Obama calls for ‘collective action’ [View all]

[octoberlib]

In his second inaugural address, President Obama argued that now is the time to address climate change and defended entitlement programs that have been targeted for cuts.
“We are made for this moment, and we will seize it – so long as we seize it together,” he said.
Our current challenges, he argued, call for “collective action.”
“We have never relinquished our skepticism of central authority, nor have we succumbed to the fiction that all society’s ills can be cured through government alone,” he said. “But we have always understood that when times change, so must we; that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges; that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action.”
Obama defended entitlement programs that Republicans hope to reform as part of deficit-reduction cuts.
“The commitments we make to each other – through Medicare, and Medicaid, and Social Security – these things do not sap our initiative; they strengthen us,” he said. “They do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take the risks that make this country great.”
He promised action on the climate, saying, “We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations.”
Obama also pledged his commitment to equal pay for women as well as equal rights for gay Americans and voting reforms to avoid long lines at the polls. And he said touched on immigration reform, declaring that “our journey is not complete … until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/01/21/obama-defends-entitlements-promises-climate-action/?Post+generic=%3Ftid%3Dsm_twitter_washingtonpost