HE PRESIDENT: Hello, everybody. Is that brighter than usual? (Laughter.) Yes, that's serious.
Well, listen, this is a wonderful opportunity for me to meet with my
full Cabinet for the first time since the election took place. The
primary purpose from my perspective is to say thank you, because
everybody here, in their respective agencies, has done a remarkable job
on behalf of the American people, across the board on a wide range of
issues. They’ve always prioritized how do we make sure that we have a
strong middle class, how do we grow our economy, how do we put people
back to work, and how do we keep the American people safe and continue
to extend our influence and our ideals around the world. And I could
not have a better collection of people, many of whom have stayed here
throughout my first term. And I think we’ve had as little turnover as
any President during the course of a first term, and the reason is
because everybody has done such a remarkable job.
So my main purpose is to say thank you to them, but also to remind
them that we’ve got a lot of work to do. There are going to be a few
specific issues that we spend a lot of time on. One in particular that I
should note is that the devastating impact of Hurricane Sandy is still
being felt by families all across New York and New Jersey, parts of
Connecticut. We are very pleased that under the leadership initially of
Janet Napolitano and FEMA, but now Shaun Donovan, who’s heading up a
task force, we’re focusing not only on recovery, but now on rebuilding
and making sure those communities come back stronger than ever and
people get the help that they need. So that will be an important topic
because it’s really going to be an interagency concern.
The second thing that we’ll be talking about, obviously, is what’s on
the minds of a lot of American families across the country, and that is
making sure that we’ve got this fiscal cliff dealt with and that
middle-class taxes don’t go up. I already spoke extensively about that
today. I’ll just repeat: There is no reason why taxes on middle-class
families should go up. It would be bad for the economy. It would be
bad for those families. In fact, it would be bad for the world economy.
And so I think it’s very important that we get that resolved, and I am
very open to a fair and balanced approach to reduce our deficit and
provide the kind of certainty that businesses and consumers need so that
we can keep this recovery going.
And obviously, we’ll be spending some time talking about national security issues as well.
But I just want to say thank you to this extraordinary Cabinet for a
job well done. And I will take this opportunity to publicly embarrass
two members of the Cabinet whose birthdays are either today or tomorrow:
Ric Shinseki, who is the Department of Veterans Affairs. Happy
birthday to you. And that is actually today. (Applause.) And Janet
Napolitano’s birthday is tomorrow. (Applause.)
All right, guys. Thank you. We want to get back to work.
Q Mr. President, do you think the Hill is being fair to Susan Rice in its meetings?
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you so much guys.
Q Any thoughts on that at all?
THE PRESIDENT: Susan Rice is extraordinary. I couldn’t be prouder of the job that she’s done as the USPR. (Applause.)
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