“Keep building a stronger future”
Today President Obama traveled to Racine, Wisconsin, to hold a town hall meeting on the economy—a chance, he said, to “talk with all of you about what’s on your mind and all of our minds.”
The President told the 1,300 people assembled that the economy is now headed in the right direction, but the work isn’t finished. The President outlined the additional steps he is fighting for to help the economy to keep growing—extending unemployment benefits, helping small businesses get access to loans, and providing relief to states to keep their teachers and law enforcement personnel employed.
But he noted that a number of Republican senators are using their power to prevent these measures from coming up for a vote:
They still believe that, even after the Wall Street crash, even after the BP oil well blew, that we should just keep a hands-off attitude. They think we should keep doing what we did for most of the last decade leading up to the recession. So their prescription for every challenge is pretty much the same—and I don’t think I’m exaggerating here—basically cut taxes for the wealthy, cut rules for corporations, and cut working folks loose to fend for themselves. Basically their attitude is, you’re on your own. ...
So I just want everybody to remember, we've tried the other side’s theories. We know what their ideas are. We know where they led us. So now we've got a choice. We can return to what we know did not work, or we build a stronger future. We can go backwards, or we can go forward. And I don’t know about you, but I want to move forward in this country.
In the spirit of moving forward, the President noted that we are on the verge of passing the strongest financial reform since the Great Depression, with measures that would help prevent another economic crisis from happening—but most Republicans are planning to vote against reform, including John Boehner, House minority leader.
The leader of the Republicans in the House said that financial reform was like—I'm quoting here—“using a nuclear weapon Cheap Cialis to target an ant.” That’s what he said. He compared the financial crisis to an ant. This is the same financial crisis that led to the loss of nearly 8 million jobs. The same crisis that cost people their homes, their life savings.
He can't be that out of touch with the struggles of American families. And if he is, then he’s got to come here to Racine and ask people what they think. Do you think we should fix—I mean, maybe I'm confused. Do you think that the financial crisis was an ant and we just needed a little ant swatter to fix this thing? Or do you think that we need to restructure how we regulate the financial system, so you aren’t on the hook again and we don't have this kind of crisis again?
When you ask men and women who have been out of work for months at a time, who talk about how they’ve been barely hanging on, they don't think this financial crisis was something where you just need a few tweaks. They know it’s what led to the worst recession since the Great Depression. And they expect their leaders in Washington to do whatever it takes to make sure a crisis like this doesn’t happen again.
And in the face of the worst environmental disaster in American history, moving forward means moving toward a clean-energy future.
The President said:
Some of these same folks want to maintain the status quo, where we just rely on oil and other fossil fuels for all of our energy needs, even though we know that our dependence on these energy sources is a problem because they’re finite. They’re going to run out, and that jeopardizes our national security and our prosperity and our planet.
So I want to move forward. I believe it is time for this country to embrace a clean energy future. I don’t want clean energy jobs to go to China. I don’t want them to go to Germany. I want those industries to take root right here in the United States of America. ...
That’s why we need to pass legislation that makes clean energy the profitable kind of energy for America’s businesses. We’ve got to have a national mission to change the way we use energy and produce energy. And you know what, it will be good for our economy. It is going to drive our economy in the 21st century.
It is not time for us to look backward, it’s time for us to look forward.