Obama, midway '09: 'When it gets hard'

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http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2009/06/obama_midway_09_when_it_gets_h.html#more

Obama, midway '09: 'When it gets hard'
Posted June 30, 2009 11:25 AM


Pres Barack Obama at his party's National Finance Committee dinner. (Photo by Kristoffer Tripplaar-Pool / Getty Images)


by Mark Silva

snip//


"Not one month into this administration, we responded to this financial crisis with the most sweeping economic recovery plan in our nation's history, a plan that has already provided tax relief to 95 percent of working families, as we had promised, a plan that's saving jobs and creating new ones in construction and clean energy and small business across the country,'' the president said.

"We passed a budget resolution that helps to cut our deficit in half while laying the foundations for all the building blocks required for a post-bubble economy: reforming our health care system, initiating a clean energy agenda, revamping our education system so that our kids can compete in the 21st Century.

"We lifted a ban on federal funding of stem cell research. We expanded the Children's Health Insurance Program to cover 11 million children in need. We passed a national service bill to create hundreds of thousands of opportunities for people to serve their communities. We passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act -- the first bill I signed... so that equal pay for equal work is a reality all across this country.

"That was just the beginning.

"We passed a series of reforms that won't just change policy in Washington, but changes how Washington work.

"We brought together auto executives and labor unions and environmental groups, Democrats and Republicans together to set national fuel-efficiency standards for our cars and trucks for the very first time in history. We will save 1.8 billion barrels of oil as a consequence of this agreement. We passed bipartisan legislation to help homeowners and to crack down on predatory lenders who are seeking to take advantage of them.

"We passed laws to protect consumers from unfair rate hikes and abusive fees leveled by many credit card companies; a law that will eliminate waste in our defense budget and save taxpayers billions of dollars; and after decades of opposition, we passed legislation that will prevent tobacco companies from marketing to our children.

"It's not bad for six months,'' Obama said. "So we should feel proud for what we've accomplished. But we can't be satisfied.

"We should feel confident in the future -- but not complacent. We can't be content with the present. Not when there are workers that are still worried about losing their jobs or their homes or their health care. Not when there are so many children out there who aren't getting the skills that they need to compete in the 21st century. Not when justice is still elusive for too many in our society.

"This is when it gets hard. This is when the criticism gets louder, when the pundits grow impatient, when cynicism seeks to reassert itself. This is when we hear the same voices advocating the same policies that got us into this mess in the first place. This is where we hear that change just isn't possible.

"So this is exactly the moment when we need to fight the hardest. This is going to be the time when we need to band together and when we decide we're going to do what's right for the country and deliver the change that we promised when I was elected last November.''