The President In Action After the Election

In the White house this past week, the President invited 14 middle class Americans to the White House to stand with him during a press conference that highlighted the next steps towards a continued economic recovery. On Veterans day, the President went to Arlington National Cemetery to honor the dead soldiers. But that was only the beginning of a trying week. He traveled to New York to continue to be part of the continuing cleanup effort from the effects and devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy.
On Friday, the President spoke to reporters in the east room with middle class Americans to try and convince Congressional Republicans to support an already Senate passed bill to prevent a tax hike on 97 percent of small businesses and all Americans to take effect at the beginning of next year. The President pleaded with the Republicans to do the right thing, all the while he sported an ink pen and vowed to use the pen to sign into law permanent tax cuts. He mentioned that there is no disagreement of not raising taxes of people making under $250,000 but with raising taxes on people above that rate, people who do not need tax cuts. The bill has stalled in Congress within the last couple of months mainly because of two reasons. First, the Republicans were hoping that President Obama would not get elected and that Mitt Romney would. Mitt Romney supported no tax hikes on anyone and supported less taxes for the rich. Second, since President Obama renewed the Bush tax cuts in 2010, he vowed to never do a temporary fix again, and this time he would see it through until a plan can be reached to make the tax cuts permanent. The decision now is clearly in the Republicans hands and they will have to act by January or accept the possibility that a tax hike across the board will come for all Americans, no matter what class you are in.
In the middle of the week on Wednesday, the President conducted meetings in the White House to gather more plans on how to reduce the national deficit. Again, his idea was to also strengthen the middle class and ask the upper class of Americans to do their fair share.

The President says that he has one mandate. It is to help middle class families and to help families that are working hard to move up to the middle class. He's not worried about the politics of it, and not interested in the special interests, just to work hard at it to see how it would be possible for people to get ahead. If his mandate works, then people will be back to work, people will able to purchase, and live the American dream.
On Thursday, the President traveled to Staten Island New York, to meet with local officials and to check on the on-going recovery efforts after Hurricane Sandy. He thanked first responders and comforted victims that are still directly effected from the devastation caused by the storm.

After all of this activity by the President, it was now time to begin his Asian trip. One of his goals was to expand the U.S. leadership in the Asian Pacific region. The President traveled to Bangkok Thailand, where talks were about security cooperation and to discover ways on how the American people and the Thai people can create more bonds to go forward.



The President was the first American President to visit the country of Burma. The President realizes the Burmese people and their goals to step towards Democracy. Recently, there were hundreds of political prisoners released from prison in Burma, cease fires reached with the ongoing civil wars within the country.

The President moved on to Cambodia, where he attended the East Asian summit which involved a variety of Asian nations to deal with challenges such as maritime security, energy cooperation, trade investments that would support jobs and opportunities for people of many nations, including the Asian-Pacific region. Lots of progress is expected there. Then a visit to Cambodia. He will be the first American President ever to visit Cambodia. America's interests will become more known there during this process, but people will also recognize what are the American values, including human rights which are so very important in this part of the world during this time in history.