Barack Obama and "economic inequality."

Obama's speech on "economic inequality"... text and video: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/12/obama-income-inequality-100662.html

This speech should be widely discussed.

Here is my position:

The Democrats have a mean and cruel strategy for 2014 and 2016 which goes like this...

They intend to pass all these phony Minimum Wage increases across the country where they have Democratic majorities--- claim the Republican Congress prevented a Minimum Wage increase nationally, run on that along with all the rhetoric about how they are the party of "jobs, jobs, jobs"--- elect us--- we raised the Minimum Wage where we could and now we are going to put American back to work. 

I would note that for all the talk about "living wages" that when the discussion turns to the Minimum Wage these Democrats pass so-called "increases" that enforce a continued poverty wage when that Minimum Wage is compared to the actual "cost-of-living." Is there anything other than "cost-of-living" that the Minimum Wage can be fairly compared to? No.

Obama talks about putting people to work; but, do you hear Obama or any other Democrats calling to create legislation that would make it mandatory for the president and Congress to work together to attain and maintain full employment? No. Without such full employment legislation, there is no way to enforce accountability from politicians like Obama who talk about "jobs, jobs, jobs."

Obama says he wants to hear from people who have ideas contrary to his own--- but, who does he ask? Republicans. He should be asking liberals, progressives and leftists just like President Franklin D. Roosevelt did.

Roosevelt, unable to get around and confined to a wheelchair, sent his wife, Eleanor, and Frances Perkins out across the country to ask the victims of the economic depression what kind of help they required. They met with Communists and Socialists, trade unionists and activists struggling against racist injustices and inequality.

Who does Obama go to talk to? The Center for American Progress; a bunch of foundation-funded hypocrites who receive their funding from the "philanthropists" who are the same Wall Street parasites growing fatter and richer from paying workers poverty wages--- the very group who helped create a phony image of Obama in the first place. The very group which, along with the Campaign for America's Future and the Century Foundation and the AFL-CIO leadership, helped to smash the movement for single-payer universal health care.

The Democrats had every opportunity to pass a real living Minimum Wage when they had a super-majority; but, like here in Minnesota with a Democratic super-majority, these Democrats CHOSE to do nothing.

Now, with Obama's record being one continual Wall Street assist, these Democrats opportunistically jump in a self-serving way saying they support "living wages" when in fact their passage of poverty Minimum Wage legislation across the country tells their real story--- and whose side they are on.

Obama rewarded Wal-street, whoops, I mean Wal-mart, by appointing the head of the Wal-mart foundation to be the Director of Management and Budget and billionairess Penny Pritzker as Secretary of Commerce.

Where is the Eleanor Roosevelt, Frances Perkins, Harry Hopkins, Victor Perlo, Fred Stover, Rex Tugwell or Henry Wallace in the Obama Administration? They don't exist.

And, as far as the people's movements... where are the Harry Bridges, Wyndham Mortimers, Art Biggs, Phil Raymonds, Albert Fitzgeralds, Charles Hayes?

To win real change it takes a combination of sympathetic and empathetic people in government and people's organizations and movements with militant and determined leaders brought forward through the ranks of these movements.

We don't have the kind of people in government, the massive organizations behind huge movements with the kind of left wing leaders required to win real change... so, Obama pulls off another one of his infamous dog-and-pony shows standing in front of a bunch of his hand-picked "people's advocates" paid by Wall Street who will applaud for him on cue... but, what do we get from Obama and the Democrats? Shit.

We need a "21st Century Full Employment Act for Peace and Prosperity;" the only way we are going to get this is when we are able to elect politicians from within our movements.

President Barack Obama’s speech in Chicago after his re-election Tuesday night, as transcribed by Roll Call:

President Barack Obama’s speech in Chicago after his re-election Tuesday night, as transcribed by Roll Call:

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2012/11/07/transcript-obamas-victory-speech/

___

Thank you so much.

Tonight, more than 200 years after a former colony won the right to determine its own destiny, the task of perfecting our union moves forward.

It moves forward because of you. It moves forward because you reaffirmed the spirit that has triumphed over war and depression, the spirit that has lifted this country from the depths of despair to the great heights of hope, the belief that while each of us will pursue our own individual dreams, we are an American family and we rise or fall together as one nation and as one people.

Tonight, in this election, you, the American people, reminded us that while our road has been hard, while our journey has been long, we have picked ourselves up, we have fought our way back, and we know in our hearts that for the United States of America the best is yet to come.

I want to thank every American who participated in this election, whether you voted for the very first time or waited in line for a very long time. By the way, we have to fix that. Whether you pounded the pavement or picked up the phone, whether you held an Obama sign or a Romney sign, you made your voice heard and you made a difference.

I just spoke with Gov. Romney and I congratulated him and Paul Ryan on a hard-fought campaign. We may have battled fiercely, but it’s only because we love this country deeply and we care so strongly about its future. From George to Lenore to their son Mitt, the Romney family has chosen to give back to America through public service and that is the legacy that we honor and applaud tonight. In the weeks ahead, I also look forward to sitting down with Gov. Romney to talk about where we can work together to move this country forward.

I want to thank my friend and partner of the last four years, America’s happy warrior, the best vice president anybody could ever hope for, Joe Biden.

And I wouldn’t be the man I am today without the woman who agreed to marry me 20 years ago. Let me say this publicly: Michelle, I have never loved you more. I have never been prouder to watch the rest of America fall in love with you, too, as our nation’s first lady. Sasha and Malia, before our very eyes you’re growing up to become two strong, smart beautiful young women, just like your mom. And I’m so proud of you guys. But I will say that for now one dog’s probably enough.

To the best campaign team and volunteers in the history of politics. The best. The best ever. Some of you were new this time around, and some of you have been at my side since the very beginning. But all of you are family. No matter what you do or where you go from here, you will carry the memory of the history we made together and you will have the lifelong appreciation of a grateful president. Thank you for believing all the way, through every hill, through every valley. You lifted me up the whole way and I will always be grateful for everything that you’ve done and all the incredible work that you put in.

I know that political campaigns can sometimes seem small, even silly. And that provides plenty of fodder for the cynics that tell us that politics is nothing more than a contest of egos or the domain of special interests. But if you ever get the chance to talk to folks who turned out at our rallies and crowded along a rope line in a high school gym, or saw folks working late in a campaign office in some tiny county far away from home, you’ll discover something else.

You’ll hear the determination in the voice of a young field organizer who’s working his way through college and wants to make sure every child has that same opportunity. You’ll hear the pride in the voice of a volunteer who’s going door to door because her brother was finally hired when the local auto plant added another shift. You’ll hear the deep patriotism in the voice of a military spouse who’s working the phones late at night to make sure that no one who fights for this country ever has to fight for a job or a roof over their head when they come home.

That’s why we do this. That’s what politics can be. That’s why elections matter. It’s not small, it’s big. It’s important. Democracy in a nation of 300 million can be noisy and messy and complicated. We have our own opinions. Each of us has deeply held beliefs. And when we go through tough times, when we make big decisions as a country, it necessarily stirs passions, stirs up controversy.

That won’t change after tonight, and it shouldn’t. These arguments we have are a mark of our liberty. We can never forget that as we speak people in distant nations are risking their lives right now just for a chance to argue about the issues that matter, the chance to cast their ballots like we did today.

But despite all our differences, most of us share certain hopes for America’s future. We want our kids to grow up in a country where they have access to the best schools and the best teachers. A country that lives up to its legacy as the global leader in technology and discovery and innovation, with all the good jobs and new businesses that follow.

We want our children to live in an America that isn’t burdened by debt, that isn’t weakened by inequality, that isn’t threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet. We want to pass on a country that’s safe and respected and admired around the world, a nation that is defended by the strongest military on earth and the best troops this — this world has ever known. But also a country that moves with confidence beyond this time of war, to shape a peace that is built on the promise of freedom and dignity for every human being.

We believe in a generous America, in a compassionate America, in a tolerant America, open to the dreams of an immigrant’s daughter who studies in our schools and pledges to our flag. To the young boy on the south side of Chicago who sees a life beyond the nearest street corner. To the furniture worker’s child in North Carolina who wants to become a doctor or a scientist, an engineer or an entrepreneur, a diplomat or even a president — that’s the future we hope for. That’s the vision we share. That’s where we need to go — forward. That’s where we need to go.

Now, we will disagree, sometimes fiercely, about how to get there. As it has for more than two centuries, progress will come in fits and starts. It’s not always a straight line. It’s not always a smooth path.

By itself, the recognition that we have common hopes and dreams won’t end all the gridlock or solve all our problems or substitute for the painstaking work of building consensus and making the difficult compromises needed to move this country forward. But that common bond is where we must begin.

Our economy is recovering. A decade of war is ending. A long campaign is now over. And whether I earned your vote or not, I have listened to you, I have learned from you, and you’ve made me a better president. And with your stories and your struggles, I return to the White House more determined and more inspired than ever about the work there is to do and the future that lies ahead.

Tonight you voted for action, not politics as usual. You elected us to focus on your jobs, not ours. And in the coming weeks and months, I am looking forward to reaching out and working with leaders of both parties to meet the challenges we can only solve together. Reducing our deficit. Reforming our tax code. Fixing our immigration system. Freeing ourselves from foreign oil. We’ve got more work to do.

But that doesn’t mean your work is done. The role of citizen in our democracy does not end with your vote. America’s never been about what can be done for us. It’s about what can be done by us together through the hard and frustrating, but necessary work of self-government. That’s the principle we were founded on.

This country has more wealth than any nation, but that’s not what makes us rich. We have the most powerful military in history, but that’s not what makes us strong. Our university, our culture are all the envy of the world, but that’s not what keeps the world coming to our shores.

What makes America exceptional are the bonds that hold together the most diverse nation on earth. The belief that our destiny is shared; that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another and to future generations. The freedom which so many Americans have fought for and died for come with responsibilities as well as rights. And among those are love and charity and duty and patriotism. That’s what makes America great.

I am hopeful tonight because I’ve seen the spirit at work in America. I’ve seen it in the family business whose owners would rather cut their own pay than lay off their neighbors, and in the workers who would rather cut back their hours than see a friend lose a job. I’ve seen it in the soldiers who reenlist after losing a limb and in those SEALs who charged up the stairs into darkness and danger because they knew there was a buddy behind them watching their back.

I’ve seen it on the shores of New Jersey and New York, where leaders from every party and level of government have swept aside their differences to help a community rebuild from the wreckage of a terrible storm. And I saw just the other day, in Mentor, Ohio, where a father told the story of his 8-year-old daughter, whose long battle with leukemia nearly cost their family everything had it not been for health care reform passing just a few months before the insurance company was about to stop paying for her care.

I had an opportunity to not just talk to the father, but meet this incredible daughter of his. And when he spoke to the crowd listening to that father’s story, every parent in that room had tears in their eyes, because we knew that little girl could be our own. And I know that every American wants her future to be just as bright. That’s who we are. That’s the country I’m so proud to lead as your president.

And tonight, despite all the hardship we’ve been through, despite all the frustrations of Washington, I’ve never been more hopeful about our future. I have never been more hopeful about America. And I ask you to sustain that hope. I’m not talking about blind optimism, the kind of hope that just ignores the enormity of the tasks ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. I’m not talking about the wishful idealism that allows us to just sit on the sidelines or shirk from a fight.

I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting.

America, I believe we can build on the progress we’ve made and continue to fight for new jobs and new opportunity and new security for the middle class. I believe we can keep the promise of our founders, the idea that if you’re willing to work hard, it doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from or what you look like or where you love. It doesn’t matter whether you’re black or white or Hispanic or Asian or Native American or young or old or rich or poor, able, disabled, gay or straight, you can make it here in America if you’re willing to try.

I believe we can seize this future together because we are not as divided as our politics suggests. We’re not as cynical as the pundits believe. We are greater than the sum of our individual ambitions, and we remain more than a collection of red states and blue states. We are and forever will be the United States of America.

And together with your help and God’s grace we will continue our journey forward and remind the world just why it is that we live in the greatest nation on Earth.

Thank you, America. God bless you. God bless these United States.

President Barack Obama's speech in Detroit on Labor Day 2011

Question: Is there anything in this speech for working people to applaud?

Read a transcript of President Barack Obama's speech in Detroit on Labor Day.

Thank you.

Thank you, everybody. I can tell Ghana got you fired up. Thank you, Ghana, for that introduction. Thank you all for having me. It is good to be back in Detroit. I'm glad I was able to bring a friend -- a proud daughter of the Teamsters, your Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis, in the house. 

We’re thrilled to be joined by so many other friends. I want to acknowledge, first of all, two of the finest senators in the country -- Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow are in the house. Outstanding members of the congressional delegation -- John Bingham, John Conyers, Sandy Levin, Gary Peters, and Hansen Clarke. 

The president of the Metropolitan Detroit Central Labor Council, our host, Saundra Williams. AFL-CIO president, Rich Trumka. President of the Michigan AFL-CIO, Mark Gaffney. And some proud sons and daughters of Michigan representing working people here and across the country -- SEIU President Mary Kay Henry, Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa, UAW President Bob King, Utility Workers President Mike Langford. We are proud of them and we're proud of your congressional delegation who are working every single day with your state and local elected officials to create jobs and economic growth and prosperity here in Michigan and all across the country. 

I am honored, we are honored, to spend this day with you and your families -- the working men and women of America. This day belongs to you. You deserve a little R&R, a little barbecue -- (laughter) -- little grilling -- because you’ve been working hard. You’ve been working hard to make ends meet. You’ve been working hard to build a better life for your kids. You’ve been working hard to build a better Detroit. But that’s not all I’m going to talk to you about. 

I also want to talk about the work you’ve been doing for decades: Work to make sure that folks get an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work. Work to make sure that families get a fair shake. The work you've done that helped build the greatest middle class the world has ever known. I’m talking about the work that got us a 40-hour workweek and weekends, and paid leave and pensions, and the minimum wage and health insurance, and Social Security and Medicare -- (applause) -- the cornerstones of middle-class security. That's because of your work. 

If you want to know who helped lay these cornerstones of an American middle class you just have to look for the union label.

That’s the bedrock this country is built on. Hard work. Responsibility. Sacrifice. Looking out for one another. Giving everybody a shot, everybody a chance to share in America’s prosperity, from the factory floor to the boardroom. That’s what unions are all about. 

And that’s something that’s worth keeping in mind today. We’ve come through a difficult decade in which those values were all too often given short shrift. We’ve gone through a decade where wealth was valued over work, and greed was valued over responsibility. And the decks were too often stacked against ordinary folks in favor of the special interests. And everywhere I went while I was running for this office, I met folks who felt their economic security slipping away, men and women who were fighting harder and harder just to stay afloat. And that was even before the economic crisis hit, and that just made things even harder. 

So these are tough times for working Americans. They’re even tougher for Americans who are looking for work –- and a lot of them have been looking for work for a long time. A lot of folks have been looking for work for a long time here in Detroit, and all across Michigan, and all across the Midwest, and all across the country. So we’ve got a lot more work to do to recover fully from this recession. 

But I’m not satisfied just to get back to where we were before the recession; we’ve got to fully restore the middle class in America. And America cannot have a strong, growing economy without a strong, growing middle class and without a strong labor movement.

That’s the central challenge that we face in our country today. That’s at the core of why I ran for President. That’s what I’ve been fighting for since I’ve been President. Everything we’ve done, it’s been thinking about you. We said working folks deserved a break -- so within one month of me taking office, we signed into law the biggest middle-class tax cut in history, putting more money into your pockets.

We said working folks shouldn’t be taken advantage of -- so we passed tough financial reform that ended the days of taxpayer bailouts, and stopped credit card companies from gouging you with hidden fees and unfair rate hikes, and set up a new consumer protection agency with one responsibility: sticking up for you.

We said that if you’re going to work hard all day to provide a better life for your kids, then we’re going to make sure that those kids get the best education possible. So we helped keep teachers on the job. We’re reforming our public schools, and we’re investing in community colleges and job-training programs. And we ended wasteful giveaways that went to the big banks and used the savings to make college more affordable for millions of your kids.

We said that every family in America should have affordable, accessible health care. We said you shouldn’t be discriminated against because you’ve got a preexisting condition. We said young adults without insurance should be able to stay on their parents’ plans. We got that done -- for you. 

And here’s what else we said, Detroit. We said that American autoworkers could once again build the best cars in the world. (Applause.) So we stood by the auto industry. And we made some tough choices that were necessary to make it succeed. And now, the Big Three are turning a profit and hiring new workers, and building the best cars in the world right here in Detroit, right here in the Midwest, right here in the United States of America. (Applause.) 

I know it. I’ve seen it. I’ve been to GM’s Hamtramck plant. I’ve been to Chrysler’s Jefferson North Plant. I’ve seen Detroit prove the cynics and the naysayers wrong.

We didn’t just stop there. We said American workers could manufacture the best products in the world. So we invested in high-tech manufacturing and we invested in clean energy. And right now, there’s an advanced battery industry taking root here in Michigan that barely existed before. Half of the workers at one plant in Detroit were unemployed before a new battery company came to town. And we’re growing our exports so that more of the world buys products that are stamped with three simple words: “Made in America.” 

So that’s what we’re fighting for, Michigan. We’re fighting for good jobs with good wages. We’re fighting for health care when you get sick. We’re fighting for a secure retirement even if you’re not rich. We’re fighting for the chance to give our kids a better life than we had. That’s what we’re doing to restore middle-class security and rebuild this economy the American way -- based on balance and fairness and the same set of rules for everybody from Wall Street to Main Street. An economy where hard work pays off and gaming the system doesn’t pay off, and everybody has got a shot at the American Dream. That’s what we’re fighting for.

On Thursday, we’re going to lay out a new way forward on jobs to grow the economy and put more Americans back to work right now. I don’t want to give everything away right here, because I want you all to tune in on Thursday but I'll give you just a little bit. 

We’ve got roads and bridges across this country that need rebuilding. We’ve got private companies with the equipment and the manpower to do the building. We’ve got more than 1 million unemployed construction workers ready to get dirty right now. There is work to be done and there are workers ready to do it. Labor is on board. Business is on board. We just need Congress to get on board. Let’s put America back to work. 

Last year, we worked together, Republicans and Democrats, to pass a payroll tax cut. And because of that, this year the average family has an extra $1,000 in their pocket because of it.

But that’s going to expire in a few months if we don’t come together to extend it. And I think putting money back in the pockets of working families is the best way to get demand rising, because that then means business is hiring, and that means the government -- that means that the economy is growing.

So I’m going to propose ways to put America back to work that both parties can agree to, because I still believe both parties can work together to solve our problems. And given the urgency of this moment, given the hardship that many people are facing, folks have got to get together. 

But we’re not going to wait for them. We’re going to see if we’ve got some straight shooters in Congress. We’re going to see if congressional Republicans will put country before party. We’ll give them a plan, and then we’ll say, do you want to create jobs? Then put our construction workers back to work rebuilding America. Do you want to help our companies succeed? Open up new markets for them to sell their products. You want -- you say you’re the party of tax cuts? Well then, prove you’ll fight just as hard for tax cuts for middle-class families as you do for oil companies and the most affluent Americans. (Applause.) Show us what you got. 

The time for Washington games is over. The time for action is now. No more manufactured crises. No more games. Now is not the time for the people you sent to Washington to worry about their jobs; now is the time for them to worry about your jobs. (Applause.) 

Now, let me say a word about labor in particular. Now, I know this is not going to be an easy time. I know it’s not easy when there's some folks who have their sights trained on you. After all that unions have done to build and protect the middle class, you’ve got people trying to claim that you’re responsible for the problems middle-class folks are facing.

You’ve got Republicans saying you’re the ones exploiting working families. Imagine that.

Now, the fact is, our economy is stronger when workers are getting paid good wages and good benefits. Our economy is stronger when we've got broad-based growth and broad-based prosperity. That’s what unions have always been about -- shared prosperity. 

You know, I was on the plane flying over here, and Carl Levin was with me, and he showed me a speech that Harry Truman had given on Labor Day 63 years ago, right here in Detroit -- 63 years ago. And just to show that things haven't changed much, he talked about how Americans had voted in some folks into Congress who weren’t very friendly to labor. And he pointed out that some working folks and even some union members voted these folks in. And now they were learning their lesson. And he pointed out that -- and I'm quoting here -- “the gains of labor were not accomplished at the expense of the rest of the nation. Labor’s gains contributed to the nation’s general prosperity.”

What was true back in 1948 is true in 2011. When working families are doing well, when they're getting a decent wage and they're getting decent benefits, that means they're good customers for businesses. That means they can buy the cars that you build. That means that you can buy the food from the farmers. That means you can buy from Silicon Valley. You are creating prosperity when you share in prosperity. 

So when I hear some of these folks trying to take collective bargaining rights away, trying to pass so-called “right to work” laws for private sector workers -- that really mean the right to work for less and less and less -- when I hear some of this talk I know this is not about economics. This is about politics.

And I want everybody here to know, as long as I’m in the White House I’m going to stand up for collective bargaining. 

That’s why we’ve reversed harmful decisions that were designed to undermine those rights. That's why we passed the Fair Pay Act to stop pay discrimination. That's why we appointed people who are actually fulfilling their responsibilities to make sure that the offices and factories and mines workers that clock in each day, that they're actually safe on the job. 

And we’re going to keep at it. Because having a voice on the job and a chance to organize and a chance to negotiate for a fair day’s pay after a hard day’s work, that is the right of every man and woman in America -- not just the CEO in the corner office, but also the janitor who cleans that office after the CEO goes home. Everybody has got the same right. 

And that’s true for public employees as well. Look, the recession had a terrible effect on state and local budgets -- we all understand that. Unions have recognized that; they’ve already made tough concessions. In the private sector, we live in a more competitive global economy -- so unions like the UAW understand that workers have to work with management to revamp business models, to innovate so we can sell our products around the world. We understand that the world is changing; unions understand that the world is changing. Unions understand they need to help drive the change, whether it’s on the factory floor, or in the classroom, or in the government office. 

But what unions also know is that the values at the core of the union movement, those don’t change. Those are the values that have made this country great. That’s what the folks trying to undermine your rights don’t understand. When union workers agree to pay freezes and pay cuts -- they’re not doing it just to keep their jobs. They’re doing it so that their fellow workers -– their fellow Americans -- can keep their jobs.

When teachers agree to reforms in how schools are run at the same time as they’re digging into their pockets to buy school supplies for those kids, they do so because they believe every child can learn. They do it because they know something that those who seek to divide us don’t understand: We are all in this together. That’s why those crowds came out to support you in Madison and in Columbus. We are one nation. We are one people. We will rise and we will fall together. 

Anyone who doesn’t believe it should come here to Detroit. It’s like the commercial says: This is a city that’s been to heck and back. And while there are still a lot of challenges here, I see a city that’s coming back. 

You ask somebody here if times are tough, they’ll say, yeah, it’s tough, but we’re tougher. Look at what we’re doing to overcome. Look at what we’re doing to rebuild and reinvent and redefine what it means to live in this great city. Look at our parents who catch the first bus to work, and our students who stay up late to earn a degree. Look at our workers on the line at Hamtramck and Jefferson North who are building the best cars in the world. Look at our artists who are revamping our city, and our young people who are thinking up new ways to make a difference that we never dreamed of. Look how we look out for one another. 

That’s why we chose Detroit as one of the cities that we’re helping revitalize in our “Strong Cities, Strong Communities” initiative. We’re teaming up with everybody -- mayors, local officials, you name it -- boosting economic development, rebuilding your communities the best way, which is a way that involves you. Because despite all that’s changed here, and all the work that lies ahead, this is still a city where men clocked into factories. This is the city that built the greatest middle class the world has ever known. This is the city where women rolled up their sleeves and helped build an arsenal for democracy to free the world. This is a city where the great American industry has come back to life and the industries of tomorrow are taking root. This is a city where people, brave and bold, courageous and clever, are dreaming up ways to prove the skeptics wrong and write the next proud chapter in our history. 

That’s why I wanted to be here with you today. Because for every cynic and every naysayer running around talking about how our best days are behind us -- for everybody who keeps going around saying, “No, we can’t" -- for everybody who can always find a reason why we can’t rebuild America, I meet Americans every day who, in the face of impossible odds they’ve got a different belief. They believe we can. You believe we can. 

Yes, times are tough. But we’ve been through tough times before. I don’t know about you, but I’m not scared of tough times. I’m not scared of tough times because I know we’re going to be all marching together and walking together and working together and rebuilding together. And I know we don’t quit. I know we don’t give up our dreams and settle for something less. We roll up our sleeves -- and we remember a fundamental truth of our history: We are strong when we are united. We’re firing all cylinders. 

The union movement is going to be at the center of it. And if all of you are committed to making sure that the person standing next to you, and their kids and their grandkids -- that everybody in this city and everybody in this country can unleash his or her potential, if you work hard and play by the rules, you will get a fair shake and get a fair shot. That’s the country I want for my kids. That’s the country you want for your kids. That’s the country we’re going to build together. 

Thank you very much, Detroit. God bless you. And God bless the United States of America.

Renewing American Leadership, by Barack Obama - July 2007

Renewing American Leadership, by Barack Obama - July 2007
Renewing American Leadership


Barack Obama / Foreign Affairs, July-August 2007

At moments of great peril in the last century, American leaders such as Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and John F. Kennedy managed both to protect the American people and to expand opportunity for the next generation. What is more, they ensured that America, by deed and example, led and lifted the world -- that we stood for and fought for the freedoms sought by billions of people beyond our borders.

As Roosevelt built the most formidable military the world had ever seen, his Four Freedoms gave purpose to our struggle against fascism. Truman championed a bold new architecture to respond to the Soviet threat -- one that paired military strength with the Marshall Plan and helped secure the peace and well-being of nations around the world. As colonialism crumbled and the Soviet Union achieved effective nuclear parity, Kennedy modernized our military doctrine, strengthened our conventional forces, and created the Peace Corps and the Alliance for Progress. They used our strengths to show people everywhere America at its best.

Today, we are again called to provide visionary leadership. This century's threats are at least as dangerous as and in some ways more complex than those we have confronted in the past. They come from weapons that can kill on a mass scale and from global terrorists who respond to alienation or perceived injustice with murderous nihilism. They come from rogue states allied to terrorists and from rising powers that could challenge both America and the international foundation of liberal democracy. They come from weak states that cannot control their territory or provide for their people. And they come from a warming planet that will spur new diseases, spawn more devastating natural disasters, and catalyze deadly conflicts.

To recognize the number and complexity of these threats is not to give way to pessimism. Rather, it is a call to action. These threats demand a new vision of leadership in the twenty-first century -- a vision that draws from the past but is not bound by outdated thinking. The Bush administration responded to the unconventional attacks of 9/11 with conventional thinking of the past, largely viewing problems as state-based and principally amenable to military solutions. It was this tragically misguided view that led us into a war in Iraq that never should have been authorized and never should have been waged. In the wake of Iraq and Abu Ghraib, the world has lost trust in our purposes and our principles.

After thousands of lives lost and billions of dollars spent, many Americans may be tempted to turn inward and cede our leadership in world affairs. But this is a mistake we must not make. America cannot meet the threats of this century alone, and the world cannot meet them without America. We can neither retreat from the world nor try to bully it into submission. We must lead the world, by deed and by example.

Such leadership demands that we retrieve a fundamental insight of Roosevelt, Truman, and Kennedy -- one that is truer now than ever before: the security and well-being of each and every American depend on the security and well-being of those who live beyond our borders. The mission of the United States is to provide global leadership grounded in the understanding that the world shares a common security and a common humanity.

The American moment is not over, but it must be seized anew. To see American power in terminal decline is to ignore America's great promise and historic purpose in the world. If elected president, I will start renewing that promise and purpose the day I take office.

MOVING BEYOND IRAQ

To renew American leadership in the world, we must first bring the Iraq war to a responsible end and refocus our attention on the broader Middle East. Iraq was a diversion from the fight against the terrorists who struck us on 9/11, and incompetent prosecution of the war by America's civilian leaders compounded the strategic blunder of choosing to wage it in the first place. We have now lost over 3,300 American lives, and thousands more suffer wounds both seen and unseen.

Our servicemen and servicewomen have performed admirably while sacrificing immeasurably. But it is time for our civilian leaders to acknowledge a painful truth: we cannot impose a military solution on a civil war between Sunni and Shiite factions. The best chance we have to leave Iraq a better place is to pressure these warring parties to find a lasting political solution. And the only effective way to apply this pressure is to begin a phased withdrawal of U.S. forces, with the goal of removing all combat brigades from Iraq by March 31, 2008 -- a date consistent with the goal set by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group. This redeployment could be temporarily suspended if the Iraqi government meets the security, political, and economic benchmarks to which it has committed. But we must recognize that, in the end, only Iraqi leaders can bring real peace and stability to their country.

At the same time, we must launch a comprehensive regional and international diplomatic initiative to help broker an end to the civil war in Iraq, prevent its spread, and limit the suffering of the Iraqi people. To gain credibility in this effort, we must make clear that we seek no permanent bases in Iraq. We should leave behind only a minimal over-the-horizon military force in the region to protect American personnel and facilities, continue training Iraqi security forces, and root out al Qaeda.

The morass in Iraq has made it immeasurably harder to confront and work through the many other problems in the region -- and it has made many of those problems considerably more dangerous. Changing the dynamic in Iraq will allow us to focus our attention and influence on resolving the festering conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians -- a task that the Bush administration neglected for years.

For more than three decades, Israelis, Palestinians, Arab leaders, and the rest of the world have looked to America to lead the effort to build the road to a lasting peace. In recent years, they have all too often looked in vain. Our starting point must always be a clear and strong commitment to the security of Israel, our strongest ally in the region and its only established democracy. That commitment is all the more important as we contend with growing threats in the region -- a strengthened Iran, a chaotic Iraq, the resurgence of al Qaeda, the reinvigoration of Hamas and Hezbollah. Now more than ever, we must strive to secure a lasting settlement of the conflict with two states living side by side in peace and security. To do so, we must help the Israelis identify and strengthen those partners who are truly committed to peace, while isolating those who seek conflict and instability. Sustained American leadership for peace and security will require patient effort and the personal commitment of the president of the United States. That is a commitment I will make.

Throughout the Middle East, we must harness American power to reinvigorate American diplomacy. Tough-minded diplomacy, backed by the whole range of instruments of American power -- political, economic, and military -- could bring success even when dealing with long-standing adversaries such as Iran and Syria. Our policy of issuing threats and relying on intermediaries to curb Iran's nuclear program, sponsorship of terrorism, and regional aggression is failing. Although we must not rule out using military force, we should not hesitate to talk directly to Iran. Our diplomacy should aim to raise the cost for Iran of continuing its nuclear program by applying tougher sanctions and increasing pressure from its key trading partners. The world must work to stop Iran's uranium-enrichment program and prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. It is far too dangerous to have nuclear weapons in the hands of a radical theocracy. At the same time, we must show Iran -- and especially the Iranian people -- what could be gained from fundamental change: economic engagement, security assurances, and diplomatic relations. Diplomacy combined with pressure could also reorient Syria away from its radical agenda to a more moderate stance -- which could, in turn, help stabilize Iraq, isolate Iran, free Lebanon from Damascus' grip, and better secure Israel.

REVITALIZING THE MILITARY

To renew American leadership in the world, we must immediately begin working to revitalize our military. A strong military is, more than anything, necessary to sustain peace. Unfortunately, the U.S. Army and the Marine Corps, according to our military leaders, are facing a crisis. The Pentagon cannot certify a single army unit within the United States as fully ready to respond in the event of a new crisis or emergency beyond Iraq; 88 percent of the National Guard is not ready to deploy overseas.

We must use this moment both to rebuild our military and to prepare it for the missions of the future. We must retain the capacity to swiftly defeat any conventional threat to our country and our vital interests. But we must also become better prepared to put boots on the ground in order to take on foes that fight asymmetrical and highly adaptive campaigns on a global scale.

We should expand our ground forces by adding 65,000 soldiers to the army and 27,000 marines. Bolstering these forces is about more than meeting quotas. We must recruit the very best and invest in their capacity to succeed. That means providing our servicemen and servicewomen with first-rate equipment, armor, incentives, and training -- including in foreign languages and other critical skills. Each major defense program should be reevaluated in light of current needs, gaps in the field, and likely future threat scenarios. Our military will have to rebuild some capabilities and transform others. At the same time, we need to commit sufficient funding to enable the National Guard to regain a state of readiness.

Enhancing our military will not be enough. As commander in chief, I would also use our armed forces wisely. When we send our men and women into harm's way, I will clearly define the mission, seek out the advice of our military commanders, objectively evaluate intelligence, and ensure that our troops have the resources and the support they need. I will not hesitate to use force, unilaterally if necessary, to protect the American people or our vital interests whenever we are attacked or imminently threatened.

We must also consider using military force in circumstances beyond self-defense in order to provide for the common security that underpins global stability -- to support friends, participate in stability and reconstruction operations, or confront mass atrocities. But when we do use force in situations other than self-defense, we should make every effort to garner the clear support and participation of others -- as President George H. W. Bush did when we led the effort to oust Saddam Hussein from Kuwait in 1991. The consequences of forgetting that lesson in the context of the current conflict in Iraq have been grave.

HALTING THE SPREAD OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS

To renew American leadership in the world, we must confront the most urgent threat to the security of America and the world -- the spread of nuclear weapons, material, and technology and the risk that a nuclear device will fall into the hands of terrorists. The explosion of one such device would bring catastrophe, dwarfing the devastation of 9/11 and shaking every corner of the globe.

As George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn have warned, our current measures are not sufficient to meet the nuclear threat. The nonproliferation regime is being challenged, and new civilian nuclear programs could spread the means to make nuclear weapons. Al Qaeda has made it a goal to bring a "Hiroshima" to the United States. Terrorists need not build a nuclear weapon from scratch; they need only steal or buy a weapon or the material to assemble one. There is now highly enriched uranium -- some of it poorly secured -- sitting in civilian nuclear facilities in over 40 countries around the world. In the former Soviet Union, there are approximately 15,000-16,000 nuclear weapons and stockpiles of uranium and plutonium capable of making another 40,000 weapons -- all scattered across 11 time zones. People have already been caught trying to smuggle nuclear material to sell on the black market.

As president, I will work with other nations to secure, destroy, and stop the spread of these weapons in order to dramatically reduce the nuclear dangers for our nation and the world. America must lead a global effort to secure all nuclear weapons and material at vulnerable sites within four years -- the most effective way to prevent terrorists from acquiring a bomb.

This will require the active cooperation of Russia. Although we must not shy away from pushing for more democracy and accountability in Russia, we must work with the country in areas of common interest -- above all, in making sure that nuclear weapons and material are secure. We must also work with Russia to update and scale back our dangerously outdated Cold War nuclear postures and de-emphasize the role of nuclear weapons. America must not rush to produce a new generation of nuclear warheads. And we should take advantage of recent technological advances to build bipartisan consensus behind ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. All of this can be done while maintaining a strong nuclear deterrent. These steps will ultimately strengthen, not weaken, our security.

As we lock down existing nuclear stockpiles, I will work to negotiate a verifiable global ban on the production of new nuclear weapons material. We must also stop the spread of nuclear weapons technology and ensure that countries cannot build -- or come to the brink of building -- a weapons program under the auspices of developing peaceful nuclear power. That is why my administration will immediately provide $50 million to jump-start the creation of an International Atomic Energy Agency-controlled nuclear fuel bank and work to update the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. We must also fully implement the law Senator Richard Lugar and I passed to help the United States and our allies detect and stop the smuggling of weapons of mass destruction throughout the world.

Finally, we must develop a strong international coalition to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and eliminate North Korea's nuclear weapons program. Iran and North Korea could trigger regional arms races, creating dangerous nuclear flashpoints in the Middle East and East Asia. In confronting these threats, I will not take the military option off the table. But our first measure must be sustained, direct, and aggressive diplomacy -- the kind that the Bush administration has been unable and unwilling to use.

COMBATING GLOBAL TERRORISM

To renew American leadership in the world, we must forge a more effective global response to the terrorism that came to our shores on an unprecedented scale on 9/11. From Bali to London, Baghdad to Algiers, Mumbai to Mombasa to Madrid, terrorists who reject modernity, oppose America, and distort Islam have killed and mutilated tens of thousands of people just this decade. Because this enemy operates globally, it must be confronted globally.

We must refocus our efforts on Afghanistan and Pakistan -- the central front in our war against al Qaeda -- so that we are confronting terrorists where their roots run deepest. Success in Afghanistan is still possible, but only if we act quickly, judiciously, and decisively. We should pursue an integrated strategy that reinforces our troops in Afghanistan and works to remove the limitations placed by some NATO allies on their forces. Our strategy must also include sustained diplomacy to isolate the Taliban and more effective development programs that target aid to areas where the Taliban are making inroads.

I will join with our allies in insisting -- not simply requesting -- that Pakistan crack down on the Taliban, pursue Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants, and end its relationship with all terrorist groups. At the same time, I will encourage dialogue between Pakistan and India to work toward resolving their dispute over Kashmir and between Afghanistan and Pakistan to resolve their historic differences and develop the Pashtun border region. If Pakistan can look toward the east with greater confidence, it will be less likely to believe that its interests are best advanced through cooperation with the Taliban.

Although vigorous action in South Asia and Central Asia should be a starting point, our efforts must be broader. There must be no safe haven for those who plot to kill Americans. To defeat al Qaeda, I will build a twenty-first-century military and twenty-first-century partnerships as strong as the anticommunist alliance that won the Cold War to stay on the offense everywhere from Djibouti to Kandahar.

Here at home, we must strengthen our homeland security and protect the critical infrastructure on which the entire world depends. We can start by spending homeland security dollars on the basis of risk. This means investing more resources to defend mass transit, closing the gaps in our aviation security by screening all cargo on passenger airliners and checking all passengers against a comprehensive watch list, and upgrading port security by ensuring that cargo is screened for radiation.

To succeed, our homeland security and counterterrorism actions must be linked to an intelligence community that deals effectively with the threats we face. Today, we rely largely on the same institutions and practices that were in place before 9/11. We need to revisit intelligence reform, going beyond rearranging boxes on an organizational chart. To keep pace with highly adaptable enemies, we need technologies and practices that enable us to efficiently collect and share information within and across our intelligence agencies. We must invest still more in human intelligence and deploy additional trained operatives and diplomats with specialized knowledge of local cultures and languages. And we should institutionalize the practice of developing competitive assessments of critical threats and strengthen our methodologies of analysis.

Finally, we need a comprehensive strategy to defeat global terrorists -- one that draws on the full range of American power, not just our military might. As a senior U.S. military commander put it, when people have dignity and opportunity, "the chance of extremism being welcomed greatly, if not completely, diminishes." It is for this reason that we need to invest with our allies in strengthening weak states and helping to rebuild failed ones.

In the Islamic world and beyond, combating the terrorists' prophets of fear will require more than lectures on democracy. We need to deepen our knowledge of the circumstances and beliefs that underpin extremism. A crucial debate is occurring within Islam. Some believe in a future of peace, tolerance, development, and democratization. Others embrace a rigid and violent intolerance of personal liberty and the world at large. To empower forces of moderation, America must make every effort to export opportunity -- access to education and health care, trade and investment -- and provide the kind of steady support for political reformers and civil society that enabled our victory in the Cold War. Our beliefs rest on hope; the extremists' rest on fear. That is why we can -- and will -- win this struggle.

REBUILDING OUR PARTNERSHIPS

To renew American leadership in the world, I intend to rebuild the alliances, partnerships, and institutions necessary to confront common threats and enhance common security. Needed reform of these alliances and institutions will not come by bullying other countries to ratify changes we hatch in isolation. It will come when we convince other governments and peoples that they, too, have a stake in effective partnerships.

Too often we have sent the opposite signal to our international partners. In the case of Europe, we dismissed European reservations about the wisdom and necessity of the Iraq war. In Asia, we belittled South Korean efforts to improve relations with the North. In Latin America, from Mexico to Argentina, we failed to adequately address concerns about immigration and equity and economic growth. In Africa, we have allowed genocide to persist for over four years in Darfur and have not done nearly enough to answer the African Union's call for more support to stop the killing. I will rebuild our ties to our allies in Europe and Asia and strengthen our partnerships throughout the Americas and Africa.

Our alliances require constant cooperation and revision if they are to remain effective and relevant. NATO has made tremendous strides over the last 15 years, transforming itself from a Cold War security structure into a partnership for peace. But today, NATO's challenge in Afghanistan has exposed, as Senator Lugar has put it, "the growing discrepancy between NATO's expanding missions and its lagging capabilities." To close this gap, I will rally our NATO allies to contribute more troops to collective security operations and to invest more in reconstruction and stabilization capabilities.

And as we strengthen NATO, we must build new alliances and partnerships in other vital regions. As China rises and Japan and South Korea assert themselves, I will work to forge a more effective framework in Asia that goes beyond bilateral agreements, occasional summits, and ad hoc arrangements, such as the six-party talks on North Korea. We need an inclusive infrastructure with the countries in East Asia that can promote stability and prosperity and help confront transnational threats, from terrorist cells in the Philippines to avian flu in Indonesia. I will also encourage China to play a responsible role as a growing power -- to help lead in addressing the common problems of the twenty-first century. We will compete with China in some areas and cooperate in others. Our essential challenge is to build a relationship that broadens cooperation while strengthening our ability to compete.

In addition, we need effective collaboration on pressing global issues among all the major powers -- including such newly emerging ones as Brazil, India, Nigeria, and South Africa. We need to give all of them a stake in upholding the international order. To that end, the United Nations requires far-reaching reform. The UN Secretariat's management practices remain weak. Peacekeeping operations are overextended. The new UN Human Rights Council has passed eight resolutions condemning Israel -- but not a single resolution condemning the genocide in Darfur or human rights abuses in Zimbabwe. Yet none of these problems will be solved unless America rededicates itself to the organization and its mission.

Strengthened institutions and invigorated alliances and partnerships are especially crucial if we are to defeat the epochal, man-made threat to the planet: climate change. Without dramatic changes, rising sea levels will flood coastal regions around the world, including much of the eastern seaboard. Warmer temperatures and declining rainfall will reduce crop yields, increasing conflict, famine, disease, and poverty. By 2050, famine could displace more than 250 million people worldwide. That means increased instability in some of the most volatile parts of the world.

As the world's largest producer of greenhouse gases, America has the responsibility to lead. While many of our industrial partners are working hard to reduce their emissions, we are increasing ours at a steady clip -- by more than ten percent per decade. As president, I intend to enact a cap-and-trade system that will dramatically reduce our carbon emissions. And I will work to finally free America of its dependence on foreign oil -- by using energy more efficiently in our cars, factories, and homes, relying more on renewable sources of electricity, and harnessing the potential of biofuels.

Getting our own house in order is only a first step. China will soon replace America as the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases. Clean energy development must be a central focus in our relationships with major countries in Europe and Asia. I will invest in efficient and clean technologies at home while using our assistance policies and export promotions to help developing countries leapfrog the carbon-energy-intensive stage of development. We need a global response to climate change that includes binding and enforceable commitments to reducing emissions, especially for those that pollute the most: the United States, China, India, the European Union, and Russia. This challenge is massive, but rising to it will also bring new benefits to America. By 2050, global demand for low-carbon energy could create an annual market worth $500 billion. Meeting that demand would open new frontiers for American entrepreneurs and workers.

BUILDING JUST, SECURE, DEMOCRATIC SOCIETIES

Finally, to renew American leadership in the world, I will strengthen our common security by investing in our common humanity. Our global engagement cannot be defined by what we are against; it must be guided by a clear sense of what we stand for. We have a significant stake in ensuring that those who live in fear and want today can live with dignity and opportunity tomorrow.

People around the world have heard a great deal of late about freedom on the march. Tragically, many have come to associate this with war, torture, and forcibly imposed regime change. To build a better, freer world, we must first behave in ways that reflect the decency and aspirations of the American people. This means ending the practices of shipping away prisoners in the dead of night to be tortured in far-off countries, of detaining thousands without charge or trial, of maintaining a network of secret prisons to jail people beyond the reach of the law.

Citizens everywhere should be able to choose their leaders in climates free of fear. America must commit to strengthening the pillars of a just society. We can help build accountable institutions that deliver services and opportunity: strong legislatures, independent judiciaries, honest police forces, free presses, vibrant civil societies. In countries wracked by poverty and conflict, citizens long to enjoy freedom from want. And since extremely poor societies and weak states provide optimal breeding grounds for disease, terrorism, and conflict, the United States has a direct national security interest in dramatically reducing global poverty and joining with our allies in sharing more of our riches to help those most in need. We need to invest in building capable, democratic states that can establish healthy and educated communities, develop markets, and generate wealth. Such states would also have greater institutional capacities to fight terrorism, halt the spread of deadly weapons, and build health-care infrastructures to prevent, detect, and treat deadly diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and avian flu.

As president, I will double our annual investment in meeting these challenges to $50 billion by 2012 and ensure that those new resources are directed toward worthwhile goals. For the last 20 years, U.S. foreign assistance funding has done little more than keep pace with inflation. It is in our national security interest to do better. But if America is going to help others build more just and secure societies, our trade deals, debt relief, and foreign aid must not come as blank checks. I will couple our support with an insistent call for reform, to combat the corruption that rots societies and governments from within. I will do so not in the spirit of a patron but in the spirit of a partner -- a partner mindful of his own imperfections.

Our rapidly growing international AIDS programs have demonstrated that increased foreign assistance can make a real difference. As part of this new funding, I will capitalize a $2 billion Global Education Fund that will bring the world together in eliminating the global education deficit, much as the 9/11 Commission proposed. We cannot hope to shape a world where opportunity outweighs danger unless we ensure that every child everywhere is taught to build and not to destroy.

There are compelling moral reasons and compelling security reasons for renewed American leadership that recognizes the inherent equality and worth of all people. As President Kennedy said in his 1961 inaugural address, "To those people in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required -- not because the communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich." I will show the world that America remains true to its founding values. We lead not only for ourselves but also for the common good.

RESTORING AMERICA'S TRUST

Confronted by Hitler, Roosevelt said that our power would be "directed toward ultimate good as well as against immediate evil. We Americans are not destroyers; we are builders." It is time for a president who can build consensus here at home for an equally ambitious course.

Ultimately, no foreign policy can succeed unless the American people understand it and feel they have a stake in its success -- unless they trust that their government hears their concerns as well. We will not be able to increase foreign aid if we fail to invest in security and opportunity for our own people. We cannot negotiate trade agreements to help spur development in poor countries so long as we provide no meaningful help to working Americans burdened by the dislocations of a global economy. We cannot reduce our dependence on foreign oil or defeat global warming unless Americans are willing to innovate and conserve. We cannot expect Americans to support placing our men and women in harm's way if we cannot show that we will use force wisely and judiciously. But if the next president can restore the American people's trust -- if they know that he or she is acting with their best interests at heart, with prudence and wisdom and some measure of humility -- then I believe the American people will be eager to see America lead again.

I believe they will also agree that it is time for a new generation to tell the next great American story. If we act with boldness and foresight, we will be able to tell our grandchildren that this was the time when we helped forge peace in the Middle East. This was the time we confronted climate change and secured the weapons that could destroy the human race. This was the time we defeated global terrorists and brought opportunity to forgotten corners of the world. And this was the time when we renewed the America that has led generations of weary travelers from all over the world to find opportunity and liberty and hope on our doorstep.

It was not all that long ago that farmers in Venezuela and Indonesia welcomed American doctors to their villages and hung pictures of JFK on their living room walls, when millions, like my father, waited every day for a letter in the mail that would grant them the privilege to come to America to study, work, live, or just be free.

We can be this America again. This is our moment to renew the trust and faith of our people -- and all people -- in an America that battles immediate evils, promotes an ultimate good, and leads the world once more.

The Conscience of a Liberal

November 21, 2010, 2:07 AM

FDR, Reagan, and Obama

Some readers may recall that back during the Democratic primary Barack Obama shocked many progressives by praising Ronald Reagan as someone who brought America a “sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.” I was among those who found this deeply troubling — because the idea that Reagan brought a transformation in American dynamism is a right-wing myth, not borne out by the facts. (There was a surge in productivity and innovation — but it happened in the 90s, under Clinton, not under Reagan).

All the usual suspects pooh-poohed these concerns; it was ridiculous, they said, to think of Obama as a captive of right-wing mythology.

But are you so sure about that now?

And here’s this, from Thomas Ferguson: Obama saying

We didn’t actually, I think, do what Franklin Delano Roosevelt did, which was basically wait for six months until the thing had gotten so bad that it became an easier sell politically because we thought that was irresponsible. We had to act quickly.

As Ferguson explains, this is a right-wing smear. What actually happened was that during the interregnum between the 1932 election and the1933 inauguration — which was much longer then, because the inauguration didn’t take place until March — Herbert Hoover tried to rope FDR into maintaining his policies, including rigid adherence to the gold standard and fiscal austerity. FDR declined to be part of this.

But Obama buys the right-wing smear.

More and more, it’s becoming clear that progressives who had their hearts set on Obama were engaged in a huge act of self-delusion. Once you got past the soaring rhetoric you noticed, if you actually paid attention to what he said, that he largely accepted the conservative storyline, a view of the world, including a mythological history, that bears little resemblance to the facts.

And confronted with a situation utterly at odds with that storyline … he stayed with the myth.

Two speeches by Barack Obama that should concern all working people...

Milwaukee Labor Day speech:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYPuQBSYSUE

The complete video:

http://www.shallownation.com/2010/09/06/obama-laborfest-speech-video-sept-6-2010-labor-day-address-in-milwaukee-wisconsin/comment-page-1/

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release

September 06, 2010

Remarks by the President at Laborfest in Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Henry Maier Festival Park, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Link: 
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2010/09/06/remarks-president-laborfest-milwaukee-wisconsin

2:11 P.M. CDT

THE PRESIDENT:  Hello, Milwaukee!  (Applause.)  Hello, Milwaukee!  (Applause.)  Thank you.  It is good to be back in Milwaukee.  It is good to be -- I’m almost home.  (Applause.) I just hop on the 94 and I’m home.  (Applause.)  Take it all the way to the South Side.

It is good -- it is good to be here on such a beautiful day.  Happy Labor Day, everybody.  (Applause.)  I want to say thank you to the Milwaukee Area Labor Council and all of my brothers and sisters in the AFL-CIO for inviting me to spend this day with you -- (applause) -- a day that belongs to the working men and women of America.

I want to acknowledge your outstanding national president, a man who knows that a strong economy needs a strong labor movement:  Rich Trumka. (Applause.)  Thank you to the president of Wisconsin AFL-CIO Dave Newby.  (Applause.)  Our host, your area Labor Council Secretary-Treasurer Sheila Cochran.  I hear it’s Sheila’s birthday tomorrow.  Where is she?  (Applause.)  Happy birthday, Sheila.  (Applause.)  I’m proud to be here with our Secretary of Labor, a daughter of union members, Hilda Solis.  (Applause.)  And our Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood is in the house.  (Applause.) And I want everybody to give it up for people who are at the forefront of every fight for Wisconsin’s working men and women -- Senator Herb Kohl; Congresswoman Gwen Moore.  (Applause.)  Your outstanding mayor and I believe soon to be outstanding governor Tom Barrett is in the house.  (Applause.) And I know -- I know your other great senator, Russ Feingold, was here earlier standing with you and your families just like he always has.  Now he’s in his hometown of Janesville to participate in their Labor Day parade.

So it is good to be back.  Now, of course, this isn’t my first time at Laborfest.  Some of you remember I stood right here with you two years ago when I was still a candidate for this office.  (Applause.)  And during that campaign, we talked about how, for years, the values of hard work and responsibility that had built this country had been given short shrift, and how it was slowly hollowing out our middle class.  Listen, everybody who has a chair, go ahead and sit down, because everybody’s all hollering. (Applause.)  Just relax, I’m going to be talking for a while now.  (Applause.)  Everybody take -- (applause) -- got a lot of hardworking people here, you deserve to sit down for a day. (Applause.)  You’ve been on your feet all year working hard.
But two years ago, we talked about some on Wall Street who were taking reckless risks and cutting corners to turn huge profits while working Americans were fighting harder and harder just to stay afloat.  We talked about how the decks all too often were stacked in favor of special interests and against the interests of working Americans.

And what we knew, even then, was that these years would be some of the most difficult in our history.  And then, two weeks later -- two weeks after I spoke here -- the bottom fell out of the economy.  And middle-class families suddenly found themselves swept up in the worst recession of our lifetimes.

So the problems facing working families, they’re nothing new.  But they are more serious than ever.  And that makes our cause more urgent than ever.  For generations, it was the great American working class, the great American middle class that made our economy the envy of the world. It’s got to be that way again.  (Applause.)

Milwaukee, it was folks like you that built this city.  It was folks like you that built this state.  It was folks like you who forged that middle class all across the nation.

It was working men and women who made the 20th century the American century. It was the labor movement that helped secure so much of what we take for granted today.  (Applause.)  The 40-hour work week, the minimum wage, family leave, health insurance, Social Security, Medicare, retirement plans.  The cornerstones of the middle-class security all bear the union label.  (Applause.)

And it was that greatest generation that built America into the greatest force of prosperity and opportunity and freedom that the world has ever known -- Americans like my grandfather, who went off to war just boys, then returned home as men, and then they traded in one uniform and set of responsibilities for another.  And Americans like my grandmother, who rolled up her sleeves and worked in a factory on the home front.  And when the war was over, they studied under the GI Bill, and they bought a home under the FHA, and they raised families supported by good jobs that paid good wages with good benefits.

It was through my grandparents’ experience that I was brought up to believe that anything is possible in America.  (Applause.)  But, Milwaukee, they also knew the feeling when opportunity is pulled out from under you. They grew up during the Depression, so they’d tell me about seeing their fathers or their uncles losing jobs; how it wasn’t just the loss of a paycheck that hurt so bad.  It was the blow to their dignity, their sense of self-worth.  I’ll bet a lot of us have seen people who’ve been changed after a long bout of unemployment.  It can wear you down, even if you’ve got a strong spirit.  If you’re out of work for a long time, it can wear you down.

So my grandparents taught me early on that a job is about more than just a paycheck.  A paycheck is important.  But a job is about waking up every day with a sense of purpose, and going to bed each night feeling you’ve handled your responsibilities.  (Applause.)  It’s about meeting your responsibilities to yourself and to your family and to your community.  And I carried that lesson with me all those years ago when I got my start fighting for men and women on the South Side of Chicago after their local steel plant shut down.  And I carried that lesson with me through my time as a state senator and a U.S. senator, and I carry that lesson with me today.  (Applause.)

And I know -- I know that there are folks right here in this audience, folks right here in Milwaukee and all across America, who are going through these kinds of struggles.  Eight million Americans lost their jobs in this recession.  And even though we’ve had eight straight months of private sector job growth, the new jobs haven’t been coming fast enough. Now, here’s the honest truth, the plain truth.  There’s no silver bullet.  There’s no quick fix to these problems.  I knew when I was running for office, and I certainly knew by the time I was sworn in, I knew it would take time to reverse the damage of a decade worth of policies that saw too few people being able to climb into the middle class, too many people falling behind.  (Applause.)

We all knew this.  We all knew that it would take more time than any of us want to dig ourselves out of this hole created by this economic crisis. But on this Labor Day, there are two things I want you to know.  Number one:  I am going to keep fighting every single day, every single hour, every single minute, to turn this economy around and put people back to work and renew the American Dream, not just for your family, not just for all our families, but for future generations.  That I can guarantee you. (Applause.)

 Number two -- I believe this with every fiber of my being:  America cannot have a strong, growing economy without a strong, growing middle class, and the chance for everybody, no matter how humble their beginnings, to join that middle class -- (applause) -- a middle class built on the idea that if you work hard, if you live up to your responsibilities, then you can get ahead; that you can enjoy some basic guarantees in life.  A good job that pays a good wage. Health care that will be there when you get sick.  (Applause.)  A secure retirement even if you’re not rich.  (Applause.)  An education that will give your children a better life than we had. (Applause.)  These are simple ideas.  These are American ideas. These are union ideas.  That’s what we’re fighting for. (Applause.)

I was thinking about this last week.  I was thinking about this last week on the day I announced the end of our combat mission in Iraq. (Applause.)  And I spent some time, as I often do, with our soldiers and our veterans.  And this new generation of troops coming home from Iraq, they’ve earned their place alongside the greatest generation. (Applause.)  Just like that greatest generation, they’ve got the skills, they’ve got the training, they’ve got the drive to move America’s economy forward once more.  We’ve been investing in new care and new opportunities and a new commitment to our veterans, because we’ve got to serve them just the way they served us. (Applause.)

But, Milwaukee, they’re coming home to an economy hit by a recession deeper than anything we’ve seen since the 1930s.  So the question is, how do we create the same kinds of middle-class opportunities for this generation as my grandparents’ generation came home to?  How do we build our economy on that same strong, stable foundation for growth?

Now, anybody who thinks that we can move this economy forward with just a few folks at the top doing well, hoping that it’s going to trickle down to working people who are running faster and faster just to keep up, you’ll never see it.  (Applause.)  If that’s what you’re waiting for, you should stop waiting, because it’s never happened in our history.  That’s not how America was built.  It wasn’t built with a bunch of folks at the top doing well and everybody else scrambling.  We didn’t become the most prosperous country in the world just by rewarding greed and recklessness.  We didn’t come this far by letting the special interests run wild.  We didn’t do it just by gambling and chasing paper profits on Wall Street.  We built this country by making things, by producing goods we could sell.  We did it with sweat and effort and innovation.  (Applause.)  We did it on the assembly line and at the construction site.  (Applause.)

We did it by investing in the people who built this country from the ground up –- the workers, middle-class families, small business owners.  We out-worked folks and we out-educated folks and we out-competed everybody else.  That’s how we built America.  (Applause.)

And, Milwaukee, that’s what we’re going to do again.  That’s been at the heart what we’ve been doing over these last 20 months: building our economy on a new foundation so that our middle class doesn’t just survive this crisis -– I want it to thrive.  I want it to be stronger than it was before.

And over the last two years, that’s meant taking on some powerful interests -- some powerful interests who had been dominating the agenda in Washington for a very long time.  And they’re not always happy with me.  They talk about me like a dog.  (Applause.)  That’s not in my prepared remarks, it’s just -- but it’s true.

You know, that’s why we passed financial reform to provide new accountability and tough oversight of Wall Street; stopping credit card companies from gouging you with hidden fees and unfair rate hikes.  (Applause.)  Ending taxpayer bailouts of Wall Street once and for all.  They’re not happy with it, but it was the right thing to do.  (Applause.)

That’s why we eliminated tens of billions of dollars in wasteful taxpayer subsidies, handouts to the big banks that were providing student loans.  We took that money, tens of billions of dollars, and we’re going to go to make sure that your kids and your grandkids can get student loans and grants at a cheap rate and afford a college education.  (Applause.)  They’re not happy with it, but it was the right thing to do.  (Applause.)
Yes, we’re using those savings to put a college education within reach for working families.

That’s why we passed health insurance reform to make coverage affordable. (Applause.)  Reform that ends the indignity of insurance companies jacking up your premiums at will, denying you coverage just because you get sick; reform that gives you control, gives you the ability if your child is sick to be able to get an affordable insurance plan, making sure they can’t drop it.

That’s why we’re making it easier for workers to save for retirement, with new ways of saving your tax refunds, a simpler system for enrolling in plans like 401(k)s, and fighting to strengthen Social Security for the future. (Applause.)   And if everybody is still talking about privatizing Social Security, they need to be clear:  It will not happen on my watch.  Not when I’m President of the United States of America.  (Applause.)

That’s why -- we’ve given tax cuts -- except we give them to folks who need them.  (Applause.)  We’ve given them to small business owners.  We’ve given them to clean energy companies. We’ve cut taxes for 95 percent of working Americans, just like I promised you during the campaign.  You all got a tax cut.  (Applause.)

And instead of giving tax breaks to companies that are shipping jobs overseas, we’re cutting taxes to companies that are putting our people to work right here in the United States of America.  (Applause.)
See, we want to invest in growth industries like clean energy and manufacturing.  You’ve got leaders here in Wisconsin -- Tom Barrett, Jim Doyle -- they’ve been fighting to bring those jobs to Milwaukee, fighting to bring those jobs here to Wisconsin.  I don’t want to see solar panels and wind turbines and electric cars made in China.  I want them made right here in the United States of America.  (Applause.)

I don’t want to buy stuff from someplace else.  I want to grow our exports so that we’re selling to someplace else -- products that say “Made in the U.S.A.”  (Applause.)

 AUDIENCE: U.S.A.!  U.S.A.!  U.S.A.!

 THE PRESIDENT:  That’s right.  There are no better workers than American workers.  (Applause.)  I’ll put my money on you any day of the week.  And when the naysayers said, well, you can’t save the auto industry, just go ahead and let hundreds of thousands of jobs vanish, we said we’re going to stand by those workers.

If the management is willing to make tough choices, if everybody is willing to come together, I’m confident that the American auto industry can compete once again -– and today, that industry is on the way back.  They said no, we said yes to the American worker.  They’re coming back. (Applause.)

 Now, let me tell you, another thing we’ve done is to make long-overdue investments in upgrading our outdated, our inefficient national infrastructure.  We’re talking roads.  We’re talking bridges.  We’re talking dams, levees.  But we’re also talking a smart electric grid that can bring clean energy to new areas. We’re talking about broadband Internet so that everybody is plugged in.  We’re talking about high-speed rail lines required to compete in a 21st century economy.  (Applause.)  I want to get down from Milwaukee down to Chicago quick.  (Applause.)  Avoid a traffic jam.

 We’re talking investments in tomorrow that are creating hundreds of thousands of private sector jobs right now.

Because of these investments, and the tens of thousands of projects they spurred all across the country, the battered construction sector actually grew last month for the first time in a very long time.  (Applause.)
But, you know, the folks here in the trades know what I’m talking about -- nearly one in five construction workers are unemployed.  One in five.  Nobody has been hit harder than construction workers.  And a lot of those folks, they had lost their jobs in manufacturing and went into construction; now they’ve lost their jobs again.

It doesn’t do anybody any good when so many hardworking Americans have been idled for months, even years, at a time when there is so much of America that needs rebuilding.

So, that’s why, Milwaukee, today, I am announcing a new plan for rebuilding and modernizing America’s roads and rails and runways for the long term.  (Applause.)  I want America to have the best infrastructure in the world.  We used to have the best infrastructure in the world.  We can have it again.  We are going to make it happen.  (Applause.)

Over the next six years, over the next six years, we are going to rebuild 150,000 miles of our roads -– that’s enough to circle the world six times.  That’s a lot of road.  We’re going to lay and maintain 4,000 miles of our railways –- enough to stretch coast to coast. We’re going to restore 150 miles of runways.  And we’re going to advance a next-generation air-traffic control system to reduce travel time and delays for American travelers.  (Applause.)  I think everybody can agree on that.  Anybody want more delays in airports?

AUDIENCE: No!

THE PRESIDENT:  No, I didn’t think so.  That’s not a Republican or a Democratic idea.  We all want to get to where we need to go.  I mean, I’ve got Air Force One now, it’s nice. (Laughter.)  But I still remember what it was like.

This is a plan that will be fully paid for.  It will not add to the deficit over time -– we’re going to work with Congress to see to that.  We want to set up an infrastructure bank to leverage federal dollars and focus on the smartest investments.  We’re going to continue our strategy to build a national high-speed rail network that reduces congestion and travel times and reduces harmful emissions.  We want to cut waste and bureaucracy and consolidate and collapse more than 100 different programs that too often duplicate each other.  So we want to change the way Washington spends your tax dollars.  We want to reform a haphazard, patchwork way of doing business.  We want to focus on less wasteful approaches than we’ve got right now.  We want competition and innovation that gives us the best bang for the buck.

But the bottom line is this, Milwaukee -- this will not only create jobs immediately, it’s also going to make our economy hum over the long haul.  It’s a plan that history tells us can and should attract bipartisan support.  It’s a plan that says even in the aftermath of the worst recession in our lifetimes, America can still shape our own destiny.  We can still move this country forward.  We can still leave our children something better.  We can still leave them something that lasts.  (Applause.)

So these are the things we’ve been working for.  These are some of the victories you guys have helped us achieve.  And we’re not finished.  We’ve got a lot more progress to make.  And I’m confident we will.
But there are some folks in Washington who see things differently. (Boos.)  You know what I’m talking about.  (Applause.) When it comes to just about everything we’ve done to strengthen our middle class, to rebuild our economy, almost every Republican in Congress says no.  (Boos.)  Even on things we usually agree on, they say no. If I said the sky was blue, they say no.  (Laughter and applause.) If I said fish live in the sea, they’d say no.  (Laughter.) They just think it’s better to score political points before an election than to solve problems.  So they said no to help for small businesses, even when the small businesses said we desperately need this.  This used to be their key constituency, they said.  They said no.  No to middle-class tax cuts.  They say they’re for tax cuts; I say, okay, let’s give tax cuts to the middle class.  No. (Laughter.)  No to clean energy jobs.  No to making college more affordable.  No to reforming Wall Street.  They’re saying right now, no to cutting more taxes for small business owners and helping them get financing.

You know, I heard -- somebody out here was yelling “Yes we can.” Remember that was our slogan?  Their slogan is “No we can’t.”  (Applause.)  No, no, no, no.

AUDIENCE: Yes we can!  Yes we can!  Yes we can!

THE PRESIDENT:  I mean, I personally think “Yes we can” is more inspiring than “No we can’t.”  (Applause.)  To steal a line from our old friend Ted Kennedy:  What is it about working men and women that they find so offensive?  (Laughter.)

When we passed a bill earlier this summer to help states save jobs -- the jobs of hundreds of thousands of teachers and nurses and police officers and firefighters that were about to be laid off, they said no.

(Applause.)  And the Republican who thinks he’s going to take over as Speaker -- (boos) -- I’m just saying that’s his opinion -- (laughter) -- he’s entitled to his opinion.  But when he was asked about this, he dismissed those jobs as “government jobs” that weren’t worth saving.  (Boos.)  That’s what he said, I’m quoting -- “government jobs.”

Now, think about this.  These are the people who teach our children. These are the people who keep our streets safe.  These are the people who put their lives on the line, who rush into a burning building.  Government jobs?  I don’t know about you, but I think those jobs are worth saving.  (Applause.)  I think those jobs are worth saving. (Applause.)

 By the way, this bill that we passed to save all those jobs, we made sure that bill wouldn’t add to the deficit.  You know how we paid for it? By closing one of these ridiculous tax loopholes that actually rewarded corporations for shipping jobs and profits overseas.  (Applause.)

 I mean, this -- this was one of those loopholes that allowed companies to write off taxes they pay to foreign governments –- even though they weren’t paying taxes here in the United States.  So middle-class families were footing tax breaks for companies creating jobs somewhere else.  I mean, even a lot of America’s biggest corporations agreed that this loophole didn’t make sense, agreed that it needed to be closed, agreed that it wasn’t fair -– but the man who thinks he’s going to be Speaker, he wants to reopen this loophole.  (Boos.)
 Look, the bottom line is this:  These guys, they just don’t want to give up on that economic philosophy that they have been peddling for most of the last decade.  You know that philosophy -- you cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires; you cut all the rules and regulations for special interests; and then you just cut working folks loose -- you cut them loose to fend for themselves.

 You remember they called it the ownership society, but what it really boiled down to was, if you couldn’t find a job, you couldn’t afford college, you were born poor, your insurance company dropped you even though your kid was sick, that you were on your own.

 Well, you know what, that philosophy didn’t work out so well for middle-class families all across America.  It didn’t work out so well for our country.  All it did was rack up record deficits and result in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.  I mean, think about it, we have tried what they’re peddling.  We did it for 10 years.  We ended up with the worst economy since the 1930s and record deficits to boot.

 (Applause.) It’s not like we haven’t tried what they’re trying to sell us.

Now, I’m bringing this up not because I’m trying to re-litigate the past; I’m bringing it up because I don’t want to re-live the past.  (Applause.)

It’d be one thing, Milwaukee, if Republicans in Washington had some new ideas, if they had said, you know what, we really screwed up, and we’ve learned from our mistakes; we’re going to do things differently this time. That’s not what they’re doing.

When the leader of their campaign committee was asked on national television what Republicans would do if they took over Congress, you know what he said? He said, we’ll do exactly the same thing we did the last time. (Applause.)  That’s what he said.  It’s on tape.

So basically, here’s what this election comes down to.  They’re betting that between now and November, you’re going to come down with amnesia.  (Laughter.)  They figure you’re going to forget what their agenda did to this country.  They think you’ll just believe that they’ve changed.

These are the folks whose policies helped devastate our middle class.  They drove our economy into a ditch.  And we got in there and put on our boots and we pushed and we shoved.  And we were sweating and these guys were standing, watching us and sipping on a Slurpee.  (Laughter.)  And they were pointing at us saying, how come you’re not pushing harder, how come you’re not pushing faster?  And then when we finally got the car up -- and it’s got a few dings and a few dents, it’s got some mud on it, we’re going to have to do some work on it -- they point to everybody and say, look what these guys did to your car. (Laughter.)  After we got it out of the ditch!  And then they got the nerve to ask for the keys back!  (Laughter and applause.)  I don’t want to give them the keys back.  They don’t know how to drive.  (Applause.)

I mean, I want everything to think about it here.  When you want to go forward in your car, what do you do?
AUDIENCE: D!

THE PRESIDENT:  You put it in D.  They’re going to pop it in reverse. They’d have those special interests riding shotgun, then they’d hit the gas and we’d be right back in the ditch.  (Laughter.)

Milwaukee, we are not going backwards.  That’s the choice we face this fall.  Do we want to go back?  Or do we want to go forward?  I say we want to move forward.  America always moves forward.  We keep moving forward every day.  (Applause.)

Let me say this, Milwaukee.  I know these are difficult times.  I know folks are worried.  I know there’s still a lot of hurt out here. I hear it when I travel around the country.  I see it in the letters that I read every night from folks who are looking for a job or lost their home.  It breaks my heart, because those are the folks that I got into politics for.  You’re the reason I’m here.  (Applause.)

And when times are tough -- when times are tough, I know it can be easy to give in to cynicism.  I know it can be easy to give in to fear and doubt.   And you know, it’s easy sometimes for folks to stir up stuff and turn people on each other, and it’s easy to settle for something less, to set our sights a little bit lower.

But I just want everybody here to remember, that’s not who we are. That’s not the country I know.  We do not give up.  We do not quit.  We face down war.  We face down depression.  We face down great challenges and great threats.  We have lit the way for the rest of the world.

Whenever times have seemed at their worst, Americans have been at their best. That’s when we roll up our sleeves.  That’s when we remember we rise or fall together –- as one nation and as one people. (Applause.)  That’s the spirit that started the labor movement, the idea that alone, we may be weak.  Divided, we may fall.  But we are united, we are strong.  That’s why they call them unions. That’s why we call this the United States of America.  (Applause.)

I’m going to make this case across the country between now and November.  And I am asking for your help.

And if you are willing to join me and Tom Barrett and Gwen Moore and Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl, we can strengthen our middle class and make this economy work for all Americans again and restore the American Dream and give it to our children and our grandchildren.  (Applause.)

God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.  (Applause.)

END
2:50 P.M. CDT

 

Obama Cleveland jobs speech. Transcript

By

Lynn Sweet

 

on September 8, 2010 12:57 PM | 

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
_______________________________________________________________________________________
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 8, 2010

Link: http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2010/09/obama_cleveland_jobs_speech_tr.html




Remarks of President Barack Obama on the Economy - As Prepared for Delivery

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010

Cleveland, Ohio

As Prepared for Delivery--

Good afternoon, Ohio. It's good to be back.

In the fall of 2008, one of the last rallies of my presidential campaign was here in the Cleveland area. It was a hopeful time, just two days before the election. We knew that if we pulled it off, we'd have the chance to tackle some big and difficult challenges that had been facing this country for a long time.

We also hoped for a chance to get beyond some of the old political divides - between Democrats and Republicans, Red states and Blue states - that had prevented us from making progress. Because although we are proud to be Democrats, we are prouder to be Americans - and we believed that no single party has a monopoly on wisdom.

That's not to say that the election didn't expose deep differences between the parties. I ran for President because for much of the last decade, a very specific governing philosophy had reigned about how America should work:

Cut taxes, especially for millionaires and billionaires. Cut regulations for special interests. Cut trade deals even if they didn't benefit our workers. Cut back on investments in our people and our future - in education and clean energy; in research and technology. The idea was that if we had blind faith in the market; if we let corporations play by their own rules; if we left everyone else to fend for themselves, America would grow and prosper.

For a time, this idea gave us the illusion of prosperity. We saw financial firms and CEOs take in record profits and record bonuses. We saw a housing boom that led to new homeowners and new jobs in construction. Consumers bought more condos and bigger cars and better televisions.

But while all this was happening, the broader economy was becoming weaker. Job growth between 2000 and 2008 was slower than it had been in any economic expansion since World War II - even slower than it's been over the past year. The wages and incomes of middle-class families kept falling while the cost of everything from tuition to health care kept rising. Folks were forced to put more debt on their credit cards and borrow against homes that many couldn't afford in the first place. Meanwhile, a failure to pay for two wars and two tax cuts for the wealthy helped turn a record surplus into a record deficit.

I ran for President because I believed that this kind of economy was unsustainable - for the middle-class and for our nation's future. I ran because I had a different idea about how America was built - an idea rooted in my own family's story.

You see, Michelle and I are where we are today because even though our families didn't have much, they worked tirelessly - without complaint - so that we might have a better life. My grandfather marched off to Europe in World War II and my grandmother worked in factories on the home front. I had a single mom who put herself through school, and would wake before dawn to make sure I got a decent education. Michelle can still remember her father heading out to his job as a city worker long after Multiple Sclerosis had made it impossible for him to walk without crutches.

Yes, our families believed in the American values of self-reliance and individual responsibility, and they instilled those values in their children. But they also believed in a country that rewards responsibility. A country that rewards hard work. A country built upon the promise of opportunity and upward mobility.

They believed in an America that gave my grandfather the chance to go to college because of the GI Bill. An America that gave my grandparents the chance to buy a home because of the Federal Housing Authority. An America that gave their children and grandchildren the chance to fulfill our dreams thanks to college loans and college scholarships.

It was an America where you didn't buy things you couldn't afford; where we didn't just think about today - we thought about tomorrow. An America that took pride in the goods it made, not just in the things it consumed. An America where a rising tide really did lift all boats, from the company CEO to the guy on the assembly line.

That's the America I believe in. That's what led me to work in the shadow of a shuttered steel plant on the South Side of Chicago when I was a community organizer. It's what led me to fight for factory workers at manufacturing plants that were closing across Illinois when I was a Senator. It's what led me to run for President - because I don't believe we can have a strong and growing economy without a strong and growing middle-class.

Now, much has happened since that election. The flawed policies and economic weaknesses of the previous decade culminated in the worst recession of our lifetimes. My hope was that the crisis would cause everyone, Democrats and Republicans, to pull together and tackle our problems in a practical way. But as we all know, things didn't work out that way.

Some Republican leaders figured it was smart politics to sit on the sidelines and let Democrats solve the mess. Others believed on principle that government shouldn't meddle in the markets, even when the markets were broken. But with the nation losing nearly 800,000 jobs the month I was sworn in, my most urgent task was to stop a financial meltdown and prevent this recession from becoming a second depression.

We've done that. The economy is growing again. The financial markets have stabilized. The private sector has created jobs for the last eight months in a row. And there are roughly three million Americans who are working today because of the economic plan we put in place.

But the truth is, progress has been painfully slow. Millions of jobs were lost before our policies even had a chance to take effect - a hole so deep that even though we've added jobs again, millions of Americans remain unemployed. Hundreds of thousands of families have lost their homes; millions more can barely pay the bills or make the mortgage. The middle-class is still treading water, while those aspiring to reach the middle class are doing everything they can to keep from drowning.

Meanwhile, some of the very steps that were necessary to save the economy - like temporarily supporting the banks and the auto industry - fed the perception that Washington is still ignoring the middle class in favor of special interests.

And so people are frustrated and angry and anxious about the future. I understand that. I also understand that in a political campaign, the easiest thing for the other side to do is ride this fear and anger all the way to Election Day.

That's what's happening right now. A few weeks ago, the Republican leader of the House came here to Cleveland and offered his party's answer to our economic challenges. Now, it would be one thing if he admitted his party's mistakes during the eight years they were in power, and was offering a credible new approach to solving our country's problems.

But that's not what happened. There were no new policies from Mr. Boehner. There were no new ideas. There was just the same philosophy we already tried for the last decade - the same philosophy that led to this mess in the first place: cut more taxes for millionaires and cut more rules for corporations. Instead of coming together like past generations did to build a better country for our children and grandchildren, their argument is that we should let insurance companies go back to denying care to folks who are sick, and let credit card companies go back to raising rates without any reason. Instead of setting our sights higher, they're asking us to settle for a status quo of stagnant growth, eroding competitiveness, and a shrinking middle class.

Cleveland - that is not the America I know. That is not the America we believe in. A lot has changed since I came here in those final days of the last election, but what hasn't is the choice facing this country. It's still fear versus hope; the past versus the future. It's still a choice between sliding backward and moving forward. That's what this election is about. That's the choice you'll face in November.

I have a different vision for the future. I've never believed that government has all the answers to our problems. I've never believed that government's role is to create jobs or prosperity. I believe it's the drive and ingenuity of our entrepreneurs, the skill and dedication of our workers, that has made us the wealthiest nation on Earth. I believe it's the private sector that must be the main engine of our recovery.

I believe government should be lean, it should be efficient, and it should leave people free to make the choices they think are best for themselves and their families, so long as those choices don't hurt others.

But in the words of the first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln, I also believe that government should do for the people what they cannot do better for themselves.

That means making long-term investments in this country's future that individuals and corporations cannot make on their own: investments in education and clean energy; in basic research, technology, and infrastructure

That means making sure corporations live up to their responsibilities to treat consumers fairly and play by the same rules as everyone else; to look out for their workers and create jobs here at home.

And that means providing a hand up for middle-class families - so that if they work hard and meet their responsibilities, they can afford to raise their children, send them to college, see a doctor when they get sick, and retire with dignity and respect.

That's what we Democrats believe in - a vibrant free market, but one that works for everybody. That's our vision for a stronger economy and a growing middle-class. And that's the difference between what we and the Republicans in Congress are offering the American people right now.

Let me give you a few specific examples of our different approaches. This week, I proposed some additional steps to grow the economy and help businesses spur hiring. One of the keys to job creation is to encourage companies to invest more in the United States. But for years, our tax code has actually given billions of dollars in tax breaks that encourage companies to create jobs and profits in other countries.

I want to change that. Instead of tax loopholes that incentivize investment in overseas jobs, I'm proposing a more generous, permanent extension of the tax credit that goes to companies for all the research and innovation they do right here in America. And I'm proposing that all American businesses should be allowed to write off all the investment they do in 2011. This will help small businesses upgrade their plants and equipment, and will encourage large corporations to get off the sidelines and start putting their profits to work in places like Cleveland and Toledo and Dayton.

To most of you, this is just common sense. But not to Mr. Boehner and his allies. For years, Republicans have fought to keep these corporate loopholes open. In fact, when Mr. Boehner was here in Cleveland he attacked us for closing a few of these loopholes - and using the money to help states like Ohio keep hundreds of thousands of teachers and cops and firefighters on the job. He dismissed these jobs - teaching our kids, patrolling our streets, rushing into burning buildings - as quote "government jobs" - jobs that I guess he thought just weren't worth saving.

I couldn't disagree more. I think teachers and police officers and firefighters are part of what keep America strong. And I think if we're going to give tax breaks to companies, they should go to companies that create jobs in America - not those that create jobs overseas. That's one difference between the Republican vision and the Democratic vision. And that's what this election is all about.

Let me give you another example. We want to put more Americans back to work rebuilding America - our roads, railways, and runways. When the housing sector collapsed and the recession hit, one in every four jobs lost were in the construction industry. That's partly why our economic plan has invested in badly needed infrastructure projects over the last nineteen months - not just roads and bridges, but high-speed railroads and expanded broadband access. Altogether, these are projects that have led to thousands of good, private sector jobs, especially for those in the trades.

Mr. Boehner and the Republicans in Congress said no to these projects. Fought them tooth and nail. Though I should say that didn't stop a lot of them from showing up at the ribbon-cutting ceremonies and trying to take credit. That's always a sight to see.

Now, there are still thousands of miles of roads, railways, and runways left to repair and improve. And engineers, economists, governors and mayors of every political stripe believe that if we want to compete, we need to rebuild this vital infrastructure. There's no reason Europe or China should have the fastest trains or the most modern airports - we want to put people to work building them right here in America. So this week, I've proposed a six year infrastructure plan that would start putting Americans to work right away. But despite the fact that this has traditionally been an issue with bipartisan support, Mr. Boehner has so far said no to infrastructure. That's bad for America - and that too is what this election is about.

I'll give you one final example of the differences between us and the Republicans, and that's on the issue of tax cuts. Under the tax plan passed by the last administration, taxes are scheduled to go up substantially next year. Now, I believe we ought to make the tax cuts for the middle class permanent. These families are the ones who saw their wages and incomes flatline over the last decade - and they deserve a break. And because they are more likely to spend on basic necessities, this will strengthen the economy as a whole.

But the Republican leader of the House doesn't want to stop there. Make no mistake: he and his party believe we should also give a permanent tax cut to the wealthiest two percent of Americans. With all the other budgetary pressures we have - with all the Republicans' talk about wanting to shrink the deficit - they would have us borrow $700 billion over the next ten years to give a tax cut of about $100,000 to folks who are already millionaires. These are among the only folks who saw their incomes rise when Republicans were in charge. And these are folks who are less likely to spend the money, which is why economists don't think tax breaks for the wealthy would do much to boost the economy.

So let me be clear to Mr. Boehner and everyone else: we should not hold middle class tax cuts hostage any longer. We are ready, this week, to give tax cuts to every American making $250,000 or less. For any income over this amount, the tax rates would go back to what they were under President Clinton. This isn't to punish folks who are better off - it's because we can't afford the $700 billion price tag. And for those who claim that this is bad for growth and bad for small businesses, let me remind you that with those tax rates in place, this country created 22 million jobs, raised incomes, and had the largest surplus in history.

In fact, if the Republican leadership in Congress really wants to help small businesses, they'll stop using legislative maneuvers to block an up-or-down vote on a small business jobs bill that's before the Senate right now. This is a bill that would do two things: cut taxes for small businesses and make loans more available for small businesses. It is fully paid for, and it was written by Democrats and Republicans. And yet, the other party continues to block this jobs bill - a delay that small business owners have said is actually leading them to put off hiring.

Look, I recognize that most of the Republicans in Congress have said no to just about every policy I've proposed since taking office. And on some issues, I realize it's because there are genuine philosophical differences. But on issues like this one, the only reason they're holding this up is politics, pure and simple. They're making the same calculation they made just before the inauguration: if I fail, they win. Well, they might think this will get them where they need to go in November, but it won't get our country where it needs to go in the long run.

So that's the choice, Ohio. Do we return to the same failed policies that ran our economy into a ditch, or do we keep moving forward with policies that are slowly pulling us out? Do we settle for a slow decline, or do we reach for an America with a growing economy and a thriving middle-class?

That's the America we see. We may not be there yet, but we know where this country needs to go.

We see a future where we invest in American innovation and American ingenuity; where we export more goods so we create more jobs here at home; where we make it easier to start a business or patent an invention; where we build a homegrown, clean energy industry - because I don't want to see new solar panels or electric cars or advanced batteries manufactured in Europe or Asia. I want to see them made right here in America, by American workers.

We see an America where every citizen has the skills and training to compete with any worker in the world. That's why we've set a goal to once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020. That's why we're revitalizing our community colleges, and reforming our education system based on what works for our children - not what perpetuates the status quo.

We see an America where a growing middle-class is the beating heart of a growing economy. That's why I kept my campaign promise and gave a middle-class tax cut to 95% of working Americans. That's why we passed health insurance reform that stops insurance companies from jacking up your premiums at will or denying you coverage just because you get sick. That's why we passed financial reform that will end taxpayer-funded bailouts; reform that will stop credit card companies and mortgage lenders and Wall Street banks from taking advantage of taxpayers and consumers.

That's why we're trying to make it easier for workers to save for retirement, and fighting the efforts of some in the other party to privatize Social Security - because as long as I'm President, no one is going to take the retirement savings of a generation of Americans and hand it over to Wall Street.

That's why we're fighting to extend the child tax credit, and make permanent our new college tax credit. Because if we do, it will mean $10,000 in tuition relief for each child going to four years of college.

And finally, we see an America where we refuse to pass on the debt we inherited to the next generation.

Now, let me spend a minute on this issue, because we've heard a lot of moralizing on the other side about it. Along with tax cuts for the wealthy, the other party's main economic proposal is that they'll stop government spending.

Of course, they are right to be concerned about the long-term deficit - if we don't get a handle on it soon, it can endanger our future. And at a time when folks are tightening their belts at home, I understand why a lot of Americans feel it's time for government to show some discipline too.

But let's look at the facts. When these same Republicans - including Mr. Boehner - were in charge, the number of earmarks and pet projects went up, not down. These same Republicans turned a record surplus that Bill Clinton left into a record deficit. Just this year, these same Republicans voted against a bipartisan fiscal commission that they themselves proposed. And when you ask them what programs they'd actually cut, they usually don't have an answer.

That's not fiscal responsibility. That's not a serious plan to govern.

I'll be honest - I refuse to cut back on those investments that will grow our economy in the future - investments in areas like education and clean energy and technology. That's because economic growth is the single best way to bring down the deficit - and we need these investments to grow. But I am absolutely committed to fiscal responsibility, which is why I've already proposed freezing all discretionary spending unrelated to national security for the next three years. And once the bipartisan fiscal commission finishes its work, I will spend the next year making the tough choices necessary to further reduce our deficit and lower our debt.

Of course, reducing the deficit won't be easy. Making up for the 8 million lost jobs caused by this recession won't happen overnight. Not everything we've done over the last two years has worked as quickly as we had hoped, and I am keenly aware that not all our policies have been popular.

So no, our job is not easy. But you didn't elect me to do what's easy. You didn't elect me to just read the polls and figure out how to keep myself in office. You didn't elect me to avoid big problems. You elected me to do what's right. And as long as I'm President, that's exactly what I'll do.

This country is emerging from an incredibly difficult period in its history - an era of irresponsibility that stretched from Wall Street to Washington and had a devastating effect on a lot of people. We have started turning the corner on that era, but part of moving forward is returning to the time-honored values that built this country: hard work and self-reliance; responsibility for ourselves, but also responsibility for one another. It's about moving from an attitude that said "What's in it for me" to one that asks, "What's best for America? What's best for all our workers? What's best for all our businesses? What's best for our children?"

These values aren't Democratic or Republican. They aren't conservative or liberal values. They're American values. As Democrats, we take pride in what our party has accomplished over the last century: Social Security and the minimum wage; the GI Bill and Medicare; Civil Rights and worker's rights and women's rights. But we also recognize that throughout history, there has been a noble Republican vision as well, of what this country can be. It was the vision of Abraham Lincoln, who set up the first land grant colleges and launched the transcontinental railroad; the vision of Teddy Roosevelt, who used the power of government to break up monopolies; the vision of Dwight Eisenhower, who helped build the Interstate Highway System. And yes, the vision of Ronald Reagan, who despite his aversion to government, was willing to help save Social Security for future generations.

These were serious leaders for serious times. They were great politicians, but they didn't spend all their time playing games or scoring points. They didn't always prey on people's fears and anxieties. They made mistakes, but they did what they thought was in the best interest of their country and its people.

That's what the American people expect of us today - Democrats, Independents, and Republicans. That's the debate they deserve. That's the leadership we owe them.

I know that folks are worried about the future. I know there's still a lot of hurt out here. And when times are tough, I know it can be tempting to give in to cynicism and fear; to doubt and division - to set our sights lower and settle for something less.

But that is not who we are, Ohio. Those are not the values that built this country. We are here today because in the worst of times, the people who came before us brought out the best in America. Because our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents were willing to work and sacrifice for us. They were willing to take great risks, and face great hardship, and reach for a future that would give us the chance at a better life. They knew that this country is greater than the sum of its parts - that America is not about the ambitions of any one individual, but the aspirations of an entire people and an entire nation.

That's who we are. That is our legacy. And I'm convinced that if we're willing to summon those values today; if we're willing again to choose hope over fear; to choose the future over the past; to come together once more around the great project of national renewal, then we will restore our economy; rebuild our middle-class; and reclaim the American Dream for the next generation.

Thank you, God Bless you, and may God Bless the United States of America.