‘Orphan Black’ Star Tatiana Maslany On Science Fiction, Class, and Female Anti-Heroines

This Saturday at 9PM, BBC America debuts its second original series, Orphan Black. A science fiction thriller, Orphan Black follows a young woman named Sarah (Tatiana Maslany), who is returning home after ten months away to try to reclaim custody of her daughter, who is being raised by Sarah’s own foster mother, when she witnesses another young woman, Beth, commit suicide at a train station. If that wasn’t unsettling enough, the other woman shares Sarah’s face. And as Sarah, desperate for cash, appropriates the dead woman’s identity, apartment—and as it turns out, the police department review she’s under for an unjustified shooting of a civilian—she learns that she doesn’t just have a twin: there are a disturbing number of other women wearing Sarah’s face.

I spoke to Maslany about the challenge of playing multiple characters in a single show, how viewers relate to unsympathetic female characters, and how science fiction depicts the near future and handles class. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

In Orphan Black, you’ve got a core role playing Sarah, but you have to portray a number of other women as well. Was that one of the things that drew you to the series?

Absolutely…They’re all compelling, they’re all complex, they’re all very different. Sarah was definitely my entry point into the series. What fascianted me about her so much was her extreme flaws that were right out there, her behavior that was completely immoral and self-absorbed, always defending herself. What’s fascinating to me is she’s got that beautiful heart as well. She completely wants to be a mother to her daughter, and every part of her upbringing is saying she can’t do that, and she’s not worthy of that. It’s a really nice tension to play. And to get into all the other characters, each has a different worldview, and that’s how I approached them. How do they see the world? Is it a fearful place? is it fascinating? Do they love people?

Was part of the appeal the opportunity to build audience sympathy for an unlikeable female character? Men get to be anti-heroes far more often.

Yeah, that’s what I love about it. I think, for me, it was unlike any character I’d seen on screeen, any female character especially. She’s not immediately likable. She’s not good or bad. She’s very much an animal of impulse and instinct, of self-preservation and survival. People can relate to that. There’s something glamorous abou people on Breaking Bad or whatever, because I think it tapes into the darker parts of ourselves that we don’t get to experience on a day to day basis, or that society tells us is bad. And I think that’s what’s so compelling about Sarah. We’re all so flawed. we’re all like that. We’re all bad people sometime. It’s a matter of circumstance, it’s a matter of our rsesponse to the world and what it’s told us about who we can be and who we are. She’s really grown up in a world of hostility and violence. I’m happy that she gets to be the protagonist, that her action saren’t condemned.

Do you think that audiences are more comfortable with male anti-heroes because they don’t reflect back on us? None of us are going to cook meth to deal with our own insecurities, but we might be bad friends, or indecisive, or weak, or bad mothers, ways that female characters are often painted as flawed.

It’s way more personal. I think the mother relationship is extremely personal to so many people. I’m not a mother, but I have extreme feelings about it. Whether you’re a mother or not, I think women have an understanding of that relationship. I think, yeah, there’s something interesting in the kind of crone aspects of things, where we see different variations on who I could have been and who I am. It’s an external manifestation of that identity crisis. Whether people can relate to Sarah’s dreams of bein ga mother and not being able to do that, or Alison’s stranglehold on her life, none of it is glamorous, none of it is outside of reality. As much as it’s a sci-fi show, it’s so personal.

What about the role of the foster care system in the show? It’s how Sarah gets close to her foster-brother, and it’s clearly shaped her significantly as a character.

Sarah, also being form the UK and London specifically, and from a working class perspective, you can tell by someone’s accent in the UK where they came form, what school they went to, how they were educated. She was immediately pinopointed as an outsider. To have somebody like that as a protagonist and as someone going through this…She kind of uses that as an entry point….You can relate to the psychology of belonging, or having a place that’s yours. When presented with these other women, there’s a a chance she could belong somewhere, a sense that she could have, in some way, a family. I think she’s resistant to that because she doesn’t have that structure in her life. It’s the reason she can’t stay still with Felix. She has to run away…When she assumes Beth’s life, she sees not as a woman who killed herself, but who had money, a beautiful apartment, a boyfriend, who had her life together on paper…she starts to empathize with Beth. She starts to understand herself better through being Beth and through the complexity of someone else’s life. She could go, she has everything.

But she also learns that money doesn’t protect you. Beth may have her life together on paper, but she also killed someone on duty, and is suicidal.

Exactly. But she never would have known that had she seen that life from the outside. It’s kind of an ease, it comes back to the other women she meets. There’s a way that we see people from the outside that lets us define them and not have to touch them. I don’t have to be vulnerable with you, I don’t have to be intimate with you. Sarah, I don’t think she’s been intimate with everyone in the emotional sense. It’s very much about power. That’s another cool thing, coming to know all these other versions of herself. She actually gets to know them. We start to get to see that.

Tell me about the pace at which the sci-fi elements of the show are going to be revealed. Through the first two episodes I was struck by the way the show uses those elements in service of Sarah’s upbringing and self-image, rather than trying to impress us with flashy mythology.

Yeah, to me, it’s a more human way of going at it. We’re following Sarah, who is not part of that world, who does not have any frame of reference for what the sci-fi side of this world is, for what the scientific implications are. She’s seeing it from the human level, which is: “I’m totally lost, I’m confused, who am I?” To me, that’s what I love about it. I never really thought, as much as it is sci-fi show, I always thought of it as a character piece. Unraveling the character within the context of clones. It’s for me about the personal implications and how it changes the women and how it changes the people around them. We have episodes that get more sci-fi heavy and that are more into that zone. But the cool thing is, it’s always about not-too-far-away potential science. It’s like the present day. Cloning has been happening. It’s not a new phenomenon. What it raises in such an interesting way is where science, religion, humanity, what’s in our control, what is not for us to touch?

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The Obama Coalition, The White Working Class, And RFK

By John Halpin, Guest Blogger and Ruy Teixeira, Guest Blogger on Mar 17, 2013 at 12:11 pm

This is part 2 of a series on RFK and the Obama coalition.  Part 1 is here.

The potential of the new Obama coalition is truly impressive, given its 2012 performance and how many of its constituent parts are likely to grow in numbers over the course of the decade.  But the word “potential” should be stressed.  There is no guarantee that turnout and support levels will stay as high as they have been going forward.  And there is definitely no guarantee that these constituencies will remain active and involved in the legislative battles that must be fought to turn progressive policies into law.  Thus, implementing a progressive agenda will, to a large extent, be dependent on the mobilization level of the Obama coalition both in future elections and between those elections.

This is a big challenge, but Obama and his team have taken some significant steps to address it.  These steps have been driven by the recognition that the best way to maintain enthusiasm and support is to deliver for the groups that put you in office.  Thus, the administration has been aggressively pushing a number of policy priorities that resonate with the concerns of different groups in the coalition:  immigration reform, curbing gun violence, same sex marriage, climate change and universal pre-K.

This strategy is a good one.  These fights are all substantively important in policy terms and may, with luck, result in some important victories.  And they should indeed pump up enthusiasm levels as different groups in the coalition see how strongly Obama is willing to fight for their priorities.  Nor does it seem likely that a big political price will be paid for touching on issues that have a social dimension; the country has moved rapidly in a progressive direction on most of these issues and these issues lack the power they once had to elicit a backlash.

However, the strategy has to be supplemented by efforts not just to mobilize the Obama coalition but to expand it.    And among the chief targets here is the white working class, just as it was for Bobby Kennedy in 1968.

The white working class was the key force behind the Republican landslide in 2010 — Democrats lost the group by 30 points.  And they were a glaring weakness for Obama in 2012, when he lost them by only a slightly more modest 26 points.  These voters, despite their declining numbers, will be an ever-present threat to progressives in elections and to progressive governance as long as they remain so hostile to progressive principles and policies.

The solution is to bring a significant segment of these voters over to the progressive side.  It does not have to be a majority of these voters.  The Bobby Kennedy coalition can be dominant with a strong minority of the white working class, but one that is committed to progressive policies and large enough to derail the super-majorities among the voters that conservatives rely on.

Such a coalition would make the task of progressive governance far easier by breaking up the mass base for conservative counter-mobilization.  And it should greatly reduce the threat white working class voters pose to progressive fortunes when rising constituencies falter or fail to turn out at high levels.

But how can this be done?  It is no doubt a substantial challenge, but one that can and must be addressed.  At CAP, we are launching a project—the Bobby Kennedy Project—to do just that.  The goal is to figure out how to reach both the white working class and more progressive-leaning demographic groups through unifying values, policies and messages.

Our initial work suggests that a successful approach will require a relentless focus on social opportunity for all people and an economic agenda that puts the interests of working- and middle-class families first.  In particular, the burgeoning research and policy agenda around “equity and growth” provides a good model for policies that can successfully unite a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, cross-class coalition.  The evidence is increasingly strong that rising inequality has inhibited growth and that higher growth in the future is more likely with policies that broadly diffuse opportunity.  These policies are America’s future and also perhaps the glue that can finally join a critical segment of the white working class to America’s rising demographic groups.

The rise of the Obama coalition has already changed American politics.  Expanding this rising coalition into a Bobby Kennedy coalition could transform our politics for a generation.

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Weekly Address: Following the President’s Plan for a Strong Middle Class

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

WASHINGTON, DC— In this week’s address, President Obama called for quick action on the proposals he made during the State of the Union to grow our economy and create jobs, including making America a magnet for manufacturing, strengthening our education system through high-quality preschool for every child, and raising the minimum wage.  Congress must also act now to avert the sequester, which would be a harmful and self-inflicted wound on our economy, by reducing our deficit in a balanced way that makes investments in areas that help us grow and cuts what we don’t need. 

The audio of the address and video of the address will be available online at www.whitehouse.gov at 6:00 a.m. ET, Saturday, February 16, 2013.

Remarks of President Barack Obama
As Prepared for Delivery
The White House
February 16, 2013

Hi, everybody.  This week, I’ve been traveling across the country – from North Carolina to Georgia to here at Hyde Park Academy in my hometown of Chicago – talking with folks about the important task I laid out in my State of the Union Address: reigniting the true engine of America’s economic growth – a rising, thriving middle class.

Every day, we should ask ourselves three questions:  How do we bring good jobs to America?  How do we equip people with the skills those jobs require?  And how do we make sure your hard work leads to a decent living?

I believe all that starts by making America a magnet for new jobs and manufacturing.  After shedding jobs for more than 10 years, our manufacturers have added about 500,000 jobs over the past three.  What we need to do now is simple.  We need to accelerate that trend.  We need to launch manufacturing hubs across the country that will transform hard-hit regions into global centers of high-tech jobs and manufacturing.  We need to make our tax code more competitive, ending tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas, and rewarding companies that create jobs here at home.  And we need to invest in the research and technology that will allow us to harness more of our own energy and put more people back to work repairing our crumbling roads and bridges. 

These steps will help our businesses expand and create new jobs.  But we also need to provide every American with the skills and training they need to fill those jobs.  Let’s start in the earliest years by offering high-quality preschool to every child in America, because we know kids in these programs do better throughout their lives.  Let’s redesign our high schools so that our students graduate with skills that employers are looking for right now.  And because taxpayers can’t continue to subsidize the soaring cost of higher education, I’ve called on Congress to take affordability and value into account when determining which colleges receive certain types of federal aid. 

So those are steps we can take today to help bring good jobs to America and equip our people with the skills those jobs require.  And that brings us to the third question – how do we make sure hard work leads to a decent living?

No one in America should work full-time and raise their children in poverty.  So let’s raise the minimum wage so that it’s a wage you can live on.  And it’s time to harness the talents and ingenuity of hardworking immigrants by finally passing comprehensive immigration reform – securing our borders, establishing a responsible path to earned citizenship, and attracting the highly-skilled entrepreneurs and engineers that will help create jobs. 

These steps will help grow our economy and rebuild a rising, thriving middle class.  And we can do it while shrinking our deficits.  We don’t have to choose between the two – we just have to make smart choices. 

Over the last few years, both parties have worked together to reduce the deficit by more than $2.5 trillion – which puts us more than halfway towards the goal of $4 trillion in deficit reduction that economists say we need to stabilize our finances.  Now we need to finish the job. 

But I disagree with Republicans who think we should do that by making even bigger cuts to things like education and job training; Medicare and Social Security benefits.  That would force our senior citizens and working families to bear the burden of deficit reduction while the wealthiest are asked to do nothing more.  That won’t work.  We can’t just cut our way to prosperity. 

Instead, I’ve proposed a balanced approach; one that makes responsible reforms to bring down the cost of health care and saves hundreds of billions of dollars by getting rid of tax loopholes and deductions for the well-off and well-connected.  And we should finally pursue bipartisan, comprehensive tax reform that encourages job creation and helps bring down the deficit.

So we know what we need to do.  All the steps I’ve mentioned are commonsense.  And, together, they will help us grow our economy and strengthen our middle class. 

In the coming weeks and months, our work won’t be easy, and we won’t agree on everything.  But America only moves forward when we do so together – when we accept certain obligations to one another and to future generations.  That’s the American story.  And that is how we will write the next great chapter – together.

Thanks and have a great weekend.

###

February 16, 2013 10:19 AM EST

In Chicago, President Obama laid out a plan to rebuild ladders of opportunity for every American who is willing to work hard and climb them

In this week’s address, President Obama calls for quick action on the proposals he made during the State of the Union to grow our economy and create jobs, including making America a magnet for manufacturing, strengthening our education system through high-quality preschool for every child, and raising the minimum wage.

The two leaders discussed the world economy and President Obama's plan to pursue a U.S.-European Union free trade agreement, which was mentioned in his State of the Union address earlier this week.

view all related blog posts

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Remarks By The President On Strengthening The Economy For The Middle Class

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

3:31 P.M. CST

THE PRESIDENT: Hey, Chicago! (Applause.) Hello, Chicago! Hello, everybody. Hello, Hyde Park! (Applause.) It is good to be home! It is good to be home. Everybody have a seat. You all relax. It’s just me. You all know me. It is good to be back home.

A couple of people I want to acknowledge -- first of all, I want to thank your Mayor, my great friend, Rahm Emanuel for his outstanding leadership of the city and his kind introduction. (Applause.) I want to thank everybody here at Hyde Park Academy for welcoming me here today. (Applause.)  

I want to acknowledge your principal and your assistant principal -- although, they really make me feel old, because when I saw them -- (laughter) -- where are they? Where are they? Stand up. Stand up. (Applause.) They are doing outstanding work. We’re very, very proud them. But you do make me feel old. Sit down. (Laughter.)

A couple other people I want to acknowledge -- Governor Pat Quinn is here doing great work down in Springfield. (Applause.) My great friend and senior Senator Dick Durbin is in the house. (Applause.) Congressman Bobby Rush is here. (Applause.) We’re in his district. Attorney General and former seatmate of mine when I was in the state senate, Lisa Madigan. (Applause.) County Board President -- used to be my alderwoman -- Tony Preckwinkle in the house. (Applause.)

And I’ve got -- I see a lot of reverend clergy here, but I’m not going to mention them, because if I miss one I’m in trouble. (Laughter.) They’re all friends of mine. They’ve been knowing me.

Some people may not know this, but obviously, this is my old neighborhood. I used to teach right around the corner. This is where Michelle and I met, where we fell in love --

AUDIENCE: Aww --

THE PRESIDENT: This is where we raised our daughters, in a house just about a mile away from here -- less than a mile. And that’s really what I’ve come here to talk about today -- raising our kids.

AUDIENCE: We love you!

THE PRESIDENT: I love you, too. (Applause.) I love you, too.

I’m here to make sure that we talk about and then work towards giving every child every chance in life; building stronger communities and new ladders of opportunity that they can climb into the middle class and beyond; and, most importantly, keeping them safe from harm.

Michelle was born and raised here -- a proud daughter of the South Side. (Applause.) Last weekend, she came home, but it was to attend the funeral of Hadiya Pendleton. And Hadiya’s parents, by the way, are here -- and I want to just acknowledge them. They are just wonderful, wonderful people. (Applause.)

And as you know, this week, in my State of the Union, I talked about Hadiya on Tuesday night and the fact that unfortunately what happened to Hadiya is not unique. It's not unique to Chicago. It's not unique to this country. Too many of our children are being taken away from us.

Two months ago, America mourned 26 innocent first-graders and their educators in Newtown. And today, I had the high honor of giving the highest civilian award I can give to the parent -- or the families of the educators who had been killed in Newtown. And there was something profound and uniquely heartbreaking and tragic, obviously, about a group of 6-year-olds being killed. But last year, there were 443 murders with a firearm on the streets of this city, and 65 of those victims were 18 and under. So that’s the equivalent of a Newtown every four months.

And that’s precisely why the overwhelming majority of Americans are asking for some common-sense proposals to make it harder for criminals to get their hands on a gun. And as I said on Tuesday night, I recognize not everybody agrees with every issue. There are regional differences. The experience of gun ownership is different in urban areas than it is in rural areas, different from upstate and downstate Illinois. But these proposals deserve a vote in Congress. They deserve a vote. (Applause.) They deserve a vote. And I want to thank those members of Congress who are working together in a serious way to try to address this issue.

But I’ve also said no law or set of laws can prevent every senseless act of violence in this country. When a child opens fire on another child, there’s a hole in that child’s heart that government can't fill -- only community and parents and teachers and clergy can fill that hole. In too many neighborhoods today -- whether here in Chicago or the farthest reaches of rural America -- it can feel like for a lot of young people the future only extends to the next street corner or the outskirts of town; that no matter how much you work or how hard you try, your destiny was determined the moment you were born. There are entire neighborhoods where young people, they don’t see an example of somebody succeeding. And for a lot of young boys and young men, in particular, they don’t see an example of fathers or grandfathers, uncles, who are in a position to support families and be held up and respected.

And so that means that this is not just a gun issue. It’s also an issue of the kinds of communities that we’re building. And for that, we all share a responsibility, as citizens, to fix it. We all share a responsibility to move this country closer to our founding vision that no matter who you are, or where you come from, here in America, you can decide your own destiny. You can succeed if you work hard and fulfill your responsibilities. (Applause.)

Now, that means we’ve got to grow our economy and create more good jobs. It means we’ve got to equip every American with the skills and the training to fill those jobs. And it means we’ve got to rebuild ladders of opportunity for everybody willing to climb them.

Now, that starts at home. There’s no more important ingredient for success, nothing that would be more important for us reducing violence than strong, stable families -- which means we should do more to promote marriage and encourage fatherhood. (Applause.) Don’t get me wrong -- as the son of a single mom, who gave everything she had to raise me with the help of my grandparents, I turned out okay. (Applause and laughter.) But -- no, no, but I think it’s -- so we’ve got single moms out here, they’re heroic in what they’re doing and we are so proud of them. (Applause.) But at the same time, I wish I had had a father who was around and involved. Loving, supportive parents -- and, by the way, that’s all kinds of parents -- that includes foster parents, and that includes grandparents, and extended families; it includes gay or straight parents. (Applause.)

Those parents supporting kids -- that’s the single most important thing. Unconditional love for your child -- that makes a difference. If a child grows up with parents who have work, and have some education, and can be role models, and can teach integrity and responsibility, and discipline and delayed gratification -- all those things give a child the kind of foundation that allows them to say, my future, I can make it what I want. And we’ve got to make sure that every child has that, and in some cases, we may have to fill the gap and the void if children don’t have that.

So we should encourage marriage by removing the financial disincentives for couples who love one another but may find it financially disadvantageous if they get married. We should reform our child support laws to get more men working and engaged with their children. (Applause.) And my administration will continue to work with the faith community and the private sector this year on a campaign to encourage strong parenting and fatherhood. Because what makes you a man is not the ability to make a child, it’s the courage to raise one. (Applause.)

We also know, though, that there is no surer path to success in the middle class than a good education. And what we now know is that that has to begin in the earliest years. Study after study shows that the earlier a child starts learning, the more likely they are to succeed -- the more likely they are to do well at Hyde Park Academy; the more likely they are to graduate; the more likely they are to get a good job; the more likely they are to form stable families and then be able to raise children themselves who get off to a good start.

Chicago already has a competition, thanks to what the Mayor is doing, that rewards the best preschools in the city -- so Rahm has already prioritized this. But what I’ve also done is say, let’s give every child across America access to high-quality, public preschool. Every child, not just some. (Applause.) Every dollar we put into early childhood education can save $7 down the road by boosting graduation rates, reducing teen pregnancy, reducing violent crime, reducing the welfare rolls, making sure that folks who have work, now they’re paying taxes. All this stuff pays back huge dividends if we make the investment. So let’s make this happen. Let’s make sure every child has the chance they deserve. (Applause.)

As kids go through school, we’ll recruit new math and science teachers to make sure that they’ve got the skills that the future demands. We’ll help more young people in low-income neighborhoods get summer jobs. We’ll redesign our high schools and encourage our kids to stay in high school, so that the diploma they get leads directly to a good job once they graduate. (Applause.)

Right here in Chicago, five new high schools have partnered with companies and community colleges to prepare our kids with the skills that businesses are looking for right now. And your College to Careers program helps community college students get access to the same kinds of real-world experiences. So we know what works. Let’s just do it in more places. Let’s reach more young people. Let’s give more kids a chance.

So we know how important families are. We know how important education is. We recognize that government alone can’t solve these problems of violence and poverty, that everybody has to be involved. But we also have to remember that the broader economic environment of communities is critical as well. For example, we need to make sure that folks who are working now, often in the hardest jobs, see their work rewarded with wages that allow them to raise a family without falling into poverty. (Applause.)

Today, a family with two kids that works hard and relies on a minimum wage salary still lives below the poverty line. That’s wrong, and we should fix it. We should reward an honest day’s work with honest wages. And that's why we should raise the minimum wage to $9 an hour and make it a wage you can live on. (Applause.)

And even though some cities have bounced back pretty quickly from the recession, we know that there are communities and neighborhoods within cities or in small towns that haven’t bounced back. Cities like Chicago are ringed with former factory towns that never came back all the way from plants packing up; there are pockets of poverty where young adults are still looking for their first job.

And that’s why on Tuesday I announced -- and that's part of what I want to focus on here in Chicago and across the country -- is my intention to partner with 20 of the hardest-hit communities in America to get them back in the game -- get them back in the game. (Applause.)

First, we’ll work with local leaders to cut through red tape and improve things like public safety and education and housing. And we’ll bring all the resources to bear in a coordinated fashion so that we can get that tipping point where suddenly a community starts feeling like things are changing and we can come back.

Second of all, if you’re willing to play a role in a child’s education, then we’ll help you reform your schools. We want to seed more and more partnerships of the kind that Rahm is trying to set up.

Third, we’re going to help bring jobs and growth to hard-hit neighborhoods by giving tax breaks to business owners who invest and hire in those neighborhoods. (Applause.)

Fourth, and specific to the issue of violence -- because it’s very hard to develop economically if people don't feel safe. If they don't feel like they can walk down the street and shop at a store without getting hit over head or worse, then commerce dries up, businesses don't want to locate, families move out, you get into the wrong cycle. So we’re going to target neighborhoods struggling to deal with violent crime and help them reduce that violence in ways that have been proven to work. And I know this is a priority of your Mayor’s; it’s going to be a priority of mine. (Applause.)

And finally, we’re going to keep working in communities all across the country, including here in Chicago, to replace run-down public housing that doesn’t offer much hope or safety with new, healthy homes for low- and moderate-income families. (Applause.)

And here in Woodlawn, you’ve seen some of the progress that we can make when we come together to rebuild our neighborhoods, and attract new businesses, and improve our schools. Woodlawn is not all the way where it needs to be, but thanks to wonderful institutions like Apostolic Church, we’ve made great progress. (Applause.)

So we want to help more communities follow your example. And let’s go even farther by offering incentives to companies that hire unemployed Americans who have got what it takes to fill a job opening, but they may have been out of work so long that nobody is willing to give them a chance right now. Let’s put our people back to work rebuilding vacant homes in need of repair. Young people can get experience -- apprenticeships, learn a trade. And we’re removing blight from our community. (Applause.)

If we gather together what works, we can extend more ladders of opportunity for anybody who’s working to build a strong, middle-class life for themselves. Because in America, your destiny shouldn’t be determined by where you live, where you were born. It should be determined by how big you’re willing to dream, how much effort and sweat and tears you’re willing to put in to realizing that dream.

When I first moved to Chicago -- before any of the students in this room were born -- (laughter) -- and a whole lot of people who are in the audience remember me from those days, I lived in a community on the South Side right up the block, but I also worked further south where communities had been devastated by some of the steel plants closing. And my job was to work with churches and laypeople and local leaders to rebuild neighborhoods, and improve schools, and help young people who felt like they had nowhere to turn.

And those of you who worked with me, Reverend Love, you remember, it wasn’t easy. Progress didn’t come quickly. Sometimes I got so discouraged I thought about just giving up. But what kept me going was the belief that with enough determination and effort and persistence and perseverance, change is always possible; that we may not be able to help everybody, but if we help a few then that propels progress forward. We may not be able to save every child from gun violence, but if we save a few, that starts changing the atmosphere in our communities. (Applause.) We may not be able to get everybody a job right away, but if we get a few folks a job, then everybody starts feeling a little more hopeful and a little more encouraged. (Applause.) Neighborhood by neighborhood, one block by one block, one family at a time.

Now, this is what I had a chance to talk about when I met with some young men from Hyde Park Academy who were participating in this B.A.M. program. Where are the guys I talked to? Stand up you all, so we can all see you guys. (Applause.) So these are some -- these are all some exceptional young men, and I couldn't be prouder of them. And the reason I'm proud of them is because a lot of them have had some issues. That's part of the reason why you guys are in the program. (Laughter.)

But what I explained to them was I had issues too when I was their age. I just had an environment that was a little more forgiving. So when I screwed up, the consequences weren't as high as when kids on the South Side screw up. (Applause.) So I had more of a safety net. But these guys are no different than me, and we had that conversation about what does it take to change. And the same thing that it takes for us individually to change, I said to them, well, that's what it takes for communities to change. That's what it takes for countries to change. It's not easy.

But it does require us, first of all, having a vision about where we want to be. It requires us recognizing that it will be hard work getting there. It requires us being able to overcome and persevere in the face of roadblocks and disappointments and failures. It requires us reflecting internally about who we are and what we believe in, and facing up to our own fears and insecurities, and admitting when we're wrong. And that same thing that we have to do in our individual lives that these guys talked about, that's what we have to do for our communities. And it will not be easy, but it can be done.  

When Hadiya Pendleton and her classmates visited Washington three weeks ago, they spent time visiting the monuments -- including the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial just off the National Mall. And that memorial stands as a tribute to everything Dr. King achieved in his lifetime. But it also reminds us of how hard that work was and how many disappointments he experienced. He was here in Chicago fighting poverty, and just like a lot of us, there were times where he felt like he was losing hope. So in some ways, that memorial is a testament not to work that's completed, but it’s a testament to the work that remains unfinished.

His goal was to free us not only from the shackles of discrimination, but from the shadow of poverty that haunts too many of our communities, the self-destructive impulses, and the mindless violence that claims so many lives of so many innocent young people. 

These are difficult challenges. No solution we offer will be perfect. But perfection has never been our goal. Our goal has been to try and make whatever difference we can. Our goal has been to engage in the hard but necessary work of bringing America one step closer to the nation we know we can be.

If we do that, if we’re striving with every fiber of our being to strengthen our middle class, to extend ladders of opportunity for everybody who is trying as hard as they can to create a better life for themselves; if we do everything in our power to keep our children safe from harm; if we’re fulfilling our obligations to one another and to future generations; if we make that effort, then I’m confident -- I’m confident that we will write the next great chapter in our American story. I’m not going to be able to do it by myself, though. Nobody can. We’re going to have to do it together.

Thank you, everybody. God bless you. God bless the United States of America. (Applause.)

END        3:58 P.M. CST

February 16, 2013 10:19 AM EST

In Chicago, President Obama laid out a plan to rebuild ladders of opportunity for every American who is willing to work hard and climb them

In this week’s address, President Obama calls for quick action on the proposals he made during the State of the Union to grow our economy and create jobs, including making America a magnet for manufacturing, strengthening our education system through high-quality preschool for every child, and raising the minimum wage.

The two leaders discussed the world economy and President Obama's plan to pursue a U.S.-European Union free trade agreement, which was mentioned in his State of the Union address earlier this week.

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The President’s Plan for a Strong Middle Class and a Strong America

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For Immediate Release February 12, 2013 The President’s Plan for a Strong Middle Class and a Strong America

 

The President’s Plan for a Strong Middle Class and a Strong America can be found HERE.

Blog posts on this issue February 13, 2013 6:39 PM ESTImproving the Security of the Nation’s Critical Infrastructure

President Obama issued an Executive Order directing federal departments and agencies to use their existing authorities to provide better cybersecurity for the Nation, efforts that will by necessity involve increased collaboration with the private sector.

February 13, 2013 5:15 PM ESTOpen for Questions: The State of the Union and the Economy

Alan Krueger, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, answered questions from the public about President Obama's State of the Union Address in an “Open for Questions” session moderated by Yahoo! Finance. Check it out below.

February 13, 2013 4:55 PM ESTFirst Lady Michelle Obama hosts a “Beasts of the Southern Wild” Movie Workshop for Students

The stars of the Oscar-nominated drama joined Mrs. Obama to help teach students about the hard work required to create a beautiful movie.

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Fact Sheet: Examples of How the Sequester Would Impact Middle Class Families, Jobs and Economic Security

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Unless Congress acts by March 1st, a series of automatic cuts—called a sequester—that threaten thousands of jobs and the economic security of the middle class will take effect.  There is no question that we need to cut the deficit, but the President believes it should be done in a balanced way that protects investments that the middle class relies on.  Already, the President has worked with Congress to reduce the deficit by more than $2.5 trillion, but there’s more to do.  The President believes we can not only avoid the harmful effects of a sequester but also reduce the deficit by $4 trillion total by cutting even more wasteful spending and eliminating tax loopholes for the wealthy.

Unfortunately, many Republicans in Congress refuse to ask the wealthy to pay a little more by closing tax loopholes so that we can protect investments that are helping grow our economy and keep our country safe.  Our economy is poised to take off but we cannot afford a self-inflicted wound from Washington.  We cannot simply cut our way to prosperity, and if Republicans continue to insist on an unreasonable cuts-only approach, the middle class risks paying the price.  The most damaging effects of a sequester on the middle class are:

• Cuts to education: Our ability to teach our kids the skills they’ll need for the jobs of the future would be put at risk.  70,000 young children would be kicked off Head Start, 10,000 teacher jobs would be put at risk, and funding for up to 7,200 special education teachers, aides, and staff could be cut.

• Cuts to small business: Small businesses create two-thirds of all new jobs in America and instead of helping small businesses expand and hire, the automatic cuts triggered by a sequester would reduce loan guarantees to small businesses by up to $902 million.

• Cuts to food safety: Outbreaks of foodborne illness are a serious threat to families and public health.  If a sequester takes effect, up to 2,100 fewer food inspections could occur, putting families at risk and costing billions in lost food production.

• Cuts to research and innovation: In order to compete for the jobs of the future and to ensure that the next breakthroughs to find cures for critical diseases are developed right here in America, we need to continue to lead the world in research and innovation.  Most Americans with chronic diseases don’t have a day to lose, but under a sequester progress towards cures would be delayed and several thousand researchers could lose their jobs.  Up to 12,000 scientists and students would also be impacted.

• Cuts to mental health: If a sequester takes effect, up to 373,000 seriously mentally ill adults and seriously emotionally disturbed children could go untreated. This would likely lead to increased hospitalizations, involvement in the criminal justice system, and homelessness for these individuals.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) now calculates that sequestration will require an annual reduction of roughly 5 percent for nondefense programs and roughly 8 percent for defense programs.  However, given that these cuts must be achieved over only seven months instead of 12, the effective percentage reductions will be approximately 9 percent for nondefense programs and 13 percent for defense programs.  These large and arbitrary cuts will have severe impacts across the government.

More detailed explanations of these cuts as well as additional areas that will be impacted include:

Security and Safety

• FBI and other law enforcement – The FBI and other law enforcement entities would see a reduction in capacity equivalent to more than 1,000 Federal agents.  This loss of agents would significantly impact our ability to combat violent crime, pursue financial crimes, secure our borders, and protect national security.

• U.S. Attorneys – The Department of Justice would prosecute approximately 1,000 fewer criminal cases nationwide, and some civil litigation defending the financial interests of the United States would not be pursued, potentially costing taxpayers billions of dollars.

• Emergency responders – FEMA would need to reduce funding for State and local grants that support firefighter positions and State and local emergency management personnel, hampering our ability to respond to natural disasters like Hurricane Sandy and other emergencies.

Research and Innovation

• NIH research – The National Institutes of Health (NIH) would be forced to delay or halt vital scientific projects and make hundreds of fewer research awards.  Since each research award supports up to seven research positions, several thousand personnel could lose their jobs.  Many projects would be difficult to pursue at reduced levels and would need to be cancelled, putting prior year investments at risk.  These cuts would delay progress on the prevention of debilitating chronic conditions that are costly to society and delay development of more effective treatments for common and rare diseases affecting millions of Americans. 
• NSF research – The National Science Foundation (NSF) would issue nearly 1,000 fewer research grants and awards, impacting an estimated 12,000 scientists and students and curtailing critical scientific research. 

• New drug approvals – The FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) would face delays in translating new science and technology into regulatory policy and decision-making, resulting in delays in new drug approvals.  The FDA would likely also need to reduce operational support for meeting review performance goals, such as the recently negotiated user fee goals on new innovative prescription drugs and medical devices.

Economic Growth

• Small business assistance – Small Business Administration (SBA) loan guarantees would be cut by up to $902 million, constraining financing needed by small businesses to maintain and expand their operations and create jobs.

• Economic development – The Economic Development Administration’s (EDA) ability to leverage private sector resources to support projects that spur local job creation would be restricted, likely resulting in more than 1,000 fewer jobs created than expected and leaving more than $47 million in private sector investment untapped.  

• International trade – The International Trade Administration (ITA) would be forced to reduce its support for America’s exporters, trimming assistance to U.S. businesses looking to increase their exports and expand operations into foreign markets.  In addition, ITA would not be able to place staff in critical international growth markets, where there is a clear business opportunity for many American businesses to increase their sales and create jobs at home. These staff would have been part of a key program working to promote and facilitate global investment in the U.S., supporting thousands of new jobs through Foreign Direct Investment.  

Government Services

• Food safety – The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) could conduct 2,100 fewer inspections at domestic and foreign facilities that manufacture food products while USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) may have to furlough all employees for approximately two weeks.   These reductions could increase the number and severity of safety incidents, and the public could suffer more foodborne illness, such as the recent salmonella in peanut butter outbreak and the E. coli illnesses linked to organic spinach, as well as cost the food and agriculture sector millions of dollars in lost production volume. 

• IRS customer service and tax compliance – The cuts to operating expenses and expected furloughs at the IRS would result in the inability of millions of taxpayers to get answers from IRS call centers and taxpayer assistance centers and would significantly delay IRS responses to taxpayer letters.  The IRS would be forced to complete fewer tax return reviews and would experience reduced capacity to detect and prevent fraud, resulting in an inability to collect and protect billions of dollars in revenue annually.  Cuts to the IRS would ultimately cost taxpayers and increase the deficit through lost revenue from recoveries and additional fraud and abuse.

• Native American programs - Tribes would lose almost $130 million in funding from the Department of the Interior.   Reductions would be necessary in many areas including human services, law enforcement, schools, economic development and natural resources. 

• Workplace safety – The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) could have to pull its inspectors off the job for some period of time. This would mean roughly 1,200 fewer inspections of the Nation’s most dangerous workplaces, which would leave workers unprotected and could lead to an increase in worker fatality and injury rates.

Education

• Title I education funds – Title I education funds would be eliminated for more than 2,700 schools, cutting support for nearly 1.2 million disadvantaged students.  This funding reduction would put the jobs of approximately 10,000 teachers and aides at risk.  Students would lose access to individual instruction, afterschool programs, and other interventions that help close achievement gaps.

• Special education (IDEA) – Cuts to special education funding would eliminate Federal support for more than 7,200 teachers, aides, and other staff who provide essential instruction and support to preschool and school-aged students with disabilities.

• Head Start – Head Start and Early Head Start services would be eliminated for approximately 70,000 children, reducing access to critical early education.  Community and faith based organizations, small businesses, local governments, and school systems would have to lay off over 14,000 teachers, teacher assistants, and other staff.

Economic Security

• Social Security applicant and beneficiary services – The Social Security Administration (SSA) would be forced to curtail service to the public and reduce program oversight efforts designed to make sure benefits are paid accurately and to the right people.  Potential effects on SSA operations could include a reduction in service hours to the public, the closure of some offices, and a substantial growth in the backlog of Social Security disability claims.

• Senior meals – Federally-assisted programs like Meals on Wheels would be able to serve 4 million fewer meals to seniors.  These meals contribute to the overall health and well-being of participating seniors, including those with chronic illnesses that are affected by diet, such as diabetes and heart disease, and frail seniors who are homebound.  The meals can account for 50 percent or more of daily food for the majority of home delivered participants.

• Nutrition assistance for women, infants and children – Approximately 600,000 women and children would be dropped from the Department of Agriculture’s Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) from March through September.  At least 1,600 State and local jobs could be lost as a result.

• Rental assistance – The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Housing Choice Voucher program, which provides rental assistance to very low-income families, would face a significant reduction in funding, which would place about 125,000 families at immediate risk of losing their permanent housing. 

• Emergency unemployment compensation – People receiving Emergency Unemployment Compensation benefits would see their benefits cut by as much as 9.4 percent.   Affected long-term unemployed individuals would lose an average of more than $400 in benefits that they and their families count on while they search for another job. Smaller unemployment checks will also have a negative impact on the economy as a whole.  Economists have estimated that every dollar in unemployment benefits generates $2 in economic activity.

• Homelessness programs – More than 100,000 formerly homeless people, including veterans, would be removed from their current housing and emergency shelter programs, putting them at risk of returning to the streets.

Public Health

• Mental health and substance abuse services – Cuts to the Mental Health Block Grant program would result in over 373,000 seriously mentally ill adults and seriously emotionally disturbed children not receiving needed mental health services. This cut would likely lead to increased hospitalizations, involvement in the criminal justice system, and homelessness for these individuals.  In addition, close to 8,900 homeless persons with serious mental illness would not get the vital outreach, treatment, housing, and support they need through the Projects for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness (PATH) program.

• AIDS and HIV treatment and prevention – Cuts to the AIDS Drug Assistance Program could result in 7,400 fewer patients having access to life saving HIV medications.  And approximately 424,000 fewer HIV tests could be conducted by Centers for Disease Control (CDC) State grantees, which could result in increased future HIV transmissions, deaths from HIV, and costs in health care.  

• Tribal services – The Indian Health Service and Tribal hospitals and clinics would be forced to provide 3,000 fewer inpatient admissions and 804,000 fewer outpatient visits, undermining needed health care in Tribal communities.

President Obama urges Congress to act to avoid a series of harmful and automatic cuts—called a sequester—from going into effect that would hurt our economy and the middle class and threaten thousands of American jobs.

Here's quick glimpse at what happened this week on WhiteHouse.gov.

Vice President Biden's Chief of Staff Bruce Reed sat down with us to give us a quick update on the work the President and Vice President have been doing since the President released his plan to reduce gun violence.

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Fiscal Cliff Deal Cancels CLASS

Those hunting for a bit of good news in the fiscal cliff deal can look to a provision repealing a long-term care program attached to ObamaCare.

When the health law first passed, it included a $70 billion entitlement known as the CLASS Act. The Community Living Assistance Service and Supports Act was supposed to be a self-sustaining program that provided cash benefits intended to help finance long-term care. It was an optional program that workers could buy into at regulated rates that weren't allowed to take health history into account. The program was even supposed to reduce the deficit: It accounted for about half of ObamaCare's scored deficit reduction.

But after the law passed, further analyses warned that instead of a self-financing, deficit reducing benefit program, CLASS would instead be a fiscal disaster, unable to self-finance and resulting in a long-term increase in the deficit and sky-high premiums for many beneficiaries, according to researchers at Boston College. Eventually, even the Obama administration had to admit that it wouldn't work. “While the law outlined a framework for the CLASS Act,” Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told members of Congress in February, 2011, “we determined pretty quickly that it would not meet the requirement that the act be self-sustaining and not rely on taxpayer assistance.”

And so the administration closed the program. But it stayed on the books, which meant that, at least in theory, it could someday be revived.

No more: The fiscal cliff deal that passed in the House on Tuesday struck CLASS from the books for good. Which means that unless Congress passes new legislation, the program isn't coming back. Given its dormant status, CLASS wasn't likely to do much damage. But there were those who seemed interested in reviving the program — and attempting to "fix" its problems by making buy-in mandatory. Repeal takes that possibility off the table. 

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Weekly Address: Congress Must Protect the Middle Class from Income Tax Hike

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

Hello Everybody. For the past couple months, I’ve been working with people in both parties – with the help of business leaders and ordinary Americans – to come together around a plan to grow the economy and shrink our deficits.

It’s a balanced plan – one that would protect the middle class, cut spending in a responsible way, and ask the wealthiest Americans to pay a little more.  And I’ll keep working with anybody who’s serious about getting a comprehensive plan like this done – because it’s the right thing to do for our economic growth.

But we’re now at the point where, in just a couple days, the law says that every American’s tax rates are going up. Every American’s paycheck will get a lot smaller. And that would be the wrong thing to do for our economy. It would hurt middle-class families, and it would hurt the businesses that depend on your spending. 

And Congress can prevent it from happening, if they act now. Leaders in Congress are working on a way to prevent this tax hike on the middle class, and I believe we may be able to reach an agreement that can pass both houses in time.

But if an agreement isn’t reached in time, then I’ll urge the Senate to hold an up-or-down vote on a basic package that protects the middle class from an income tax hike, extends vital unemployment insurance for Americans looking for a job, and lays the groundwork for future progress on more economic growth and deficit reduction. 

I believe such a proposal could pass both houses with bipartisan majorities – as long as these leaders allow it to come to a vote. If they still want to vote no, and let this tax hike hit the middle class, that’s their prerogative – but they should let everyone vote. That’s the way this is supposed to work. 

We just can’t afford a politically self-inflicted wound to our economy. The economy is growing, but keeping it that way means that the folks you sent to Washington have to do their jobs. The housing market is healing, but that could stall if folks are seeing smaller paychecks.  The unemployment rate is the lowest it’s been since 2008, but already, families and businesses are starting to hold back because of the dysfunction they see in Washington. 

You meet your deadlines and your responsibilities every day. The folks you sent here to serve should do the same. We cannot let Washington politics get in the way of America’s progress. We’ve got to do what it takes to protect the middle class, grow this economy, and move our country forward.

Thanks, everybody.

President Obama urges Congress to meet its deadlines and responsibilities, protect the middle class from an income tax hike, and lay the groundwork for future progress on more economic growth and deficit reduction.

Take a look at the videos that have been viewed the most.

At a press conference following a meeting with Senate and House leaders, the President said that he is optimistic an agreement that can pass both houses will be reached in time.

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View the original article here

Weekly Address: Congress Must Protect the Middle Class from Income Tax Hike

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

Hello Everybody. For the past couple months, I’ve been working with people in both parties – with the help of business leaders and ordinary Americans – to come together around a plan to grow the economy and shrink our deficits.

It’s a balanced plan – one that would protect the middle class, cut spending in a responsible way, and ask the wealthiest Americans to pay a little more.  And I’ll keep working with anybody who’s serious about getting a comprehensive plan like this done – because it’s the right thing to do for our economic growth.

But we’re now at the point where, in just a couple days, the law says that every American’s tax rates are going up. Every American’s paycheck will get a lot smaller. And that would be the wrong thing to do for our economy. It would hurt middle-class families, and it would hurt the businesses that depend on your spending. 

And Congress can prevent it from happening, if they act now. Leaders in Congress are working on a way to prevent this tax hike on the middle class, and I believe we may be able to reach an agreement that can pass both houses in time.

But if an agreement isn’t reached in time, then I’ll urge the Senate to hold an up-or-down vote on a basic package that protects the middle class from an income tax hike, extends vital unemployment insurance for Americans looking for a job, and lays the groundwork for future progress on more economic growth and deficit reduction. 

I believe such a proposal could pass both houses with bipartisan majorities – as long as these leaders allow it to come to a vote. If they still want to vote no, and let this tax hike hit the middle class, that’s their prerogative – but they should let everyone vote. That’s the way this is supposed to work. 

We just can’t afford a politically self-inflicted wound to our economy. The economy is growing, but keeping it that way means that the folks you sent to Washington have to do their jobs. The housing market is healing, but that could stall if folks are seeing smaller paychecks.  The unemployment rate is the lowest it’s been since 2008, but already, families and businesses are starting to hold back because of the dysfunction they see in Washington. 

You meet your deadlines and your responsibilities every day. The folks you sent here to serve should do the same. We cannot let Washington politics get in the way of America’s progress. We’ve got to do what it takes to protect the middle class, grow this economy, and move our country forward.

Thanks, everybody.

President Obama urges Congress to meet its deadlines and responsibilities, protect the middle class from an income tax hike, and lay the groundwork for future progress on more economic growth and deficit reduction.

At a press conference following a meeting with Senate and House leaders, the President said that he is optimistic an agreement that can pass both houses will be reached in time.

A new release of White House visitor records brings the grand total of records that this White House has released to more than 2.8 million.

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First Lady Michelle Obama Tells North Carolina A&T University Class of 2012 "We Need You"

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Colleen CurtisMay 14, 2012
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Interim Provost Winser Alexander presents First Lady Michele Obama with a hood signifying her honorary degree following her commencement address during the North Carolina Agriculture & Technology commencement ceremony in Greensboro, N.C., May 12, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

First Lady Michelle Obama invoked the example of the "Greensboro Four" in her commencement address to North Carolina A&T University's class of 2012. More than half a century ago, four A&T students started the movement that led to desegregation at lunch counters across the country, and Mrs Obama said this shows what can happen when someone decides to "wake up and change the situation." The First Lady challenged the students to follow their lead:

As graduates of this proud university, as young people like those who always stoked the fires of progress, our country is counting on all of you to step forward and help us with the work that remains.  We need you.

Mrs Obama also challeged each member of the graduating class to think about what’s important, and ask themselves three questions:

Who are you going to be?What’s going on in the world around me? andHow can I help?

The answers, she said, would help the graduated keep their bearings as they advanced in their careers and in their lives as citizens: 

You’ve got to figure out what matters to you and stay true to those values. You’ve got to keep your eyes open as you make your way in the world....

The fact is, we simply cannot move forward unless all of us are engaged. And being engaged means not simply recognizing what’s wrong, not simply complaining about and talking about our problems, but acting. It means waking up and changing the situation.  And that’s a lesson that so many of you have already begun to learn during your time here at A&T... 
 
And with that kind of action and that kind of commitment, all of you have begun to carry on that proud legacy of the Greensboro Four.

Students react as First Lady Michele Obama delivers the commencement address at the North Carolina Agriculture & Technology commencement ceremony in Greensboro, N.C., May 12, 2012 (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

This was Mrs. Obama's second commencement address of 2012. You can read her full remarks here
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My First Job: Omar Epps #content #featured-content-block .title { font-size: 17px !important; font-weight: normal; text-indent:0;}.blog-featured-content-queue { float: left; margin-top:15px; margin-right:49px; width: 197px;}#featured-content-block .last {margin-right: 0;}#blog #content .blog-featured-content-queue-title {font-size: 12px;line-height: 14.4px;}#featured-content-block {margin-bottom:55px;margin-top:20px;}Featured ContentWe Can't WaitJob Resources for Returning HeroesEnd of the Iraq War Education WHITEHOUSE.GOV IN YOUR INBOXSign up for education updates PHOTOS OF THE DAY VIEW PHOTO GALLERIES JUMP TO: Other White House Blogs The White House Blog Middle Class Task Force Council of Economic Advisers Council on Environmental Quality Council on Women and Girls Office of Management and Budget Office of Public Engagement Office of Science & Tech Policy Office of Urban Affairs Open Government Faith and Neighborhood Partnerships US Trade Representative Office National Drug Control Policy   Home The White House Blog Photos & Videos Photo Galleries Video Performances Live Streams Podcasts Briefing Room Your Weekly Address Speeches & Remarks Press Briefings Statements & Releases White House Schedule Presidential Actions Legislation Nominations & Appointments Disclosures Issues Civil Rights Defense Disabilities Economy Education Energy & Environment Ethics Fiscal Responsibility Foreign Policy Health Care Homeland Security Immigration Rural Seniors & Social Security Service Taxes Technology Urban Policy Veterans Women The Administration President Barack Obama Vice President Joe Biden First Lady Michelle Obama Dr. Jill Biden The Cabinet White House Staff Executive Office of the President Other Advisory Boards About the White House Inside the White House Presidents First Ladies The Oval Office The Vice President's Residence & Office Eisenhower Executive Office Building Camp David Air Force One White House Fellows White House Internships Tours & Events Our Government The Executive Branch The Legislative Branch The Judicial Branch The Constitution Federal Agencies & Commissions Elections & Voting State & Local Government Resources En español Accessibility Copyright Information Privacy Policy Contact USA.gov Subscribe to RSS Feeds Apply for a Job

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