Congressman Rick Larsen's Online Office

Washington, D.C. — U.S. Representative Rick Larsen (WA-02) released the following statement tonight following President Barack Obama’s address to a Joint Session of Congress: 

“Tonight President Obama spoke truth about the historic challenges we face, presented a bold plan to overcome them and offered the American people a hopeful vision of our future.

“Last week, President Obama signed into law an economic recovery package to create jobs, build a foundation for long-term growth and help our neighbors hurt the most by the recession. 

“We often rely on numbers to tell the story of this recession.  But fluctuations in the stock market or even the latest unemployment numbers do not tell the whole story – that story is told by your neighbor who used to donate to a local food bank but now finds herself there, waiting in line for food, a senior who saved for retirement but has seen his nest-egg disappear, a family who played by the rules but now faces foreclosure.

“These are the Americans President Obama spoke to tonight – Americans who are hurting, but who remain optimistic about our future.

“Tonight, President Obama gave us all reason to hope. He made a commitment to tackle the foreclosure crisis and help families keep their homes, restore financial regulation and bring back accountability, bring down health care costs, move toward energy independence and modernize our education system so kids can learn in 21st century classrooms. President Obama also made a commitment to restore fiscal responsibility and cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term. 

“These are the steps we must take to invest in our future and make President Obama’s hopeful vision a reality. Our country faces historic challenges. Now is the moment we must move forward to overcome them together.”

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