Thank you very much. (Applause.) Please have a seat. Well, good afternoon, and thank you to Dean Singleton and the board of the Associated Press...

But there are also big, fundamental issues at stake right now -- issues that deserve serious debate among every candidate, and serious coverage among...

This is not just another run-of-the-mill political debate. I’ve said it’s the defining issue of our time, and I believe it. It’s why I ran in...

As President, I’ve eliminated dozens of programs that weren’t working, and announced over 500 regulatory reforms that will save businesses and taxpayers...

That belief is the reason this country has been able to build a strong military to keep us safe, and public schools to educate our children. That belief...

For generations, nearly all of these investments -- from transportation to education to retirement programs -- have been supported by people in both...

Show me a business leader who wouldn’t profit if more Americans could afford to get the skills and education that today’s jobs require. Ask any...

In this country, broad-based prosperity has never trickled down from the success of a wealthy few. It has always come from the success of a strong...

Now, the problem for advocates of this theory is that we’ve tried their approach -- on a massive scale. The results of their experiment are there...

It was a period when insurance companies and mortgage lenders and financial institutions didn’t have to abide by strong enough regulations, or they...

But that’s exactly the opposite of what they’ve done. Instead of moderating their views even slightly, the Republicans running Congress right now...

So here’s what this "marvelous" budget does. Back in the summer, I came to an agreement with Republicans in Congress to cut roughly $1 trillion in...

The year after next, nearly 10 million college students would see their financial aid cut by an average of more than $1,000 each. There would be 1,600...

Cuts to the FAA would likely result in more flight cancellations, delays, and the complete elimination of air traffic control services in parts of the...

Perhaps they will never tell us where the knife will fall -- but you can be sure that with cuts this deep, there is no secret plan or formula that will...

If this budget became law, by the middle of the century, funding for the kinds of things I just mentioned would have to be cut by about 95 percent....

And this is to say nothing about what the budget does to health care. We’re told that Medicaid would simply be handed over to the states -- that's...

Then there’s Medicare. Because health care costs keep rising and the Baby Boom generation is retiring, Medicare, we all know, is one of the biggest...

So most experts will tell you the way this voucher plan encourages savings is not through better care at cheaper cost. The way these private insurance...

Now, the proponents of this budget will tell us we have to make all these draconian cuts because our deficit is so large; this is an existential crisis,...

Meanwhile, these proposed tax breaks would come on top of more than a trillion dollars in tax giveaways for people making more than $250,000 a year....

This is supposed to be about paying down our deficit? It’s laughable.

This congressional Republican budget is something different altogether. It is a Trojan Horse. Disguised as deficit reduction plans, it is really an...

So in the months ahead, I will be fighting as hard as I know how for this truer vision of what the United States of America is all about. Absolutely,...

I’ve also put forward a detailed plan that would reform and strengthen Medicare and Medicaid. By the beginning of the next decade, it achieves the...

We also have a much different approach when it comes to taxes -- an approach that says if we’re serious about paying down our debt, we can’t afford...

If that’s the choice that members of Congress want to make, then we’re going to make sure every American knows about it. In a few weeks, there...

This larger debate that we will be having and that you will be covering in the coming year about the size and role of government, this debate has been...

And this sense of responsibility -- to each other and our country -- this isn’t a partisan feeling. This isn’t a Democratic or Republican idea....

Thank you, Mr. President. We appreciate so much you being with us today. I have some questions from the audience, which I will ask -- and I'll be...

Well, I completely understand the American people’s frustrations, because the truth is that these are eminently solvable problems. I know that Christine...

Think about that. Ronald Reagan, who, as I recall, is not accused of being a tax-and-spend socialist, understood repeatedly that when the deficit started...

I guess another way of thinking about this is -- and this bears on your reporting. I think that there is oftentimes the impulse to suggest that if...

Cap and trade was originally proposed by conservatives and Republicans as a market-based solution to solving environmental problems. The first President...

So as all of you are doing your reporting, I think it's important to remember that the positions I'm taking now on the budget and a host of other issues,...

Well, look, she's absolutely right. It's interesting, when I travel around the world at these international fora -- and I've said this before -- the...

I said this a few months after I was elected at the first G20 summit. I said the days when Americans using their credit cards and home equity loans...

Our problem is that our revenue has dropped down to between 15 and 16 percent -- far lower than it has been historically, certainly far lower than it...

And what we've proposed is let's go back, for folks who are making more than $250,000 a year, to levels that were in place during the Clinton era, when...

One last point I want to make, Dean, that I think is important, because it goes to the growth issue. If state and local government hiring were basically...

Mr. President, you said yesterday that it would be unprecedented for a Supreme Court to overturn laws passed by an elected Congress. But that is exactly...

And the point I was making is that the Supreme Court is the final say on our Constitution and our laws, and all of us have to respect it, but it’s...

What I did emphasize yesterday is there is a human element to this that everybody has to remember. This is not an abstract exercise. I get letters...

And the point I think that was made very ably before the Supreme Court, but I think most health care economists who have looked at this have acknowledged,...

So I don’t anticipate the Court striking this down. I think they take their responsibilities very seriously. But I think what's more important is...

Thank you so much, everybody. (Applause.) Thank you.