State of the Union Addresses of Barack Obama, 2009-2016Obama, Barack
General
State of the Union Addresses of Barack Obama, 2009-2016
Obama, Barack
Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
Now, I know that the price of tuition is higher than ever, which is why
if you are willing to volunteer in your neighborhood or give back to
your community or serve your country, we will make sure that you can
afford a higher education. And to encourage a renewed spirit of
national service for this and future generations, I ask Congress to
send me the bipartisan legislation that bears the name of Senator Orrin
Hatch, as well as an American who has never stopped asking what he can
do for his country, Senator Edward Kennedy.
These education policies will open the doors of opportunity for our
children, but it is up to us to ensure they walk through them. In the
end, there is no program or policy that can substitute for a parent,
for a mother or father who will attend those parent-teacher conferences
or help with homework or turn off the TV, put away the video games,
read to their child. I speak to you not just as a President, but as a
father, when I say that responsibility for our children's education
must begin at home. That is not a Democratic issue or a Republican
issue; that's an American issue.
There is, of course, another responsibility we have to our children.
And that's the responsibility to ensure that we do not pass on to them
a debt they cannot pay. That is critical. [Applause] I agree,
absolutely. See, I know we can get some consensus in here. [Laughter]
With the deficit we inherited, the cost of the crisis we face, and the
long-term challenges we must meet, it has never been more important to
ensure that as our economy recovers, we do what it takes to bring this
deficit down. That is critical.
Now, I'm proud that we passed a recovery plan free of earmarks, and I
want to pass a budget next year that ensures that each dollar we spend
reflects only our most important national priorities.
And yesterday I held a fiscal summit where I pledged to cut the deficit
in half by the end of my first term in office. My administration has
also begun to go line by line through the Federal budget in order to
eliminate wasteful and ineffective programs. As you can imagine, this
is a process that will take some time. But we have already identified
$2 trillion in savings over the next decade.
In this budget, we will end education programs that don't work and end
direct payments to large agribusiness that don't need them. We'll
eliminate the no-bid contracts that have wasted billions in Iraq and
reform our defense budget so that we're not paying for cold war-era
weapons systems we don't use. We will root out the waste and fraud and
abuse in our Medicare program that doesn't make our seniors any
healthier. We will restore a sense of fairness and balance to our Tax
Code by finally ending the tax breaks for corporations that ship our
jobs overseas.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account