November 30, 2010
THE PRESIDENT: Hello,
everybody. By the way, for those of you who are curious, we're using this
room because we've got about a hundred volunteers decorating the White House.
So we're spending a little more time in the EEOB.
I just wrapped up a meeting with
leaders from both parties. It was our first chance to get together face to face
since the election to talk about how we can best work together to move the
country forward.
It’s no secret that we have had
differences that have led us to part ways on many issues in the past. But
we are Americans first, and we share a responsibility for the stewardship of our
nation. The American people did not vote for gridlock. They didn’t
vote for unyielding partisanship. They’re demanding cooperation and
they’re demanding progress. And they’ll hold all of us –- and I mean all
of us –- accountable for it. And I was very encouraged by the fact that
there was broad recognition of that fact in the room.
I just want to say I thought it
was a productive meeting. I thought that people came to it with a spirit
of trying to work together. And I think it’s a good start as we move
forward.
I think everybody understands
that the American people want us to focus on their jobs, not ours. They
want us to come together around strategies to accelerate the recovery and get
Americans back to work. They want us to confront the long-term deficits
that cloud our future. They want us to focus on their safety and security,
and not allow matters of urgent importance to become locked up in the politics
of Washington.
So today we had the beginning of
a new dialogue that I hope –- and I’m sure most Americans hope -– will help
break through the noise and produce real gains. And, as we all agreed,
that should begin today because there’s some things we need to get done in the
weeks before Congress leaves town for the holidays.
First, we should work to make
sure that taxes will not go up by thousands of dollars on hardworking
middle-class Americans come January 1st, which would be disastrous for those
families but also could be crippling for the economy. There was broad
agreement that we need to work to get that resolved before the end of the year.
Now, there’s still differences
about how to get there. Republican leaders want to permanently extend tax
cuts not only to middle-class families but also to some of the wealthiest
Americans at the same time. And here we disagree. I believe, and the
other Democrats who were in the room believe that this would add an additional
$700 billion to our debt in the next 10 years. And I continue to believe
that it would be unwise and unfair, particularly at a time when we’re
contemplating deep budget cuts that require broad sacrifice.
Having said that, we agreed that
there must be some sensible common ground. So I appointed my Treasury
Secretary, Tim Geithner, and my budget director, Jack Lew, to work with
representatives of both parties to break through this logjam. I’ve asked
the leaders to appoint members to help in this negotiation process. They
agreed to do that. That process is beginning right away and we expect to
get some answers back over the next couple of days about how we can accomplish
our key goal, which is to make sure the economy continues to grow and we are
putting people back to work. And we also want to make sure that we're
giving the middle class the peace of mind of knowing that their taxes will not
be raised come January 1st.
I also urged both parties to
move quickly to preserve a number of other tax breaks for individuals and
businesses that are helping our recovery right now and that are set to expire at
the end of the year. This includes a tax credit for college tuition, a tax
credit for 95 percent -- a tax break for 95 percent of working families that I
initiated at the beginning of my presidency, as well as a tax cut worth
thousands of dollars for businesses that hire unemployed workers.
We discussed a number of other
issues as well, including the importance of ratifying the New START treaty so we
can monitor Russia’s nuclear arsenal, reduce our nuclear weapons, and strengthen
our relationship with Russia. I reminded the room that this treaty has
been vetted for seven months now; it’s gone through 18 hearings; it has support
from senators of both parties; it has broad bipartisan support from national
security advisors and secretaries of defense and secretaries of state from
previous administrations, both Democrat and Republican; and that it’s absolutely
essential to our national security. We need to get it done.
We also talked about the work of
the bipartisan deficit reduction commission and the difficult choices that will
be required in order to get our fiscal house in order. We discussed
working together to keep the government running this year -– and running in a
fiscally responsible way. And we discussed unemployment insurance, which
expires today. I’ve asked that Congress act to extend this emergency
relief without delay to folks who are facing tough times by no fault of their
own.
Now, none of this is going to be
easy. We have two parties for a reason. There are real philosophical
differences -– deeply held principles to which each party holds. And
although the atmosphere in today’s meeting was extremely civil, there’s no doubt
that those differences are going to remain no matter how many meetings we have.
And the truth is there’s always going to be a political incentive against
working together, particularly in the current hyperpartisan climate. There
are always those who argue that the best strategy is simply to try to defeat
your opposition instead of working with them.
And, frankly, even the notion of
bipartisanship itself has gotten caught up in this mentality. A lot of
times coming out of these meetings, both sides claim they want to work together,
but try to paint the opponent as unyielding and unwilling to cooperate.
Both sides come to the table; they read their talking points; then they head out
to the microphones -– trying to win the news cycle instead of solving problems,
and it becomes just another move in an old Washington game.
But I think there was
recognition today that that's a game that we can’t afford. Not in these
times. And in a private meeting that I had without staff -- without
betraying any confidences -- I was pleased to see several of my friends in the
room say, let’s try not to duplicate that. Let’s not try to work the
Washington spin cycle to suggest that somehow the other side is not being
cooperative. I think that there was a sincere effort on the part of
everybody involved to actually commit to work together to try to deal with these
problems.
And they understand that these
aren't times for us to be playing games. As I told the leaders at the
beginning of the meeting, the next election is two years away, and there will be
plenty of time for campaigning. But right now we’re facing some very
serious challenges. We share an obligation to meet them. And that
will require choosing the best of our ideas over the worst of our politics.
So that’s the spirit in which I
invited both parties here today. I'm happy with how the meeting went.
And I told all the leadership that I look forward to holding additional
meetings, including at Camp David.
Harry Reid mentioned that he’s
been in Congress for 28 years; he’s never been to Camp David. And so I
told him, well, we're going to have to get them all up there sometime soon.
And I very much appreciate their
presence today. I appreciate the tenor of the conversations. I think
it will actually yield results before the end of the year, and I look forward to
continuing this dialogue in the months ahead.
Thank you very much, everybody.