Obama: 'I'm So Glad I'm Not on the Ballot'
By Susan Jones | September 8, 2015 | 7:47 AM EDT
President Barack Obama speaks at the Greater Boston Labor Council Labor Day Breakfast, Monday, Sept. 7, 2015, in Boston. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
(CNSNews.com) - President Obama was in the middle of a Labor Day speech on middle-class values Monday, when he veered off-script for a moment:
"Now, we're entering into political season," Obama said. "I'm so glad I'm not on the ballot," he ad-libbed, as his audience laughed.
"But it's political season," he said, returning to the script. "It starts earlier and earlier, and so now we're starting to hear a lot about middle-class values. Everybody wants to talk about the middle class. But some folks seem confused about what exactly that means. So let me provide a refresher course."
Obama said to him, middle class values means:
-- Providing tax cuts to 98 percent of Americans and asking the top 2 percent to "pay a little bit more."
-- Protecting Main Street businesses with tough Wall Street reforms;
-- Reforming student loans and increasing Pells Grants "so every kid can afford a college education."
-- Making two years of community college free;
-- Health insurance for 16 million formerly uninsured Americans;
"Middle class economics works," Obama insisted, even as he admitted "we've got more work to do to make sure more families feel the gains of this recovery."
He then blasted "some folks in Washington" -- Republicans, in other words -- for refusing to "face these facts."
"In their world, the only way to help the country grow and help people get ahead is to cut taxes for millionaire and billionaires and loosen up rules on big banks and polluters, and then you just wait and then you look up at the sky and prosperity will come raining down on us from the top of the whatever high rise is in your city."
Obama was addressing union members at a breakfast in Boston.
On the way to the rally, he signed an executive order on Air Force One forcing federal contractors to give up to seven days of paid sick leave to their employees every year.
http://minutemennews.com/2015/09/obama-im-so-glad-im-not-on-the-ballot/