President Obama used this week’s presidential address to continue his push on Congressional Republicans who are determined on raising taxes on the middle class come January.
Republicans have said, once again, that they will not cut taxes for hardworking middle class Americans if their friends in the richest 2% can’t get their taxes cut as well.
The President:
Now it comes down to this: If 218 Members of the House vote the right way, 98% of American families and 97% of small business owners will have the certainty of knowing that their income taxes will not go up next year.
But right now, that’s not the case. Instead of doing what’s right for middle class families and small business owners, Republicans in Congress are holding these tax cuts hostage until we extend tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.
It only makes sense, right? If Republicans and Democrats agree that the middle class should continue their tax cuts in January, then they should both come together now and pass an extension to the Tax law for the middle class. Where the two parties have a problem has to do with the tax cuts for the rich – those making more than $250,000.00 a year. Republicans want those taxes extended, President Obama and the Democrats want those tax cuts ended.
The message the President gave in this week’s Presidential Address was one of compromise: Let’s work together on the tax cuts for the middle class because we believe those taxes should be extended then deal with the rich at a later date.
The only place we disagree is whether we keep giving tax cuts to the wealthiest 2% of Americans. Republicans in Washington want more of those tax cuts. With the deficit we have, I don’t think we can afford them.
But even if we disagree on the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, we all agree that no American should pay more taxes on the first $250,000 of their income. So let’s at least agree to do what we all agree on. That’s what compromise is all about. Let’s not hold the vast majority of Americans and our entire economy hostage while we debate the merits of another tax cut for the wealthy. Let’s skip the unnecessary drama, the needless delays and all the partisan posturing and let’s just do the right thing for the people who sent us here to serve.
For months, I’ve been pushing Congress to pass several common-sense ideas that will help us do that. And on Friday, I signed into law a bill that will do two things for the American people.
First, it will keep thousands of construction workers on the job rebuilding our nation’s infrastructure.
Second, it will keep interest rates on federal student loans from doubling this year – which would have hit more than seven million students with about a thousand dollars more on their loan payments.
Those steps will make a real difference in the lives of millions of Americans. But make no mistake: we’ve got more to do.
The construction industry was hit brutally hard when the housing bubble burst. So it’s not enough to just keep construction workers on the job doing projects that were already underway.
For months, I’ve been calling on Congress to take half the money we’re no longer spending on war and use it to do some nation-building here at home. There’s work to be done building roads and bridges and wireless networks. And there are hundreds of thousands of construction workers ready to do it.
The same thing is true for our students. The bill I’m about to sign is vital for millions of students and their families. But it’s not enough to just keep their student loan rates from doubling.
President Obama toured the devastation in Colorado and delivered his weekly address from the fire-plagued Colorado Springs. Mr. Obama thanked the firefighters for their hard work in trying to bring the fires under control.
Firefighters are working 18 hours a day, around the clock, trying to make sure that they get this blaze under control. We’ve got volunteers who are out here who are making sure that these firefighters have the food and the water and all the resources that they need. And we’ve been engaging in some unprecedented coordination between federal, state, and local communities to try to bring this fire under control.
And one of the things I’ve done here, in addition to saying thank you to these firefighters, is to let them know that all of America has their back. One of the things that happens, whether it’s a fire here in Colorado, or a tornado in Alabama or Missouri, or a flood or a hurricane in Florida, one of the things that happens here in America is when we see our fellow citizens in trouble and having difficulty, we come together as one American family, as one community. And you see that spirit and you see that strength here in Colorado Springs, where people are working together, promising each other to rebuild. We’ve got to make sure that we are there with them every step of the way, even after this fire is put out.
President Obama spoke about our economic future, claiming that we have all the answers to our problems, but because of Republicans’ lack of interest in doing anything to help the economy, things are at a stalemate.
Right now, we’re still fighting our way back from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. The economy is growing again, but it’s not growing fast enough. Our businesses have created 4.3 million new jobs over the last 27 months, but we’re not creating them fast enough. And we’re facing some pretty serious headwinds – from the effects of the recent spike in gas prices, to the financial crisis in Europe.
But here’s the thing. We have the answers to these problems. We have plenty of big ideas and technical solutions from both sides of the aisle. That’s not what’s holding us back. What’s holding us back is a stalemate in Washington.
Last September, I sent Congress a jobs bill full of the kinds of bipartisan ideas that could have put over a million Americans back to work and helped bolster our economy against outside shocks. I sent them a plan that would have reduced our deficit by $4 trillion in a balanced way that pays for the investments we need by cutting unnecessary spending and asking the wealthiest Americans to pay a little bit more in taxes.
Since then, Congress has passed a few parts of that jobs bill, like a tax cut that’s allowing working Americans to keep more of your paycheck every week. But on most of the ideas that would create jobs and grow our economy, Republicans in Congress haven’t lifted a finger. They’d rather wait until after the election in November. Just this past week, one of them said, “Why not wait for the reinforcements?” That’s a quote. And you can bet plenty of his colleagues are thinking the same thing.
Today I’m at one of Honeywell’s manufacturing facilities in Golden Valley, Minnesota, where I just announced a step that will make it easier for companies to hire returning service members who have the skills our country needs right now. It’s another part of our effort to make sure that no American who fights for this country abroad has to fight for a job when they come home. That’s why businesses like Honeywell are answering our challenge to hire 100,000 post-9/11 veterans and their spouses by the end of next year. That’s why I’ve directed the government to hire over 200,000 veterans so far – because our economy needs their tremendous talent, and because millions of Americans are still looking for a job.
Right now, this country is still fighting our way back from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. The economy is growing again, but it’s not growing fast enough. Our businesses have created almost 4.3 million new jobs over the last twenty-seven months, but as we learned in this week’s jobs report, we’re not creating them fast enough. And just like last year at this time, our economy faces some serious headwinds. Gas prices are starting to come down again, but when they spiked over the last few months, it hit people’s wallets pretty hard. The crisis in Europe’s economy has cast a shadow on our own. And all of this makes it even more challenging to fully recover and lay the foundation for an economy that’s built to last.
In this week’s address, President Obama paid tribute to our men and women in uniform who have died in service to our country. The President also reaffirmed our nation’s dedication to serving our veterans as well as they have served us, and thanked our men and women in uniform for their unwavering commitment to the United States. As we come together on Memorial Day, we remind our military families and veterans that they are not alone, and give our thanks to those who made the ultimate sacrifice and helped make America the most prosperous and powerful nation on earth.
In the wake of the over two billion dollars lost at JP Morgan Chase, President Obama used his weekly address to call on Congress to fully implement the Wall Street Reforms he recently signed into law, a law that would protect consumers and make Wall Street accountable for their actions.
…We’ve put in place Wall Street reform with smarter, tougher, commonsense rules that serve one primary purpose: to prevent a crisis like that from ever happening again. And yet, for the past two years, too many Republicans in Congress and an army of financial industry lobbyists have actually been waging an all-out battle to delay, defund, and dismantle Wall Street reform.
Recently, we’ve seen why we can’t let that happen. We found out that a big mistake at one of our biggest banks resulted in a two billion dollar loss. While that bank can handle a loss of that size, other banks may not have been able to. And without Wall Street reform, we could have found ourselves with the taxpayers once again on the hook for Wall Street’s mistakes.
That’s why it’s so important that Members of Congress stand on the side of reform, not against it; because we can’t afford to go back to an era of weak regulation and little oversight; where excessive risk-taking on Wall Street and a lack of basic oversight in Washington nearly destroyed our economy. We can’t afford to go back to that brand of ‘you’re-on-your-own’ economics. Not after the American people have worked so hard to come back from this crisis.
In his weekly address, President Obama called on Republicans and Democrats in Congress to get to work for the American people. The President laid out items he said will produce immediate positive results for the middle class.
First, Congress should stop giving tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas, and use that money to cover moving expenses for companies that bring jobs back to America.
Second, Congress should help the millions of Americans who have worked hard and made their mortgage payments on time refinance their mortgages at lower rates and save at least $3,000 a year.
Third, Congress should help small business owners by giving them a tax break for hiring more workers and paying them higher wages. Small businesses are the engine of economic growth in this country. We shouldn’t be holding them back – we should be making it easier for them to succeed.
Fourth, if Congress fails to act soon, clean energy companies will see their taxes go up and could be forced to lay off employees. These companies are putting Americans to work and helping break our dependence on foreign oil. Congress should extend these tax credits.
And finally, Congress should help our veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan by creating a Veterans Job Corps. Our men and women in uniform have served this country with honor. Now it’s our turn to serve them.
So that’s Congress’s “To-Do” List. But now we need them to start crossing things off. I need you to call your Members of Congress, write an email, tweet, and let them know we can’t afford to wait any longer to get things done. Tell them now is the time to take steps we know will grow our economy and create jobs.
President Barack Obama urged Congress to limit student-loan rate increases, calling higher education an “economic imperative.”
Going to college is “an economic imperative that every family must be able to afford,” the President said Saturday in his weekly address.
Student-loan rates are set to be the next big issue split along party lines, and Obama hopes that his message of reasonable rates will resonate will younger voters as well as boost fellow Democrats.
“Republicans in Congress have voted against new ways to make college more affordable for middle-class families and voted for huge new tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires — tax cuts that would have to be paid for by cutting things like education and job-training programs that give students new opportunities to work and succeed,” Obama added.
And yet another call to our elected leaders to do what’s right for the huge majority of Americans and not just the richest among us. President Obama once again called on Congress to pass the Buffett rule, a law that would make our tax system more fairer requiring the richest 2% of Americans – those making over $1 million in yearly income – to pay a more appropriate percentage of their income in taxes.
The President;
Over the last decade, we’ve spent hundreds of billions of dollars on what was supposed to be a temporary tax cut for the wealthiest two percent of Americans. Now we’re scheduled to spend almost a trillion more. Today, the wealthiest Americans are paying taxes at one of the lowest rates in 50 years. Warren Buffett is paying a lower rate than his secretary. Meanwhile, over the last 30 years, the tax rates for middle class families have barely budged.
That’s not fair. It doesn’t make any sense. Do we want to keep giving tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans like me, or Warren Buffett, or Bill Gates – people who don’t need them and never asked for them? Or do we want to keep investing in things that will grow our economy and keep us secure? Because we can’t afford to do both.
Now, some people call this class warfare. But I think asking a billionaire to pay at least the same tax rate as his secretary is just common sense. We don’t envy success in this country. We aspire to it. But we also believe that anyone who does well for themselves should do their fair share in return, so that more people have the opportunity to get ahead – not just a few.
President Obama used his weekly address to talk about his all the above strategy for Energy independence, and he compared his plan to use air, solar, oil, wind and biofuels to that offered by the Republicans – the “drill baby drill” plan.
The president pointed out that under his administration, oil drilling is “at an eight year high,” suggesting that if drilling for fossil fuel was the answer, gas prices wouldn’t be where they are today.
And he asked congress to come together and “put aside the bumper-sticker slogans” and work together with him to move America towards a more clean and balanced energy future.
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