Wrapping up a 24-hour Los Angeles visit, President Barack Obama today rallied about 2,000 supporters at Los Angeles Trade-
Technical College, telling them jobs are being created in America and hailing efforts being made to train people to fill those positions.
“Right now, there are more job openings in America than any time since 2007,” Obama told the crowd. “That doesn’t always make headlines, it’s not sexy so the news doesn’t report it, but it’s a big deal. And the job-training programs can help folks who fell on hard times in the recession, help them find a solid path back to the middle class.”
He touted a job-training bill he signed into law earlier this week and programs aimed at providing grants to community colleges to help develop apprenticeships with businesses.
“We’re helping cities identify fields with job openings, and custom-tailor programs to help workers earn the skills employers are looking for right now, whether it’s welding metal or coding computers,” he said.
But Obama also took on a political tone, pushing for a minimum-wage increase and saying that while many businesses are creating jobs, many more are “fleeing the country to get out of paying taxes.”
“They’re not actually going anywhere,” he said. “They’re keeping most of their business here. They’re keeping usually their headquarters here in the U.S. They don’t want to give up the best universities and the best military and all the advantages of operating in the United States. They just don’t want to pay for it.
“So they’re technically renouncing their U.S. citizenship,” he said.
“They’re declaring they’re based someplace else even though most of their operations are here. Some people are calling these companies ‘corporate deserters.’ And it’s only a few big corporations so far. The vast majority of American businesses play by the rules. But these companies are cherry-picking the rules. And it damages the country’s finances.”
Obama was interrupted at the beginning of his speech by a protester shouting religious slogans, but he was quickly drowned out by the cheering crowd.
This morning, Obama traveled to Brentwood for a $32,400-per-person fundraiser at the home of Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino. He left the fundraiser shortly before 11 a.m., then made an unannounced stop at Canter’s Deli in the Fairfax area, where he had lunch with four pre-selected diners.
“Hi guys, how are you?” Obama asked diners as he walked into the famed diner on Fairfax Avenue. Cooks snapped photos of him with their cell phones, and some fist-bumped him as he walked in.
One diner asked the president about his basketball game, to which Obama responded, “My shot’s broke.”
“It’s my elbow. It’s my age,” he said. “I get the chicken wing.”
Obama sat down at a booth with four people who, according to the White House, “took the time to write him letters.” The lunch was part of his effort to “meet with folks from across the country to listen to their stories, struggles and successes, as well as the issues in their lives that matter most.”
Obama had lunch with teacher Katrice Mubiru, who will also introduce him at Trade-Technical College; Army veteran Aaron Anderson, who was wounded in Afghanistan; Joan Waddell, a 60-year-old mother of three trying to become a certified nursing assistant; and Kati Koster, who graduated with a master’s degree from Pepperdine University and is struggling to pay student loans, rent and monthly bills.
The president left the deli at about noon and was greeted by a cheering crowd outside.
After his speech at Trade-Technical College, Obama traveled to Los Angeles International Airport and climbed aboard Air Force One, which departed en route for Washington, D.C., around 3 p.m.
On Wednesday, Obama used a DNC fundraiser at the Hancock Park home of television producer Shonda Rhimes to again seek to motivate his fellow Democrats for the midterm elections.
“One of the problems with Democrats is we’re real good on presidential elections,” Obama told a crowd of approximately 450. “We get real excited. But during midterm elections, people don’t even know there’s an election.
“We don’t vote at the same rates. And so the midterms come around and lo and behold, we’re surprised when John Boehner is the speaker of the House. How did that happen? What happened was you all didn’t work.”
Obama made similar comments at a May fundraiser at the Bel Air mansion of Disney Studios Chairman Alan Horn and his wife, Cindy.
The president used his 30-minute speech Wednesday to recount what he described as his accomplishments in office — including lower unemployment and budget deficits, increasing rates of high school and college graduation, and gays and lesbians openly serving in the armed forces — and to criticize congressional Republicans, who he said “obstruct … obfuscate and … bamboozle.”
The actions by Republicans make “people grow cynical and people grow discouraged,” Obama said. “We can’t afford to be cynical. We’ve got so much to do.”
Obama then listed goals for the remainder of his presidency, including raising the minimum wage, increasing funding for early childhood education, strengthening laws requiring equal pay for equal work, making college more affordable and improving the nation’s infrastructure.
Tickets for the fundraiser began at $1,000, according to an invitation posted on the website, PoliticalPartyTime.org, which tracks political fundraisers.
The price was $10,000 to attend the reception and for the opportunity to have a photo taken with Obama, and $32,400 — the maximum allowable contribution to a national party committee in a calendar year — to be a co-host of the event, which also allows the donor to attend a dinner with Obama in addition to the reception and the photo opportunity.
A specific breakdown of the ticket sales was not provided.
Rhimes told City News Service before the event that “the overwhelming majority” of tickets sold were priced at $1,000 “because most of the people I know cannot afford” a $32,400 ticket.
The event’s co-chairs included Kerry Washington, the star of the Rhimes- created ABC drama “Scandal,” who attended the fundraiser, as did singer Janelle Monae and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, the chair of the DNC.
Obama started the day Wednesday in San Francisco, where he attended a morning fundraiser benefiting the House Majority Political Action Committee. He also spoke and answered questions at an early afternoon Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee fundraiser in Los Altos Hills.
The trip was Obama’s 19th to Los Angeles or Orange counties since taking office in 2009 and the third in three months. All but three of his trips have included political fundraisers.
