What You Missed: Open for Questions with News One, Hello Beautiful, Black Planet, The Urban Daily & TheGrio

President Barack Obama drops by an Interactive One panel discussion in the South Court Auditorium in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, Sept. 12, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Yesterday, the White House hosted an "Open for Questions" event with InteractiveOne, a network of sites that includes NewsOne.com, TheGrio.com, TheUrbanDaily.com, HelloBeautiful.com, and BlackPlanet.com. During the discussion, President Obama made a surprise appearance to speak about the American Jobs Act that he sent to Congress earlier in the day and to answer questions. 

Administration officials including Melody Barnes, Director of the Domestic Policy Council; Shaun Donovan, US Secretary for Housing and Urban Development; Jason Furman, Principal Deputy Director of the National Economic Council; Marie Johns, Deputy Administrator of the US Small Business Administration; and Ambassador Ron Kirk, US Trade Representative answered questions on a range of topics submitted by InteractiveOne readers, as well as questions from a live audience and from Twitter.

Watch the video of President Obama's surprise visit or check out the full panel discussion below:

Find out more about the American Jobs Act

To jump directly to a question, use the links below.

• Grio: What can I do to help this bill pass?
• UrbanDaily: As a college student with a medical condition and an expected family contribution of $0, I can see a doctor but can't afford to purchase what they perscribe me are there plans to help college students with an EFC of 0 to free or discounted medicine?
• NewsOne: So often so many of the traditional job initiatives and programs don’t well serve African American community, one of our readers writes in, "what 'out of the box' methods for job creation is the administration taking? Are their any new ideas in the American Jobs Act?
• Hello beautiful: What would it take to get manufacturing jobs back in the U.S.? So many jobs being moved off shore, why has there manufacturing sector largely being written off? Is there a plan to make America attractive to manufacters in the long term?
• UrbanDaily: Ambassador kirk eluded to some of the tools available to the president to make some decisions, and one of the Grio readers Jay Pedal says when Bush was in office he accomplished some of the things he wanted via executive order. What can President Obama do via this method, for instance, could he have avoided some of the challenges the administartion is facing by using his executive powers, and if so, why didn't he?
• NewsOne: What other tangible signs can the community see of the recovery for say a non-believer who's living in an urban area who's surviving struggling, what can they see if they are somewhat cynical, to say I don’t see the recovery-- I don’t see the presidents policies helping enough. What other tangible things can they look for?
• UrbanDaily: I have a collective question from the interns at the urban daily the college, the federal work study program is invaluable to all of them but the work they find themselves doing is not always relevant to their area of study what they are finding now with the re internships is their school is requiring them to register for a course, for the internship in order to get credit, which essentially means is that they are paying for their internship. Is it possible to expand federal work study programs so that students can get paid to work in corporation that are more relevant to their course of study and would give them more experience once they graduate?
• Twitter: is the president willing to take a scalpoll approach on the jobs bill with the GOP or is it all in the deal?
• Audience, Citizen Engagement: When people ask about the American Jobs Act they usually ask One: What took so long? Number two: Is this big enough and bold enough? What is the political and economic analysis right now that makes itthe right time for the bil lto actually pass and that this will be effective?
• UrbanDaily: At least one person from all of our outlets has talked about very succinctly and in fact quite in a spirited way that this administration in many cases has been too conciliatory to its political opposition and in many cases given a level of respect that has not been returned. Do you in any way shape or form believe that this sentiment has any validity and moving forward will we begin to see any variations in the administration’s approach to its opposition?
• Audience: I’ve read through the Act and I think its outstanding document that puts forth a lot of new things. One thing I did not see and I don’t know how it would quite affect entrepreneurs is any type of investment for venture capital, private equity firms. I think it makes an assumptions that businesses aren’t hiring people because there is a financial incentive that they’re not getting and if they give them a financial incentive that they will hire, and I think lots of businesses are very pleased not to be hiring they like their margins, they like the increased productivity that they have so what about new business through private equity venture capital? Some of the things that are being done by the SBA through the CFIs and things like that are they going to be tied to this so there is going to be an investment?
• Twitter: currently 10% of U.S. workers are employed by non profits. What in your jobs bill is going to spur more non profit job growth?