The White House Blog

In recent weeks, the Administration has taken several steps to advance Pay for Success, an innovative approach for the government to partner with philanthropic and private investors to fund proven and promising practices, significantly enhancing the return on taxpayer investments. Under this model, these organizations provide the up-front capital for social services with a strong evidence base that, when successful, achieve measurable outcomes that improve the lives of families and individuals and reduce their need for future services. Government pays when these measurable results are achieved.

This week, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced  it will provide $5 billion in grant dollars to assist in the rebuilding and strengthening effort following Hurricane Sandy and encouraged the five states impacted by the storm to make use of evidence-based, Pay for Success strategies where appropriate. 

This funding will create new opportunities to rebuild damaged infrastructure, stronger than it was before the storm. Possible projects include management of increased storm water, reducing future flood damage, and protecting water treatment facilities.

Today, Dr. Jill Biden and Labor Secretary Tom Perez will visit Cleveland Community College in North Carolina and Broward College in Florida as part of their “Community College to Career” tour designed to highlight innovative workforce training partnerships.

Dr. Biden and Secretary Perez will meet with students, tour innovative labs and classrooms, and learn more about the Labor Department’s Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) grants. These unprecedented investments are helping leverage strong partnerships with local employers to transform community colleges into engines of economic growth across the country.

Follow along with @LaborSec and @DrBiden on Twitter, and use the hashtag #CCTour to share how community colleges are helping your own community strengthen the workforce of today and train the workforce of tomorrow.

Check out this video featuring 2012’s “Community College to Career” bus tour.

Honoring our Military: On Veterans Day, the President honored those who have served, or are currently serving, our country. The President hosted a breakfast that morning for veterans and their families before heading off to Arlington Cemetery with the Vice President, the First Lady, and Dr. Biden. The President participated in a wreath-laying ceremony and spoke to the crowd about the devotion and commitment of those who don our nation’s uniform.

In the life of our nation, across every generation, there are those who stand apart. They step up, they raise their hands, they take that oath. They put on the uniform and they put their lives on the line. They do this so that the rest of us might live in a country and a world that is safer, freer, and more just.

The President also reminded Americans that we need to support troops after they have come home. “This is how we’ll be judged.  Not just by how well we care for our troops in battle, but how we treat them when they come home,” the President said. Check out the President’s remarks here.

In honor of Veteran’s Day, First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden wrote an op-ed about Joining Forces that appeared in military news websites, highlighting their commitment to employment, wellness, and education for veterans, service members, and their families.

Continuing his work with members of the military later that week, the President welcomed senior civilian defense and military leaders to an annual meeting and dinner, where those present discussed a wide range of issues.

Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Alejandro Mayorkas stand for the National Anthem at a naturalization ceremony at the Martin Luther King Junior Center, in Atlanta, Georgia, November 14, 2013. (Official White House Photo by David Lienemann)

On Thursday, Vice President Joe Biden spoke at a naturalization ceremony at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center in Atlanta, Georgia. He welcomed 104 newly naturalized citizens, representing 50 countries. This ceremony is one of 120 naturalization ceremonies held throughout the nation and overseas in the last two weeks to welcome approximately 8,000 new U.S. citizens.

At the ceremony, the Vice President thanked the new citizens for pursuing American citizenship. “Thank you for choosing us - thank you for concluding America was worthy of your aspirations,” he said. “The truth of the matter is you’ve been Americans for a long time, long before you raised your right hand today, because you’ve all adhered to the idea of America.”

The event highlighted the Obama Administration’s celebration of citizenship and across the board commitment to passing commonsense immigration reform that includes a pathway to earned citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living and working in the U.S. today.

The Vice President recognized that immigration makes us stronger, and that if we want to keep attracting the best and brightest talent the world has to offer, then we need to do a better job of welcoming them. He called for reforms to our immigration system that will help harness the talent and ingenuity of all those like them who want to work hard and find a place here in America.

President Barack Obama delivers remarks at Arcelormittal Steel factory in Cleveland, Ohio, Nov. 14, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)

Today, President Obama spoke at ArcelorMittal’s steel factory in Cleveland, Ohio. ArcelorMittal is the largest supplier of steel to the U.S. auto manufacturing sector. 

But just a few years ago, President Obama said, the economy was in free fall and the auto industry was on the brink of collapse. That meant demand for steel had dried up. Nearly 1,200 steelworkers were furloughed from the factory.

Shortly after taking office, President Obama stepped in to give the auto industry the temporary helped in needed to start growing again. “We rolled up our sleeves, we made some tough choices,” he said. “We rescued and retooled the American auto industry; it saved more than a million jobs.”

We bet on American ingenuity and American workers. And assembly lines started humming again, and automakers started to make cars again. And just a few months after this plant shut down, your plant manager got the call: Fire those furnaces back up, get those workers back on the job. And over the last four years, you’ve made yourselves one of the most productive steel mills not just in America, but in the world.

Today, ArcelorMittal’s Cleveland plant is a global leader in producing the advanced high-strength steel that automakers are demanding for newer, more fuel efficient cars and trucks.

President Barack Obama answers questions at a news conference in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House, Nov. 14, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

In the past few weeks, some Americans have been notified by their health insurance companies that plans they bought on the old individual insurance market are being cancelled – often because these plans no longer meet the Affordable Care Act’s requirement to cover basic benefits like prescription drugs or doctors’ visits.

Today, President Obama announced that insurers can offer these customers the option to renew their 2013 health plans in 2014, without change, allowing them to keep their plans. 

Already, people who have plans that predate the Affordable Care Act can keep those plans if they haven’t changed. That was already in the law. That's what's called a grandfather clause. It was included in the law. Today, we're going to extend that principle both to people whose plans have changed since the law took effect, and to people who bought plans since the law took effect.

"The bottom line, President Obama said, is that "insurers can extend current plans that would otherwise be canceled into 2014, and Americans whose plans have been canceled can choose to re-enroll in the same kind of plan."

President Obama pointed out that the individual insurance market had serious problems before the Affordable Care Act. "And it’s important that we don’t pretend that somehow that’s a place worth going back to. Too often, it works fine as long as you stay healthy; it doesn’t work well when you’re sick," he said. "So year after year, Americans were routinely exposed to financial ruin, or denied coverage due to minor preexisting conditions, or dropped from coverage altogether – even if they paid their premiums on time."   

Creating new protections for people in the individual market – preventing them from being charged more because of a pre-existing condition or getting fewer benefits like mental health services or prescription drugs – “is one of the reasons we pursued this reform in the first place,” President Obama said.

Picture yourself back in 1995 for a moment. Besides questionable music and fashion choices, we were at the start of some troubling trends in energy. The fuel economy of our cars and trucks had flatlined for five years, and they would stay that way for another 15. We were producing less and less of our own fuel at home, and biofuels were barely on the map, let alone in our gas tanks. We began to import more and more oil to make up for surging demand at home.

Fast forward to today, and our energy landscape couldn’t be more different. Our cars and trucks have never been more efficient, and homegrown biofuels account for about 10 percent of our transportation fuel. We are producing more of our oil here at home, and we are getting it from resources that we thought were unreachable just a decade ago.

Today, the Department of Energy announced that we’ve hit another milestone on our path to a more secure energy future. In October, domestic oil production exceeded crude oil imports for the first time since 1995, while petroleum net imports were the lowest since February 1991. For energy, the last two decades have been a story of resurgence and regaining control of our energy security, and this achievement underscores the changes in how we produce and use energy.

But how did we get from 1995 to today? The actions that President Obama and his Administration have taken to reduce our reliance on foreign oil play a significant role in this story. One of the very first actions the President took to implement his energy and climate strategy was to direct the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation to work with the auto industry to develop new fuel economy standards for cars and trucks – because improving fuel efficiency represents one of the best opportunities we have to reduce our dependence on oil.  As a result, we’re already seeing more efficient cars and trucks rolling off of assembly lines and into garages across the county. More than 70% of the oil we use is for transportation, and these investments in efficient cars and trucks have helped drive down oil consumption and save drivers money at the pump.

Today, First Lady Michelle Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan visited sophomores at Bell Multicultural High School in Washington, DC. The First Lady’s remarks continued to expand her focus on issues of youth empowerment and education, in particular working to achieve the President’s “North Star” Goal.

You see, when Barack came into office,” she said, “one of the very first things he did was to set what he calls a North Star goal for America – that by the year 2020, the year that you all will be graduating from college, our country will have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world.”

In her remarks, the First Lady spoke directly to young people about committing to their education so that they can create a better future for themselves, their communities, and their country. She also shared some of her personal academic experiences to illustrate her belief that circumstances do not define your future, but rather your attitude.

“My parents didn’t have much money, and they never went to college themselves, but they had an unwavering belief in the power of education, and they always pushed me and my brother to do whatever it took to succeed in school." 

“I knew that the first thing I needed to do was to have the strongest academic record possible… so I worked hard to get the best grades that I possibly could in all my classes.  I got involved in leadership opportunities in school, where I developed close relationships with teachers and administrators. I knew I needed to present very solid and thoughtful college applications… so I stayed up late at night working on my college essays and personal statements.  I knew my parents would not be able to pay for all of my tuition… so I made sure I applied for financial aid on time.  And when I encountered doubters…when people told me that I wasn’t going to cut it… I didn’t let that stop me."