Weekly Address: Paying Tribute to our Fallen Heroes this Memorial Day

WASHINGTON, DC— In this week’s address, President Obama commemorated Memorial Day by honoring the brave men and women in uniform who have given their lives in service to our country. As we stand with our veterans and military families this weekend, the President underscored our commitment to uphold our nation’s sacred trust with our veterans and ensure they get the benefits and opportunities they deserve and have earned.

Remarks of President Barack Obama

Weekly Address

The White House

May 24, 2014

Hi, everybody.  It’s Memorial Day weekend – a chance for Americans to get together with family and friends, break out the grill, and kick off the unofficial start of summer.  More importantly, it’s a time to remember the heroes whose sacrifices made these moments possible – our men and women in uniform who gave their lives to keep our nation safe and free.  

From those shots fired at Lexington and Concord more than two centuries ago to our newest generation of veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, our history shines with patriots who answered the call to serve.  They put their lives on the line to defend the country they loved.  And in the end, many gave that “last full measure of devotion” so that our nation would endure. 

Every single one of us owes our fallen heroes a profound debt of gratitude.  Because every time we cast our votes or speak our minds without fear, it’s because they fought for our right to do that.  Every chance we get to make a better life for ourselves and our families is possible because generations of patriots fought to keep America a land of opportunity, where anyone – of any race, any religion, from any background – can make it if they try.  Our country was born out of a desire to be free, and every day since, it’s been protected by our men and women in uniform – people who believed so deeply in America, they were willing to give their lives for it. 

We owe them so much.   So this Memorial Day, we’ll gather together, as Americans, to honor the fallen, with both public ceremonies and private remembrances.  And I hope all Americans will take a moment this weekend to think of those who have died in service to our nation.  Say a prayer in their memories and for their families.  Lay a flower where they’ve come to rest.  Reach out to service members, military families or veterans in your community, or families who have lost loved ones, and let them know that their service and sacrifice will never be forgotten.

Most of all, let’s keep working to make sure that our country upholds our sacred trust to all who’ve served.  In recent weeks, we’ve seen again how much more our nation has to do to make sure all our veterans get the care they deserve.  As Commander in Chief, I believe that taking care of our veterans and their families is a sacred obligation.  It’s been one of the causes of my presidency.  And now that we’ve ended the war in Iraq, and as our war in Afghanistan ends as well, we have to work even harder as a nation to make sure all our veterans get the benefits and opportunities they’ve earned.  They’ve done their duty, and they ask nothing more than that this country does ours – now and for decades to come. 

Happy Memorial Day, everybody.  May God watch over our fallen heroes.  And may He continue to bless the United States of America.

Remarks by the President at DSCC Reception -- Chicago, IL

Private Residence
Chicago, Illinois

6:54 P.M. CDT

THE PRESIDENT:  Hello, hello, hello!  (Applause.)  Hello, everybody.  Well, it's good to be in Chicago.  (Applause.)  Good to be home -- now that it's warmed up.  (Laughter.)  It was a rough winter.  But you guys -- you look like you survived it, you're not any worse for wear. 

Let me begin by thanking Michael and Tanya.  I did not know what a significant role I played in -- (laughter) -- making sure that this thing worked out.  I was wondering, how did Michael get such a beautiful woman?  And now I realize he was basically dropping my name -- (laughter) -- and said, yeah, the President is my great buddy and -- (laughter) -- and so now I know, now I understand.  But thank you so much to both of you for hosting us in your beautiful home.

And I also want to acknowledge two people who are doing great work every single day -- one of the best public servants we have is the senator from the great state of Colorado, who is here, and also heads up the Democratic Committee to make sure that we hang on to the Senate -- Michael Bennet is in the house. So give Michael a big round of applause.  (Applause.)  Yay, Michael!

And of course, part of the reason we're here is because we have somebody who not only has always been fighting the good fight on behalf of working families here in Illinois and across the country, but also happens to be somebody who, when I first went to the Senate, taught me so much and has been such a great and loyal friend.  He is somebody whose integrity shines through on everything he does.  So please give a big round of applause to our own Dick Durbin.  (Applause.)  Dick Durbin.  Dick Durbin. 

Now, I'm looking around and I see a lot of friends, and all of you look the same and I look like Morgan Freeman.  (Laughter.) So the job has been wearing me down a little bit, I admit, grey hear and all that.  But Michelle still thinks I'm cute.  She’s not ready to trade me in yet.  (Laughter.)  But whenever I come to Chicago and I see great friends, it reminds me of why I got into politics -- because a lot of people here played a role in me becoming a state senator, becoming a U.S. senator, and ultimately becoming President. 

I know that the Manilows are here, for example.  They hosted something for me when nobody knew me.  And they’re just one of many people here who have tracked my career.  And the values I carried with me to the White House are the values that so many of you taught me.

Michael talked about his American Dream, and let’s face it, not everybody achieves that dream to the same degree that Michael does.  But the basic impulse of coming here and thinking that this is a land of opportunity and if I work hard and I've got good ideas and I take responsibility, then I can make it, regardless of where I'm from, what my last name is, what God I worship -- that's the essence of who we are.  That's the essence of Chicago.  That's the essence of America.

And when I first came into office, obviously we were in the midst of the worst recession since the Great Depression, losing 800,000 jobs a month.  Over the last four years, we've created 9.5 million jobs.  (Applause.)  The unemployment rate has come down and housing has recovered.  The auto industry has come back. The deficits have been cut in half.  We have dug our way out of the rubble of that crisis.

The challenge we have, though, is that for too many families around the country, that recovery has not translated into higher incomes or higher wages.  We’re still having trouble making sure that they can finance a child’s college education.  We're still trying to figure out, how am I going to retire.  There are still too many people out of work, and there are too many folks who are working full-time but at the end of the month have a tough time paying the bills.  We still have challenges making sure that every child in America is getting a first-class education.  And we still have challenges with an immigration system that is broken and depriving us of enormous talent -- one of our greatest strengths as a country.  Climate change remains a generational challenge that we've got to tackle boldly.  And, unfortunately, we've got a Congress that right now just can't seem to get anything done.

Now, you'll hear if you watch the nightly news or you read the newspapers that, well, there’s gridlock, Congress is broken, approval ratings for Congress are terrible.  And there’s a tendency to say, a plague on both your houses.  But the truth of the matter is that the problem in Congress is very specific.  We have a group of folks in the Republican Party who have taken over who are so ideologically rigid, who are so committed to an economic theory that says if folks at the top do very well then everybody else is somehow going to do well; who deny the science of climate change; who don't think making investments in early childhood education makes sense; who have repeatedly blocked raising a minimum wage so if you work full-time in this country you're not living in poverty; who scoff at the notion that we might have a problem with women not getting paid for doing the same work that men are doing.

They, so far, at least, have refused to budge on bipartisan legislation to fix our immigration system, despite the fact that every economist who’s looked at it says it's going to improve our economy, cut our deficits, help spawn entrepreneurship, and alleviate great pain from millions of families all across the country.

So the problem is not Dick Durbin.  The problem is not Michael Bennet.  The problem is not that the Democrats are overly ideological -- because the truth of the matter is, is that the Democrats in Congress have consistently been willing to compromise and reach out to the other side.  There are no radical proposals coming out from the left.  When we talk about climate change, we talk about how do we incentivize through the market greater investment in clean energy.  When we talk about immigration reform there’s no wild-eyed romanticism.  We say we're going to be tough on the borders, but let’s also make sure that the system works to allow families to stay together, and that we're attracting talent like Michael who constantly replenish the American Dream. 

When we talk about taxes we don't say we're going to have rates in the 70 percent or 90 percent when it comes to income like existed here 50, 60 years ago.  We say let’s just make sure that those of us who have been incredibly blessed by this country are giving back to kids so that they’re getting a good start in life, so that they get early childhood education, so that struggling middle-class families are able to finance their education, and that if a talented young person wants to go into teaching or wants to become a social worker that they’re not burdened by hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of debt.

Health care -- we didn’t suddenly impose some wild, crazy system.  All we said was let’s make sure everybody has insurance. And this made the other side go nuts -- the simple idea that in the wealthiest nation on Earth, nobody should go bankrupt because somebody in their family gets sick, working within a private system. 

So when you hear a false equivalence that somehow, well, Congress is just broken, it's not true.  What’s broken right now is a Republican Party that repeatedly says no to proven, time-tested strategies to grow the economy, create more jobs, ensure fairness, open up opportunity to all people.

Which leads me to the reason we are here tonight -- I need a Congress that works.  And that means I need a Democratic Senate. And it would be helpful to have a Democratic House.  Now, you all know this so I'm preaching to the choir.  But here’s the challenge we have:  Democrats are not perfect and it turns out one of our great imperfections is we have a congenital tendency not to vote in midterm elections.

I don't know what it is.  Presidential elections, we're all in.  In 2008, you all went crazy; 2012, you still went crazy.  High turnout, we're motivated, donors are involved, people are active, folks are knocking on doors, people making phone calls.  And then the midterm comes and we fall asleep.

That cannot happen in this election because the stakes are too high.  And I say this mindful that in every election somebody says how high the stakes are.  But think about what’s at stake right now.  Think about it.  If we do not hang on to the Senate and make gains in the House we may not get immigration reform done, which means we could have another three, four years in which we're being deprived of talent we're training here in the United States -- they go back home and start businesses someplace else.  There are Michael Polskys right now in universities that have the possibility of creating businesses here but may end up going back home because we have a broken immigration system.  That's what’s at stake.

Basic research -- we're on the cusp of discovering -- when it comes to brain research, we've invested in a brain initiative that could discover cures for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, debilitating diseases, and as our population ages it's going to be more and more important.  And yet, if you look at the Republican House budget, it slashes the very research that promises to provide cures to families all across America and could potentially create entire new industries in this country.

Energy -- we've doubled fuel efficiency standards on cars, doubled the production of clean energy.  Solar has gone up three times since I came into office, new generation of wind power 10 times.  We're making enormous progress.  But if we don't have a Congress that has that same vision that we should be out in front, ahead, when it comes to the race for 21st century energy sources, then we're going to be stuck doing the same thing we've been doing forever.  And that means that we cannot stop the trends towards higher emissions and higher greenhouse gases and global warming. 

And I know it's hard to talk about global warming here in Chicago -- (laughter) -- after this winter.  But everybody here understands that it's changing weather patterns that are at stake here, with potentially devastating, catastrophic consequences.

Minimum wage, equal pay for equal work, the Supreme Court -- all these issues are at stake in the midterms -- not in the presidential election.  You have a President who is fighting for you in the White House.  What you do not have right now is a Congress that can function. 

And I want to make clear, by the way, because I'm in the Land of Lincoln -- the problem is not the Republican Party, per se.  I want a functioning, coherent, reasoned-based Republican Party.  And if they’ve got slightly different ideas than mine I am happy to sit down and work them out.  I'm talking about a very specific faction of the Republican Party that's taken over and cannot get anything done.

Harry Truman used to talk about the “do-nothing” Congress.  This Congress has done less than the “do-nothing” Congress that Harry Truman talked about.  I'm serious. 

So the bottom line is we have to feel a sense of urgency in this election.  And that means that every one of you, many of whom are great supporters and have backed me for a long time and are happy to come to Michael and Tanya’s house and participate -- it means I need you to push a little further than you're doing right now.  I'm going to need you to help to activate and mobilize folks throughout this town and your contacts across the country to say it is not good enough simply to sit back and complain.  Cynicism is not an option.  Cynicism is not wisdom. 

I've now been President for a little over five years; I've got two and a half years to go.  I will make every moment count. It has been the great privilege of my life.  But it's interesting, the longer I'm in this job the more I feel as if we get one moment, one life to really make a difference on behalf of Malia and Sasha, and Michael and Tanya’s kids, and all of our kids and grandkids.  And the time goes by really quick.  And if we fritter away opportunities on stuff that we know is right, that we know is right -- if we don't fight for it, understanding that there are going to be times where we have setbacks and progress is never smooth -- if we're not willing to really dig down and make things happen at this moment, then they don't happen.

So I don't take my job for granted.  But I hope you don't take for granted the opportunities that brought Michael to these shores and allowed him to succeed.  We have to fight for that stuff.  And we're on the right side on every single issue and the majority of the American people agree with us on every single issue.  But we've got to make sure those folks go out to vote.  We've got to make sure we get our message out.  And the only way we do that is if all of you are active and involved in this election.  Don't wait till 2016.  I need you to be active in this election.

I've run my last campaign.  But I'm going to be working just as hard in this one as I was in 2008 and 2012, because my goal in running for President was never simply to have the title.  My goal was to get something done.  And I cannot do it alone. 

So I want to thank all of you for everything you’ve done for me, but I'm asking you, I need you to it for a Democratic Senate and a Democratic House.  And if you feel that same sense of urgency, we're going to continue to make change not just through my presidency but for years to come.

Thank you so much, everybody.  God bless you.  God bless America and God bless Chicago!  (Applause.) 

END
7:14 P.M. CDT

Remarks by National Security Advisor Susan E. Rice at the Chicago Council Global Food Security Conference

Good afternoon everybody.  I want to begin by thanking my good friend, Ivo, for that very kind introduction.  Ivo and I have had the opportunity to work together in various different capacities inside government and outside government--and in every circumstance, it has been a great pleasure and an intellectual challenge, and I want to thank you for continuing your very good work on complex global issues now with the Chicago Council.  I also want to thank Doug Bereuter, Dan Glickman, and everyone at the Chicago Council for inviting me to join you today. 

Throughout human history, the world has struggled with hunger and famine.  For as long as mankind has cultivated crops, we’ve contended with drought and blight.  But, in the past few decades, we’ve gained the tools to write a different future for humanity.  At the World Food Congress in 1963, President Kennedy stated the cause very clearly:  “As members of the human race, we have the means, we have the capacity to eliminate hunger from the face of the earth in our lifetime. We need only the will.” 

Since then, we’ve turned our will to reshaping our planet.  The scientific achievements of the Green Revolution averted mass famines and saved more than a billion people from starvation.  By adopting new seeds and agricultural techniques, countries that once relied on aid can now feed themselves.  It’s a compelling reminder of just how much we can accomplish with focus, ingenuity, and the will to get things done.  So many of you here today have been instrumental in this progress, and I want to thank all of you for your extraordinary contributions.  

I’m here because I want you to know that you have an enduring partner in President Obama and this administration.  Not only Administrator Shah and Secretary Vilsack, whom you’ll hear from later, but our food security team includes Tjada McKenna of USAID, Jonathan Shrier from State, Suzanne Palmieri from USDA, and many, many other dedicated public servants.  [Applause]

They know, and you know, that ending food insecurity is profoundly in the interests of the United States.  It’s an outrage when children starve or when hard-working families can’t afford to fill their most basic nutritional needs. We’ve seen what can happen when a spike in food prices plunges tens of millions of people into poverty—riots break out; conflicts for scarce resources cost lives; economies falter; instability increases.  On the other hand, investing in agriculture is one of the surest ways to reduce poverty, expand economic activity, and grow the middle class.  And that’s why President Obama has made food security a top priority in our global development efforts. 

When the President spoke here two years ago, he stated his conviction that the United States has “a moral obligation to lead the fight against hunger and malnutrition.”  That means it’s not enough to simply keep responding to crises after they happen.  We need to break the cycle of hunger by empowering more people to feed themselves. 

And that’s why President Obama put food security high on the world’s agenda.  In his first months in office, he announced a global food security initiative at the G-20 in London.  In his first meeting with the G8 at L’Aquila, he galvanized an international commitment that put billions of dollars into the cause and outlined a new set of core principles for fostering greater food security.  At every step, he has ensured America’s commitments are matched by support from partner nations, from private sector entities, and from the public.  Already the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, which President Obama announced two years ago, has grown to include ten African countries. It has united more than 160 companies and yielded more than $7 billion in responsible, planned investments in African agriculture. 

At the President’s direction, we have centered our signature, interagency development initiative—Feed the Future—around smallholder farmers, particularly women.  Our commitments build on the leadership of African nations that have pledged to increase their agricultural spending and develop comprehensive, country-led food security strategies.  And, through all of our joint efforts to increase production, improve farmers’ access to markets, and bolster natural resource management, we’re relying on data to determine what works. 

In just the past year, we helped 6.8 million more farmers put new technologies or management practices to work, up 30 percent from 2012.  That translates to more than 4 million hectares of land—an area greater than the size of Massachusetts and New Jersey combined—are now benefiting from new seeds or increased soil fertility.  Thanks to these improvements, farmers saw more than $50 million in new horticultural sales.  And, last year, with our partners, we helped more than 12.5 million children under the age of 5 to get the nourishment that they need. 

Our government-wide investments in agricultural productivity are helping create economies that work.  The Millennium Challenge Corporation is working with other agencies to develop compacts with countries that invest in agriculture, land tenure, and road development.  The Peace Corps has fielded more than 1,200 enthusiastic Feed the Future volunteers to help people make sustainable changes in how they--those folks who are in developing countries--cultivate crops, address water shortages, and feed their families. 

And today, I’m pleased to announce that we’ve completed a new USAID nutrition strategy.  It’s a 360-degree approach that brings together our work on food security, health, water, hygiene and sanitation into an ambitious plan to reduce child stunting by 20 percent over five years—that’s 2 million more children who will get a stronger, healthier start in life.  

And yet, as you know well, for all our progress, there are still millions who go to bed hungry, millions more scrabbling to sustain daily life.  So, our next challenge is taking these promising beginnings and knitting them together to achieve a sustainable, food-secure future.  Our aim is nothing short of bringing about a total transformation.   

What will it take to achieve food security on a global scale?  Our answer cannot just be more money or more aid—focusing on more won’t get us where we need to be.  We need to do better.  In addition to making sure that agricultural innovations like drought-resistant seeds and fertilizers are widespread, we must ensure that better practices become routine.  Farmers should have better information about which seeds are best suited to their soil.  Mothers should be able to grow and purchase nutrient-rich foods to feed their children.  For agricultural workers, earning a living wage should be the rule rather than the exception.  So today, I’d like to suggest four areas that need our focus, if we are to achieve food security on a global scale.      

First, we have to get our collective house in order.  With Feed the Future, the United States made a commitment to change the way we do business—bringing together expertise from across the government; building on the leadership of countries that invest in their own food security; and partnering with anyone doing meaningful work to defeat hunger.  We need to apply that same cooperative approach across the board.  The private sector, academia, and NGOs should be collaborating more—both with each other and with governments—to unite our efforts and close gaps in the food security architecture.

The truth is, we already have much of what we need to reach our goal.  Between us, we’ve got pipelines and distribution networks that circle the world.  We’ve got experts in every subject.  We just need to connect them.  Everyone comes at food security through their own lens, but we’re all working on aspects of the very same problem, and we’ll certainly be more effective if we are working together.  And that’s why the Obama administration has put such an emphasis on building partnerships.  And, I want to thank Interaction and the civil society groups who recently added another $500 million to their pledge to advance food security in cooperation with Feed the Future.  [Applause]

So these innovative partnerships, especially public-private partnerships, are essential to the future of food security.  I know some have raised questions about private sector involvement.  But, we won’t improve food security on a global scale without the innovation, expertise, and reach that only the private sector can bring to sustainable agricultural productivity.  Just ask any one of the 2.6 million smallholder formers who benefited from the services, training, and production contracts the New Alliance and the Grow Africa partnership brought to Africa last year. 

A second area where we can make an outsized impact is by stepping up our efforts to collect and share data.  In the United States, farmers employ micro-level data on how the soil and weather differs between furrows even in the same field in order to optimize their crop production.  In much of the world, however, we lack even the most basic information.     

When we do have data, often we don’t share it broadly enough.  Sometimes, that’s because data is proprietary.  More often, it’s because we simply haven’t aggregated what we know.  In both cases, our ability to innovate and to address global agricultural challenges is thus limited.  Imagine the benefit to a farmer in Southeast Asia if she could use her phone to determine which crops would be most profitable.  To do that, she needs data about the soil, the weather, seeds and appropriate fertilizers, as well as data about regional market demands—and she needs it to be available so a technology designer can build an app to translate that information into clear-cut recommendations. 

And that’s why the USDA has taken the lead in releasing genetic and genomic data for the new seeds we’ve developed such as drought-tolerant maize, rust-resistant wheat, and high-yielding rice.  Last October, the United States also helped launch the Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition Initiative to help make critical data available for unrestricted use worldwide.  I hope all of you will join with us in this effort—by contributing your own data, by using it to improve your projects, and by encouraging others to make open data the new norm. 

As we focus on these organizational challenges, we also need to tackle the toughest issues in the hardest places.  So, the third area we must focus on is making an impact in fragile and conflict-affected states, where poverty and hunger are most extreme and populations are most vulnerable.     

The U.S. and other donors spend much, much more money responding to humanitarian disasters than we do in investing in building more resilient communities.  Chronic poverty and periodic external shocks too often propel the same communities into crisis again and again.  In fact, during the past decade, almost 50 percent of international humanitarian assistance has gone to addressing crises in just nine countries—like Sudan, South Sudan, and Haiti.  The United States will continue to lead humanitarian efforts whenever disasters strike, but when we are repeatedly responding to the same problems, in the same places, we have do more than stop the bleeding.  We have to start healing the deeper wound.          

And, that’s why USAID is working with its counterparts to change the way we approach crisis relief.  Rather than walling off our humanitarian assistance from our development programming, we’re bringing them together to help countries become more resilient—so they can recover from crises and emerge all the stronger.  Most of this work is still in the early stages, but it’s already having an impact.  In Ethiopia, we’ve invested in the government’s social safety net to help it quickly scale-up food distribution in crises.  When indicators of drought emerged in early 2011, the government added more than 3 million citizens to the safety net so that people could feed themselves until the November harvest.  This fast intervention helped ensure that communities did not respond to drought in ways that could make future crises more likely, such as selling off land or livestock to buy food.  

Finally, we have to confront the growing impacts of climate change on our ability to feed ourselves.  For agricultural societies, even small changes in climate matter a great deal.  Crop yields are extremely sensitive to changing rainfall patterns, the intensity of storms, and temperature extremes.  In fragile states, climate change only amplifies existing stresses and puts additional pressure on scarce resources.      

The latest IPCC report, the recently released U.S. National Climate Action Assessment, and today’s report from the Chicago Council all say the same thing.  Climate change affects every aspect of food security, from production to pricing.  Climate change is not some distant threat.  We’re already dealing with its impacts.  Globally, the 14 warmest years on record have all been since 1998.  Droughts and wildfires have become more frequent and more intense in some regions, while flooding has intensified in others.  Deserts are expanding.  Water quality and quantity are being affected by changes in precipitation and runoff.  Sea level rise is now increasing at about twice the average rate it was in the 20^th century. 

These are the facts.  Observable, undeniable facts.  And, President Obama is taking action to combat climate change by reducing carbon emissions and increasing our use of renewable and clean energy resources.    

In the near-term, we have to compensate for the impact climate changes are having on our ability to feed a population—a  global population—that is expected to break 9 billion by 2050.  Already we’ve launched seven new “climate hubs” to help farmers and ranchers across the United States adapt, and Feed the Future is helping food producers around the world to adjust their practices.  For example, USAID has helped farmers on the storm-prone coast of Bangladesh to adopt higher-yielding varietals of rice that were also salt- and flood-tolerant.  These farmers increased their crop by about 20 percent, all while using less fertilizer and pesticide. 

Our Climate and Clean Air Coalition is promoting better ways to manage manure from livestock to reduce methane emissions and boost incomes.  The United States is also working with our partners to launch an international Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture, which will help farmers increase their productivity and income while simultaneously building resilience to climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.  But, as you know all too well, there is much more to do, and the Chicago Council’s report offers several recommendations to keep us moving in the right direction.  

The good news is:  we know we can make a difference.  We already have.  I think of those heart-breaking stories from 2008, during the food crisis, when hunger ran rampant, and children in places like Haiti ate mudcakes to quiet their bellies.  Today, Haiti’s farmers have doubled their harvest of rice and beans; corn production is up more than 300 percent; and acute malnutrition has been cut in half.  It didn’t happen overnight.  It took strategic investments and sustained partnerships.  And, slowly but surely, we’ve proved that progress is possible.

Confronting entrenched poverty in fragile states and meeting the challenges of climate change is necessarily work that must continue over generations, just as we are carrying forward the task that President Kennedy set for us 50 years ago.  We have the means.  We have the capacity.  And, I can assure you, on behalf of President Obama, we have the will.  Our commitment will endure. 

The United States will continue to lead the rest of the world toward the food-secure future we all seek.  We’ll continue to work with partners who are stepping up to address food security in their own countries.  We’ll keep bringing nations and organizations together so that millions more people can benefit from agricultural adaptations. We’ll continue to seek new ways to withstand extreme weather and climate change.  As President Obama announced in March during his visit to Italy, the United States will sponsor a pavilion at the Milan Expo next year to raise awareness about food security and nutrition.  And, as we work toward a post-2015 development agenda to replace the Millennium Development Goals, we will ensure that all these issues—including boosting climate resilience, improving environmental sustainability, and ending extreme poverty—remain a global priority.  And, as we do, we will make sure the world’s most vulnerable populations are not left behind. 

In all our efforts, those of us in government will look to all of you.  Yours are the passionate hands that will remake the world.  And, the United States will always be a reliable and steady partner to you in our common cause.  

Together, we can imagine the day when the farmer who toils in the field has plenty—both to feed his family and to sell at the market.  We can imagine when those who herd flocks or fish the sea won’t have to wonder about their next meal.  When mothers can regularly feed their children nutritious food that will help their family grow strong and healthy.  That’s the future we’ll continue to seek, through every challenge and every obstacle:  the day when the scourge of hunger and malnutrition is finally and forever banished from the earth.  

Thank you very, very much. 

Remarks by the President on Creating Jobs Through Tourism

Baseball Hall of Fame
Cooperstown, New York

3:50 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you so much.  (Applause.)  Thank you. Thank you.  There must be some White Sox fans here somewhere.  (Laughter.)  It is great to be here in Cooperstown.  And I have to say that in addition to just wonderful people, those of you all across America and around the world who have not been here, this is a gorgeous place.  We came in by helicopter and had a chance to see the landscape and it looks like a spectacular place to spend a few days, a week -- however long you want to stay. I'll bet people will be happy to have you.   

And although he is not here yet, I want to acknowledge the Governor of New York.  He had a conflict and he’s on his way up. But he is really focused on jobs in Upstate New York -- your Governor, Andrew Cuomo.  I want to thank your Mayor, Jeff Katz, for having me, and his great hospitality, and everybody who was involved in arranging the visit.  We’ve also got, by the way, our Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security, Ali Mayorkas, who is here. And he’s important because he’s helping bring travelers to America.  (Applause.) 

It is a great honor to be the first sitting President ever to visit the Baseball Hall of Fame.  (Applause.)  The timing could not be better.  First off, summer marks the 75th anniversary of the Hall of Fame.  I also promised Frank Thomas I’d check the place out before he’s inducted in July.  (Laughter.)  

And I’m so glad I did.  Obviously I didn’t have a chance to roam around as long as I wanted, but thanks to the wonderful hospitality here, I saw the ball that William Howard Taft threw at the first-ever presidential opening day pitch.  I saw the “White Sox locker” of memorabilia, and got to bask in the glory of the 2005 World Series win.  (Applause.)  Yes! 

At the Hall’s request, I contributed something of my own, which was the jacket I wore when I threw out the first pitch at the 2009 All-Star Game.  I hear that with all the media attention about it, there was also some interest in the jeans I wore that night.  (Laughter.)  But Michelle retired those jeans quite a while back.  (Laughter.)

So I love baseball; America loves baseball.  It continues to be our national pastime.  And for any baseball fan out there, you’ve got to make a trip here.  But as much as I'd love to talk baseball all day -- and with a Chicago legend, Andre Dawson, the “Hawk,” here today, it’s hard not to want to talk baseball all day long -- I’m actually here to talk about jobs -- good, middle-class jobs.  And believe it or not, places like this institution, the Hall of Fame, have something to do with jobs and economic growth. 

It’s been about five and a half years since the worst economic crisis of our lifetimes hit.  And thanks to the grit and determination of the American people, we’ve been steadily fighting our way back.  Over the last four years, our businesses have created 9.2 million new jobs.  We had an auto industry that was flat-lining; it's come roaring back.  A manufacturing sector that had lost about one-third of its jobs in the last decade is now adding jobs for the first time since the 1990s.  And rather than create jobs in other countries, more and more companies are recognizing that it makes sense to invest right here in America. We've got great workers.  We've got the largest market in the world.  We've got a whole bunch of stuff going for us and we're starting to see insourcing rather than outsourcing of jobs.

So we’ve made progress, but here’s the thing -- too many Americans out there are still working harder than ever and can’t seem to get ahead.  And so we have to do more to spur growth and economic development, and create more jobs that pay a good wage.

We should be making it easier, not harder, for businesses to invest and create jobs here in the United States.  We should be making sure that people are rewarded for hard work and responsibility, rather than see their wages and salaries stagnate.  And we should be making it easier, not harder, for striving young students to afford the higher education that's going to be the key to a lot of 21st century jobs, and make sure that they can repay that loan debt that too often they’re taking on when they go to college.

There’s a new bill, by the way, being introduced in Congress in the coming weeks that’s going to really do more to make sure that college students are getting a fair shot.  Of course, unfortunately, we’ve got a Congress that all too often spends a few days blocking initiatives to create jobs and raise wages and help young people go to college.  They seem to be more interested in politics right now than performance.  And that’s a challenge.

I’ll work with anybody who’s focused on what we need to be focused on and what all the people who sent us to Washington are focused on, and that is how do we improve the economy and create more jobs.  But if Congress isn’t going to act, then I’m going to do whatever and any steps I can take to create jobs and opportunity for more working families.

So far, we’ve seen, for example, the House Republicans blocked legislation that would raise America’s minimum wage.  So I’ve been working with states and cities and businesses to go ahead and raise their minimum wage anyway.  And I issued an executive order making sure that if you are contracting with the federal government, you’ve got to pay your workers a higher minimum wage -- at least $10.10 an hour -- because I believe that if you work full-time you shouldn’t be in poverty.

We saw Senate Republicans block an up-or-down vote on ensuring equal pay for women.  I went ahead and took action on my own to make it easier for women to find out whether they’re being treated fairly at the workplace and to be able to take action. 

And when it comes to creating jobs, last week I was down in Tarrytown, where workers were able to break ground on the replacement of the Tappan Zee Bridge ahead of schedule because my administration fast-tracked that project and a lot of major projects across the country.  On Tuesday, I met with CEOs from around the world who are investing and hiring in America because we’ve made our country more competitive. 

And today, I’m here in Cooperstown to talk about some new steps that will lead to more tourism not just within America but getting more folks to come and visit the treasures, the national treasures that we have all across this country, including the Baseball Hall of Fame right here in Cooperstown -- because tourism translates into jobs and it translates into economic growth.  When visitors come here, they don’t just check out the Hall.  They rent cars; they stay in hotels; they eat at restaurants.  And that means for Upstate New York, the Baseball Hall of Fame is a powerful economic engine. 

Last year alone, travel and tourism were responsible for $1.5 trillion in economic activity across the country.  Think about that -- $1.5 trillion supporting nearly 8 million jobs in communities like this one.  And when tourists come from other countries and spend money here, that’s actually considered a type of export.  We don’t always think about it that way, but we should.  Nothing says “Made in America” better than the Empire State Building or the Hoover Dam.  Folks who work at restaurants and hotels that serve fans in Cooperstown have the kinds of jobs that can’t be offshored.  And obviously it’s tough to ship the Rocky Mountains or the Grand Canyon overseas.  You can’t do it.

When it comes to tourism, the good news is we’ve got a great product to sell.  People want to come here.  I was reminded of that yesterday.  I took a walk from the White House to the Department of the Interior building.  Keep in mind, I don’t get a chance to take walks very often.  (Laughter.)  Secret Service gets a little stressed.  But every once in a while I’m able to sneak off.  I’m sort of like the circus bear that kind of breaks the chain, and I start taking off, and everybody starts whispering, the bear is loose!  (Laughter.) 

So I got out, take a walk -- it was a beautiful day.  And even though I went for several blocks -- it was probably about a 10-minute walk -- in that little span of time, I met tourists from Germany, and Israel, and Brazil, and China, and Ukraine on the National Mall.  The fact that people come from all over the world to see our parks, to see our monuments, is something we should take great pride in as Americans.  And it’s good for our economy. 

So just like we’re helping our businesses to sell more goods made in America in markets all across the world, we’re spending a lot of time and focus trying to make it easier for folks from around the world to come see America and spend money here.  Four years ago, I signed a law that set up a nonprofit organization with one mission, and that is to pitch America as a travel destination.  And two years ago, I went down to Disney World to announce new action to make it simpler for travelers to visit America, without compromising security at our borders. 

And those efforts are paying off.  Since its low point after the recession, our travel and tourism industry has added nearly 580,000 new jobs.  Last year, a record 70 million tourists visited America from other countries –- more than the populations of Texas, Florida, and New York combined.  And they spent their money here.  No country on Earth earns more money from international tourism than we do.  And the growth of international tourism created about 175,000 new jobs over the last five years, and helped drive American exports to an all-time high. 

So we’re making great strides in welcoming more visitors to America in places like Cooperstown, but we can do even better.  I want to turn the 70 million tourists that came last year into 100 million each year by the beginning of the next decade.  (Applause.)  And meeting that goal is going to help create jobs here in New York.

And that’s why, earlier today, I took new actions to meet that goal.  I met with several CEOs of travel and tourism companies, and building on the progress that we’ve made, I directed my administration to work with airports, airlines, hotel groups, states, and cities to do more to improve the traveler experience, and reduce wait times for folks entering into the United States, all without compromising our security.

We have some folks here today who are already showing us what’s possible.  Scott Donohue is the CEO of the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport.  Where’s Scott?  There he is, right here.  We’ve got, from my own hometown, Rosie Andolino, the Aviation Commissioner from Chicago.  Rosie is right there.  The two of them are responsible for two of the busiest airports in America. But the average wait times through customs and passport control at DFW and O’Hare has fallen to just 15 minutes.  You get off your plane, it’s takes you 15 minutes to get through if you’re an international traveler.  And that is a big deal.  If folks spend less time at the airport, they’re more likely to come back for a return trip.  And when they go back home they tell their friends, you know what, America was there to greet us. 

And I’ve made it clear that national security remains our top priority, and that’s not going to change.  But there’s no reason we can’t replicate the success stories of places like Dallas and Chicago all around the country.  We can automate passport controls.  We can bring in top talent from the private sector to find best practices to help move lines faster.  We can add new staff at customs.  We want to bring in more visitors faster and more jobs faster.  If they come into JFK faster, they come into La Guardia faster, then they can get to Cooperstown faster.  (Applause.)  And they can start seeing Joe DiMaggio’s glove faster.  They can see Babe Ruth’s bat faster.  (Applause.) 

So creating good jobs isn’t always easy.  But standing here and looking back on more than 150 years of our country’s history, baseball describes our history in so many ways.  We’re reminded of all the obstacles that we’ve overcome to get there.  This Hall has memories of two world wars that we fought and won.  It has memories of color barriers being broken; Jackie Robinson’s uniform, the record of his first season as a Dodger.  It shows us the history of communities that we built across a new continent and the ways that we connected with our country and our world, and how women athletes started getting the recognition that they deserved.

So we’ve faced challenges before, but we don’t respond with cynicism and we can’t respond with gridlock.  Every generation faces tough times.  But, in the words attributed to the great Yogi Berra, they’re just “déjà vu all over again.”  (Laughter.)

We know we are up to these challenges.  And just as our parents and our grandparents faced challenges a lot tougher than the ones we face, and just as they went ahead and built an economy where hard work was rewarded and responsibility was rewarded, and opportunity was open to all people, we can do the same.  They passed those values on down through the generations. They passed them down to us.  And when you come to the Baseball Hall of Fame, part of what you’re learning is that there is some eternal, timeless values of grit and determination and hard work and community, and not giving up, and working hard.  Those are American values -- just like baseball.

And there’s no reason we can’t do the same.  That’s what I’m going to be working on as long as I’m President of the United States.  I’m going to be fighting to make sure that those values live out in better jobs, higher wages, stronger economy, stronger communities.  And I hope you’ll join me.

Thank you, everybody.  God bless you.  God bless America.  (Applause.)

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4:06 P.M. EDT