The White House Blog

Today President Obama travelled to Wayne and Paterson, New Jersey to tour areas damaged by Hurricane Irene.  While visiting the Temple Street Bridge in Paterson, the President gave brief remarks reassuring the people of New Jersey and all those affected by Hurricane Irene that the federal, state and local governments would be there to help them rebuild after the devastating storm.  

The main message that I have for all the residents not only of New Jersey but all those communities that have been affected by flooding, by the destruction that occurred as a consequence of Hurricane Irene is that the entire country is behind you and we are going to make sure that we provide all the resources that are necessary in order to help these communities rebuild. 

And I know that there's been some talk about whether there's going to be a slowdown in getting funding out here, emergency relief.  As President of the United States, I want to make it very clear that we are going to meet our federal obligations -- because we're one country, and when one part of the country gets affected, whether it's a tornado in Joplin, Missouri, or a hurricane that affects the Eastern Seaboard, then we come together as one country and we make sure that everybody gets the help that they need.  And the last thing that the residents here of Paterson or the residents of Vermont or the residents of upstate New York need is Washington politics getting in the way of us making sure that we are doing what we can to help communities that have been badly affected.

So, again, I want to thank federal, state, local officials who have been working around the clock to respond to this crisis. We know it could have been worse but we should not underestimate the heartache that's going through a lot of these communities and affecting a lot of these families.  And we want to make sure that we're there to help, and I'm going to make sure that even after the cameras are gone and attention is somewhere else that FEMA and federal officials continue to work with our local officials to make sure we're doing the right thing.

President Barack Obama talks with residents in a neighborhood hit with flooding from Hurricane Irene in Wayne, N.J., Sept. 4, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

President Barack Obama and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie look at the swollen Passaic River from the Main Street Bridge in Paterson, N.J., Sept. 4,, 2011.(Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

This week, the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness held Listening and Action Sessions in Portland, Oregon and Dallas, TX. The events are part of a series of regional Council Listening and Action Sessions that are taking place around the country as a result of the President’s challenge that the Council bring new voices to the table and ensure that everyone can participate and inform the Council’s work and recommendations. The ideas and information exchanged at these events will help inform the future policy work of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, which meets with President Obama each quarter to recommend critical steps that both the private and public sectors can take to create jobs and help strengthen the economy.

Jobs Council member Paul Otellini, CEO of Intel, joined with business leaders and the Deans of Engineering schools in Portland, Oregon to discuss America’s need for engineers as part of a regional Listening and Action session.

Update: The signatures threshold for petitions on the We the People platform to receive an official response from the White House has changed since this blog post was published.  See the latest signature thresholds.

Yesterday, we announced that we’ll be rolling out a cool new tool on WhiteHouse.gov that will change the way you engage with the Obama Administration.  It’s called We the People and it’s a platform for all Americans to create and sign petitions asking the Obama Administration to take action on a range of issues.

Since we announced that this new tool is coming soon to WhiteHouse.gov, we’ve gotten a lot of great questions and feedback, so we thought we’d take a stab at answering a few of the common questions we’ve gotten so far. In case you missed it, Macon Phillips, Director of Digital Strategy here at the White House, was fielding questions on Twitter yesterday and you can check out some of the questions and answers on Storify.

And don’t forget to sign up to be the first to know when We the People is live.

How will the White House decide which petitions to respond to?
The initial threshold for a petition to be reviewed by the White House and get a response is 5,000 signatures in 30 days.

Who will be reviewing and responding to petitions?
Petitions that meet the signature threshold will be reviewed by a standing group of White House staff, routed to any other appropriate offices and generate an official, on-the-record response. Most of the time, a response will come from a policy official at the White House or at a federal agency. From time to time, President Obama may also respond to petitions as well. 

It’s our goal to respond to petitions that cross the signature threshold (initially 5,000 signatures) in as timely a manner as possible, but in some cases it may take a few weeks for us to respond.

Our colleagues at the Department of the Interior were so inspired by the videos they’ve seen in support of the It Gets Better campaign, that they produced our own. The video features Secretary Salazar and includes employees from across the Department, including the National Park Service, the U.S. Geological Survey and others, sharing their experiences growing up as LGBT youth and coping with bullying, and emphasizing the ways life has dramatically improved over time. DOI is helping to remind teenagers who face bullying that they are not alone — and it WILL get better.
 
Please watch the video here and share it with your family and friends.

Today’s employment report shows that private sector payrolls increased by 17,000 and overall payroll employment was flat in August. The unemployment rate remained unchanged at 9.1 percent, a level that remains unacceptably high. Despite a slowdown in economic growth from substantial headwinds experienced throughout the year, the economy has added private sector jobs for 18 straight months, for a total of 2.4 million jobs over that period.

Clearly, faster growth is needed to replace the jobs lost in the downturn. Today’s report underscores the President’s call for Congress to pass a clean extension of the transportation bill to keep workers on the job and keep critical highway construction, bridge repair, mass transit and other important projects moving forward. Next week, the President will lay out a series of additional bipartisan steps that Congress can take immediately to put more money in the paychecks of working and middle class families; to make it easier for small businesses to hire workers; to put construction crews to work rebuilding our nation’s infrastructure; and other measures that will help the economy grow while still reducing our deficit and getting our fiscal house in order.

Sectors with employment increases in August included health care and social assistance (+35,500) and professional and business services (+28,000). Sectors with employment declines included information (-48,000, which includes striking Verizon workers), construction (-5,000), and manufacturing (-3,000). Local government lost 20,000 jobs and has shed 398,000 jobs since February 2010. State government added 5,000 jobs as an estimated 22,000 furloughed Minnesota state workers returned to work. 

On Wednesday, President Obama and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood joined business and labor leaders to call on Congress to pass a clean extension of key transportation programs to protect critical jobs and bolster our roads, bridges, runways and railways.

State and local leaders around the country are echoing the President’s call and urging Congress to quickly pass a surface transportation bill to make sure our nation continues to invest in infrastructure and keep nearly a million construction and other workers on the job.

128 bi-partisan mayors from 36 states signed a letter to Congressional leaders asking for a timely extension of the nation’s transportation laws:

For generations both parties have recognized the need to construct and improve a national transportation network, and we built a world-class system that has moved goods and people efficiently for decades. Today, there is growing anxiety that for the first time in decades Congress could fail to continue to fund our national transportation system…We cannot afford to undermine our competitiveness over the long-term, while immediately eliminating hundreds of thousands of private sector jobs during this challenging economic time…We strongly urge Congress to send a clean extension of our nation’s surface transportation program to the President for his immediate signature.

In addition, many other state and local leaders spoke out about the urgency of transportation reauthorization.

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick:

Under our Administration, we have made historic investments in our public infrastructure to create jobs and leave this Commonwealth better for the next generation. I join the President in calling upon Congress to move forward with this reauthorization so that we can keep Massachusetts workers on the job, and continue to support our infrastructure needs.

 Los Angeles, California Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa:

It’s time for Congress to move with purpose on the one issue most Americans will be pondering this Labor Day:  how to keep or find a good job.The very first step Congress must take when it reconvenes this Tuesday is to pass the Surface Transportation Bill. With nearly 2 million jobs on the line, and an historic unemployment across the country, there is no more important issue facing Congress. This is job one...American workers are concerned with a paycheck, not partisanship. Congress must put politics aside and the people first. Let's get the job done and keep these nearly 2 million Americans on the job.