While some in Washington have obsessed about "process stories" regarding the recovery package, for most of America the economy is not a spectator sport. That's why the President went to discuss with working people exactly how the package will affect them and their communities in a town hall today in Elkhart, Indiana. ... Questions from the crowd of about 1,700 people ranged from the foreclosure crisis and green energy to the mechanism by which recovery funds will reach communities like Elkhart. Some highlights, then the full transcript below. ... Q We are truly tired of the economics that we have been getting that has got us into the position that we're in. That theory has been a trickle down. We need to trickle up. So I would hope in your philosophy about trying to kick-start the economy that the money gets directly to the people who are -- have homes that are foreclosed, the people that have lost jobs....So I would hope...that the money gets directly into the hands of the people who are hurting. A: When it comes to tax cuts, you are exactly right that instead of providing tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, what I've been pushing in this plan is to make sure that the tax cuts go to working families. That is not only good for those families, it's actually good for the economy, because when you give a tax break to working families who are struggling, they will spend it on buying a new coat for the kids, or making sure that they get that car repaired that they use to get to work. ... REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT AT TOWN HALL Concord Community High School Elkhart, Indiana February 9, 2009 ... I intend to keep my promise. But you know, the work is going to be hard. I don't want to lie to people -- that's why we're having a town hall meeting -- because the situation we face could not be more serious. We have inherited an economic crisis as deep and as dire as any since the Great Depression. Economists from across the spectrum have warned that if we don't act immediately, millions of more jobs will be lost. The national unemployment rates will approach double digits not just here in Elkhart, all across the country. More people will lose their homes and their health care. And our nation will sink into a crisis that at some point we may be unable to reverse. So we can't afford to wait. We can't wait and see and hope for the best. We can't posture and bicker and resort to the same failed ideas that got us into this mess in the first place. (Applause.) That was what this election was all about -- the American people rejected those ideas because they hadn't worked. (Applause.) You didn't send us to Washington because you were hoping for more of the same; you sent us there to change things -- (applause) -- the expectation that we would act quickly and boldly to carry out change. And that's exactly what I intend to do as President of the United States of America. (Applause.)
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Questions from the crowd of about 1,700 people ranged from the foreclosure crisis and green energy to the mechanism by which recovery funds will reach communities like Elkhart. Some highlights, then the full transcript below.
Q We are truly tired of the economics that we have been getting that has got us into the position that we're in. That theory has been a trickle down. We need to trickle up. So I would hope in your philosophy about trying to kick-start the economy that the money gets directly to the people who are -- have homes that are foreclosed, the people that have lost jobs....So I would hope...that the money gets directly into the hands of the people who are hurting.
A: When it comes to tax cuts, you are exactly right that instead of providing tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, what I've been pushing in this plan is to make sure that the tax cuts go to working families. That is not only good for those families, it's actually good for the economy, because when you give a tax break to working families who are struggling, they will spend it on buying a new coat for the kids, or making sure that they get that car repaired that they use to get to work.
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT AT TOWN HALL Concord Community High School Elkhart, Indiana February 9, 2009
I intend to keep my promise. But you know, the work is going to be hard. I don't want to lie to people -- that's why we're having a town hall meeting -- because the situation we face could not be more serious. We have inherited an economic crisis as deep and as dire as any since the Great Depression.
Economists from across the spectrum have warned that if we don't act immediately, millions of more jobs will be lost. The national unemployment rates will approach double digits not just here in Elkhart, all across the country. More people will lose their homes and their health care. And our nation will sink into a crisis that at some point we may be unable to reverse.
So we can't afford to wait. We can't wait and see and hope for the best. We can't posture and bicker and resort to the same failed ideas that got us into this mess in the first place. (Applause.) That was what this election was all about -- the American people rejected those ideas because they hadn't worked. (Applause.) You didn't send us to Washington because you were hoping for more of the same; you sent us there to change things -- (applause) -- the expectation that we would act quickly and boldly to carry out change. And that's exactly what I intend to do as President of the United States of America. (Applause.)
The next part of the learning process will be to actually describe what the Great Depression was. It's kinda like mixing Fuentes' story of the guy who puts on his battle armor and leaving the house exclaims, "I'm off to fight The Thirty Years War" and the Python "No one ever expects the Spanish Inquisition" skit.
But because so few people are educated to the real Great Depression, it is just another skit to many.
Two people. Martini, Grey Goose, dry. Signing Wealth Tax Form 1080W - "Nobody expected we would have to help fight the Great Great Depression."
1929 - Stock market crashed, a few people jumped, some farms got dusty, Chaplin made some funny movies and thanks to the war, we got out of it. Yahoo~!
Never underestimate their intelligence, always underestimate their knowledge.
Frank Delaney ~ Ireland
I didn't know that one, it's great. Most economists teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless. -- James K. Galbraith
"When I was a young student in Latin American schools, we were constantly being asked to define the boundary between the Middle Ages and the Modern Age. I always remembered a grotesquely famous Spanish play in which a knight in armour unsheaths his sword and exclaims to his astonished family: "I'm off to the Thirty Years' War!"
"Did the modern age begin with the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453, the discovery of the New World in 1492, or the publication of Copernicus of his Revolutions of the Spheres in 1543? To give only one answer is akin to exclaiming that we are off to the Thirty Years' War. At least since Vico, we know that the past is present in us because we are the bearers of the culture we ourselves have made.
"Nevertheless, given a choice in the matter, I have always answered that, for me, the modern world begins when Don Quixote de la Mancha, in 1605, leaves his village, goes out into the world, and discovers that the world does not resemble what he has read about it."
It only gets better. The Fuentes book that this and other essays are in is named Myself With Others(1988). Never underestimate their intelligence, always underestimate their knowledge.
"Did the modern age begin with the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453, the discovery of the New World in 1492, or the publication of Copernicus of his Revolutions of the Spheres in 1543? To give only one answer is akin to exclaiming that we are off to the Thirty Years' War.
