‘I’m a Kansas Guy’: Thousands greet Obama during KU visit

President Barack Obama gives remarks on Thursday, Jan. 22, 2015 at Anschutz Pavilion on the campus of Kansas University in Lawrence, Kan. President Obama visited Lawrence to outline some of his themes delivered during his State of the Union address on Tuesday, Jan. 20.

Kansas University provided the stage Thursday for President Barack Obama to drum up public support for initiatives that he says would improve the economic condition of the American middle class.

Speaking to a mostly enthusiastic crowd estimated at 7,150 people at the Anschutz Sports Pavilion, Obama stood in front of a banner bearing the central theme of his Tuesday night State of the Union speech, “middle class economics.”

“And that’s something that, by the way, shouldn’t be a Democratic or a Republican issue. That should be an American issue,” Obama said, eliciting applause. “All of us should want that kind of success for the middle class and everybody who’s willing to work hard to try to get into the middle class.”

Before launching into his policy initiatives, Obama warmed up the crowd by talking about his Kansas roots, noting that his mother and grandparents were all from south-central Kansas.

“So I’m a Kansas guy,” he said, prompting a round of applause.

He also joked about how that hasn’t always helped him politically. Although he won the 2008 Democratic caucuses in Kansas, he lost the state by wide margins in the general elections in 2008 and 2012.

“We’re sorry,” one person in the audience shouted, to which Obama replied: “Coach (Bill) Self won 10 straight. I lost two straight here. But that’s OK. Listen, I love you, and I might have won sections of Lawrence. That’s possible.”

In fact, Obama carried Douglas County in both elections with more than 60 percent of the vote.

Focus on working families

Much of the speech focused on Obama’s budget proposals for expanding access to child care and early childhood education. He said: “I don’t want anybody being ‘daycare poor.'”

To emphasize that point, he was introduced at the podium by Alyssa Cole, a KU senior majoring in history and African and African-American studies.

A single mother, Cole said she had written to the president in 2013 about education and childcare, saying she felt pressured to choose between her education, working and taking care of her children.

“In the United States, we should have the opportunity to pursue a career and an education while at the same time building quality lives for ourselves and our children,” Cole said.

In his speech, Obama noted that he average cost of full-time daycare for an infant at a child care center is about $10,000 per year, higher than the average cost of in-state tuition at a public four-year university.

His budget proposal calls for tripling the maximum child care tax credit to $3,000 per child and expanding federal child care subsidies to cover all families with young children up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level, or about $40,000 a year for a family of three.

The president also talked about his higher education proposals, including two years of free community college tuition for qualifying students and lower monthly payments on student loan debt.

But he got perhaps his biggest applause of the day when he reiterated his call for passage of pay equity legislation that would require that women be paid the same as men for doing the same work.

“I mean, come on, now, it’s 2015,” Obama said. “This should be sort of a no-brainer.”

Political response

Obama received a warm response from the audience inside the sports pavilion, and from well-wishers who lined the motorcade route to and from the event. One person along the way held up a sign reading “Barack Chalk,” a phrase KU Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little echoed in her remarks before Obama’s speech.

Several local Democratic Party dignitaries attended the event, including former U.S. reps. Jim Slattery and Dennis Moore, as well as Democratic state legislators.

Outside the arena, Obama’s budget plans have prompted stiff opposition from Republicans who now control both chambers of Congress.

Many of them, including Rep. Lynn Jenkins, whose district includes Lawrence, have said they object because the president proposes to pay for the new initiatives with higher taxes on upper-income individuals and by eliminating some tax incentives such as the deduction for 529 educational savings accounts.

Gov. Sam Brownback, who greeted the president when Air Force One landed at Forbes Field in Topeka Wednesday night, said he disagreed with Obama’s approach.

“I really think, though, instead of talking about expanding programs at the federal level, we ought to be talking about how do you get this budget down,” Brownback said. “The deficit is just going to eat our kids’ lunch, and it’s going to eat us. We’ve got to start dealing with it and having real talks about it.”


More reports from President Obama’s visit to Lawrence