was actually just the overflow from a morning meeting that itself had over 85 people in attendance. Many of the people on hand were veterans of the hard fought Indiana primary and the general election, where in November they had helped deliver Indiana for a Democratic presidential candidate for the first time in 44 years. As one volunteer explained, in the wake of that historic election, they were now here to "live out the change" that they had helped make possible.
There were also new faces, people who see Organizing for America as an opportunity to address truly local issues and are now getting involved for the first time. In the small break-out groups, they talked about the issues that affected them and their families, from unemployment to local environmental concerns.
The meeting focused on three questions: How to connect local and national issues, what resources the group needs to be successful, and what they want Indianapolis OFA to look like by the end of 2009. The meeting was also a chance for the group to meet Nick Buis, the new Indiana State Director. Nick spent the general election in Virginia, but has returned home to Indiana to work as a full-time organizer for OFA.
Neighborhood Team Leader Silvia Spence explained:
The Indianapolis OFA Chapter started out as a small house party of 13 people focused on the economy and has quickly grown to become a powerful, cohesive force in our city. We’ve had the warmth of family since our first meeting, yet at the same time we couldn’t be more Cheap Cialis serious about delivering results to support President Obama and our country. Tio Jorge, my uncle in Argentina, said it best: ‘You, the citizens, will be the architects of his success.'
From this meeting, volunteers will assemble notes and feedback that will be presented to the group, as well as the State Director. These notes, along with feedback taken from over a dozen meetings like this across Indiana, will be used to help write a state-specific plan for 2009 and beyond. For the people here, election night was not an ending, and they have their eyes fixed firmly on the future and the challenges ahead.
Denise Rucker spoke at the end, outlining some of their next steps. She pointed to a man in the crowd, who had a t-shirt with the simple phrase "Do Something" printed across its front, and "do something" was the message she delivered. Before Denise had become involved in the campaign, she explained, "I thought politics was just something that rained down on you." They'd proved differently in November, and the landscape of Indiana politics is now changed as a result.
All photos by Drew Endicott. You can see more photos at the Indianapolis OFA Flickr page.
White House Briefing to Discuss Reported Swine Flu Cases
Administration officials will host an on-camera briefing this afternoon in the White House Press Briefing Room to provide an update on swine influenza in the United States and the government response. You can watch a live stream of the briefing below, starting at 12:30 PM Eastern:
UPDATED: The press briefing has ended, but you can watch press briefings, speeches, and White Provigil online No prescription House events live every day at WhiteHouse.gov/live.
President Obama on Higher Education and Reforming Student Loans
"In the end, this is not about growing the size of government or relying on the free market -- because it's not a free market when we have a student loan system that's rigged to reward private lenders without any risk. It's about whether we want to give tens of billions of tax dollars to special interests or whether we want to make college more affordable for eight and a half million more students." -- President Barack Obama
On Friday, President Obama delivered an important policy speech, in which he addressed the rising cost of a college education and proposed a dramatic shift in how the government operates student loan programs -- a change that would make college more affordable for millions of Americans.
"There are few things as fundamental to the American Dream or as essential for America's success as a good education," the President remarked. "Yet in a paradox of American life, at the very moment it's never been more important to have a quality higher education, the cost of that kind of that kind of education has never been higher."
Over the past few decades, the cost of tuition at private colleges has more than doubled, while costs at public institutions have nearly tripled. Tuition has grown ten times faster than a typical family's income, while inefficiencies in the student loan system provide lenders billions of dollars in wasteful subsidies instead of making college more affordable for all Americans.
In his speech, the President explained the difference between the two main kinds of federal loans -- Direct Loans and Federal Family Education Loans (FFEL loans). The main difference between Direct Loans and private FFEL loans is that under the FFEL program, taxpayers pay banks a premium to act as middlemen -- a premium that costs the American people billions of dollars each year. With FFEL loans (which make up the majority of all college loans) lenders get a big government subsidy with every loan they make. These loans are then guaranteed with taxpayer money, which means that if a student defaults, a lender can get back almost all of its money from the government.
In his speech today, President Obama called for an ending of the FFEL program and shifting entirely over to Direct Loans:
[This] is a step that even a conservative estimate predicts will save tens of billions of tax dollars over the next ten years. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the money we could save by cutting out the middleman would pay for 95 percent of our plan to guarantee growing Pell Grants. This would help ensure that every American, everywhere in this country, can out-compete any worker, anywhere in the world.
In the end, this is not about growing the size of government or relying on the free market -- because it's not a free market when we have a student loan system that's rigged to reward private lenders without any risk. It's about whether we want to give tens of billions of tax dollars to special interests or whether we want to make college more affordable for eight and a half million more students. I think most of us would agree on what the right answer is.
Now, some of you have probably seen how this proposal was greeted by the special interests. The banks and the lenders who have reaped a windfall from these subsidies have mobilized an army of lobbyists to try to keep things the way they are. They are gearing up for battle. So am I. They will fight for their special interests. I will fight for Stephanie, and other American students and their families. And for those who care about America's future, this is a battle we can't afford to lose.
So I am looking forward to having this debate in the days and weeks ahead. And I am confident that if all of us here in Washington do what's in the best interests of the people we represent, and reinvest not only in opening the doors of college but making sure students can walk through them, then we will help deliver the change that the American people sent us here to make. We will help Americans fulfill their promise Provigil pharmacy as individuals. And we will help America fulfill its promise as a nation.
The proposal follows on significant action already taken: together, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and the President’s Budget provide about $200 billion in Pell Grant scholarships and tax credits over the next decade, including giving millions of families up to $2,500 each to help pay for college.
Taken together, these steps amount to the most significant effort to expand access to college since the GI Bill.
Read the President's full remarks . . .
