Your Weekly Address from the President-elect (November 15, 2008)

Video uploaded to allow open discussion among the YouTube community.



Remarks of President-elect Barack Obama

November 15, 2008

Today, the leaders of the G-20 countries -- a group that includes the world's largest economies -- are gathering in Washington to seek solutions to the ongoing turmoil in our financial markets. I'm glad President Bush has initiated this process -- because our global economic crisis requires a coordinated global response.

And yet, as we act in concert with other nations, we must also act immediately here at home to address America's own economic crisis. This week, amid continued volatility in our markets, we learned that unemployment insurance claims rose to their highest levels since September 11, 2001. We've lost jobs for ten straight months -- nearly 1.2 million jobs this year, many of them in our struggling auto industry. And millions of our fellow citizens lie awake each night wondering how they're going to pay their bills, stay in their homes, and save for retirement.

Make no mistake: this is the greatest economic challenge of our time. And while the road ahead will be long, and the work will be hard, I know that we can steer ourselves out of this crisis -- because here in America we always rise to the moment, no matter how hard. And I am more hopeful than ever before that America will rise once again.

But we must act right now. Next week, Congress will meet to address the spreading impact of the economic crisis. I urge them to pass at least a down-payment on a rescue plan that will create jobs, relieve the squeeze on families, and help get the economy growing again. In particular, we cannot afford to delay providing help for the more than one million Americans who will have exhausted their unemployment insurance by the end of this year. If Congress does not pass an immediate plan that gives the economy the boost it needs, I will make it my first order of business as President.

Even as we dig ourselves out of this recession, we must also recognize that out of this economic crisis comes an opportunity to create new jobs, strengthen our middle class, and keep our economy competitive in the 21st century.

That starts with the kinds of long-term investments that we've neglected for too long. That means putting two million Americans to work rebuilding our crumbling roads, bridges, and schools. It means investing $150 billion to build an American green energy economy that will create five million new jobs, while freeing our nation from the tyranny of foreign oil, and saving our planet for our children. It means making health care affordable for anyone who has it, accessible for anyone who wants it, and reducing costs for small businesses. And it also means giving every child the world-class education they need to compete with any worker, anywhere in the world.

Doing all this will require not just new policies, but a new spirit of service and sacrifice, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other. If this financial crisis has taught us anything, it's that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers -- in this country, we rise or fall as one nation; as one people. And that is how we will meet the challenges of our time -- together. Thank you.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Barack
• Obama
• President-elect
• weekly
• address

[trivialmindz]

The One Thing that is truly FUCKED UP about our Country is the Federal Reserve!

[trivialmindz]

What did you research? MSNBC or CNN? I guess you're right the majority of Americans must be morons. They don't have any integrity or morals. A bunch of fat, lazy sheep that are worried about going green and grazing in someone else's pasture. Why should anyone worry about their security? Why should we worry about CHANGE, changing our civil liberties when we can get a stimulus check? Careful what you wish for, when you get it you may not want it anymore. That puppet you worship won't save you.

[MortenRisdon25]

Get the audio from this vid at searchripgrab doht cohm.

[MrTabby5000]

Obama you shame the democratic party,

[gwhendri1]

ME AND YOUR BITCH ARE GOING TO GET THE OIL CHANGED AT THE OLIVE BRANCH GAS STATION TOMMOROW

[teknowiz84]

Yea the federal reserve can print money out of thin air!!!!! Its a fact that our currency must be backed by something... THIS is why prices go up... too much money is in circulation, , so it looses its value. Everything happens for a reason, the FED can contract the money supply at will. There is no need to borrow money, we can print our own.

[dozerman09]

A fake office..Office of the President Elect..how arrogant. Where in the hell do you people that put him in office think where all this money will come from. Oh, beg my pardon, the people that elected him thinks it grows on trees. The new jobs created will go to the OBAMA MONEY FARM to harvest all the new money growing in the orchard. Jimmy Carter Adminstration Revisted..May God have mercy on us all.

[trivialmindz]

I didn't say that you thought you=Obama. I think that you=Obama.And I never said that I voted for Mccain or that he was better than Obama. They're all puppets put into office by zionist jews, they're all corrupt and working on a New World Order, including your precious messiah. The only reason , I ever commented here to begin with is because you people are so blindly entranced by anything he says thats its sickening.

[BlikeNave]

Trivial, I never said you couldn't speak your mind- I just feel that when you call me a "sheep", it brings in too many unnecessary emotions that detach your point from it's initial grounding in logic. And I don't think 'I = Obama'; I said Bush = McCain, not Me = Obama. And Trivial, I'm sick of this... trivial youtube debate. You're 36 and I'm 18- so why don't we try and, instead of fighting as republicans against democrats, call a mature truce in this whole thing and just be neutral you-tubers?