This week, the President continued to preview some of the big ideas that he'll propose in his State of the Union address on January 20th. He made announcements on education, on cybersecurity, and on access to reliable broadband Internet across the country. For all of you who just can't bear to wait until the State of the Union, this one's for you. That's January 9th to January 15th or, "The Little Circle Thing."

This week, House Republicans put at risk critical funding that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) needs to keep our nation safe by insisting on a series of amendments to overturn the President’s immigration accountability executive actions.

The GOP plan would roll back the enforcement priorities DHS has put in place to ensure that our nation’s law enforcement priorities are focused on felons, not families. House Republicans should not be playing politics with funding for DHS, an agency whose mission is focused on protecting our nation from dangerous criminals, as well as national security and terrorist threats.

Instead of proposing new ideas for how to address our broken immigration system, House Republicans are playing games with the resources we need to protect our country. They are keeping us from moving forward on critical investments in cybersecurity, disaster recovery, counterterrorism efforts, and incident response. And they are only perpetuating the current broken immigration system that everyone agrees must be fixed.

President Barack Obama places an order with the waitress during a lunch with Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., Amanda Rothschild, Mary Stein and Morvika "Vika" Jordan to discuss balancing family and jobs, at Charmington’s Café in North Baltimore, Md., Jan. 15, 2015. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Earlier today, President Obama took a quick trip to Charmington's Café in North Baltimore, Maryland to talk with three women -- Amanda, Vika, and Mary -- before he announced new steps his Administration is taking to help working families across the country.

As the President noted at the café today, 43 million Americans still don't get paid sick leave. "That means that no matter how sick they are, or how sick a family member is, they may find themselves having to choose to be able to buy groceries or pay the rent, or look after themselves or their children," he explained.

Ed. note: Yesterday, Valerie Jarrett wrote the following post on LinkedIn, breaking the news on the actions the President took today to help working parents. See the original post here.

Anyone who has ever faced the challenge of raising or supporting a family, while holding down a job, has faced tough choices along the way, and likely felt stretched between the financial and personal needs of their family.

How many working parents know that sinking feeling from sending their child off to school with a fever? How many Americans have to show up to work when battling an illness even when they know they won’t be at their best, it will lengthen their recovery time, and they may likely spread their sickness to others? And how many moms and dads have been denied the ability to bond with their newborn, or to care for an aging parent, all because they could not afford to miss work? These are real, significant moments in life that nearly everyone faces at some point. The last thing we should do is add guilt, fear, and financial hardship on working parents as they try to do what’s right – while keeping their job.

Tomorrow, President Obama will announce several initiatives that will spur action and move us toward our goal of fully supporting and empowering working parents in both their roles as workers and parents.

Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, American business owners, scientists, and entrepreneurs have driven our economy forward and kept the United States leading the way in innovation and global competition. A thread woven through the fabric of our national identity has been having the most productive and highly skilled workforce in the world.

A 21st-century America should be no different.

In order to help revitalize a struggling American economy in the post-Depression 1930s, the Rural Electrification Act called for a push to electrify rural areas. Connecting otherwise hard-to-reach communities through electricity and telephone services gave them the ability to more easily compete on both the national and global economic stage. It was an idea as deeply important to the viability of 20th-century rural America as telecommunications and broadband Internet access is today.

For most Americans, the click of a mouse is all it takes to open the door to a world of up-to-the-minute information and global commerce. In remote communities in particular, broadband brings with it new access to health care, education, and economic opportunities that have not been available in the past. But there are still many for whom this is not yet a reality.

President Barack Obama tours the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center in Arlington, Virginia. He is accompanied by Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, Lisa Monaco, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, and tour guides Dr. Phyllis Schneck, Deputy Under Secretary for Cybersecurity & Communications, and Brigadier General Greg Touhill, (Ret.), Deputy Assistant Secretary for Cybersecurity Operations and Programs. January 13, 2015. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

This week is a big one for cybersecurity. 

President Obama is using the week before his State of the Union to highlight the importance of cybersecurity and to outline the steps this Administration is taking to tackle this problem head-on. As many companies and government agencies know far too well, the cyber threat is only increasing in breadth, pace, sophistication, and impact. The events of the past year, including numerous breaches into major retailers, a widespread encryption vulnerability known as Heartbleed, and the recent destructive and coercive cyber attack against Sony Pictures Entertainment, clearly demonstrate the need to accelerate collective efforts to increase our nation’s cybersecurity and to preserve and protect our core values as a nation.

Watch on YouTube

We live in a digitally connected world. Almost all business transactions, public utilities, or security measures rely on networks that are connected to the Internet. That is why cyber threats pose an enormous challenge to our country. Whether it's rogue hackers, organized criminals, or state actors, our public and private networks are facing an unprecedented level of cybersecurity threats. 

Since taking office, President Obama has led efforts to better prepare our government, our economy, and our nation as a whole for the growing cyber threats we face. Yesterday, he traveled to the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC) in Arlington, VA to review what we've done and what he'll do next to defend our nation's systems. 

Senior White House and Cabinet officials today hosted a delegation of leaders of eight Swiss companies in the Roosevelt Room to discuss opportunities to spur new investments and create jobs for American workers. As part of the meeting, the companies announced their plans to invest about $3 billion into their combined U.S. operations in 2015. These new job-creating investments build on the roughly $140 billion in Swiss foreign direct investment (FDI) stock that makes Switzerland the sixth-largest source of FDI in the United States and a crucial commercial partner.

Many of the executives, who were joined today by senior Swiss government officials, also announced their firms’ plans to expand or launch apprenticeship programs in the United States, reinforcing President Obama’s goal of doubling registered apprenticeships in the U.S. over the next five years. For details on the companies and their specific announcements, please see the Commerce Department’s fact sheet.

Today’s discussion, hosted by Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett, National Economic Council Director Jeff Zients, Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, and Labor Secretary Tom Perez, was an important opportunity to engage with these companies on the mutual benefits of job-creating FDI while discussing the additional steps we can take together to make the United States an increasingly competitive location for companies from around the world to locate, grow, and hire.    

Today, I am delighted to announce the launch of a series of regional forums to engage older Americans, their families, caregivers, advocates, community leaders, and experts on aging on the key issues affecting older Americans. These forums are designed to help provide input and ideas for the upcoming 2015 White House Conference on Aging. 

Over the past several months, we have been preparing for the 2015 White House Conference on Aging along with the Conference’s Executive Director, Nora Super, by establishing a Conference website, and participating in a number of listening sessions and meetings across the country.

This will include regional forums, the first of which will be in Tampa, FL on February 19. Subsequent forums will be held in Phoenix, AZ on March 31; Seattle, WA on April 9; Cleveland, OH on April 27; and Boston, MA on May 28.