White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs just responded to a letter sent today from House Republican Leader John Boehner and House Republican Whip Eric Cantor regarding the proposed bipartisan health care summit:

The President is adamant that we seize this historic moment to pass meaningful health insurance reform legislation. He began this process by inviting Republican and Democratic leaders to the White House on March 5 of last year, and he’s continued to work with both parties in crafting the best possible bill. He’s been very clear about his support for the House and Senate bills because of what they achieve for the American people: putting a stop to insurance company abuses, extending coverage to millions of hardworking Americans, getting control of rising premiums and out-of-pocket costs, and reducing the deficit.

The President looks forward to reviewing Republican proposals that meet the goals he laid out at the beginning of this process, and as recently as the State of the Union Address. He’s open to including any good ideas that stand up to objective scrutiny. What he will not do, however, is walk away from reform and the millions of American families and small business counting on it. The recent news that a major insurer plans to raise premiums for some customers by as much as 39 percent is a stark reminder of the consequences of doing nothing.

Read HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius' letter to Anthem Blue Cross calling on them to publicly justify their extreme premium hikes at the same time their parent company sees soaring profits.

Michelle and I were deeply saddened today to hear about the passing of Congressman John Murtha. Jack was a devoted husband, a loving father and a steadfast advocate for the people of Pennsylvania for nearly 40 years. His passion for service was born during his decorated career in the United States Marine Corps, and he went on to earn the distinction of being the first Vietnam War combat veteran elected to Congress. Jack's tough-as-nails reputation carried over to Congress, where he became a respected voice on issues of national security. Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife of nearly 55 years, Joyce, their three children, and the entire Murtha family.

While most of Washington spent the weekend digging out of the snow, federal agencies were taking the next steps in making their work more transparent for the American people.  Since early December, agencies have worked to create their own webpages to serve as the gateway for each agency’s implementation of the Open Government Directive.  These pages all went live this weekend, complete with the latest news and updates, downloadable information unique to that agency, and information about how each agency is moving to implement the President’s call for a more transparent, participatory, and collaborative government. 

Importantly, each of these sites will be the focal point for the agency's open government plans that, after public feedback and suggestion, will make our work across the Administration more accessible to the American people.  That's why each Open Government Webpage incorporates a mechanism to seek your ideas and insights.  Most agencies are leveraging a new, no-cost public engagement app from the General Services Administration that allows them to pay less attention to designing tools and more attention to running, moderating, and analyzing public input.  It will help to make the agency open government pages more effective at turning public suggestions into government actions.
 
Here at the White House, we're keeping tabs on the agencies’ efforts.  A dashboard – launched this weekend – tracks agency progress toward the goals of the Open Government Directive.  This dashboard will continue to evolve with your feedback.
 
Since day one, the President has committed his Administration to break down long-standing barriers between the people and their government.  The steps that the agencies are taking are designed to change the culture of government from a closed, opaque structure to one that is more accessible and accountable to citizens.
 
Check out the agency sites and see their work for yourself.

Dan Pfeiffer is White House Communications Director

Along with a massive snowstorm, Friday brought a blizzard of new info on the job market.   From the perspective of our work at the White House, two points stand out, one about where we are and the other about where we’ve been.

First, while there are encouraging signs regarding jobs, they are early signs and must be viewed with care.   The job market is clearly doing better than it was but the level of unemployment is miles north of where it needs to be.  Unemployment fell significantly last month, which is good, but a) it’s a one month data point and not yet a new trend, and b) it fell from 10% to 9.7%, and that's still an unacceptably high rate of joblessness.

Second, today's data release has new, revised information on just how bad this recession has been in the job market.  Here a chart is worth a lot of words.
The chart plots the course of payroll employment over the last four recessions, including this one.  In each case, we index jobs at the start of the recession to 100%, and the x-axis shows the number of months from when the recession began. 

By setting it up this way, you get a lot of useful, comparative information across different downturns.  For example, you see how much longer it took to regain the lost jobs in the 1990 and 2001 recession compared to the 1981 version. 

But the main point is how severe this recession has been on job loss.  There are two lines in the graph for the current recession because last week's data provided a revision based on more complete data.  We knew it was bad, but it turned out to be even worse.  We thought we were losing an unprecedented 690,000 jobs per month in the first quarter of last year.  It turned out to be 750,000.  In the four months between December 2008 and March 2009, we lost more jobs than during the last two recessions combined.

That's where we were.  Where we are, as noted, is better but not good enough.  Last month, we lost 20,000 jobs and that's not an outlier—it's another data point in an improving  trend moving towards net job gains, which we expect to be seeing in a few months.  But the job market won't be in recovery until those small negatives turn into big positives.

Here's what comes out of all this: our policies, most notably the Recovery Act, have helped move us from a situation where we were losing a nightmarish 750,000 jobs per month to one in which we've pulled back from the economic abyss and are moving a lot closer to adding jobs, on net, on a regular basis.  But we can't kick back and wait for that moment.    There's too much pain out there, too many families struggling with a job market that’s simply not providing the opportunities they need to get back on their feet.

So we have to hasten the arrival of more robust job growth with a set of initiatives targeted at the factors holding back job creation.  The House passed a targeted jobs bill in December that included some of these priorities, including upgrading transportation and infrastructure, and aid to states to keep teachers, cops, and firefighters on the job.  The Senate’s actively working on proposals with some of those same components.

Last week the President announced an initiative to help credit flow more freely to small businesses that want to expand their operations and payrolls but can’t access the capital.  Both the President and Congress have been working on a new hiring tax credit targeted at the business owner who is considering adding workers but needs a nudge (and you can see employers dipping their toes in the labor pool—temp work has increased in each of the past four months). 

Another idea in the mix right now is investment in infrastructure to help offset the continuing job losses in construction, a sector that took another big hit last month.  And another is help to state and local governments facing tight budget squeezes and the resultant layoffs in folks like teachers, down 10,500 last month at the local level.

GDP is growing and growing pretty solidly.  The employment data show employers cutting a lot less but not yet adding a lot more.  Unemployment moved in the right direction last month, and we need to build on that positive movement.  

But as the figure above shows so clearly, we've got a huge hole to fill.  That hole wasn't dug overnight, and it's going to take some time and some smart, targeted policies, to fill it up.  Now there's a shovel-ready project worth taking on.

Jared Bernstein is Chief Economist to Vice President Biden, and Executive Director of the Middle Class Task Force

The United States and the European Union condemn the continuing human rights violations in Iran since the June 12 election. The large scale detentions and mass trials, the threatened execution of protestors, the intimidation of family members of those detained and the continuing denial to its citizens of the right to peaceful expression are contrary to human rights norms.

Our concerns are based on our commitment to universal respect for human rights. We are particularly concerned by the potential for further violence and repression during the coming days, especially around the anniversary of the Islamic Republic's founding on 11 February. We call on the Government of Iran to live up to its international human rights obligations, to end its abuses against its own people, to hold accountable those who have committed the abuses and to release those who are exercising their rights.
 

Capital Hilton Hotel
Washington, D.C.

10:26 A.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you very much.  Thank you.  Thank you very much.  Thank you.  Thank you, DNC.  Everybody have a seat -- have a seat.  Thank you.  Oh, it is good to see you -- good to be among friends so committed to the future of this party and this country that they’re willing to brave a blizzard.  (Laughter.)  Snowmageddon here in D.C.  (Laughter.)  I noticed somebody had “Californians for Obama” and I was thinking -- (applause) -- you guys are not used to this.  (Laughter.)

I’ve got some special thanks to the folks here.  First of all I want to thank Eleanor Holmes Norton for fighting the good fight here in the District of Colombia.  (Applause.)  Ray Buckley, Our DNC vice chair from New Hampshire.  (Applause.)   Alice Germond, DNC secretary.  Andy Tobias, DNC treasurer.  Thanks for the great work that you guys do.

I want to thank Tim Kaine, who’s not only an outstanding former governor, but an outstanding leader of this party –- (applause) -- busy building the best online and in-field grassroots organization we’ve ever had.  Give Tim Kaine a big round of applause.  (Applause.)

And if I'm not mistaken we’ve got a couple of terrific members of Congress here, Mike Honda, congressman and DNC vice chair -- Mike, are you here?  He’s on his way; he’s still shoveling.  (Laughter.)  And how about Barbara Lee, is Barbara here?  Well, we love her anyway.  So give Barbara and Mike a big round of applause.  (Applause.)

I want to thank the governors, the legislators, the mayors from across this country for working to move their states and local communities forward in extraordinarily challenging times.  They’ve done heroic work.  I want to thank the DNC members, state party leaders and, most of all, I want to thank the millions of Americans who’ve taken up the cause of change at the grassroots level in all 50 states.

Now, Tim alluded to this, but I just want to remind everybody -- we knew from the beginning that this would not be easy.   Change never is.  But that’s especially true in these times, when we face an array of challenges as tough as any we have seen in generations.  President Kennedy once said:  “When we got into office, the thing that surprised me most was to find that things were just as bad as we’d been saying they were.”  (Laughter.)  Truth was things were worse.

We took office facing a financial crisis that was something we hadn’t seen since the Great Depression, an economy that we now know was bleeding 750,000 jobs a month, a $1.3 trillion deficit, and two wars that were costly in every sense of the word.  From the specter of terrorism to the impacts of globalization, we face tremendous new challenges in this young century.  And all of this comes on top of one of the toughest decades our middle class had ever faced -- a decade where jobs grew more slowly than during any prior expansion; where the income of the average American household actually declined; where the costs of everything seemed to keep going up.

Everything we’ve done over the past year has been not only to right our economy, to break the back of this recession, but also to restore some of the security middle-class families have felt slipping away for over a decade now.  Some of the steps we took were done without the help of the other party, which made a political decision all too often to jump in the backseat, let us do the driving and then critique whether we were taking the right turns.  That's okay.  That's part of what it means to govern.

And all the steps we took were necessary.  None of us wanted to throw a lifeline to the banks.  But the outrage shouldn’t be that we did –- because it had to happen in order to prevent millions more from losing their jobs, millions of businesses and homes foreclosed.  The real outrage is that we had to do it in the first place in order to fend off the collapse of the financial system.  That's the outrage.  (Applause.)

Then we passed almost $300 billion in tax relief -- tax cuts for small businesses; tax cuts for 95 percent of working Americans.  We put Americans to work building the infrastructure of tomorrow -- doing the work America needs done.  We passed a Credit Card Bill of Rights to protect consumers from getting ripped off by credit card companies.  (Applause.)   We put the law behind the principle of equal pay for equal work.  (Applause.)  We extended the promise of health care to 4 million more children of working families, we protected every child from being targeted from tobacco companies.  (Applause.)

We passed a service bill named for Ted Kennedy –- (applause) -- that gives young folks and old folks new ways to give back to their communities.  We appointed Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.  (Applause.)  And we’ve begun working with Congress and our military to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country that they love because of who they are.  (Applause.)

Overseas -- overseas we’ve begun a new era of engagement.  We’re working with our partners to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, and to seek a world free of nuclear weapons.  We banned torture.  We have begun to leave Iraq to its own people.  We’ve charted a new way forward in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and made good progress in taking the fight to al Qaeda across the globe.  I went to Cairo on behalf of America to begin a new dialogue with the Muslim world.  And we are living up to a moment that demands American leadership by standing side-by-side with the people of Haiti.  (Applause.)

So if you look at a tally of the things we said we would do –- even in the midst of this extraordinarily challenging economy –- we’ve kept our promises.  We’ve kept our commitments.  We have moved forward on behalf of a more prosperous and more secure future for the American people.

But for all our efforts, we have to acknowledge change can’t come fast enough for many Americans.  In recent weeks, I’ve visited Allentown, Pennsylvania; Elyria, Ohio; Tampa, Florida; Nashua, New Hampshire; talking with workers in factories, and families in diners.  And they want to know, how are they going to find a job when they only know one trade in their life.  Or how are they going to afford to send their kids to college.  How are they going to pay their medical bills when they get sick.  How can they retire with their 401(k) so banged up.  And most of all, they’re wondering if anyone can or will do anything about it -- especially here in Washington.

Now, I understand their frustration –- you understand it as well.  I was talking to Michelle the other day –- Michelle is always a good barometer –- and, you know, the front page was, oh, what’s Obama going to do to get his poll numbers up, and, are the Democrats all in a tizzy and this and that.  And she said, you know, listen, if you're the average family, if I'm a mom out there and I'm working and my husband is working but we’re worried about losing our jobs, our hours have been cut back, the cost of our health care premium just went up 30 percent, the credit card company just jacked up our interest rates 39 percent, and our home value has gone down by $100,000, our 401(k) is all banged up –- and suddenly somebody calls up and says, so, how do you think President Obama is doing right now?  (Laughter.)   What are they going to say?  What are they going to say?  (Applause.)

Of course people are frustrated.  And they have every right to be.  And I know that during the course of this gathering, you know, some of the press have been running around, well, what do you think we should be doing and this and that and the other, you know, what’s the strategy.

Look, when unemployment is 9.7 percent, when we are still digging ourselves out of an extraordinary recession -– people are going to be frustrated.  And they’re going to be looking to the party in power to try to fix it.  And when you’ve got another party that says, we don’t want to do anything about it –- of course people are going to be frustrated.

Folks are out there working hard every day, trying to meet their responsibilities.  But all around them during this last, “lost” decade, what they’ve seen is a wave of irresponsibility from Wall Street to Washington –- they see a capital city where every day is treated like Election Day, and every act, every comment, every gesture passes through a political filter.  They’ve seen the outsized influence of lobbyists and special interests, who too often hijack the agenda by leveraging campaign money and connections.   Of course they wonder if their leaders can muster the will to overcome all of that and confront the real problems that touch their lives.

But here's what everybody here has to remember:  That's why I ran for President.  That's why you worked so hard to elect a Democratic Congress.  (Applause.)  We knew this stuff was tough.  But we stepped up because we decided we were going to take the responsibility of changing it.  And it may not be easy, but change is coming.  (Applause.)

I believe so strongly, I believe so strongly if we're going to deal with the great challenges of our time; if we're going to secure a better future just as past generations did for us; then we're going to have to change the prevailing politics in this town, and it's not going to be easy.  We're going to have to care less about scoring points and more about solving problems that are holding us back.  (Applause.)  At this defining moment, that's never been more important.

We can continue, for example, to be consumed by the politics of energy.  But we know that the nation that leads the clean energy revolution will lead the 21st century global economy.   We know that a failure to act will put our planet in deeper peril.  We know that China isn't waiting and India isn't waiting and Germany isn't waiting to seize that future.  And America can't afford to wait, either.  (Applause.)  And I don't intend to spend all my time taking polls to figure out whether we're going to seize that future or not.

We can continue to spin our wheels with the old education debates; pitting teachers' unions against reformers, and meanwhile our kids keep trailing their counterparts from South Korea to Singapore.  But we know that the countries that out-educate us today will out-compete us tomorrow.  (Applause.)  We know that kids who are consigned to failing schools today will be condemned to lifetimes of lower wages and unfulfilled dreams.  America can't afford to wait.  And I'm not going to take a poll to figure out whether or not we're going to tackle education.

We can continue to allow the same special interests who stacked the deck in favor of financial speculators in the last decade to block reform again in this decade.  But if we've learned anything from the devastating recession, it's that we know that wise regulation actually can enhance the market and make it more stable and make our economy work better.  We can't return to the dereliction of duty that helped deliver this recession.  We know that to do so would be to put at risk our jobs, our families, our businesses, and our future.  America can't afford to wait, and we can't look backwards.

And, yes, we could continue to ignore the growing burden of runaway costs of health care.  The easiest thing to do right now would be to just say this is too hard; let's just regroup and lick our wounds and try to hang on.  We've had a long and difficult debate on health care.  And there are some, maybe even the majority in this town, who say perhaps it's time to walk away.

But here's the thing, Democrats.  If we walk away, we know what will happen.  We know that premiums and out-of-pocket expenses will skyrocket this decade, and the decade after that, and the decade after that, just as they did in the past decade.  More small businesses will be priced out of coverage; more big businesses will be unable to compete internationally; more workers will take home less pay and fewer raises.  We know that millions more Americans will lose their coverage; we know that our deficits will inexorably continue to grow because health care costs are the single biggest driver.

So just in case there's any confusion out there, let me be clear.  I am not going to walk away from health insurance reform.  (Applause.)  I'm not going to walk away from the American people.  I'm not going to walk away on this challenge.  I'm not going to walk away on any challenge.  We're moving forward.  (Applause.)  We are moving forward.  (Applause.)  Sometimes – sometimes we may be moving forward against the prevailing winds.  Sometimes it may be against a blizzard.  (Laughter.)  But we're going to live up to our responsibility to lead.

And I'm confident that if we stay steady, if we stay focused on all the people that we meet each and every day who are out there struggling, if we’ve got them in mind and we are working to deliver on their behalf, that in the end that'll be good politics as well as good policy.  It'll be good for America, not just good for Democrats.

But in order to get any of these battles done, we're going to have to change the way that Washington works.   Now, we may not get a lot of attention for it, but we've actually already begun to do that.  We've reined in the power of the special interests with the toughest ethics and transparency rules of any administration in the modern era.  We're the first White House ever to post our visitors online.  We've excluded lobbyists from policymaking jobs or seats on federal boards and commissions.  I've called on Congress to make all earmark requests public on one central website before they come up for a vote so that you know how the money is spent.  We have -- we're going to have to confront the gaping loophole that the Supreme Court recently opened in our campaign finance laws –- (applause) --that allows special interests to spend without limit to influence American elections.

We also said that as we worked to change the ways of Washington, we'd also change the way we do things as a party.  This committee is the first to ban contributions from political action committees and lobbyists.  And I'm pleased to see the recommendations submitted by the Change Commission aimed at improving our nominating process -- because I believe that the more Americans that get involved in this party, the stronger this party will be.  (Applause.)

And, yes, we need to change the way we work with the other party as well.  Now, I'm proud to be a Democrat.  I'm proud to be a leader of this great party.  But I also know that we can't solve all of our problems alone.  So we need to extend our hands to the other side -- we've been working on it -- (laughter) -- because if we're going to change the ways of Washington, we're going to have to change its tone.

Now, as a step in that direction, I went and visited with the House Republican Caucus last Friday.  (Laughter and applause.)  And we had a good –- we had a good discussion about the challenges -- we had a good discussion about the challenges facing the American people and our ideas to solve them.  It was good for the country to see a robust debate.  I had fun.  (Laughter.)

And we have to acknowledge there are going to be some issues that Democrats and Republicans just don't see eye to eye on, and that's how it should be.  That's how our democracy works.  But there have to be some issues on which we can find some common ground.  It's one thing to disagree out of principle; it's another to simply stand in the way because of politics.

Now is not the time for sitting on the sidelines, or blocking progress, or pointing figures, or assigning blame.  Now is not the time to do just what's right for your party or your poll numbers.  Now is the time to do what's right for the country.  Now is the time to do what's necessary to see us through these difficult times.  Now is the time to do everything in our power to keep the American Dream alive for the next generation.

And that's our mission, Democrats.

I know we've gone through a tough year.  But we've gone through tougher years.  We're the party of Thomas Jefferson, who declared that all men are created equal.  And we had to work long and hard to ensure that those words meant something.

We're the party of Franklin Roosevelt, who, in the midst of depression, said all we had to fear was fear itself; who saved freedom and democracy from being extinguished here on Earth.  And that was hard because the natural impulse was to fear.  But we as a party helped to lead the country out of that fear.

We're the party of John F. Kennedy, who summoned us to serve; who called us to pay any price and bear any burden.

And we're the party of Edward M. Kennedy, whose cause endures; who said that here, in the United States of America, the promise of health care should not be a privilege, but a fundamental right.

That is who we are, Democrats.  (Applause.)  That's who we've got to be today.  For all the stories we've heard, after all the campaigns we've waged, after all the promises we've made, this is our best chance to deliver change that the American people need.  (Applause.)

And if we do that -- if we speak to the hopes of the American people instead of their fears; if we inspire them instead of divide them; if we respond to their challenges with the same sense of urgency they feel in their own lives -- we're not just going to win elections -- elections will take care of themselves -- we will once again be the party that turns around the economy and moves this country forward, and secures the American Dream for another generation.  (Applause.)

Thanks very much, everybody.  God bless you.  (Applause.)

END
10:48 A.M. EST

Reiterating once again his commitment to small business as the engine of our economy, the President urges Congress to move forward immediately on steps to help them expand and create jobs.  These proposals include using $30 billion in TARP funds to create a new Small Business Lending Fund to provide capital to community banks to increase lending to small businesses, offering a new tax credit for over one million small businesses that hire new workers or raise wages, and providing targeted support for the most innovative small businesses with the potential to export new goods and products.

Click here to see the video.

WASHINGTON – In this week’s address, President Barack Obama said that America’s small businesses are key to rebuilding the economy on a new, stronger foundation and creating jobs. He called on Republicans and Democrats in Congress to pass – without delay – a series of proposals that will help American small businesses thrive.  These proposals include using $30 billion in TARP funds to create a new Small Business Lending Fund to provide capital to community banks to increase lending to small businesses, offering a new tax credit for over one million small businesses that hire new workers or raise wages, and providing targeted support for the most innovative small businesses with the potential to export new goods and products.

The audio and video will be available online at www.whitehouse.gov at 6:00 am ET, Saturday, February 6, 2010.

Remarks of President Barack Obama
As Prepared for Delivery
Weekly Address
February 6, 2010

Even though our economy is growing again, these are still tough times for America.  Too many businesses are still shuttered.  Too many families can’t make ends meet.  And while yesterday, we learned that the unemployment rate has dropped below ten percent for the first time since summer, it is still unacceptably high – and too many Americans still can’t find work. 

But what we must remember at a time like this is that we are not helpless in the face of our difficulties.  As Americans, we make our own destiny.  We forge our own path.  And I am confident that if we come together and put aside the politics that keeps holding us back, we can do that again.  We can rebuild this economy on a new, stronger foundation that leads to more jobs and greater prosperity.

I believe a key part of that foundation is America’s small businesses – the places where most new jobs begin. 

These companies represent the essence of the American spirit – the promise that anyone can succeed in this country if you have a good idea and the determination to see it through.  And every once in awhile, these ideas don’t just lead to a new business and new jobs, but a new American product that forever changes the world.  After all, Hewlett Packard began in a garage.  Google began as a simple research project. 

Government can’t create these businesses, but it can give entrepreneurs the support they need to open their doors, expand, or hire more workers.  And that’s what we’ve always done in this country.  The folks at Southwest Windpower in Flagstaff, Arizona started their company in a small home.  Since getting a loan from the Small Business Administration, they’ve sold 160,000 wind turbines to about 90 different countries, and are hiring even more workers today.  When Sam Ko walked into one of the SBA’s small business development centers in Illinois, he didn’t have any business experience at all – just a patent for a new metal manufacturing technology.  He was given a loan and a business plan, and today his company is still growing, with offices all over the Midwest. 

Last year, the steps we took supported over 47,000 loans to small businesses and delivered billions in tax relief to small business owners, which helped companies keep their doors open, make payroll, and hire workers.  But we can and must do more.  That’s why I’ve proposed a series of steps this week to support small business owners and the jobs they create – to provide more access to credit, more incentives to hire, and more opportunities to grow and sell products all over the world. 

Because financing remains difficult for good, credit-worthy small businesses across the country, I’ve proposed that we take $30 billion from the TARP fund originally used for Wall Street and create a new Small Business Lending Fund that will provide capital for community banks on Main Street.  These are the small, local banks that will be able to give our small business owners more of the credit they need to stay afloat.  We should also continue to waive fees, increase guarantees, and expand the size of SBA-backed loans for small businesses.  And yesterday, I proposed making it easier for small business owners to refinance their mortgages during these tough times.

To give these companies greater incentives to grow and create jobs, I’ve proposed a new tax credit for more than one million small businesses that hire new workers or raise wages, as well as the elimination of all capital gains taxes on small business investment. 

Finally, we should provide targeted support to the most innovative small businesses – the ones with the greatest potential to export new goods and products all over the world.  A lot of these companies – like the wind turbine manufacturer I mentioned – are the foundation on which we can rebuild our economy to compete in the 21st century.  They just need a little help securing the financing they need to get off the ground.  We have every incentive to help them do that. 

Next week, Congress will start debating many of these proposals.  And if anyone has additional ideas to support small businesses and create jobs, I’m happy to consider them.  My door is always open.  But I urge members of both parties:  do not oppose good ideas just because it’s good politics to do so.  The proposals I’ve outlined are not Democratic or Republican; liberal or conservative.  They are pro-business, they are pro-growth, and they are pro-job.  Leaders in both parties have supported similar ideas in the past.  So let’s come together and pass these measures without delay.  Let’s put more Americans back to work, and let’s give our small business owners the support to do what they’ve always done:  the freedom to pursue their dreams and build our country’s future.  Thanks for listening.