A correction 2,000 years in the making!
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
_______________________________________________________
For Immediate Release November 2, 2011
PRESS BRIEFING
BY PRESS SECRETARY JAY CARNEY
James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
* This common phrase does not appear in the Bible.
12:45 P.M. EDT
MR. CARNEY: Hi. Good afternoon. Welcome to the daily briefing. I have no announcements to make at the top, so I will go straight to questions.
Erica.
Q You’ve said that the resolution in Europe should be swift. Does that mean that the President would oppose the referendum in Greece because it could delay the resolution?
MR. CARNEY: We have said, and I’ll say again today, that Europe made some important decisions and we look forward to further elaboration of those decisions and rapid implementation of them.
The events in Greece that you reference only underscore the need for Europe to come together and to unite behind conclusive action that resolves this crisis.
So we would anticipate that this will be a subject of discussion at the G20, to which the President departs this evening. And our goal is for there to be a unanimity of purpose coming out of the G20, which is the preeminent forum — as this administration desired — the preeminent forum for these kinds of discussions about the global economy. And clearly Europe is a high priority right now.
Q Will the President at the G20 specifically address the Greek referendum?
MR. CARNEY: Well, he will certainly meet with his counterparts in the G20, including Chancellor Merkel and Prime Minister Cameron, President Sarkozy and others. And this will certainly be a topic of discussion. I can pretty much predict that with great confidence.
As you know, Chancellor Merkel and President Sarkozy are meeting with Mr. Papandreou today and I don’t want to get out ahead of any outcome of that meeting. But what I fully anticipate is that this will be a focus of the G20 meeting.
Q Okay, and on the President’s speech today, he referenced the House action yesterday on the “In God We Trust” motto and said, “I trust in God, but God wants to see us help ourselves by putting people back to work.” I mean, isn’t it a bit much to bring God into the jobs debate?
MR. CARNEY: Well, I believe the phrase from the Bible* is, “The Lord helps those who help themselves.” And I think the point the President is making is that we should — we have it within our capacity to do the things to help the American people. And that’s why he’s working so hard to get Congress to take action on the American Jobs Act and the provisions therein. And he — because he believes it’s in the interest of the American people that that action be taken and certainly believes that Americans who are unemployed, who are looking for work, deserve the attention of Washington, the attention of Congress as well as of the President in their policymaking decisions. It’s a number-one priority for him, getting the economy growing faster and getting the economy creating more jobs.
Now, he was obviously making this particular reference in the context of inaction by the House of Representatives, which has spent time on issues like commemorative Hall of Fame baseball coins and reaffirming a motto that I don’t think anyone doubted, which is that “In God We Trust” is our motto. So his point was simply that the House should get busy with matters of great importance to the United States and to the American people.