US President Barack Obama took questions on everything from the embattled firm AIG to immigration to a second term on Wednesday at a town hall meeting in California, where the recession has taken a heavy toll.
The event in Orange County marked Obama’s first appearance as president in a state he won convincingly last year. It was designed to highlight the job-creating benefits of the US$787 billion economic stimulus plan he pushed through Congress last month.
Another such meeting was scheduled in downtown Los Angeles yesterday, where he was also scheduled to tape an appearance on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno.
PHOTO: BLOOMBERG
Obama defended his ambitious plan to overhaul health care, energy, education, taxes and spending policies in the coming months.
“I know some folks in Washington and on Wall Street are saying we should focus on only one problem at a time: ‘our problem,’” Obama said.
“But that’s just not the way it works,” he told a crowd of 1,300 in a hot auditorium. “You don’t get to choose between paying your mortgage bills or your medical bills.”
The administration must tackle multiple challenges at once, he said. Obama spoke for 21 minutes, then took eight questions. The first: Will he seek re-election in 2012?
“If I could get done what I think needs to get done in four years, even if it meant that I was only president for four years, I would rather be a good president — to take on the tough issues for four years — than a mediocre president for eight years,” Obama said.
Referring to the uproar over bonuses paid to executives of the largely nationalized AIG insurance company, Obama said: “I know Washington’s all in a tizzy, and everybody’s pointing fingers at each other and saying, ‘It’s their fault, the Democrats’ fault, the Republicans’ fault.’ Listen, I’ll take responsibility. I’m the president.”
One little curve ball came, however, on a topic Obama rarely mentions on his own: immigration. Before a crowd that seemed divided on the emotional, politically dangerous issue, Obama said he still supports “comprehensive immigration reform.”
The nation must find a way, he said, to strengthen its borders, while also giving about 12 million illegal immigrants a path to possible citizenship.
“People who have been here for a long time and put down roots,” he said, should have “a mechanism over time to get out of the shadows” and achieve legal status, including citizenship.
In other news, the Senate approved Ron Kirk’s nomination as the nation’s top trade official of the last remaining Cabinet posts.
The former Dallas mayor was confirmed as US trade representative by 92-5 in the Senate. He became the first black American to hold the post.
Considered a centrist on trade issues, Kirk last month said the administration would focus on enforcing existing trade deals rather than pushing through new ones during the current economic crisis.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
ACCESS DISPUTE: The blast struck a house, and set cars and tractors alight, with the fires wrecking several other structures and cutting electricity An explosion killed at least five people, including a pregnant woman and a one-year-old, during a standoff between rival groups of gold miners early on Thursday in northwestern Bolivia, police said, a rare instance of a territorial dispute between the nation’s mining cooperatives turning fatal. The blast thundered through the Yani mining camp as two rival mining groups disputed access to the gold mine near the mountain town of Sorata, about 150km northwest of the country’s administrative capital of La Paz, said Colonel Gunther Agudo, a local police officer. Several gold deposits straddle the remote area. Agudo had initially reported six people killed,
SUSPICION: Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing returned to protests after attending a summit at which he promised to hold ‘free and fair’ elections, which critics derided as a sham The death toll from a major earthquake in Myanmar has risen to more than 3,300, state media said yesterday, as the UN aid chief made a renewed call for the world to help the disaster-struck nation. The quake on Friday last week flattened buildings and destroyed infrastructure across the country, resulting in 3,354 deaths and 4,508 people injured, with 220 others missing, new figures published by state media showed. More than one week after the disaster, many people in the country are still without shelter, either forced to sleep outdoors because their homes were destroyed or wary of further collapses. A UN estimate
The US government has banned US government personnel in China, as well as family members and contractors with security clearances, from any romantic or sexual relationships with Chinese citizens, The Associated Press (AP) has learned. Four people with direct knowledge of the matter told the AP about the policy, which was put into effect by departing US ambassador Nicholas Burns in January shortly before he left China. The people would speak only on condition of anonymity to discuss details of a confidential directive. Although some US agencies already had strict rules on such relationships, a blanket “nonfraternization” policy, as it is known, has
RSS