Obama on Government Investment

I get pretty sick of hearing talk of cutting government spending.  A ride on a 300 mph train in Shanghai should cure you of that if nothing else will, so I was pleased to hear President Obama talking about such things today.

Pres. Obama:

I don't think we should be cutting back on research and development, because if we can develop new technologies in areas like clean energy, that could make all the difference in terms of job creation here at home.

I think the proposal that I've put forward with respect to infrastructure is one that historically we've had bipartisan agreement about. And we should be able to agree now that it makes no sense for China to have better rail systems than us and Singapore having better airports than us.

And we just learned that China now has the fastest supercomputer on Earth. That used to be us. They're making investments, because they know those investments will pay off over the long term.

And so in these budget discussions, the key is to be able to distinguish between stuff that isn't adding to our growth, isn't an investment in our future, and those things that are absolutely necessary for us to be able to increase job growth in the future as well.

Now, the single most important thing I think we need to do economically - and this is something that has to be done during the lame-duck session - is making sure that taxes don't go up on middle-class families next year. And so we've got some work to do on that front to make sure that, you know, families not only aren't seeing a higher tax burden, which will automatically happen if Congress doesn't act, but also making sure that business provisions that historically we have extended each year that, for example, provide tax breaks for companies that are investing here in the United States, in research and development - that those are extended.

I think it makes sense for us to extend unemployment insurance, because there are still a lot of folks out there hurting.

So there are some things that we can do right now that will help sustain the recovery and advance it, even as we're also sitting down and figuring out, OK, over the next several years, what kinds of budget cuts can we make that are intelligent, that are smart, that won't be undermining our recovery, but in fact will be encouraging job growth.