President talks economy with Jacksonville supporters

The President’s campaign stop at the Prime Osborne Convention Center Thursday came with lots of cheers and cries of support from a crowd of thousands.

But when we look past the stumping to the speech itself, you can see a big focus on the economy- which voters in Jacksonville and nationwide continue to name a top concern in the election.

President Barack Obama made a call for quality jobs to stay on American soil, rather than getting shipped overseas.  He looks at business from the small companies to large corporations to help create that growth and says incentives should be given to those, and not the businesses which outsource.

Bringing jobs to veterans was a big theme, appropriate to the military town.

“As long as I’m Commander-in-Chief this country will care for our veterans and serve them as they’re served us.  Nobody who fights for this country should have to fight for a job or a roof over their heads when they come home,” he says.

Obama says the money the country is no longer spending on the war in Iraq should be spent in two ways.  Half should go towards paying down the nation’s deficit.  The other half should be used to generate jobs and create what he called a Veterans Job Corps.

On tax cuts, he says breaks for the wealthy or for businesses which outsource jobs is not right.  He wants to not just extend tax cuts for the middle class, but hike rates on people who make more than $250,000 to where they used to be when former President Bill Clinton was in office.  He says that is how a budget surplus and thousands of jobs were created.

“This country was not built by top-down economics.  This country was built by the middle class,” he says.

But that’s difficult to implement in Washington the way it is.  Obama says “politics” is a big bump in the road for any real action, a message Congresswoman Corrine Brown eagerly echoed in her address to the crowd.  But in the face of the red tape, Obama says he wants to keep fighting.

“I’ve said it’s gunna take more than one year, or one term, or maybe even one President to restore the dream that built this country,” he says.

The President also gave a nod to healthcare, reminding voters that the Supreme Court has made its decision and it is time to move forward with the Affordable Care Act.  The need to provide higher education at an affordable cost also rounded out the big topics covered today.

The President continues his two-day tour throughout the state now before moving forward to other campaign stops.

• Corrine Brown
• Don Herrin