Barack Obama

Obama draws hundreds in Q-C

Thursday, February 24, 2005

By Deirdre Cox Baker
Quad-City Times

Wallenberg Hall at Augustana College was packed 30 minutes before U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's town hall meeting Wednesday, and the overflow crowd spilled into alternate venues to hear the senator's thoughts on Social Security, the budget and family values.

"My job is not to represent Washington to you, but to represent you to Washington," Obama said to cheers and applause from the audience in Rock Island.

He began the hour-long question-and-answer session with a short discussion of Social Security, saying that President Bush’s plan to replace the current system with private accounts would be too expensive and would not fix the predicted funding gap. Obama said the system should be adjusted the same way it has for decades — either by reducing benefits or raising payroll taxes or some mix of the two.

U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., speaks to students and other interested people Wednesday morning during a town hall meeting at Wallenberg Hall on the campus of Augustana College in Rock Island.

The president's plan, he charged, "would take us from a guaranteed insurance program to a speculative program dependent on the vagaries of the marketplace."

Obama also said the nation must improve the way it works with other countries, especially through what he termed "public diplomacy" and via programs such as the Peace Corps and student exchanges.

He said the top priority — one that would promote economic development and the nation's place in an even more competitive world — should be education.

"The world is not just shrinking, it has shrunk," he said, telling Augustana students they will compete in a world marketplace with thousands of graduates from countries such as China and India as well as the United States.

The way to success, he insisted, is not simply through secondary education but also through education that instills a thirst for knowledge and the ability to adapt. "This is a much higher priority than Social Security, where George Bush is placing all his political capital," he said.

Obama also discussed family values in response to a question about a constitutional amendment on marriage. He said the amendment is unnecessary, but the Democratic Party needs to do a better job of communicating the importance of faith, family and community in people’s lives.

"We never discuss the everyday values most of us use," he said. Obama suggested Democrats are reluctant to discuss such values because they fear sounding intolerant.

Deirdre Cox Baker can be contacted at (563) 383-2492 or dbaker@qctimes.com.