WEEKLY ADDRESS: Congress Must Act to Keep our Teachers on the Job

WASHINGTON, DC— In this week’s address, President Obama urged Congress to take action now to put our teachers back to work in classrooms, because the best predictor of individual and American success in this economy is a good education. In 2009 and 2010, we helped keep hundreds of thousands of teachers on the job, but we must do more, which is why the President sent Congress his jobs bill in September that helps states prevent more layoffs and rehire more teachers.  It’s time for our elected leaders to come together and take action on the President’s bill to help our students and economy, and put our teachers back to work.

The audio of the address and video of the address will be available online at www.whitehouse.gov at 6:00 a.m. ET, Saturday, June 9, 2012.

Remarks of President Barack Obama
Weekly Address
The White House
June 9, 2012

This week, I spent some time talking with college students about how we can make higher education more affordable.  And one of the things I told them was how proud I was that they were making that investment in themselves – because in today’s economy, the best predictor of success is a good education. 

That’s not just true for our individual success; it’s also true for America’s success.  New jobs and new businesses will take root wherever they can find the most highly-educated, highly-skilled workers.  And I want those workers to be American workers.  I want those good-paying, middle-class jobs to take root right here.

So it should concern everyone that right now – all across America – tens of thousands of teachers are getting laid off.  In Pennsylvania alone, there are 9,000 fewer educators in our schools today than just a year ago.  In Ohio, the number is close to 7,000.  And nationwide, over the past three years, school districts have lost over 250,000 educators.  Think about what that means for our country.  When there are fewer teachers in our schools, class sizes start climbing up.  Our students start falling behind.  And our economy takes a hit.

The point is: teachers matter.  One study found that a good teacher can increase the lifetime income of a classroom by over $250,000.  A great teacher can change the course of a child’s life.  So the last thing our country needs is to have fewer teachers in our schools.    

Now, I know states are still going through some tough times.  I realize that every Governor is dealing with limited resources and many face stark choices when it comes to their budgets. 

But that doesn’t mean we should just stand by and do nothing.  When states struggle, it’s up to Congress to step in and help out.  In 2009 and in 2010, we provided aid to states to help keep hundreds of thousands of teachers in the classroom.  But we need to do more.  That’s why a critical part of the jobs bill that I sent to Congress back in September was to help states prevent even more layoffs and rehire even more teachers who had lost their jobs. 

But months later, we’re still waiting on Congress to act.

When it comes to this recovery, we can’t fully control everything that happens in other parts of the world.  But there are plenty of things we can control.  There are plenty of steps we can take, right now, to strengthen our economy.  Putting teachers back in our kids’ classrooms is one of those steps.  And there’s no excuse for inaction.  You work hard.  Your leaders should, too.  Especially at this make-or-break moment for the middle class. 

I know this is an election year.  But some things are bigger than an election.  Some things are bigger than politics.  So I hope you’ll join me in telling Congress to do the right thing; to get to work and to help get our teachers back in the classroom.  We can’t afford to wait any longer. 

Thanks and have a great weekend.

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Remarks by President Obama and President Aquino of the Philippines after Bilateral Meeting

Oval Office

2:48 P.M. EDT

PRESIDENT OBAMA:  It is a great pleasure to welcome President Aquino to the Oval Office and to the White House. 

I had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with him, most recently during my Asia trip, when we met most recently in Bali. And at that time, we discussed how important the U.S.-Philippine relationship was, the historic ties, the 60 years of a mutual defense treaty, the extraordinary links between Filipino-Americans that have brought our two countries so closely together.  And we pledged to work on a whole host of issues that would continue to strengthen and deepen the relationship for the 21st century.

We talked about how we could work on security issues, on economic issues, on people-to-people exchanges, and on a whole host of regional issues.  And I just want to thank President Aquino for his excellent cooperation, because we've made a great deal of progress since that time.

On economic issues, the Philippines is the recipient of a Millennium Challenge grant that is helping to foster greater development and opportunity within the Philippines.  We have a partnership for growth that is working on how we can make sure that we are structuring a relationship of expanding trade and commerce between our two countries. 

I want to congratulate President Aquino for the work that he's done on the Open Government Partnership that is consistent with his campaign to root out corruption that can facilitate greater economic development within the Philippines. 

And on security and military issues, we had discussions about how we can continue to consult closely together, to engage in training together, work on a range of regional issues together -- all of which is consistent with the announced pivot by the United States back to Asia, and reminding everybody that, in fact, the United States considers itself, and is, a Pacific power.

Throughout all these exchanges and all the work that we've done I've always found President Aquino to be a thoughtful and very helpful partner.  And I think that as a consequence of the meeting today in which we discussed not only military and economic issues, but also regional issues -- for example, trying to make sure that we have a strong set of international norms and rules governing maritime disputes in the region -- that I'm very confident that we're going to see continued friendship and strong cooperation between our two countries.  

So, Mr. President, thank you for visiting.  We are very proud of the friendship between our two countries, and we look forward to continuing in the future.

PRESIDENT AQUINO:  I would like to thank President Obama for all the support that the U.S. has given us in our quest to really transform our society.  Ours is a shared history, shared values, and that's why America is just one of two that we have strategic partnerships with.

Today's meeting has really even deepened and strengthened a very long relationship we have, especially as we face the challenges that are before both our countries in the current situation.

And again, we'd like to thank them for all the expressions of support that even now has led to the resolution of situations within our territory.

Thank you.

PRESIDENT OBAMA:  All right.  Thank you, everybody.

Q    Mr. President, Mitt Romney says you're out of touch for saying the private sector is doing fine.  What's your response?

PRESIDENT OBAMA:  Listen, it is absolutely clear that the economy is not doing fine.  That's the reason I had the press conference.  That's why I spent yesterday, the day before yesterday, this past week, this past month, and this past year talking about how we can make the economy stronger. 

The economy is not doing fine.  There are too many people out of work.  The housing market is still weak and too many homes underwater.  And that's precisely why I asked Congress to start taking some steps that can make a difference.

Now, I think if you look at what I said this morning and what I've been saying consistently over the last year, we've actually seen some good momentum in the private sector.  We've seen 4.3 million jobs created -- 800,000 this year alone -- record corporate profits.  And so that has not been the biggest drag on the economy. 

The folks who are hurting, where we have problems and where we can do even better, is small businesses that are having a tough time getting financing; we've seen teachers and police officers and firefighters who've been laid off -- all of which, by the way, when they get laid off spend less money buying goods and going to restaurants and contributing to additional economic growth.  The construction industry is still very weak, and that's one of the areas where we've still seen job losses instead of job gains. 

So if we take the steps that I laid out to make sure that we're not seeing teacher layoffs and we're not seeing police officer layoffs, and we're providing small businesses with additional financing and tax breaks for when they hire or if they're giving raises to their employees; if we refinance housing -- or allow homeowners to refinance so they've got an extra $3,000 in their pocket so that they can spend money and contribute to further economic growth; if we're making sure that we're rebuilding, work that has to be done anyway, deferred maintenance on roads and bridges that could put construction workers back to work -- all those things will strengthen the economy, and independent economists estimate it would create an additional million jobs.  

Now, you can't give me a good reason as to why Congress would not act on these items other than politics -- because these are traditionally ideas that Democrats and Republicans have supported.  So let me be as clear as I can be.  The economy needs to be strengthened.  That's why I had a press conference.

I believe that there are a lot of Americans who are hurting right now, which is what I've been saying for the last year, two years, three years, what I've been saying since I came into office.  And the question then is what are we going to do about it?  And one of the things that people get so frustrated about is that instead of actually talking about what would help, we get wrapped up in these political games.  That's what we need to put an end to.

So the key right now is for folks -- what I'm interested in hearing from Congress and Mr. Romney is what steps are they willing to take right now that are going to make an actual difference.  And so far, all we've heard are additional tax cuts to the folks who are doing fine, as opposed to taking steps that would actually help deal with the weaknesses in the economy and promote the kind of economic growth that we would all like to see.

All right.  Thank you very much, everybody.  Thank you.  Thanks.  Thank you, guys.

END
2:58 P.M. EDT

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