President Barack Obama addressed the Twitterverse Wednesday, hosting his first-ever Twitter Town Hall alongside Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey. The hour-long affair allowed for Twitter users to ask the commander in chief a wide range of questions pertaining to the job market and economy, and let them tune in to the conversation via his live White House webcast. Black Enterprise staffers and followers weighed in amongst the rest of the global Twitterers with questions spanning from the debt ceiling and education to the housing market and alternative energy opportunities. A large portion of the questions (27%) derived from job market concerns. Here are a few tweets covering the topics at hand during yesterday’s address; see how Mr. President responded.
On #smallbiz
Senior Vice President and Editor-at-Large of Black Enterprise Alfred Edmond, Jr. took to the Town Hall timeline to ask about small business owners.
Small business owners wanted to make sure their voices were heard, so they spoke up on the social media platform.
Black Enterprise multimedia content producer and tech guru Marcia Wade Talbert retweets the president’s take on small business opportunities.
Obama claims the biggest issue right now for small businesses is financing. “What we’ve tried to do is get the Small Business Administration, the federal agency that helps small businesses, to step in and to provide more financing–waiving fees, seeing if we can lower interest rates in some cases, making sure that the threshold for companies that qualify for loans are more generous.  And that’s helped a lot of small businesses all across the country.â€
On #education
Students nationwide chimed into the conversation, asking questions about the increase in cost of attendance at universities and colleges across the country, affording school and methods of repayment for student loans.
- Obama let concerned students know that the government has and will continue to work towards keeping the cost of education down. “As part of a higher education package that we passed last year, what we were able to do was to take away subsidies that were going to banks for serving as middlemen in the student loan program and funnel that to help young people, through Pell Grants and lower rates on student loans,” said Obama. “And so there are millions of students who are getting more affordable student loans and grants as a consequence of the steps that we’ve already taken.”
- He didn’t stop there, offering students relief in the near future. “In addition, what we’ve said is that starting in 2013, young people who are going to college will not have to pay more than 10 percent of their income in repayment.”
- Continue to next page…
On #jobs
Many Twitterers were concerned about employment and domestic job growth. The president highlighted advances his administration made over the course of his term such as the creation of two million private sector jobs over the last 15 months, freezing pay for federal workers and December’s payroll tax cut that put a reported $1,000 extra in the pockets of nearly every American.
He went on to discuss job creation and the infrastructure initiative. “We’re putting people to work right now–including construction workers who were disproportionately unemployed when the housing bubble went bust–to put them to work rebuilding America at a time when interest rates are very low, contractors
are looking for work, and the need is there, that is something that could make a huge, positive impact on the economy overall. And it’s an example of making an investment now that ends up having huge payoffs down the road.â€On the #debtceiling
Those following the town hall were anticipating the answer to the tweeted question on whether or not Obama would invoke the 14th Amendment to ignore the debt ceiling as unconstitutional if he were unable to come to an agreement with Republicans. Mr. President responded with an indirect answer. Still, posing the question was worth the try.
*Find the complete transcript for the Twitter town hall at WhiteHouse.gov.
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