President Obama discusses the economy at a rally in Woodbridge

Obama spoke to a crowd gathered in Woodbridge, VA on Friday September 21 (Photo courtesy of Dakota Cunningham).

On September 21, President Barack Obama held a rally in G. Richard Pfitzner Stadium, in Woodbridge, Virginia and spoke about the economy.

“In the coming weeks, you have a very big choice to make,” said Obama. “A choice between two fundamentally different visions of America.”

This is Obama’s 13th visit to Virginia this year. Since the beginning of his presidency, he has visited Virginia 42 times.

“We’ll win Prince William County, we’ll win Virginia,” Obama told the crowd of 12,000.

To help open the rally, George Mason University student Christine Gonzalez led the audience in singing the national anthem.

(Photo courtesy of Dakota Cunningham)

Local Obama for America volunteer Jill Borak addressed the crowd concerning the state of the country four years ago compared to today. Borak claimed she decided to start campaigning for Obama because she believed he would help turn the economy around and improve health insurance.

“I knew Barack Obama was the person who would fight for me, so I decided I would fight for him,” Borak said.

Senator and former Virginia governor Mark Warner introduced the president. Warner spoke of his experience as a businessman and evaluated presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s plan for America. According to Warner, Romney’s plan would not be successful because he would not invest in education, infrastructure and research and development.

(Photo courtesy of Dakota Cunningham)

“Four years ago, it was the Commonwealth of Virginia that elected Barack Obama. Are you ready to do it again?” Warner asked the audience. “In 2008, we changed the guard. In 2012, we guard the change.”

President Obama then arrived on stage to audience chants of “four more years!”

In his speech, Obama laid out his five point plan for the next four years.

Obama’s first point is to “export more products and outsource fewer jobs.” Obama referenced the revival of the auto industry and the creation of half a million manufacturing jobs under his presidency.

“I want to help big factories and small businesses,” Obama said.

The president then expressed his desire for America to control more of its energy sources. Obama plans to raise fuel standards to lower the amount of gas cars use, double the amount of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power and to cut oil imports in half by 2020.

The third point concerns educating workers. Obama hopes to “give more Americans the chance to learn the skills they need to succeed.” He plans to recruit 100,000 math and science teachers and stop the college tuition hikes.

“No family should have to set aside a college acceptance letter because they didn’t have the money,” Obama said.

Obama’s fourth point was to reduce the country’s deficit by simplifying and revising the tax code, returning the tax rate for the wealthy back to that in place during Bill Clinton’s presidency and keeping taxes low for the middle class.

“I will refuse to ask middle class families to give up their deductions for owning homes and having children just to pay for more tax cuts for the wealthy,” Obama said. “I refuse to ask students to pay more for college.”

Obama then discussed his fifth and final point, foreign policy.
“I promised to end the war in Iraq and I did,” Obama said. “I promised to wind down in Afghanistan and we are.”

The president stressed the need to maintain a strong military to protect America from the threats it still faces around the world. He also promised to aid the troops when they return home and to use the money America would otherwise spend on war efforts to reduce the debt and create jobs.

“After a decade of war it’s time to do some nation building here at home,” Obama said.

Obama also addressed comments that Republican nominee Mitt Romney made at a fundraiser earlier in the year that have recently drawn attention.

“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what,” Romney said in the video in May. “All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it.”

The speech was supposed to be closed to cameras but the video was leaked to the press.

“I don’t know how many people are going to vote for me this time around,” Obama told the crowd in response to the video, “but I’m telling the American people that I will fight for you no matter what. I will be your president no matter what.”

We don’t think government should solve all our problems, but we don’t think that government is the source of all our problems either.

In a Florida town hall on September 21st, Obama said that the most important lesson he learned during his first term in office is that “you can’t change Washington from the inside.” Romney told a rally later that day that Obama’s remarks were an admittance of his failures.

“I can change Washington. I will change Washington. I will get the job done from the inside,” Romney told the audience.

At the Woodbridge rally, Obama took a moment to address Romney’s comments.

“‘I’ll get the job done from the inside.’ What kind of inside job is he talking about?” Obama asked the crowd. “We don’t want an inside job in Washington. We want change in Washington. It can’t happen if you write off half the population before you take office.”

(Photo courtesy of Dakota Cunningham)
The election will be held on November 6th.