Citing India and China, Obama seeks deficit cuts

 “If we’re going to reduce our deficit, we’re not going to do it by cutting education. This is another bright idea that some in Congress have,” Obama said on the first of his stops Thursday at a Town Hall in Reno, Nevada.

“In a world where our kids are going to be facing tougher competition than ever before, where you’ve got hundreds of millions of Chinese kids and Indian kids and Brazilian kids and Eastern European kids, all who are trying to compete for the jobs of tomorrow, how are we not going to invest in making sure our kids have the best skills possible?” he asked.

Obama said: “Internationally, we were seeing changes around the world - countries like China and India rising; areas like the Middle East becoming less stable; the world shrinking because of technology, much of it invented right here in this region.”

“China and India and Brazil, they’re all growing faster than we are. And you know what, maybe we’ve just got to shrink. We’ve got to shrink everything.”

“I want a vision of America that is big and bold and ambitious as it has ever been. A vision where we’re living within our means but we’re still investing in our future.”