President Obama on the road and charged up

President Obama on the road and charged up

By Roger Caldwell

      As President Obama gets ready for his State of the Union address, he is not slowing down, and he is setting the agenda. He is charged up, ready to go and not stopping to see if the Republicans agree with his initiatives.

“Now, I am here because one of my New Year’s resolutions is to make Americans in Phoenix and in Arizona and all across the country feel like they’re coming back. Because the country is coming back, I want everybody to feel like things are getting better and moving in the right direction. And let there be no doubt, thanks to the steps we took early on to rescue our economy, to rebuild it on a new foundation, America is coming back,” says President Obama in his speech in Phoenix, January 8, 2015.

During that week President Obama stopped in Detroit, Phoenix, and Tennessee to talk about auto manufacturing, the housing sector and the administration’s plans for college and education. The proposals laid out that week were a mix of executive actions and legislative proposals that will be included in the State of the Union address.

As the president’s job performance numbers start to improve, he is starting to brag about his record, and here are the facts. “2014 was the strongest year for job growth since the 1990. We’ve had 57 straight months of private sector job growth, and created nearly 11 million new jobs. Since 2010, we’ve put more people back to work than Europe, Japan, and every advanced economy combined. American manufacturing is growing at the fastest pace since the 90’s. We’re now the number-one producer of oil, and gas,” says President Obama.

Under the leadership of President Obama, America is roaring back, and the ACA last year helped over 10 million Americans get health care insurance. The president is charged up and his record speaks for itself.

When the Republicans talk about the federal deficit, they have everyone thinking that it is going up. But the president says the deficit has gone down by two-thirds since he has taken office.

In Detroit the president said, “Because of you, manufacturing has a future in this country. The middle class has a future in the country. The auto industry has proved that any comeback is possible, and by the way, so has the Motor City.”

In five years, the federal government has saved over one million jobs in Detroit, and created 500,000 new jobs. The American auto industry is back, and General Motors and Chrysler have paid back the money that they were loaned by American taxpayers.

In Phoenix, the president talked about the “Hardest Hit Fund,” which is also available in Florida. The Hardest Hit Fund is a program where a homeowner works with a financial counselor, who can get a $50,000 deduction from their mortgage, if they are under-water by 125 percent, and they hit certain benchmarks.

Finally in Tennessee, President Obama started a conversation about education and the importance of Community Colleges. President is starting a debate over free community colleges and some love the idea, and others say if the students want to go to college, they should pay. This conversation is not going away, and education is the key, if America will remain competitive in the future.