“My son’s losing hope” Obama: But we passed health care and took over student loan industry

Broken record indeed. The only answer President Obama has in response to questions like the one asked yesterday in Iowa is that he knows times are tough, but at least kids have health care until they are 26 and the government took over the “terrible” student loan system.

Hat tip to Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit. The college graduate, who undoubtedly spent countless hours campaigning for the soon-to-be-elected president probably does not care that he still has health insurance coverage under his parent’s policy or that the federal government took over the student loan system.

Sounds like the guy wants a job, yet the kid needs to learn the president and the federal government should not be creating jobs in the first place. If the federal government would just get the heck out of the way…

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipxdv-MGVMY

We don’t have the audio or video from the president’s answer to the woman’s question. But do we really need to have the transcript? I knew exactly what he was going to say…

OK, we’ll give it to you. From the White House website. My emphasis is in bold.

THE PRESIDENT:  Well, I was in Madison, Wisconsin, yesterday, and we had about 25,000 mostly young people come out.  And it was a terrific reminder of the fact that young people still have so much energy and so much enthusiasm for the future.  But they’re going through a tough time.  Look, this generation that is coming of age is going through the toughest economy of any generation since the 1930s.  That’s pretty remarkable.

Most of us — in fact, I’m just looking around the room — I think it’s fair to say nobody here remembers the economy of the Great Depression.  So the worst economy we had gone through — maybe one — (laughter) — maybe one, maybe a couple.  But you guys look really good for your age, though, so — (laughter.)

But for most of us, the worst we had seen before was the 1981 recession, the 1991 recession, and then the recession of 2001.  This recession had more impact on middle-class families than those other three recessions combined in terms of job loss and how it’s affected people’s incomes.

So that’s going to have an effect on an entire generation.  It means that they’re worried about the future in a way that most of us weren’t worried when we got out of college.

Now, here’s the good news — and I’ve said this to young people.  I think that this generation, your son’s generation, is smarter, more sophisticated, more passionate, has a broader worldview.  I think that they don’t take things for granted; they’re willing to work hard for whatever they can achieve.  I think they think about the community and other people and they don’t just have a narrow focus on what’s in it for me.  When I meet young people these days, I am very impressed with them.  I think they’re — they are terrifically talented.

And so — so their future will be fine.  But in the short term, what I’d say to them is that, first of all, we’re doing everything we can to make sure that they can get the best education possible.

Uhh, the kid already graduated.

One of the things that we did this year that didn’t get a lot of attention was we were able to change the student loan program out of the federal government to save about $60 billion that’s going to go directly to students in the form of higher grants, reduced loan burdens, debt burdens when they get out of college.  It’s going to make a difference to them.  So we’re going to do everything we can to make sure they can succeed educationally.

Number two, obviously we’re doing everything we can to grow the economy so that if they’ve got the skills, they’re going to be able to find a job in this new economy.  And as I said, we’ve seen private sector job growth eight consecutive months now.

Uhh, what did the government actually do to improve private sector job growth? In reality, they are choking private growth with every step they take.

The economy is growing; it’s just not growing as fast as we’d like it — partly because there are still some headwinds.  We had some overhang because of all the problems in the housing market, and the housing market is a big chunk of our economy.  All that excess inventory of houses that were built during the housing bubble, they’re getting absorbed and slowly that will start improving.  So the expectation is, is that although we’re not growing as fast as we can, if we’re making some good choices about providing small businesses tax breaks and helping to shore up the housing market, that over the next couple of years, you’re going to start seeing steadily the economy improving.

And if young people like your son are prepared, if they’re focused and equipped, they’re going to be able to find a good job.

In the meantime, what we’ve also done is made sure, for example, that your son can stay on your health insurance until the age of 26, which — because of health care reform.  And that is going to relieve some of the stress that they’re feeling right now.

And then finally what I’d tell your son is, is that we’re trying to make some tough decisions now so that by the time he has his own son or daughter, that we are back to number one in research and development, back to number one in the proportion of college graduates, back to number one in terms of innovation and entrepreneurship, that we have succeeded in creating a competitive America that will ensure this 21st century is the American Century, just like the 20th century was.

But it’s going to take some time, and so the main message I have to young people — in some ways, this generation may be less fixed on immediate gratification than our generation was, partly because they’ve seen some hardship in their own families and in their own careers.