President Barack Obama discussed education initiatives that will help college students, answered questions about veterans’ benefits and his religious faith, and attacked Republicans for supporting tax cuts that benefit the top 2 percent of Americans during a “backyard chat” in Bernalillo County Tuesday.
“(Republicans’) No. 1 economic priority is retaining $700 billion tax breaks to the wealthiest 2 percent of the country — millionaires and billionaires mostly,” Obama said. “We’ve got these deficits and debt. So we’d have to borrow the $700 billion from China or the Saudis or whoever is buying our debt.”
Speaking to a crowd of 40 local residents at the farm of Andy and Etta Cavalier in the South Valley, Obama highlighted three programs that his administration created to assist schools and students in overcoming their achievement problems.
Obama praised New Mexico’s Lottery Scholarship program, but he said many college students still rely on Pell Grants to pay for school.
“Tens of billions of dollars were going to banks and financial intermediaries who were essentially acting as middlemen for the student loan program, even though it was federally guaranteed,” he said. “So they weren’t taking any risks, but it was passing through them, and they would take — they would skim off tens of billions of dollars of profit.”
His solution: a loan program that distributes money directly from the government to students, which he said has saved $60 billion.
“More young people across the country are able to get the student loans and the Pell Grants that they need. And starting in 2014, we’re actually going to be able to say to young people that you will never have to pay more than 10 percent of your income in repaying your student loan,” he said.
Students who graduate with degrees that lead them into public service careers will be excused of loan debt after 10 years, Obama said in a conference call with student journalists Monday. He also discussed a program called Race to the Top that provides additional funds, about $4 billion, for schools that show exemplary performance.
“We’ve ended up seeing 32 states change their laws to reform the system so that the whole education structure works better for our kids and makes it more accountable,” he said.
The education conversation was well-received by Etta Cavalier, who has been a New Mexico educator for 36 years.
When the White House called her Thursday to inform her that the president was going to stop by her home, she was ecstatic. Her enthusiasm grew when her family had a private conversation with Obama before the event in their kitchen.
“We talked about education,” she said.
Yet questions during the open session focused on financial concerns.
Fredo Chavez and his pregnant partner, Tanya Fitjerrell, own a restaurant in the South Valley. The couple expressed concerns about receiving federal loans from the Small Business Association. But the response Obama gave — tax breaks and lending programs to help small businesses invest in themselves — left the pair satisfied.
“It was awesome to see he knows the importance of small business,” Chavez said.
Another Albuquerque resident asked the president what he would do to prevent homelessness among veterans, and another thanked Obama for supporting a mortgage modification program that helped save the man’s house from foreclosure.
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In a response that received the most attention, one woman asked Obama, “Why are you a Christian?”
According to a Pew Research Center poll released last month, 18 percent of Americans believe Obama is a Muslim. Only 34 percent of those surveyed said Obama is a Christian, and 43 percent said they did not know what Obama’s religion was.
“I’m a Christian by choice. My family didn’t — frankly, they weren’t folks who went to church every week. And my mother was one of the most spiritual people I knew, but she didn’t raise me in the church,” Obama said. “So I came to my Christian faith later in life, and it was because the precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would want to lead — being my brothers’ and sisters’ keeper, treating others as they would treat me.”
While the gathering was not billed as a political event, Gov. Bill Richardson, Congressman Martin Heinrich (D-NM) and Lt. Governor and gubernatorial candidate Diane Denish were on hand. The town hall was the first event in the president’s day that ended with a rally in Madison, Wis.
“His message about creating jobs and what he said politically — it also helps democratic candidates,” Richardson said.
