President Obama traveled to New Hampshire this past Tuesday to deliver a speech on his jobs plan to high school students in Manchester and those who came to listen. He spoke at Manchester High School Central and was just beginning to discuss his call to Congress to act on the payroll tax cut extension when Occupy protesters started yelling out at him, interrupting his jobs speech.
Though the protesters were quickly yelled back at by high school students screaming “Obama, Obama,” they still managed to capture the president’s full attention. Obama seemed very calm and addressed the situation by saying, “I’m going to be talking about a whole range of things today and I appreciate you guys making your point. Let me go ahead and make mine… I’ll listen to you and you listen to me.” According to a statement delivered to reporters from the protestors, the Occupy protestors intended to give Obama the following message: “Over 4,000 peaceful protesters have been arrested. While bankers continue to destroy the American economy. You must stop the assault on our 1st amendment rights. Your silence sends a message that police brutality is acceptable. Banks got bailed out. We got sold out.”
As tensions begin to grow over the lack of jobs creation and the failure to lower the unemployment rate, many question if any progress will be made in jobs creation, the job market and the uneven distribution of tax rates among the country. Obama was quoted saying of the Occupy protestors, “A lot of the folks who’ve been down in New York and all across the country in the Occupy movement, there is a profound sense of frustration, a profound sense of frustration about the fact that the essence of the American Dream… feels like it’s slipping away.” Many have begun to wonder what will be done to ease these frustrations, if anything.
SOURCE: ABC NEWS
IMAGE: Photo of Obama at New Hampshire speech courtesy of ABC NEWS
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