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BARACK OBAMA: FIGHTING FOR THE LATINO
Our country faces its most serious economic crisis since the great depression. We have lost
760,000 jobs this year and some leading forecasters project that the unemployment rate will
exceed 8 percent by the end of 2009. Working families, who saw their incomes decline by
$2,000 in the economic “expansion” from 2000 to 2007 now face even deeper income losses.
Retirement savings accounts have lost $2 trillion. Markets have fallen 40% in less than a year.
Millions of homeowners who played by the rules can’t meet their mortgage payments and face
foreclosure as the value of their homes have plummeted. With credit markets nearly frozen,
businesses large and small cannot access the credit they need to meet payroll and create jobs.
Over the course of this campaign Barack Obama has championed ideas to address these
problems. Today he is announcing a comprehensive four-part rescue plan for the middle class
that builds on his existing proposals and adds new ways to directly address our economy’s
rapidly evolving problems:
1. Immediate Action to Create Good Jobs in America
2. Immediate Relief for Struggling Families
3. Direct, Immediate Assistance for Homeowners, Not A Bailout for Irresponsible
Mortgage Lenders
4. A Rapid, Aggressive Response to Our Financial Crisis, Using All the Tools We Have
All of the ideas in this plan can and should be done immediately. They either use existing
authority or could be quickly passed in emergency legislation. Middle class families have already
waited too long for relief. The time to act is now.
This immediate plan complements Obama’s long-term economic agenda, including his tax cuts
for ordinary Americans and small businesses, his plans to create up to 5 million green jobs, his
plans to bring down healthcare costs by $2,500 per family, and his commitment to enacting
broad new financial market regulations to help ensure we never face this type of economic crisis
again.
