President Obama Holds Economic Town Hall in Costa Mesa, CA.

by Pythiian1 | March 18, 2009 at 03:14 pm

1036 views | 88 Recommendations | 10 comments

President Obama begins his visit to Southern California, where he plans to use a backdrop of job losses and home foreclosures to discuss a budget proposal, which will begin building a new economy.

The White House released some key background points for the President as he travels to California. The Council of Economic Advisors has compiled some facts that illustrate the impact of the economic crisis on workers and their families in California.

Key features to keep in mind as the President talks with the citizens of Costa Mesa, California.

California’s unemployment rate was 10.1% in January (most recent data available). This is a 4.2 percentage point increase since December 2007, which is the fourth highest unemployment rate in the country.
The state has lost 169,000, about 1 in 5, of its construction jobs since December 2007. Although construction was hardest hit, there was also notable job loss in retail sales.
California’s housing prices have declined 27.4% from their peak in 2006, the highest in the nation. Housing prices have declined 20% in the past year.
California ranks third highest in mortgages that are seriously delinquent. Only Nevada and Florida have more mortgages that are 90 days overdue or in the process of foreclosure.
The Los Angeles metropolitan area had an unemployment rate of 10.5% in January, it is the highest level since 1983. In Orange County, which includes Costa Mesa, has been less affected. Nevertheless, the Orange County’s unemployment rate has jumped from 4.3% in December 2007 to 6.5% in December 2008.

The White House officials and local authorities are not releasing official details of President Obama's trip to a town hall meeting in Costa Mesa on Mar.18 afternoon, local time.

California supported President Obama in last year's election, and Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has endorsed the President's stimulus package, which will give California more than $30 billion in Federal assistance. California is currently facing a double-digit unemployment rate.

The President is holding his first town hall meeting with selected Californians to discuss his economic plans and goals. He will be holding another town hall meeting in Los Angeles tomorrow.

President Barack Obama is greeted by chants of "Obama, Obama" from an enthusiastic crowd, most of whom have spent Monday night waiting for the free tickets to the Town Hall meeting, at the Orange County Fairgrounds, in Costa Mesa.

This is a partial list of California state officials who are in attendant during the President's town hall meeting. Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez, Secretary of State Debra Bowen, Attorney General Jerry Brown, State Controller John Chiang, State Senator Jose Correa, Mr. Jack O'Connell, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Mr.Miguel Pulido, the Mayor of Santa Ana, and Mr. Jose Solorio, another state representative.

During the Q&A session of the town hall, it is apparent that Californians are thrilled to have received the economic stimulus package as indicative by several in the audience, who have asked the President if California could get more supports, since there are some states that refused their stimulus packages. Although President Obama did not respond directly to this question, but he said that the Recovery Act will extend unemployment insurance and to subsidize health insurance to those people who have lost their jobs, and he hopes that they would get the money.

President Obama is taking several questions from the audience, one teacher who is due to be laid-off, expresses her concerns about finding another job and teacher's retention program. The President responds that, "Almost all of the money that's going to the states under the Recovery Act for education is designed to retain teachers. Almost the lion's share of it. I mean, there's some money for school construction as well. There's some money for innovation because we can't just put more money into the schools without also reforming the schools and making them better." This question also gives President Obama another opportunity to discuss his educational plan to extend school hours in order to give future Americans the necessary economic edges.

Another woman also asks the President whether he would support caps on credit card interest rates charged by those banks that have been bailed out by the American taxpayers, especially, Citibank, etc.?

President Obama answers, "This is a really good question. First of all, I generally support a credit card bill of rights, even by setting aside the whole issue of TARP and who's been getting TARP and who hasn't been getting TARP. The truth of the matter is that the banking industry has used credit cards and pushed credit cards on consumers in ways that have been very damaging.
I think generally having some consumer safety, some consumer protection around credit cards, is important.

Now, all of us, I think a lot of people have learned their lesson with credit cards. And credit cards can be an important convenience. But generally speaking, if you're just running up your credit card and you don't think that there's a bill to be paid, you've got problems. So all of us, I think, have to be more thoughtful about how we use them, and ultimately we've got to take responsibility if we are going on shopping sprees that we can't afford.

On the other hand, it's also important that we have consumer safety laws, and that's something that I want to promote and get done as President of the United States."

The President also answers some other questions pertaining to the auto industry and re-training for new job skills before concluding his town hall meeting.

Governor Schwarzenegger is expected to join the President in the Los Angeles town hall meeting tomorrow.

While the President is in California, he will also be taping his appearance on Jay Leno of NBC, as he will bypass the Gridiron Dinner.

Updates will be added as further details are available.

For additional details, NP readers can read the White House's summary here.

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Rachel Nixon

at 15:17 on March 18th, 2009

Thanks for covering this - looking forward to your updates.

Amy Judd

at 15:24 on March 18th, 2009

Thanks for this - will be interesting to see what he says.

Pythiian1

at 16:45 on March 18th, 2009

Thank you so much, Rachel and Amy for your recommendations, comments, and interests.

I've been updating as information are made available...

Pythiian1

at 16:44 on March 18th, 2009

Thank you so much to others who have recommended this developing news at the time of the post. I appreciate your interest.

Paschen

at 17:28 on March 18th, 2009

Good post. Well, lets hope some thing positive comes out of all this.

Pythiian1

at 20:34 on March 18th, 2009

Thank you, Paschen, for your recommendation and positive comment.

djsblack

at 09:23 on March 19th, 2009

Robert Reich, the former Clinton Labor Secretary and a leading liberal economic thinker, wrote on his blog Wednesday that he is increasingly concerned about the Obama administration's management of the massive federal bailouts. "Before it can clean up Wall Street or do much of anything else, the Administration has to clean up the way it's been trying to clean up Wall Street," he wrote. Reich writes that the AIG bonus scandal is a "nightmarish metaphor" for administration's problems administering the bailouts:

The Wall Street bailout is starting to look like the most expensive tax-supported fiasco in history. The problem for the Obama administration is that this bailout is near the very center of the President’s economic recovery program. It's not possible for the economy to bounce back until credit markets are working again. Yet even though the bailout so far is a bust, Geithner still hasn't decided — or told the public — how he's going to use the remaining $300 billion of bailout money differently.

The President cannot afford to lose the public’s confidence that his administration is a careful steward of the public’s money. The public was willing to go along with a large stimulus package. But it won’t go along with a second stimulus, and certainly not another TARP. And until the public feels confident that its money isn’t being thrown down a rat hole, it may balk at other ambitious undertakings such as health care or education or the environment.

Bottom line: Before it can clean up Wall Street or do much of anything else, the Administration has to clean up the way it's been trying to clean up Wall Street.

peleke (not verified)

at 17:39 on March 19th, 2009

Taken from the article above. President Obama says:

"...But generally speaking, if you're just running up your credit card and you don't think that there's a bill to be paid, you've got problems. So all of us, I think, have to be more thoughtful about how we use them, and ultimately we've got to take responsibility if we are going on shopping sprees that we can't afford."

I mean no malice or disrespect but "Shopping sprees we can't afford"?... Given this statement, I was wondering how we are going to pay for the programs in ARRA (aka the $767 billion "economic stimulus" package)? How about the $700 billion TARP bailouts that have done very little to fix the credit crisis? or the $410 billion omnibus spending bill just passed by Congress?

Seems hypocritical to me to tell us to control OUR spending when the government can't control its own spending.