Obama in Buffalo (Updated Live Blog) « News WNYmedia

Obama in Buffalo (Updated Live Blog) on Thursday, May 13th, 2010

I took my sick kid down to Cheektowaga to watch Air Force One land at BNIA. She, naturally, fell asleep, but I listened in on LiveATC and heard “Air Force One, cleared for landing on runway 5″ and watched the blue and white 747 land over Genessee Street – quite an unusual sight.

The pool report indicated that after President Obama met with Flight 3407 families, he traveled to Duff’s in Cheektowaga and ordered 10 wings medium – 5 regular/5 extra crispy – with french fries and onion rings.

Louann Haley of Chaffee greeted Obama with the words: “You’re a hotttie with a smokin’ little body.” Obama’s response: he hugged her.

About 100 people were at Duff’s when the president arrived, and he greeted the surprised patrons with handshakes and hugs.

His remarks at ISI on the East Side just began at 2:23. He likes Duff’s crispy medium and characterizes them as “outstanding”.

On the snow we received last weekend, Obama quipped, “I thought Chicago was bad. Sheesh.”

The President explains that he enjoys visiting communities such as Buffalo to get out of the Washington bubble. He segues into a discussion of the economy, and notes that cities such as Buffalo have been especially hard-hit, long before the last recession began. Expenses went up, but wages didn’t.

When Obama came to office, the economy was in a freefall and experts were warning of another great depression, and people were scared. He defends the TARP and the stimulus, acknowledging that they weren’t that popular, adding to an already extant $1.3 TN budget deficit.

He had to take bold action, and one side of the aisle just sat on the sidelines. Obama states he ran for President to make America great and “we did what the moment required”. He acknowledges that we haven’t climbed out of the hole yet.

Today, “we are headed in the right direction”.

The tough steps the administration took are working. Those who predicted failure have been proven wrong. Job growth in the private sector has gone up – a lot of it in manufacturing. This month was better than last month, next month will be better still. We have gained jobs four months in a row now.

Government is not the true engine of job creation – small businesses like ISI are. They have always been the backbone of America’s economy. They embody the spirit of possibility. Work ethic. Hope. They take a chance on their dreams.

Government can’t guarantee a company’s success, but it can tear down the barriers to expansion and growth. ISI got an SBA loan as part of the stimulus, which let him pay the bills and buy new equipment. ISI grew his workforce, and will hire more people shortly.

Imperial Textile here in WNY received a stimulus-fed SBA loan that helped that company keep all of its workers, and expand its facility. Seven tax cuts for small businesses were enacted, as was the “make work pay” act. $26BN in new lending went forward thanks to the stimulus. $7.5BN in federal contracts go to small businesses.

Obama will propose a tax incentive to hire the unemployed. Tax cuts are not “big government”. We will “invest in our future”.

Questions from the audience:

1. Will we get high speed rail here in Buffalo?

A: The stimulus bill had biggest infrastructure improvements since the Eisenhower administration, and it will be a multi-year process, but through bipartisanship congress should find a financing mechanism to fund expansion of high speed rail. By building new infrastructure such as this would help grow businesses, would help the environment, and other countries, like China, are way past us in terms of this sort of infrastructure.

2. Senator Hatch was in Buffalo a month or so ago and he called it the “Europeanization of America”. Your thoughts?

A: People can label it whatever they want. The health care bill reforms insurance, and many of them take effect right now (for instance, 26 year olds can stay on parents’ policies). People can’t lose their policies if they get sick. No more lifetime limits. Goes through the other highlights from the health care reform package, including incentives to digitize medical records to ease communication between providers for better health care.

3. What is being done to do abolish the IRS and do a flat tax, and abolish the AMT?

A: The AMT was put in place to ensure that the wealthy could not completely avoid paying taxes through clever accounting and deductions. The problem was that congress didn’t index the AMT to adjust the amount each year to take inflation into account. So, the AMT as written is anachronistic and needs to be amended (or “patched”) every year. $70BN of the recovery act was to ensure that the AMT didn’t affect more people. Getting the debt and deficit under control…will be hard and difficult, but we can’t wait. As for the “fair tax” flat tax, Obama uses his taxes as an example – he had to pay a big check to the IRS because he earned a lot from his book. The more you make, the higher your tax rate, up to a maximum ceiling. But with a flat tax, and everyone is paying 10%, then Warren Buffett is paying the same 10% as someone with a minimum wage job. Ask: does that 10% take a bigger bite out of the paycheck of a supermarket cashier than Warren Buffett? A revenue-neutral flat tax would have to be pretty substantial, but represent a huge tax break for billionaires. He agrees with the principle of simplifying the tax code, and most of the complications come from lobbying in Washington.

4: Besides tax cuts and health care, is the administration looking to allocate resources to educating small business owners to give them the tools to become more efficient, smart, and effective?

A: Education to start / maintain a business is great for people who have a great idea but don’t really know how to be businesspeople, so he wants to ensure that the SBA is giving good technical training and advice to businesses. Even to existing ones looking to grow. We also need to make sure to improve the education system in general in America. We lag behind in international educational results, and need to make sure schools are excellent, especially for high tech; math and science. In every state, the federal government has a “race to the top” program to fund innovative improvements in the education system. Community colleges are a great bridge between high school and university. We have to look towards the future – what are the jobs of the future? Where is America going to be 20 years from now? We need to look at where the puck is going – not where the puck is.

The President’s visit wrapped up at 3:07 pm.