"This morning the President took part in an unusual sort of town hall in conjunction with CNBC."

[ProSense]

President Obama's Town Hall on the Economy, Business and the Middle Class

Posted by Jesse Lee

This morning the President took part in an unusual sort of town hall in conjunction with CNBC. The audience was made up of “CEOs, union workers, teachers and students” as host John Harwood put it, and the questions reflected a broad variety of perspectives on the economy and jobs in America.

In opening remarks, the President recounted the over-arching story of his Administration so far: how the Recovery Act and other emergency actions were responsible for millions of American jobs and brought the country back from the brink of another Great Depression.

But the President also made clear once again that the struggle is far from over for far too many families, and one of the first questions was about middle class families who are still feeling the squeeze not just of this recession, but of the past years and decades. The President talked about how, even as he’s worked to boost our recovery in the short term, he’s also focused on creating a new foundation for the country so the next generation won’t be squeezed the same way – reforming student loans, putting families in charge of their own health care, creating a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau dedicated solely to making sure families get a fair shake.



But the President didn’t ask for congratulations:

And so my goal here is not to try to convince you that everything is where it needs to be. It’s not. That's why I ran for President. But what I am saying is, is that we’re moving in the right direction. And if we are able to keep our eye on our long-term goal -- which is making sure that every family out there, if they’re middle class, that they can pay their bills, have the security of health insurance, retire with dignity and respect, send their kids to college; if they’re not yet in the middle class, that there are ladders there to get into the middle class, if people work hard and get an education to apply themselves -- that's our goal. That's the America we believe in. And I think that we are on track to be able to do that.

The President was asked a number of questions on the premise that he is somehow anti-business, a claim he simply needed to point to his record to refute (we’d certainly invite skeptics to search WhiteHouse.gov themselves):

Look, in every speech, every interview that I've made, I've constantly said that what sets America apart, what has made us successful over the long term, is we've got the most dynamic free market economy in the world. And that has to be preserved. That has to be preserved. We benefit from entrepreneurs and innovators who are going out there and creating jobs, creating businesses.

Government can't create the majority of jobs. And in fact, we want to get out of the way of folks who’ve got a great idea and want to run with it and are going to be putting people to work.

And on the ongoing debate about extending middle class tax cuts, the President laid out his fundamental thinking:

Here’s the basic principle. Here’s what I can’t do as President. I think I’ve worked pretty hard and I have a pretty big grasp of the challenges that we’re facing. (Applause.) But here’s what I can’t do. I can’t give tax cuts to the top 2 percent of Americans, 86 percent of that money going to people making a million dollars or more, and lower the deficit at the same time. I don’t have the math.

I would love to do it. Every -- anybody in elected office would love nothing more than to give everybody tax cuts, not cut services, make sure that I’m providing help to student loans, make sure that we’re keeping our roads safe and our bridges safe, and make sure that we’re paying for our veterans who are coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan. At some point, the numbers just don’t work.

So what I’ve said is very simple. Let’s go ahead and move forward on what we agree to, which is tax relief for 95 -- 97 percent of Americans. In fact, actually everybody would get tax relief, but just up to $250,000 a year more. And let’s get the economy moving faster, let’s get it growing faster. At some point in the future, if we want to have discussions about further lowering tax rates, let’s do so at a time when we can actually afford it.

Remarks by the President at CNBC Town Hall Discussion on Jobs

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Q I am a chief financial officer for a veterans service organization, AmVets here in Washington. I’m also a mother, I’m a wife, I’m an American veteran, and I’m one of your middle-class Americans. And quite frankly, I’m exhausted. I’m exhausted of defending you, defending your administration, defending the mantle of change that I voted for --

THE PRESIDENT: Right.

Q -- and deeply disappointed with where we are right now.

I have been told that I voted for a man who said he was going to change things in a meaningful way for the middle class. I’m one of those people, and I’m waiting, sir. I’m waiting. I don't feel it yet. And I thought, while it wouldn’t be in great measure, I would feel it in some small measure.

I have two children in private school. And the financial recession has taken an enormous toll on my family. My husband and I joked for years that we thought we were well beyond the hot dogs and beans era of our lives.

THE PRESIDENT: Right.

Q But quite frankly, it’s starting to knock on our door and ring true that that might be where we’re headed again. And quite frankly, Mr. President, I need you to answer this honestly, is this my new reality?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, first of all, I think that you describe exactly what is the bedrock of America -- a veteran who’s working for veterans, somebody who is a CFO and I am sure knows how to manage their money, have made good decisions.

Q Sometimes. (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: I’m not saying once in a while you don't want to get a new pair of shoes. (Laughter.)

Q Today. (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: So the life you describe -- one of responsibility, looking after your family, contributing back to your community -- that's what we want to reward.

Now, as I said before, times are tough for everybody right now, so I understand your frustration. But I would just -- when you say there are things that you’d like to see happen or you’re hoping to see happen that haven’t happened yet, let me just give you a couple of examples.

I right now have two children -- it sounds like you’ve got kids, as well.

Q Two girls.

THE PRESIDENT: Two girls. You’re going to be thinking about college soon.

Q Next year.

THE PRESIDENT: Okay. Now part of what we did over the last year and a half is to make sure that billions of dollars that were going to subsidize financial service industries under the federal student loan programs are now going to be going directly to students so that millions more students are going to be able to get loans and grants and scholarships to go to college. Now, that's going to have an impact on a whole bunch of kids out there, including maybe yours.

If you have a credit card, which I assume, you do --

Q No.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, see, now you’re really -- now you’ve shown how responsible you are. (Laughter.) But if you have a mortgage or a credit card or any kind of financial dealings out there, as a consequence of the changes we made, the credit card companies can’t increase your interest rate without notifying you, and they can’t increase your interest rate on your previous balances. In terms of getting a mortgage, they -- you can’t have a mortgage broker steer you to a mortgage that ultimately is going to cost you more money, because maybe they’re getting a financial incentive to do so. Those things are now against the law. So there are a whole host of protections in there.

You are a parent who has children -- if your child, heaven forbid, had a preexisting condition, before I took office, you were out of luck in terms of being able to get health insurance for that child. Now, insurance companies have to give you health insurance for that child, and by the way, that health insurance can’t drop you if you get sick.

So there are a whole host of things that we’ve put in place that do make your life better. But the bottom line is if your 401(K) is still down substantially from where it was a while back, if you haven’t seen a raise in a long time, if your home value went down --

Q Keep going. (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: -- depending on where you live, all those things still make you feel like, gosh, I’m treading water.

Q Still struggling -- that's right.

THE PRESIDENT: And so my goal here is not to try to convince you that everything is where it needs to be. It’s not. That's why I ran for President. But what I am saying is, is that we’re moving in the right direction. And if we are able to keep our eye on our long-term goal -- which is making sure that every family out there, if they’re middle class, that they can pay their bills, have the security of health insurance, retire with dignity and respect, send their kids to college; if they’re not yet in the middle class, that there are ladders there to get into the middle class, if people work hard and get an education to apply themselves -- that's our goal. That's the America we believe in. And I think that we are on track to be able to do that.

MR. HARWOOD: Mr. President, let me go at this from a different direction, from the direction of psychology, business confidence. You just mentioned things that credit card companies and health insurance companies used to do. There are some people in business who think, to use a phrase that you used recently about your critics, who think you talk about them like dogs. Let’s listen to Ken Langone, a billionaire businessman.

THE PRESIDENT: I’m sorry, billionaire businessman?

MR. HARWOOD: Yes.

THE PRESIDENT: Okay.

(Video is shown.)

MR. LANGONE: What should they stop doing? Well, I think the one thing to do is to not make people in business feel like we’re villains or criminals or doing something wrong. I think anytime we can create a job that puts somebody to work, the country is better served. So I think that there’s got to be a need to understand that America, our democracy, is based on a strong, vibrant private economy.

MR. HARWOOD: Are you vilifying business?

THE PRESIDENT: Absolutely not. Look, let’s look at the track record here. When I came into office, businesses, some of the same commentators who are on CNBC, were crying, “Do something,” -- because as a consequence of reckless decisions that had been made, the economy was on the verge of collapse. Those same businesses now are profitable. The financial markets are stabilized. We haven’t increased taxes on businesses. Actually, we have instituted about 50 tax cuts, many of them going to businesses large and small.

And so the only thing that we’ve said is that we’ve got to make sure that we’re not doing some of the same things that we were doing in the past that got us into this mess in the first place.

So when I mentioned, for example, changes in the financial services industry, it is very important for us not to find ourselves in a position in which banks get too big to fail, and if they make bad decisions taxpayers have to bail them out or we let the entire economy collapse. That’s not a choice that I want any future President to have to make. And we instituted those changes.

And the fact is that when FDR put in place deposit insurance in banks, banks said at the time, this is going to destroy capitalism. When Medicare was instituted, there were a whole bunch of people who said, this is socialized medicine. Now we take it for granted. But oftentimes there’s this response that somehow these modest reforms that make the free market work better for consumers and for workers as well as for businesses, on the front end are resisted.

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"I’m sorry, billionaire businessman?"

:rofl:

[Mimosa]

1. ProSense, even I couldn't sympathise with Ms. Amvets

She didn't sound like she and her family were just barely hanging on.

I understand where she was coming from IF she was in fear of losing her employment. But it didn't sound as if that were her case.

I can tell you although I may argue for my personal interests here on this board, Obama is to be preferred over any Republicans. And I do defend the President against unfair criticism.

[FirstLight]

2. I know the frustration

and it is like we are in the freaking titanic and it takes a LOOOOONG time to make a turn, especially in a 180.
So having someone tell you "ya gotta be patient" is the last thing you can think handle
...especially when hanging on by the last threads as many of us are. (at least this woman HAS a job...I keep worrying that tanf will dry up somehow and we will be without ANY help!!!!)

The president *has* wasted some time, yes, but we have seen some movement in the right direction... i would like to think we are turning the big ship around, and that soon we will see some results. if we can only hold on to the senate, even better... but maybe the scramble this fall will help move things more left, and faster at that.

all i have left is hope, and thank god I can still jobsearch...even if i am not getting any calls back, it makes me fell like i am doing SOMETHING...

and ya, in the meantime i intend to help GOTV

there's nothing else to do but keep trying

[Parker CA]

3. That billionaire business man comment was hilarious. nt.