Obama Woos Woodbridge

By URIAH KISER

President Barack Obama energized a crowd of supporters who packed the stands at G. Richard Pfitzner Stadium in Woodbridge on Friday.

During Obama’s 25-minute speech to the audience, his campaign slogan “forward” was visible on signs held by those in the crowd and on a large sign erected in the stands. But when Obama addressed economic policies, job creation, and lowering the federal deficit, he harkened back to a bygone era.

“I’ve already worked with Republicans to reduce a trillion dollars in spending, and I’m willing to do more. I want to reform our tax code so it’s simpler and fairer. The only way we are going to reduce the deficit is to ask the wealthiest households to pay higher taxes over $250,000 and go back to the same rate we had when Bill Clinton was president,” said Obama.

Greeted with cheers from the crowd, the president said the Republican model of top-down economics doesn’t work. He also hammered a statement from his Republican opponent Mitt Romney who conceded 47 percent of voters who do not pay federal income taxes would not vote for Romney. Romney also said those Americans believe they are entitled to government assistance.

“I don’t believe we can write off half the nation as a bunch of victims,” said the president.

Obama also said he wants to keep down school and college costs, and reduce military spending by at least $2 trillion – additional monies he says military officials say they don’t need.

If elected to another term, Obama reminded the crowd “we are all in this together” and it will take more than just one term, and more than one president to solve the nation’s economic challenges.

“We don’t think government can solve all of our problems, but we don’t think government is the source of all of our problems, either. We don’t think anybody is the source of all of our problems, not welfare recipients, not corporations, not unions, not immigrants, not gays, not all of the other groups we’re told to blame for our problems,” the president said.

Pfitzner Stadium holds 6,000 people on a normal day. While Obama was speaking, the Prince William County Fire Marshal’s Office reported 11,000 people had packed the stands and the ball field of the Potomac Nationals Minor League Baseball team. The number was 1,000 fewer people than the number the campaign distributed to reporters.

Before his speech, Obama arrived on one of four helicopters that landed at the stadium which sits behind the Prince William County Government Center on Prince William Parkway.

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