SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 25 (UPI) -- President Obama told a gathering of Democrats in San Francisco Monday it's not a lack of good ideas but partisan politics that is holding the country back.
Speaking at a Democrat National Committee event, Obama said "we know what works."
"We know right now that if we had a budget that invested in rebuilding our infrastructure -- our roads, our bridges, our ports, smart grids, broadband lines -- we know that would create jobs right now, and improve the economy right now, and grow it faster right now," he said. "We know that if we invest in basic research, incredible companies like those in this region are going to be created faster. We're going to be creating products and services that none of us even imagine.
"We know if we invest in early childhood education -- a bigger bang for the buck than just about anything we could do -- every dollar we invest, we'd save seven bucks on the other end, because young people would have done better, less likely to get into trouble, less likely to go to prison, less likely to be dependent on the state.
"These things shouldn't be controversial. We know we can actually pay for it while bringing down our deficit.
"But we could still invest in the things I just talked about: closing a few tax loopholes, making some modest reforms to make sure that our social safety net is there for the long term.
"So what's stopping us from doing it? Well, it's politics. What we know is the fact that right now in this country, there's at least one faction of one party that has decided they're more interested in stopping progress than advancing it, and aren't interested in compromise or engaging in solving problems; they're more interested in scoring points for the next election."
Obama noted someone was yelling he should take action unilaterally through executive orders to accomplish the things he wants done, but "that's not how it works."
"We got this Constitution. We got this whole thing about separation of powers and branches," he said. "So ... there is no shortcut to politics. And there's no shortcut to democracy. And we have to win on the merits of the argument with the American people. As laborious as it seems sometimes, as much misinformation as there is out there sometimes, as frustrating as it may be sometimes, what we have to do is just keep on going, keep on pushing. And eventually, we move in a better direction."
