Obama says safety lies in opportunity

Paths to jobs seen reducing gun violence

President Barack Obama speaks Friday about strengthening the economy for the middle class and gun violence at an appearance at Chicago’s Hyde Park Academy.
President Barack Obama speaks Friday about strengthening the economy for the middle class and gun violence at an appearance at Chicago’s Hyde Park Academy.

— President Barack Obama on Friday linked job creation and economic opportunity to reducing gun violence, saying upward mobility creates alternatives to crime.

“This is not just a gun issue; it’s also an issue of the kinds of communities we’re building,” Obama said in remarks at the Hyde Park Academy, a public school about a mile from his family’s home.

He said his proposals, including expanding preschool access and raising the minimum wage to $9 an hour, will create for poorer children “ladders of opportunity they can climb into the middle class and beyond, and most importantly keeping them safe from harm.”

The school where the president spoke is near the park where 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton, a Chicago student who attended Obama’s inauguration, was fatally shot Jan. 29 as she and friends sought shelter from the rain. The girl’s parents were in the Hyde Park Academy audience.

Obama cited the teenager’s death as well as the mass shooting at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school that left 20 first-graders and six adults dead.

“Unfortunately what happened to Hadiya is not unique,” the president said. The toll extends from urban neighborhoods to rural areas in part because too many young people don’t see opportunities or have examples of success, he said.

Before delivering his remarks, Obama spoke privately about gun violence with a group of 16 students enrolled in an anti-violence mentoring program for at-risk men.

Chicago had 506 homicides in 2012, the most in four years, and is on pace to match that number again. By comparison, New York City, with a population about three times larger, had 419 homicides.

He said Chicago’s rate of youth casualties from firearms has been “the equivalent of a Newtown every four months.”

The president said in many places, including parts of Chicago, children grow up with the sense that “the future only extends to the next street corner” and “your destiny was determined the moment you were born.” He said he’s seeking to change that by expanding early education.

Likewise, Obama said, “It’s very hard to develop economically if people don’t feel safe. Commerce dries up.”

White House spokesman Josh Earnest, traveling with the president on Air Force One, told reporters that while “there are important steps we can take as a country to keep guns out of the wrong hands and get weapons of war off the street,” Obama also believes, “It’s not enough to debate the role of government in reducing violence.”

“It’s up to parents, teachers, principals, neighbors and communities as a whole to make a difference in the lives of our young people and steer them away from a life of gang violence and toward the classroom,” Earnest said.

Obama is proposing to put pilot programs in 20 communities to coordinate federal, state and private-sector investments aimed at reviving areas hardest hit by the recession that ended in June 2009.

The Chicago visit follows trips by Obama this week to Decatur, Ga., and Asheville, N.C., this week to promote the programs he outlined in his State of the Union address. In those cities, Obama highlighted proposals to create manufacturing innovation centers and establishing universal access to pre-kindergarten education.

The administration hasn’t put a price tag on Obama’s proposals, leaving that to the budget he will submit to Congress by mid-March. Obama in his address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday promised they wouldn’t increase the U.S. deficit “by a single dime.”

Republicans, such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, have expressed skepticism about Obama’s plans and promised to oppose new spending.

The White House and congressional Republicans already are at an impasse over how to avoid a March 1 deadline for $1.2 trillion in automatic, across-the board spending cuts to begin taking effect.

Front Section, Pages 3 on 02/16/2013

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