Obama sings spending bill

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<b>Obama Signs Spending Bill to Protect Teachers’ Jobs</b>

11 August 2010

<b>Photo: AP </b>

President Obama signs a $26 billion measure to protect the jobs of over 300,000 teachers and
other nonfederal government workers as lawmakers, officials and three teachers look on

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This is the VOA Special English Education Report.

President Obama signed legislation Tuesday to provide twenty-six billion dollars to the states for
education and healthcare.

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The legislation will help one hundred sixty thousand teachers and one hundred fifty thousand
police and public service workers keep their jobs.

The House of Representatives approved the bill Tuesday. House members had already begun a

six-week holiday when the Senate approved the measure last week.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi took the rare step of calling House lawmakers back to
Washington to vote on the bill and send it to President Obama without delay.

President Obama has stressed the importance of education for all Americans. He said this is
necessary for the country to compete among some of the world’s fastest growing economies.
The president spoke Monday at the University of Texas. He talked about the decrease in college
graduation rates in the United States.

BARACK OBAMA: “In a single generation, we’ve fallen from first place to twelfth place in
college graduation rates for young adults. That is unacceptable, but it is not irreversible. We can
retake the lead.”

President Obama said educational success and economic well-being are linked, especially in a
world economy driven by information and technology. His goal is to increase the percentage of
college graduates from forty percent to sixty percent by the year twenty-twenty.

The president said the federal government has already reformed the student loan system and
increased tax credits for families struggling to pay college education costs.

Democrats in Congress say spending for the new bill will not add to the federal budget deficit.
But some Republican lawmakers criticized the measure. House Republican leader John Boehner
dismissed the emergency jobs measure as more wasteful spending aimed at pleasing the

Democrats’ traditional union allies.

JOHN BOEHNER: “The American people are screaming at the top of their lungs, ‘Stop!’ And
Washington continues to spend, spend, spend.”

Hours before the vote Tuesday, President Obama told reporters at the White House that education
and the safety of communities should not be a political party issue.

BARACK OBAMA: “Those interests are widely shared throughout this country. A challenge that
affects parents, children and citizens in almost every community in America should not be a
Democratic problem or a Republican problem. It is an American problem.”

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