Kaitlyn Coogan
Equinox Staff
Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz arrived on campus Tuesday, Oct. 11 for a Town Hall Meeting organized by Keene State College’s American Democracy Project Participating Candidates Program to promote President Barack Obama’s reelection.
“She was very clear and focused, to the point. And brief, she told her message in few words I thought,” Linda Cates said.
Wasserman Schultz currently represents Florida’s 20th Congressional District as a member of the House of Representatives, works as a member of the Democratic House Leadership, runs as the vice chair of the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, as well as serves as a chief deputy whip. She worked to pass the PROTECT Our Children Act, which created a law enforcement effort, the largest yet, for the protection of children. However, before any of that she was a representative and a senator in the Florida State Legislature. She is working her way across the country as President Obama’s vice chair of the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, encouraging citizens to reelect Obama and support his Jobs Act.
“I thought she was an excellent speaker. I liked her focus. I think she has a great deal of clarity in her thinking,” Dotty Pittner said.
Wasserman Schultz’s short presentation, only 15 minutes, got right to her objective: to promote President Obama’s American Jobs Act and to encourage his reelection. She talked about the importance of the Jobs Act.
“If you think back to two-and-a-half years ago, almost three years ago now, just before he was inaugurated, the economy was bleeding 750,000 jobs a month at the end of George W. Bush’s term. I mean we were dropping like a rock. We were in the most dire economic crisis we’ve been in since the Great Depression and this president inherited more problems at once than probably any president since F.D.R. or perhaps Abraham Lincoln. So he took up right away to tackling those challenges and focusing on creating jobs and focusing on getting the economy turned around. We passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which saved or created about three million jobs by the beginning of January 2011 and it continues to help, but we need the American Jobs Act,” she said.
The Jobs Act will continue to put people back to work, keep teachers and first responders from being laid off, put construction workers back to work, as well as make an immediate investment in roads, rails, and airports. There are other ideas that go into the Jobs Act, but these are the major ones that were pushed during her speech. She also emphasized the tax breaks for the middle-class citizens, which is included in the Jobs Act proposal. “She was clear, accurate, and precise when she touted the American Jobs Act, but since time was short, her comments lacked depth,” Journalism Professor Marc Ryan said.
“I saw her two weeks ago. She had much of the same message; I liked the message then, I like it now. I liked to see her talk more about the students, but I know her questions were limited and her time was limited,” the President of the KSC Democrats Club, Jordan Posner, said.
She acknowledged the fact that the economy has a long way to go; however, there has been 19 straight months of private sector job growth, creating more than 2.5 million jobs in the private sector, and at least 19 months of growth in the manufacturing sector. She emphasized how the president is focused on having things made in America again, as well as focused on changing the tax policy to encourage corporations in America to keep jobs in America.
“So we need you. We need you to help lend your voice. You in this room can be helpful. And the way you can be helpful is by pressuring Charlie Bass and Frank Guinta who are two Republican House members, your Republican House members that represent this state in Congress, neither of whom said they would support the American Jobs Act. They need to feel the pressure from folks in N.H.,” she said.
Kaitlyn Coogan can be contacted at kcoogan@ksc.mailcruiser.com.