After A Breakthrough Year For America, Our

We Had A Farewell Dinner For Some Of My Senior Staff, And Generally Everybody Likes To Talk About How Cool I Was.

To Try To Blackmail A President Into Giving Them Some Concessions On Issues That Have Nothing To Do With The Budget.

If We Choose To Keep Those Tax Breaks For Millionaires And Billionaires, If We Choose To Keep A Tax Break For Corporate Jet Owners, If We Choose To Keep Tax Breaks For Oil And Gas Companies That Are Making Hundreds Of Billions Of Dollars, Then That Means We've Got To Cut Some Kids Off From Getting A College Scholarship.

During The Course Of My Presidency, It Feels As If A Couple Times A Year, I End Up Having To Speak To The Country And To Speak To A Particular Community About A Devastating Loss. The Grieving That The Country Feels Is Real, The Sympathy, The Prioritizing, The Comforting Of The Families, All That’s Important. But I Think Part Of The Point That I Wanted To Make Was That It’s Not Enough Just To Feel Bad.

For Half Of The World's Population, Roughly Three Billion People Around The World Living On Less Than Two Dollars A Day, An Election Is At Best A Means, Not An End; A Starting Point, Not Deliverance. These People Are Looking Less For An "electocracy" Than For The Basic Elements That For Most Of Us Define A Decent Life--food, Shelter, Electricity, Basic Health Care, Education For Their Children, And The Ability To Make Their Way Through Life Without Having To Endure Corruption, Violence, Or Arbitrary Power.