Remarks by The President at Town Hall

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT AT TOWN HALL,THE PRESIDENT:  Hello, North Carolina!  (Applause.)  Thank you so much.  All right, please, everybody have a seat.  I am so excited to be back in Raleigh, to be back in North Carolina.  (Applause.)  This is a community and a state that has been so good to me.  (Applause.)  And I know that part of the reason is because I travel with one of your home boys, Reggie Love.  (Applause.)  But I hope it's more than that.,A couple of people I want to acknowledge very quickly.  First of all, I just want to thank Sara Coleman for the wonderful introduction.  Give her a great round of applause.  (Applause.)  She brought me a Cupcake Factory teeshirt -- (laughter) -- but no cupcakes.  (Laughter.)  I mean, I know I've been talking about health care a lot, but I think cupcakes are good for your health. (Laughter.)  So, next time.,I also want to acknowledge the Broughton High School Jazz Ensemble.  (Applause.)  I want to thank Gardner Taylor for the invocation -- (applause) -- Tom Gill for the Pledge of Allegiance -- (applause) -- Chelsea Cole for the National Anthem -- (applause) -- Del Burns, our Wake County Public Schools Superintendent.  (Applause.),I want to thank Stephen Mares, the Broughton High School principal.  (Applause.)  I want to thank your own Governor, Bev Perdue, who is here.  (Applause.)  Unfortunately, Senator Kay Hagan, Senator Richard Burr, and Congressman Brad Miller can't be here because they're all working hard in Washington.  Give them a big round of applause.  (Applause.),We also have the Raleigh Mayor, Charles Meeker, is here.  Where's Charles?  There he is, right here.  (Applause.)  We've got the Speaker of the House right here.  Give them a big round of applause.  (Applause.)  I hear that the former governor, Jim Hunt, is in the hall -- right?  (Applause.),There are a lot of elected officials, I'm starting to get into trouble.  (Laughter.)  So I'm going to stop there and just say thank you to all of them for their outstanding service.,It is not only great to be back in Raleigh, it is also nice to get out of Washington.  (Laughter.)  With all the noise and the fussing and the fighting that goes on, it's pretty easy for the voices of everyday people to get lost, and for folks to forget why they're there.,So when I took office in January, I asked to receive 10 letters -- to see 10 letters from people across the country every day.  They're just selected by the mail room.  We get about 40,000 letters a day; they send me about 10 a day, and I read through them.  And some of them are heartbreaking, people talking about the tough times they're going through; some of them are inspiring.  Most of the letters these days are about one thing, and that's the economy.  So this is a town hall meeting, but before I take your questions, I want to spend a few minutes just talking about where we are and where we need to go on the economy.,I don't know whether you've seen the latest cover of Newsweek magazine on the rack at the grocery store, but the cover says, "The Recession is Over."  Now, I imagine that you might have found the news a little startling.  (Laughter.)  I know I did.  Here is what's true.  We have stopped the freefall.  The market is up and the financial system is no longer on the verge of collapse.  (Applause.)  That's true.  We're losing jobs at half the rate we were when I took office six months ago.  (Applause.)  We just saw home prices rise for the first time in three years, so there's no doubt that things have gotten better. (Applause.),We may be seeing the beginning of the end of the recession.  But that's little comfort if you're one of the folks who have lost their job and haven't found another.  Unemployment in North Carolina is over 10 percent today.  A lot of small businesses like Sara's are still struggling with falling revenue and rising costs.  Health care premiums, for example, are rising twice as fast as wages, and much more for small businesses -- something that I'll talk about a little bit later.  So we know the tough times aren't over.  But we also know that without the steps we have already taken, our troubled economy -- and the pain it's inflicting on North Carolina families -- would be much worse.,So let's look at the facts.  When my administration came into office, we were facing the worst economy of our lifetimes.  We were losing an average of 700,000 jobs per month.  It was nearly impossible to take out a home loan or an auto loans or a  student loan and loans for small business to buy inventory and make payroll.  And economists across the ideological spectrum -- conservatives and liberals -- were fearing the second coming of a Great Depression.#p#分页标题#e#,At the time, there were some who thought doing nothing was somehow an option.  I disagreed.  We knew that some action was required.  We knew that ending our immediate economic crisis would require ending the housing crisis where it began, or at least slowing down the pace of foreclosures.  That's why we took unprecedented action to stem the spread of foreclosures by helping responsible homeowners stay in their homes and pay their mortgages.  We didn't stop every foreclosure; wouldn't help every single homeowner who had gotten overextended.  But folks who could make their payments with a little bit of help, we were able to keep them in their homes.,Ending this immediate crisis also required taking steps to avert the collapse of our financial system, which, as Federal Chairman Bernanke said the other day, was a real possibility.  Now, let me just say this about banks.  I know it didn't seem fair to many Americans to use tax dollars to stabilize banks that took reckless risks and helped to cause this problem in the first place.  It didn't seem fair to me, either.  And even though the bank bailout began under the previous administration, and I wasn't always happy with the lack of accountability when it was first begun, I do believe that it was actually necessary to step in, because by unlocking frozen credit markets and opening up loans for families and businesses, we helped stop a recession from becoming a depression.  And by the way, taxpayers are already being paid back by the banks -- with interest.,We also took steps to help a struggling auto industry emerge from a crisis largely of its own making.  Again, some folks thought, why are we doing that?  There was a strong argument to let General Motors and Chrysler go under, and I know many of you probably share that view.  And if we had been in ordinary times  - not teetering on the brink of depression -- we might have exercised other options, because if you make a series of bad decisions that undermine your company's viability, the folks back here, they probably wouldn't get bailed out, your company wouldn't be in business.  And many folks didn't see why these companies should be treated any differently.  But in the midst of a recession, their collapse would have wreaked even worse havoc across our economy.,So I said if GM and Chrysler were willing to do what was necessary to make themselves competitive, and if taxpayers were repaid every dime they put on the line, it was a process worth supporting.  We saved hundreds of thousands of jobs as a result. And we expect to get our money back.,     Now, even as we worked to address the crisis in our banking sector, in our housing market, in our auto industry -- and by the way, there was a flu that came by during that process -- (laughter) -- we also began attacking our economic crisis on a broader front.  Less than one month after taking office we enacted the most sweeping economic recovery package in history.  And by the way, we did so -- (applause) -- we did so without any earmarks or wasteful pork barrel projects, pet projects, that we've become accustomed to.  Not one was in there.  (Applause.),     Now, there's a lot of misinformation about the Recovery Act or the stimulus, whatever you want to call it.  So let me just lay out the facts, because I think some folks are confused.  As I was driving in, everybody was -- there were some folks cheering and then were some folks with signs.  (Laughter.)  So I hope they're paying attention, because I want to make sure everybody understands exactly what the Recovery Act was all about.,To date, roughly a quarter of the Recovery Act's funding has been committed; over 30,000 projects have been approved; thousands have been posted online, as part of an effort to uphold the highest standards of transparency and accountability when it comes to our economic Recovery Act.,Now, the Recovery Act is divided into three parts.  And I know a lot of people think, oh, this is just blown-up government and wasting money.  Let me describe exactly where this money went, just so if your friends or neighbors talk to you, you can give them the right information.,One-third of the entire Recovery Act is for tax relief for you, for families and small businesses -- one-third of it.  (Applause.)  Ninety-five percent of you got a tax cut.  You may not notice it -- (laughter) -- because it's appearing in your paycheck on a weekly -- every time you get a paycheck, as opposed to you getting a lump sum.  Because it turned out that by spreading it out, it had more of a potential to stimulate the economy.  That's what the economists advised us to do.  But a third of it is going to tax breaks, to individuals and small businesses.  That's money in your pocket to buy cupcakes and other necessities of life.  (Laughter.),So for Americans struggling to pay rising bills with shrinking wages, we have kept a campaign promise to put a middle class tax cut in the pockets of 95 percent of working families -- that began showing up in your paycheck about three months ago.  (Applause.)  We also cut taxes for small businesses on the investments that they make.#p#分页标题#e#,So just remember this, one-third of it -- if you think about the recovery, it was a little under $800 billion -- a third of it went to tax cuts.  And all those folks who are complaining about growing government and all that stuff -- we are actually cutting your taxes; giving your money back so you can spend it.  That's a third.,Another third of the money in the Recovery Act is for emergency relief that is helping folks who've borne the brunt of this recession.  For Americans who were laid off, we expanded unemployment benefits -- a measure that's already made a difference for 12 million Americans.  (Applause.)  So we extended unemployment insurance; that's made a difference in 12 million Americans, including 300,000 folks here in North Carolina who would have been cut off from unemployment insurance if we hadn't extended it.  (Applause.),We're making health insurance 65 percent cheaper for families who were relying on COBRA while looking for work.  (Applause.)  So let me just see a show of hands.  How many people know what COBRA is?  All right.  So you know that if you lose your job, you're allowed to keep your health insurance by paying premiums through COBRA.  Here's the problem:  If you've lost your job and your premium is $1,000 right at a time when you've got no job, it's hard to come up with that money, right?  So what we did in the recovery package was to say, we're going to give -- 65 percent of those costs we will pick up so that you can keep your health insurance while you're looking for a job.  (Applause.),And for states who were facing historic budget shortfalls -- I was just talking to the Governor and the Speaker.  We provided assistance that has saved the jobs of tens of thousands of teachers and police officers and firefighters.  (Applause.),     So that's the second third.  I just want to remind everybody:  first third, tax cuts; second third was providing emergency relief to families who had lost their jobs, for their insurance, and to support them with unemployment insurance, and states that otherwise would have billions of dollars in shortfalls.,Now, that's two-thirds of the money of the Recovery Act.  And if we hadn't put that in place, imagine the situation that people would be going through right now.  It would be a lot worse, and the states would be going through a lot tougher times, having to make cuts that they don't want to make.,     All right, so this brings us to the last third -- and this is where the critics will say, okay, well maybe we agree with the tax cuts, maybe we agree with the assistance to the states and individuals, but what about that last third, all those investments?  Well, you know what, we decided that the last third should be for short-term and long-term investments that are putting people back to work, and build a stronger economy for the future.  (Applause.) ,     And I want you to know this money is not being wasted.  We're seeing the results of these investments here in Raleigh and across North Carolina.  The Beltline is being resurfaced between Wake Forest Road and Wade Avenue.  (Applause.)  The Raleigh Durham Airport is renovating its runways.  (Applause.)  The City of Raleigh's transit system is building a new operations and maintenance facility.  (Applause.)  Over 500 people are going to work as part of a summer youth work initiative.  (Applause.)  Water treatment plants are being renovated throughout the Triangle.,     These are the kinds of projects being launched across the country -- to rebuild crumbling roads and highways and bridges and waterways -- with the largest new investment in our national infrastructure since Eisenhower built the Interstate Highway System in the 1950s.  And that puts people to work right away, but it also creates a long-term, sustainable economic future.,Now, I know that there are some critics in Washington -- maybe out there -- (laughter) -- they say, well, you've been too slow getting these projects started.  They're saying we should have broken ground on all our highway projects on the first day. Well, that's impossible, especially because I wanted to be sure we did our homework and invested our tax dollars only in those projects that actually created jobs and jumpstarted our economy. (Applause.),So we knew that it was going to take a few months before these projects got online.  That takes time -- if you're going to do it right.  And we've already eliminated wasteful projects that didn't meet this test -- because every taxpayer should have the assurance that we're investing their hard-earned tax dollars responsibly.,So just remember, if somebody asks you about the stimulus or the recovery:  one-third of it is in your pocket in tax cuts; one-third of it is unemployment insurance relief, help on COBRA, and making sure that states don't have to make cuts that would make things worse; one-third of it, investments in roads and bridges, putting people back to work.  So it will take time to achieve a complete recovery.  We're not going to rest until anyone who's looking for work can find a job.  (Applause.)  But there should be little debate that the steps we took, taken together, have helped stop our economic freefall.#p#分页标题#e#