Being acutely aware that, more than anything else, jobs is the most important issue facing Americans today and because Democrats know votes are on the line, President Obama officially opened the White House Jobs Summit this afternoon.

As the President addressed the gathered experts who would be attending the Jobs Summit his remarks dealt with some history as to what happened and why the administration has handled things as they have, but the President quickly got right to the heart of the matter saying, "The question we have to ask ourselves today is, how do we get businesses to start hiring again?"

Not an easy answer, especially to those people without work and a large segment of people who have seen Wall Street use tax payer funds for lavish bonuses.  The President added, "We knew... it would take time for job growth to catch up with economic growth, we all understood that, that's always been the case with recessions, but we cannot hang back and hope for the best when we've seen the kind of job losses that we've seen over the last year."

We'll keep you updated on anything that comes out of the Summit.

Watch the opening remarks below: