Transcript of President Obama's Remarks on the Deficit
Addressing Taxes and the Deficit: President Obama made his first public remarks since his election night victory speech.
The following is the full transcript of President Obama's remarks from the White House on Friday. (Courtesy of Federal News Service).
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you very much, everybody. Everybody, please have a seat. Thank you!
Well, good afternoon, everybody.
AUDIENCE MEMBERS: Good afternoon.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Off mic.) (Laughter.)
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Now that those of us on the campaign trail have had a chance to get a little sleep -- (laughter) -- it's time to get back to work, and there is plenty of work to do.
As I said on Tuesday night, the American people voted for action, not politics as usual. You elected us to focus on your jobs, not ours. And in that spirit, I've invited leaders of both parties to the White House next week so we can start to build consensus around the challenges that we can only solve together. And I also intend to bring in business and labor and civic leaders from all across the country here to Washington to get their ideas and input as well.
You know, at a time when our economy's still recovering from the Great Recession, our top priority has to be jobs and growth. That's the focus of the plan -- (applause) -- that I talked about during the campaign. It's a plan to reward small businesses and manufacturers that create jobs here, not overseas. It's a plan to give people the chance to get the education and training that businesses are looking for right now. It's a plan to make sure this country is a global leader in research and technology and clean energy, which will attract new companies and high-wage jobs to America. It's a plan to put folks back to work, including our veterans, rebuilding our roads and our bridges and other infrastructure. And it's a plan to reduce our deficit in a balanced and responsible way.
Our work is made that much more urgent because at the end of this year we face a series of deadlines that require us to make major decisions about how to pay our deficit down, decisions that will have a huge impact on the economy and the middle class, both now and in the future.
Last year I worked with Democrats and Republicans to cut a trillion dollars worth of spending that we just couldn't afford. I intend to work with both parties to do more, and that includes making reforms that will bring down the cost of health care so we can strengthen programs like Medicaid and Medicare for the long haul.
But as I've said before, we can't just cut our way to prosperity. If we're serious about reducing the deficit, we have to combine spending cuts with revenue. And that means asking the wealthiest Americans to pay a little more in taxes. That's how we did it -- (applause) -- that's how we did it in the 1990s when Bill Clinton was president. That's how we can reduce the deficit while still making the investments we need to build a strong middle class and a strong economy. That's the only way we can still afford to train our workers or help our kids pay for college or make sure that good jobs in clean energy or high-tech manufacturing don't end up in countries like China.
Now, already, I've put forward a detailed plan that allows us to make these investments while reducing our deficit by $4 trillion over the next decade. I want to be clear: I'm not wedded to every detail of my plan. I'm open to compromise. I'm open to new ideas. I'm committed to solving our fiscal challenges.
But I refuse to accept any approach that isn't balanced. I am not going to ask students and seniors and middle-class families to pay down the entire deficit while people like me making over $250,000 aren't asked to pay a dime more in taxes.
I'm not going to do that. (Applause.)
And I just want to point out, this was a central question during the election. It was debated over and over again. And on Tuesday night, we found out that the majority of Americans agree with my approach. And that includes Democrats, independents and a lot of Republicans across the country, as well as independent economists and budget experts. That's how you reduce the deficit, with a balanced approach.
