Address By The President To A Joint Session of Congress - Official Transcript

Address by the President to a Joint Session of Congress

THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, and fellow Americans:

Tonight we meet at an urgent time for our country. We continue to face an economic crisis that has left millions of our neighbors jobless, and a political crisis that’s made things worse.

This past week, reporters have been asking, “What will this speech mean for the President? What will it mean for Congress? How will it affect their polls, and the next election?”

But the millions of Americans who are watching right now, they don’t care about politics. They have real-life concerns. Many have spent months looking for work. Others are doing their best just to scrape by -- giving up nights out with the family to save on gas or make the mortgage; postponing retirement to send a kid to college.

Is $300 Billion Enough?

CNN is reporting that President Obama, in an effort to shore up the economy and stimulate some type of job growth, is preparing to unveil a new $300 billion dollar job plan. He is planning to do this during his speech to congress that is scheduled for Thursday. The $300 Billion is mainly in tax cuts and infrastructure spending as well as some state government support.

In order to offset some of the $300 Billion, President Obama would want Congress to raise short term tax revenues for this year in hopes of cutting some of the deficit before his job plan takes affect next year. That is if it passes through Congress and does not get stalled by the opposition.

Of course there a large number of Republican opponents to this proposed program such as Rep. Paul Broun from Georgia. He feels that "it doesn't even sound good". Instead of $300 billion in infrastructure spending and some tax cuts he would rather see $640 billion go towards a 12 month tax holiday (break) for employers.

Stop Coddling The Super-Rich ?

If you haven't already you should definitely read N.Y. Times article by Warren Buffett, "Stop Coddling the Super-Rich." It's truly a great opinion piece by Warren Buffet. He shared his views about our deficit and the tax burden.  It's truly mind boggling that a billionaire has only a 17.4% taxes to pay on his taxable income, in comparison to every-day folks hitting 30% and up. It's crazy and it's no way Congress should see this as not a problem. I'm not going to even talk politics to you today. To me it's all about common sense.  You putting all the burden on the people who are your working class and can't afford, but wonder why our deficit is growing. People are losing faith and something needs to be done. Here are a few highlights from the article: