Scott Ott's Examiner Scrappleface: Obama says jobs summit won't hike deficit
By: Scott Ott
Examiner Columnist
November 13, 2009
News fairly unbalanced. We report. You decipher.
As he left for a weeklong trip to Asia, President Obama announced he would hold a U.S. "jobs summit" in December, and promised that the convention of experts in government, business and academia would figure out how to get tens of millions of Americans employed and "won't add a dime to the deficit."
Obama said funding for the summit would come from millions of dollars worth of savings squeezed from existing government employment programs.
"The very act of holding a jobs summit," Obama said, "will create or save some 37,000 jobs at the Departments of Commerce, Housing and Urban Development, and in the private sector airline, hotel, dry cleaning and restaurant industries."
Although details of the summit agenda remain sketchy, the president said he plans to invite thousands of government officials from around the nation, and to pay for their travel, meals and accommodations through fees on similar services used by conference participants from the private sector.
Those who travel to the jobs summit by bicycle, dirigible, or on foot, will also receive cash-equivalent "credits" from those who choose airline, automobile or train transportation.
Attendance by invited guests is optional, the president added.
"No one's going to force you to come to this summit," he said. "If you like your current location, you can stay there." However, invitees who decline will pay a $750 fine, and face a potential jail term of up to five years.
"We need to ensure fairness," said the president. "It's not right that some people should have to incur all of the expense of coming to the jobs summit, while others hoard their money."
Obama, on his way to China, sought to assure the American public that he was confident he could reduce double-digit unemployment to Bush administration levels.
"Don't worry. We've faced challenges before," Obama said. "If a man with no executive or military experience can get hired for the most important executive job in the world, commanding the world's most powerful military, then certainly we can figure out how to get ordinary folks back in the fields, the mines, the factories ... or whatever it is that they do out there."
Examiner Columnist Scott Ott is editor in chief of ScrappleFace.com, the world's leading family-friendly news satire source.
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