03-25-2010, 04:35 PM
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Barack Obama to GOP: 'Go for it'
Barack Obama to GOP: 'Go for it'
Quote:
Iowa City, Iowa — President Barack Obama challenged Republicans Thursday to bring on the debate if they plan to run on a platform of repealing the health care reform bill he signed into law just two days ago.
“My attitude is: Go for it," Obama said. "If these congressmen in Washington want to come here in Iowa and tell small-business owners that they plan to take away their tax credits and essentially raise their taxes, be my guest."
Obama hit the trail Thursday in Iowa to promote the crowning achievement of his first 14 months in office: a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s health care system. And he started his campaign for the new law in the state where his caucus win in 2008 set him on the road to the White House.
Obama framed his latest battle as one against a Republican Party bent on snatching away help just as it’s within the average Americans’ grasp.
Obama went further on the attack against GOP doomsday predictions. “Leaders of the Republican Party have actually been calling the passage of this bill ‘Armageddon,’” he said, mocking the Republicans claims. "End of freedom as we know it! Asteroids falling! Some cracks opening up in the earth!”“Turned out, it was a nice day. Birds were chirping. Folks were strolling down the Mall. People still had their doctors," Obama said.
It was a mostly supportive crowd, but included several hecklers.
“What about the public option?” a man angrily shouted, interrupting Obama’s speech and forcing him to engage on why there was no government-run insurance program in the final bill.
“We couldn’t get it through Congress, that’s what,” Obama replied.
The event had a campaign-style feel – and in fact, evoked comparisons to Obama’s upstart campaign for the presidency, comparisons the White House didn’t discourage. Iowa City was chosen because that’s the city where Obama unveiled his health reform proposal in May 2007.
Obama said health care reform is the "law of the land," and the crowd chanted "Yes we can" – a slogan from his presidential campaign.
Obama grinned and replied, "Yes we did."
Obama tried to reignite the passion of those campaign glory days in a speech at the University of Iowa.
“The road to this victory, Iowa, has been long, it has been difficult. . . .But what this struggle has taught us — about ourselves and about this country — is so much bigger than any one issue, because it’s reminded us what so many of us learned all those months ago on a cold January night here in Iowa, and that’s that change is never easy, but it’s always possible.”
“This is the state that first believed in our campaign. When all the pundits had written us off, when we were down in the polls, this is the state that inspired us to keep on going, even when the path was uncertain. And because of you, this is the place where change began.”
Despite the nostalgia, it was hard not to notice how much had changed in three years.
In May 2007, Obama told Iowans that “as president, I will sign a universal health care plan into law by the end of my first term in office.”
On Thursday, as Obama pitched a watered down version of his original proposal, he had to omit some of the key words in his original promise.
“Just a few months into our campaign, I stood at the University of Iowa hospital right around the corner and I promised that by the end of my first term in office, I would sign legislation to reform our health insurance system,” he said.
Read more: Barack Obama to GOP: 'Go for it' - Carol E. Lee - POLITICO.com
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Go For It ???.... 
Maybe not the best choice of words...I understand his confidence and his belief that once American families start to benefit from this plan it will be hard to take it away from them but Go For It?
Those words may come back to haunt him.. 
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