I'd like to help struggling homeowners who can't pay their mortgages, I'd like to invest in our crumbling infrastructure, I'd like to reform the tax system so multimillionaires can't pretend their earnings are capital gains and pay at the rate of 15 percent. I'd like to make public higher education free, and pay for it with a small transfer tax on all financial transactions. I'd like to do much more - a new new deal for Americans. But Republicans are blocking me at every point.
Barack ObamaWe wouldn't even be where we are had it not been that 70% of Hispanics voted for President Obama, voted Democratic in the last election. That caused an epiphany in the Senate, that's for sure. So all of a sudden we have already passed comprehensive immigration reform in the Senate. That's a big victory.
Barack ObamaI think we need missile defense. But I want to make sure it works, that it's cost effective, that the technologies are operable, that it's our best possible strategy, and that hasn't been shown.
Barack ObamaThey will tell you that the Americans who sleep in the streets and beg for food got there because theyโre all lazy or weak of spirit. That the inner-city children who are trapped in dilapidated schools canโt learn and wonโt learn and so we should just give up on them entirely. That the innocent people being slaughtered and expelled from their homes half a world away are somebody elseโs problem to take care of.
Barack Obama