President Obama Debt Ceiling Speech Video July 25, 2011: Presidential Address to the Nation on Budget Deficit Talks

By on July 25, 2011 - Comments { 6 } - in Politics

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Watch President Barack Obama’s debt ceiling speech video on Mon., July 25, 2011. In a Presidential address to the nation, he will discuss the budget deficit talks and efforts to reach an agreement with Congress. The primetime speech starts at 9 p.m. ET at the White House. Watch live stream video below. Thereafter, come back for full replay video and transcript text which will be posted when available.

UPDATE: Full replay video and transcript are below.


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Remarks of President Barack Obama – As Prepared for Delivery
Primetime Debt Speech
Monday, July 25, 2011
Washington, DC

As Prepared for Delivery -

Good evening. Tonight, I want to talk about the debate we’ve been having in Washington over the national debt – a debate that directly affects the lives of all Americans.

For the last decade, we have spent more money than we take in. In the year 2000, the government had a budget surplus. But instead of using it to pay off our debt, the money was spent on trillions of dollars in new tax cuts, while two wars and an expensive prescription drug program were simply added to our nation’s credit card.

As a result, the deficit was on track to top $1 trillion the year I took office. To make matters worse, the recession meant that there was less money coming in, and it required us to spend even more – on tax cuts for middle-class families; on unemployment insurance; on aid to states so we could prevent more teachers and firefighters and police officers from being laid off. These emergency steps also added to the deficit.

Now, every family knows that a little credit card debt is manageable. But if we stay on the current path, our growing debt could cost us jobs and do serious damage to the economy. More of our tax dollars will go toward paying off the interest on our loans. Businesses will be less likely to open up shop and hire workers in a country that can’t balance its books. Interest rates could climb for everyone who borrows money – the homeowner with a mortgage, the student with a college loan, the corner store that wants to expand. And we won’t have enough money to make job-creating investments in things like education and infrastructure, or pay for vital programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

Because neither party is blameless for the decisions that led to this problem, both parties have a responsibility to solve it. And over the last several months, that’s what we’ve been trying to do. I won’t bore you with the details of every plan or proposal, but basically, the debate has centered around two different approaches.

The first approach says, let’s live within our means by making serious, historic cuts in government spending. Let’s cut domestic spending to the lowest level it’s been since Dwight Eisenhower was President. Let’s cut defense spending at the Pentagon by hundreds of billions of dollars. Let’s cut out the waste and fraud in health care programs like Medicare – and at the same time, let’s make modest adjustments so that Medicare is still there for future generations. Finally, let’s ask the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations to give up some of their tax breaks and special deductions.

This balanced approach asks everyone to give a little without requiring anyone to sacrifice too much. It would reduce the deficit by around $4 trillion and put us on a path to pay down our debt. And the cuts wouldn’t happen so abruptly that they’d be a drag on our economy, or prevent us from helping small business and middle-class families get back on their feet right now.

This approach is also bipartisan. While many in my own party aren’t happy with the painful cuts it makes, enough will be willing to accept them if the burden is fairly shared. While Republicans might like to see deeper cuts and no revenue at all, there are many in the Senate who have said “Yes, I’m willing to put politics aside and consider this approach because I care about solving the problem.” And to his credit, this is the kind of approach the Republican Speaker of the House, John Boehner, was working on with me over the last several weeks.

The only reason this balanced approach isn’t on its way to becoming law right now is because a significant number of Republicans in Congress are insisting on a cuts-only approach – an approach that doesn’t ask the wealthiest Americans or biggest corporations to contribute anything at all. And because nothing is asked of those at the top of the income scales, such an approach would close the deficit only with more severe cuts to programs we all care about – cuts that place a greater burden on working families.

So the debate right now isn’t about whether we need to make tough choices. Democrats and Republicans agree on the amount of deficit reduction we need. The debate is about how it should be done. Most Americans, regardless of political party, don’t understand how we can ask a senior citizen to pay more for her Medicare before we ask corporate jet owners and oil companies to give up tax breaks that other companies don’t get. How can we ask a student to pay more for college before we ask hedge fund managers to stop paying taxes at a lower rate than their secretaries? How can we slash funding for education and clean energy before we ask people like me to give up tax breaks we don’t need and didn’t ask for?

That’s not right. It’s not fair. We all want a government that lives within its means, but there are still things we need to pay for as a country – things like new roads and bridges; weather satellites and food inspection; services to veterans and medical research.

Keep in mind that under a balanced approach, the 98% of Americans who make under $250,000 would see no tax increases at all. None. In fact, I want to extend the payroll tax cut for working families. What we’re talking about under a balanced approach is asking Americans whose incomes have gone up the most over the last decade – millionaires and billionaires – to share in the sacrifice everyone else has to make. And I think these patriotic Americans are willing to pitch in. In fact, over the last few decades, they’ve pitched in every time we passed a bipartisan deal to reduce the deficit. The first time a deal passed, a predecessor of mine made the case for a balanced approach by saying this:

“Would you rather reduce deficits and interest rates by raising revenue from those who are not now paying their fair share, or would you rather accept larger budget deficits, higher interest rates, and higher unemployment? And I think I know your answer.”

Those words were spoken by Ronald Reagan. But today, many Republicans in the House refuse to consider this kind of balanced approach – an approach that was pursued not only by President Reagan, but by the first President Bush, President Clinton, myself, and many Democrats and Republicans in the United States Senate. So we are left with a stalemate.

Now, what makes today’s stalemate so dangerous is that it has been tied to something known as the debt ceiling – a term that most people outside of Washington have probably never heard of before.

Understand – raising the debt ceiling does not allow Congress to spend more money. It simply gives our country the ability to pay the bills that Congress has already racked up. In the past, raising the debt ceiling was routine. Since the 1950s, Congress has always passed it, and every President has signed it. President Reagan did it 18 times. George W. Bush did it 7 times. And we have to do it by next Tuesday, August 2nd, or else we won’t be able to pay all of our bills.

Unfortunately, for the past several weeks, Republican House members have essentially said that the only way they’ll vote to prevent America’s first-ever default is if the rest of us agree to their deep, spending cuts-only approach.

If that happens, and we default, we would not have enough money to pay all of our bills – bills that include monthly Social Security checks, veterans’ benefits, and the government contracts we’ve signed with thousands of businesses.

For the first time in history, our country’s Triple A credit rating would be downgraded, leaving investors around the world to wonder whether the United States is still a good bet. Interest rates would skyrocket on credit cards, mortgages, and car loans, which amounts to a huge tax hike on the American people. We would risk sparking a deep economic crisis – one caused almost entirely by Washington.

So defaulting on our obligations is a reckless and irresponsible outcome to this debate. And Republican leaders say that they agree we must avoid default. But the new approach that Speaker Boehner unveiled today, which would temporarily extend the debt ceiling in exchange for spending cuts, would force us to once again face the threat of default just six months from now. In other words, it doesn’t solve the problem.

First of all, a six-month extension of the debt ceiling might not be enough to avoid a credit downgrade and the higher interest rates that all Americans would have to pay as a result. We know what we have to do to reduce our deficits; there’s no point in putting the economy at risk by kicking the can further down the road.

But there’s an even greater danger to this approach. Based on what we’ve seen these past few weeks, we know what to expect six months from now. The House of Representatives will once again refuse to prevent default unless the rest of us accept their cuts-only approach. Again, they will refuse to ask the wealthiest Americans to give up their tax cuts or deductions. Again, they will demand harsh cuts to programs like Medicare. And once again, the economy will be held captive unless they get their way.

That is no way to run the greatest country on Earth. It is a dangerous game we’ve never played before, and we can’t afford to play it now. Not when the jobs and livelihoods of so many families are at stake. We can’t allow the American people to become collateral damage to Washington’s political warfare.

Congress now has one week left to act, and there are still paths forward. The Senate has introduced a plan to avoid default, which makes a down payment on deficit reduction and ensures that we don’t have to go through this again in six months.

I think that’s a much better path, although serious deficit reduction would still require us to tackle the tough challenges of entitlement and tax reform. Either way, I have told leaders of both parties that they must come up with a fair compromise in the next few days that can pass both houses of Congress – a compromise that I can sign. And I am confident we can reach this compromise. Despite our disagreements, Republican leaders and I have found common ground before. And I believe that enough members of both parties will ultimately put politics aside and help us make progress.

I realize that a lot of the new members of Congress and I don’t see eye-to-eye on many issues. But we were each elected by some of the same Americans for some of the same reasons. Yes, many want government to start living within its means. And many are fed up with a system in which the deck seems stacked against middle-class Americans in favor of the wealthiest few. But do you know what people are fed up with most of all?

They’re fed up with a town where compromise has become a dirty word. They work all day long, many of them scraping by, just to put food on the table. And when these Americans come home at night, bone-tired, and turn on the news, all they see is the same partisan three-ring circus here in Washington. They see leaders who can’t seem to come together and do what it takes to make life just a little bit better for ordinary Americans. They are offended by that. And they should be.

The American people may have voted for divided government, but they didn’t vote for a dysfunctional government. So I’m asking you all to make your voice heard. If you want a balanced approach to reducing the deficit, let your Member of Congress know. If you believe we can solve this problem through compromise, send that message.

America, after all, has always been a grand experiment in compromise. As a democracy made up of every race and religion, where every belief and point of view is welcomed, we have put to the test time and again the proposition at the heart of our founding: that out of many, we are one. We have engaged in fierce and passionate debates about the issues of the day, but from slavery to war, from civil liberties to questions of economic justice, we have tried to live by the words that Jefferson once wrote: “Every man cannot have his way in all things…Without this mutual disposition, we are disjointed individuals, but not a society.”

History is scattered with the stories of those who held fast to rigid ideologies and refused to listen to those who disagreed. But those are not the Americans we remember. We remember the Americans who put country above self, and set personal grievances aside for the greater good. We remember the Americans who held this country together during its most difficult hours; who put aside pride and party to form a more perfect union.

That’s who we remember. That’s who we need to be right now. The entire world is watching. So let’s seize this moment to show why the United States of America is still the greatest nation on Earth – not just because we can still keep our word and meet our obligations, but because we can still come together as one nation. Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.

Previously….

Link for mobile viewing. Live web-feed video is above. The streaming video is also available at CNN Live as well as CNN for iPhone and iPad app It can also be seen via the White House iPad and iPhone app, a free download. Starting at 9 p.m. ET (6 p.m. PT) there will also be television coverage on all broadcast networks, ABC, CBS, and NBC as well as news cable channels CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and CSPAN. Use TimeandDate.com to find the start time in your time zone, for tonight’s speech on July 25 or July 26, 2011 Tues. morning.

In his remarks live from the White House tonight, President Obama will address the ongoing efforts to reach an agreement with Congress on the budget deficit and raising the debt ceiling in advance of the August 2, 2011 deadline set by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, in order to avoid default and other adverse consequences on the economy, the financial markets as well as a possible downgrading of the U.S.’ AAA credit rating by Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s and other rating agencies.

Today’s full itinerary is here: President Obama official schedule and guidance, July 25, 2011.

Watch a video report below. For more on the debt talks and the looming August 2 deadline to raise the debt ceiling, see also:




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President Obama Debt Ceiling Speech Video July 25, 2011: Presidential Address to the Nation on Budget Deficit Talks

6 Responses to President Obama Debt Ceiling Speech Video July 25, 2011: Presidential Address to the Nation on Budget Deficit Talks

  1. NoItWont July 26, 2011 at 4:46 am #

    With “friends” like Obama and his mal-administration, Americans don’t even have to depend on the Repugnant Republicans to seriously screw them over.

    The economic analysis offered by President Obama is sheer bunk.

    For details on how and why that is, see these links:

    http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/07/we-discuss-the-manufactured-us-debt-crisis-at-the-real-news-network.html

    “Manifesto of the Appalled Economists”

    http://atterres.org/?q=node/13

    read, please, because otherwise, as this President is the living example, What You Don’t Know WILL HURT YOU. After 31 months in office we learn,

    (Obama) “If there’s one thing that I regret this year is that we were so busy just getting stuff done and dealing with the immediate crises that were in front of us that I think we lost some of that sense of speaking directly to the American people about what their core values are and why we have to make sure those institutions are matching up with those values,”

    or, as other news reports had it,

    President admits he forgot that it’s important to explain things to the American people.

    Wow. Just “wow”. He figured that out! In only 31 months.

    Between Obama version of “Democrats” (and that includes all the Clintonistas) and the Republicans, Americans are offered the choice of being thrown into the river to sink or float; if they float, they’re taken to the stake to be burned.

  2. NoItWont July 26, 2011 at 5:00 am #

    the intended citation corrected, with source:

    (speech at the University of Maryland, 22 July, 2011) :

    (Obama) ““Over the first two years, I was so focused on policy and, you know, getting the policy right, that sometimes I forgot part of my job is explaining to the American people why we’re doing this policy and where we’re going,” Obama said, referencing his responses to the financial and housing crises and health care overhaul.

    “I think that was something that I could have done better,” he said.”

    from ABC News at abcnews.com (political punch) : Obama, the Salesman: ‘Sometimes I Forgot Part of My Job Is Explaining to the American People’

    July 22, 2011 1:51 PM

    http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2011/07/obama-the-salesman-sometimes-i-forgot-part-of-my-job-is-explaining-to-the-american-people/comments/page/2/

  3. heactor escalet July 26, 2011 at 6:16 pm #

    I feel that what obama is saying is 100 percent correct.now the problem doesnt lie on our deficit,instead it lies on so many republicans hate towards our nation for electing a black president to begin with.non the less there saying that obama hasnt lived up to his commitment as a president.but i speak for the majority of americans when i say that the bush administration crumbled this economy.but nobody ever told them anything instead they wait until a president thats doing all he can to fix what all the other devils left for him, then and only then these prejiduce,racist f-cking republicans,who only steals and take from our economy dont really give a shit about us or our economy.why should they there not feeling it.but i tell you one thing cut ssi,ssd,or welfare off,and republicans haveing a black president in office isnt gonna be your only problem. us as starving americans are gonna start knocking at your big houses pimped out penthouses,and fancy getaways.so before you take from the poor,grow some f-cking balls at take back from your kind, the rich.or believe me when i tell you those who go hungry,aint gonna give a sh-t about the law your gonna have a full scale war on your hands.so for everything that obama cant say we as the people will say,put your f-cking prejudizm to the side and sign that f-cking bill before you start something that you cant stop …

  4. NoItWont July 27, 2011 at 9:31 am #

    Please return to reality. Obama’s skin color is, for the VAST majority of Americans, completely irrelevant. It simply isn’t an issue AT ALL for them. Of course, there is still plenty of racism in the world–but as a factor in explaining and understanding what’s going on politically in the U.S., racism is a very small feature.

    Brace yourself because I’m about to burst some of your very cherished beliefs about Obama’s being “hated” by Republicans (or any of the mainstream American elite of rich and powerful):

    1) No matter what you hear from certain segments of society–in the press and elsewhere–the actual fact is that the rich and powerful (Republicans and Democrats, alike) really like Barack Obama. That’s right. Some may put on a big act for the cameras but in truth, when the cameras and microphones are off, they’re extremely pleased by this completely mainstrean guy who, in the dark, you couldn’t distinguish from, say, John Kerry, Al Gore or Mitt Romney.

    2) In almost every respect, as long as a person is wealthy and conventionally respectful of the norms of power and authority, that person is welcome among the ranks of these same. His or her race? They don’t care about it. What they care about is protecting privilege and advantages. Anyone, no matter his or her race, who’ll join them in that is entirely welcome.

    3) The really powerful, the true movers and shakers of the world in the U.S., are as a divorced from and indifferent to the existing minority of anti-Black racist extremists as they are from the rest of society outside their privileged world.

    4) While it’s true that there are times when social revolt is the only option left to an oppressed public, and while it’s true that such a revolt, if and when it came, would be squarely the fault and the result of the amazing lack of responibility on the part of the ruling elites, it’s also true that such a violent reaction would very much serve the purposes of this same ruling elite, offering them still more excuses for repressive crack-downs and denials of liberties, as if there weren’t already too much of that.

    5) As long as you remain stuck on the very low-value (or even non-)issue of race, you’re going to continue to miss real picture of what is going on; you’re going to miss “seeing the forest for the trees.”

    6) Obama’s arguments on the matter of the budget deficit aren’t valid–though this doesn’t mean or make his (so-called) “opponents’ “, the Republicans, arguments correct. They, too, are way off the mark. But both contribute to a general misunderstanding of the actual important facts.

    At least on one point, Obama actually spoke the truth and can be taken at his word. It was when he admitted that,

    …”I forgot part of my job is explaining to the American people why we’re doing this policy and where we’re going,”….

    He got that much right. But the gist of his arguments on the deficit are just a slightly different version of smoke-and-mirrors intended–yes, intended–to misleadingly sell the public on a simplistic and false picture of the situation.

    When you focus on race as an important factor, you help the Republ-O-Dem-O-crat-icans in their efforts to keep the public confused and lost–whether you mean to or not.

    Count your blessings: today, anyone, regardless of race, can advance in social and monetary standing providing that he or she is willing to apply a combination of hard work and regular corner-cutting, conniving, lying, cheating and stealing, to get ahead, in the time-honored American way that was once reserved exlusively to “white” people.

  5. NoItWont July 27, 2011 at 9:48 am #

    read, for example:

    ( Tuesday, July 26, 2011 )

    Michael Hudson: Mr. Obama’s Scare Tactics to Get Democrats to Vote for His Republican Wall Street

    By Michael Hudson, a research professor of Economics at University of Missouri, Kansas City and a research associate at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College

    You know that the debt kerfuffle is as staged as melodramatically as a World Wrestling Federation exhibition when Mr. Obama makes the blatantly empty threat that if Congress does not “tackle the tough challenges of entitlement and tax reform,” there won’t be money to pay Social Security checks next month. In his debt speech last night (July 25), he threatened that if “we default, we would not have enough money to pay all of our bills – bills that include monthly Social Security checks, veterans’ benefits, and the government contracts we’ve signed with thousands of businesses.”

    This is not remotely true. But it has become the scare theme for over a week now, ever since the President used almost the same words in his interview with CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley.

    ———-

    excerpted from :

    http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/07/michael-hudson-mr-obama%e2%80%99s-scare-tactics-to-get-democrats-to-vote-for-his-republican-wall-street-plan.html

  6. NoItWont July 27, 2011 at 10:14 am #

    more suggested reading, this comes from the blog of economist Professor and New York Times columnist, Paul Krugman, writing 26 July, 2011:

    The Cult That Is Destroying America

    Watching our system deal with the debt ceiling crisis — a wholly self-inflicted crisis, which may nonetheless have disastrous consequences — it’s increasingly obvious that what we’re looking at is the destructive influence of a cult that has really poisoned our political system.

    And no, I don’t mean the fanaticism of the right. Well, OK, that too. But my feeling about those people is that they are what they are; you might as well denounce wolves for being carnivores. Crazy is what they do and what they are.

    No, the cult that I see as reflecting a true moral failure is the cult of balance, of centrism.

    Think about what’s happening right now. We have a crisis in which the right is making insane demands, while the president and Democrats in Congress are bending over backward to be accommodating — offering plans that are all spending cuts and no taxes, plans that are far to the right of public opinion.

    So what do most news reports say? They portray it as a situation in which both sides are equally partisan, equally intransigent — because news reports always do that. And we have influential pundits calling out for a new centrist party, a new centrist president, to get us away from the evils of partisanship.

    The reality, of course, is that we already have a centrist president — actually a moderate conservative president. Once again, health reform — his only major change to government — was modeled on Republican plans, indeed plans coming from the Heritage Foundation. And everything else — including the wrongheaded emphasis on austerity in the face of high unemployment — is according to the conservative playbook.

    more at: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/26/the-cult-that-is-destroying-america/

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