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http://latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-maxine-waters-20110819,0,7897807.story
Rep. Maxine Waters says blacks want Obama to get tough
The L.A. Democrat says unhappiness with the president is rising
among African Americans who want him to stand up to Republicans
and fight for the poor.
By Michael Muskal, Los Angeles Times
As far as Rep. Maxine Waters in concerned, it is time for
President Obama to get tough with Republicans and put together
proposals that help the poor and especially the hard-hit African
American community.
Speaking at a job fair in Atlanta on Thursday, the fiery Los
Angeles Democrat said there was rising unhappiness among African
Americans with the nation's first black president.
"There is a growing frustration in this country and in minority
communities because the unemployment rates are so high," Waters
said in televised remarks. She went on to cite home foreclosures
and the increasing wealth gap between blacks and whites for
"creating frustration and, yes, some anger" in the black
community, which wants to see Obama take on his opponents.
"The president is going to have to fight and he is going to have
to fight hard," she said.
Referring to the recent battle with Republicans over raising the
debt ceiling, a fight that many liberals see as having been won by
the conservative GOP, Waters called on the president and fellow
Democrats not to be intimidated. "You cannot back down," she said.
"We were basically held up in raising the debt ceiling, until they
got all of those budget cuts they demanded," Waters said. "We
didn't raise any revenue and they didn't close any tax loopholes.
I believe the Democratic Party and the president of the United
States should not have backed down. We should have made them walk
the plank."
Waters also expressed frustration with the nation's high
unemployment rate, and she pointed out that Obama did not visit
any African American communities during his recent three-day
Midwest tour to highlight economic issues.
Rep. Allen West, a black Republican from Florida, also noted that
Obama didn't visit any African American communities during the bus
trip. In an appearance on the Fox News Channel program "The
O'Reilly Factor," West castigated Waters and other African
American Democratic leaders as "overseers of this 21st-century
plantation" and called on the GOP to push for votes among blacks.
"The laughable hypocrisy is that the big black bus is not going in
the black community," West said.
michael.mus...@latimes.com
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