Continue the White House transcript of the remarks by the President at a Facebook Town Hall!
MR. ZUCKERBERG: All right. So the next one is from a Facebook employee, Leo Abraham. Leo, where are you from?
THE PRESIDENT: Hey, Leo.
Q Hi, hey. I’m from -- originally from San Jose, California. My question is: The 2012 budget plan proposed by Paul Ryan has been praised by many in the media as bold or brave. Do you see this as a time that calls for boldness, and do you think that the plan you outlined last week demonstrated sufficient boldness, or is this just a media creation?
THE PRESIDENT: No, it’s a great question. Look, here is what I’d say. The Republican budget that was put forward I would say is fairly radical. I wouldn’t call it particularly courageous. I do think Mr. Ryan is sincere. I think he’s a patriot. I think he wants to solve a real problem, which is our long-term deficit. But I think that what he and the other Republicans in the House of Representatives also want to do is change our social compact in a pretty fundamental way.
Their basic view is that no matter how successful I am, no matter how much I’ve taken from this country -- I wasn’t born wealthy; I was raised by a single mom and my grandparents. I went to college on scholarships. There was a time when my mom was trying to get her PhD, where for a short time she had to take food stamps. My grandparents relied on Medicare and Social Security to help supplement their income when they got old.
So their notion is, despite the fact that I’ve benefited from all these investments -- my grandfather benefited from the GI Bill after he fought in World War II -- that somehow I now have no obligation to people who are less fortunate than me and I have no real obligation to future generations to make investments so that they have a better.
So what his budget proposal does is not only hold income tax flat, he actually wants to further reduce taxes for the wealthy, further reduce taxes for corporations, not pay for those, and in order to make his numbers work, cut 70 percent out of our clean energy budget, cut 25 percent out of our education budget, cut transportation budgets by a third. I guess you could call that bold. I would call it shortsighted. (Applause.)
And then, as I said, there’s a fundamental difference between how the Republicans and I think about Medicare and Medicaid and our health care system. Their basic theory is that if we just turn Medicare into a voucher program and turn Medicaid into block grant programs, then now you, a Medicare recipient, will go out and you’ll shop for the best insurance that you’ve got -- that you can find -- and that you’re going to control costs because you’re going to say to the insurance company, this is all I can afford.
That will control costs, except if you get sick and the policy that you bought doesn’t cover what you’ve got. Then either you’re going to mortgage your house or you’re going to go to the emergency room, in which case I, who do have insurance, are going to have to pay for it indirectly because the hospital is going to have uncompensated care.
So they don’t really want to make the health care system more efficient and cheaper. What they want to do is to push the costs of health care inflation on to you. And then you’ll be on your own trying to figure out in the marketplace how to make health care cheaper.
The problem is, you’re just one person. Now, you work at Facebook, it’s a big enough company; Facebook can probably negotiate with insurance companies and providers to get you a pretty good deal. But if you’re a startup company, if you’re an entrepreneur out there in the back of your garage, good luck trying to get insurance on your own. You can’t do it. If you’re somebody who’s older and has a preexisting condition, insurance companies won’t take you.
So what we’ve said is let’s make sure instead of just pushing the costs off on to people who individually are not going to have any negotiating power or ability to change how providers operate, or how hospitals or doctors operate, how insurance companies operate, let’s make sure that we have a system both for Medicare but also for people who currently don’t have health insurance where they can be part of a big pool. They can negotiate for changes in how the health care system works so that it’s more efficient; so that it’s more effective; so that you get better care, so that we have fewer infection rates, for example, in hospitals; so there are fewer readmission rates; so that we’re caring for the chronically ill more effectively; so that there are fewer unnecessary tests. That’s how you save money. The government will save money, but you’ll also save money.
So we think that’s a better way of doing it. Now, what they’ll say is, well, you know what, that will never work because it’s government imposed and it’s bureaucracy and it’s government takeover and there are death panels. I still don’t entirely understand the whole “death panel” concept. But I guess what they’re saying is somehow some remote bureaucrat will be deciding your health care for you. All we’re saying is if we’ve got health care experts -- doctors and nurses and consumers -- who are helping to design how Medicare works more intelligently, then we don't have to radically change Medicare.
So, yes, I think it’s fair to say that their vision is radical. No, I don't think it’s particularly courageous. Because the last point I’ll make is this. Nothing is easier than solving a problem on the backs of people who are poor or people who are powerless or don't have lobbyists or don't have clout. I don't think that's particularly courageous. (Applause.)
MR. ZUCKERBERG: All right, the next one is from the web. We’ve got a question from Kwami Simmons (ph) from Orlando, Florida. And he asks: “I strongly believe that education is the greatest equalizer. With so many problems plaguing our current system, is it possible to examine a complete overhaul of the system so that it addresses the needs of modern students?”
And before you jump in, I just want to say as someone who has spent a bunch of time researching education and who cares about this, I think the Race to the Top stuff that you guys have done is one of the most under-appreciated and most important things that your administration has done. (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: I appreciate that. This is an area where actually I think you’ve seen the parties actually come together. And there’s some good bipartisan work being done.
It used to be that the argument around education always revolved around the left saying we just need more money, and the right saying we should just blow up the system because public schools aren’t doing a good job. And what you’re now seeing is people recognizing we need both money and reform. It’s not an either-or proposition; it’s a both-and proposition.
So what Mark just mentioned, something called Race to the Top, pretty simple concept. Most federal dollars are allocated through a formula. If you’ve got a certain number of poor kids or you’ve got a certain number of disabled kids in your school district, there’s a formula, and you get a certain amount of money. And every state and every school district gets that money according to the formula.
What we did was we took about 1 percent of the total spending on education and we said, to get this 1 percent, show us that you’re reforming the system. It’s almost -- it’s like a competition model. And so every state, every school district could apply. And you had to show us that you had a good plan to retrain teachers and recruit and do good professional development so we’ve got the best teacher possible.
You had to have accountability. You had to show us that you were actually making progress in the schools, and that you were measuring through data the improvements that were being made; that you were reaching into the schools that were hardest to reach -- because there are about 2,000 schools around the country that account for the majority of dropouts in our country. They're like dropout factories -- so show us a plan to go into those schools and really make a big difference.
And what’s happened is that over 40 states, in the process of competing for this extra money, ended up initiating probably the most meaningful reforms that we’ve seen in a generation. And so it’s made a huge difference. Even those states that didn't end up actually winning the competition still made changes that are improving the potential for good outcomes in the schools.
So that's the kind of creative approach that you’ve seen some Democrats and some Republicans embrace. And our hope is we can build on that.
A couple of things that we know work: The most important thing to a good education is making sure we’ve got a good teacher in front of that classroom. And so providing more support for teachers, recruiting the best and brightest into teaching, making sure that they're compensated, but also making sure that they're performing, that's hugely important.
The other thing is good data so that there’s a constant feedback, not just a bunch of standardized tests that go into a drawer or that people may game in order not to get penalized. That's what happened under No Child Left Behind. But instead, real good data that you can present to the teacher while they're still teaching that child and say, you know what, this child is falling behind in math; here are some ways to do it, to improve their performance.
So we’re starting to see real progress on the ground, and I’m optimistic that we can actually, before the 2012 election, potentially have a federal education law that will embody some of the best information that we have about how to initiate good school reform.
Now, last point I’ll make on this: Government alone can’t do it. One of the things every time I come to Silicon Valley that I’m inspired by but I’m also frustrated by is how many smart people are here, but also frustrated that I always hear stories about how we can’t find enough engineers, we can’t find enough computer programmers. You know what, that means our education system is not working the way it should, and that's got to start early.
And that's why we’re emphasizing math and science. That's why we’re emphasizing teaching girls math and science. (Applause.)
That's why we’re emphasizing making sure that black and Hispanic kids are getting math and science. (Applause.)
We’ve got to do such a better job when it comes to STEM education. AAnd that’s one of the reasons, by the way, that we had our first science fair at the White House in a very long time, just because we want to start making science cool. (Applause.) I want people to feel the same way about the next big energy breakthrough or the next big Internet breakthrough, I want people to feel the same way they felt about the moon launch -- that that’s how we’re going to stay competitive for the future. And that’s why these investments in education are so important.
But, as I said, government alone can’t do it. There has got to be a shift in American culture, where once again we buckle down and we say this stuff is important and it’s -- that’s why, Mark, the work you’re doing in Newark, for example, the work that the Gates Foundation are doing in philanthropic investments, in best practices and education -- especially around math and science training -- are going to be so important.
We’ve got to lift -- we’ve got to lift our game up when it comes to technology and math and science.
That’s, hopefully, one of the most important legacies that I can have as President of the United States. (Applause.)
MR. ZUCKERBERG: All right. So the next one is from another Facebook employee. Here’s James Mitchell. So, James Mitchell, where are you from?
THE PRESIDENT: Here’s James back here.
Q Hi, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Hey, James.
Q I'm James Mitchell, born in Chicago and raised out here in Cupertino, California.
No comments:
Post a Comment