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The President: Good evening, everybody.
I'm going to just have a few quick remarks.
We just had a productive meeting with Speaker Boehner,
as well as Majority Leader Reid.
We discussed the impasse that we're currently at with respect
to the budget, and I thought the meetings were frank,
they were constructive, and what they did was narrow the issues
and clarify the issues that are still outstanding.
I remain confident that if we're serious about getting something
done we should be able to complete a deal and get it
passed and avert a shutdown.
But it's going to require a sufficient sense of urgency from
all parties involved.
It means that people have to recognize that a government
shutdown has real consequences for real people.
There was a interview that was done tonight on one of the
nightly news networks -- a man from Kentucky named J.T. Henderson.
He said he's counting on his tax rebate because his family has
been scraping by, and he might not get it if the government shuts down.
So J.T. said if he could speak directly to all of us in
Washington he'd tell us that all of this political grandstanding
has effects as it trickles down to normal, everyday Americans.
I could not have said it better myself.
A shutdown could have real effects on everyday Americans.
That means that small business owners who are counting on that
loan to open their business, to make payroll, to expand,
suddenly they can't do it.
It means folks who are potentially processing a
mortgage, they may not be able to get it.
It means that hundreds of thousands of workers across the
country suddenly are without a paycheck.
Their families are counting on them being able to go to work
and do a good job.
There are ramifications all across this economy.
And at a time when the economy is still coming out of an
extraordinarily deep recession, it would be inexcusable,
given the relatively narrow differences when it comes to
numbers between the two parties, that we can't get this done.
So my expectation is that folks are going to work through the night.
In the morning I will check in with the respective staffs of
the Speaker and the Majority Leader, as well as my team here.
If we haven't made progress, we're going to go back at it again.
And we're going to keep on pounding away at this thing
because I'm absolutely convinced that we can get this done.
There's no reason why we should not be able to complete a deal.
There's no reason why we should have a government shutdown --
unless we've made a decision that politics is more important
than folks like J.T. Henderson.
That's not why we we're elected.
That's not why we were sent here.
And I want to meet the expectations of the American
people in terms of delivering for them.
All right?
Thank you very much, everybody.