The following comments were apparently too controversial for the San Francisco Chronicle comment section.
The President's Kansas speech was filled with popular platitudes and pandering ideals. It's really too bad that this President doesn't live up to his proclaimed ideals.
The President said,
"I believe that this country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does their fair share, when everyone plays by the same rules." Who doesn't agree with this? However, let's delve a bit deeper.
The President often rails against those "corporate-jet flying" "millionaires and billionaires" who don't pay their "fair share." Never once has he defined what he means by "fair share." Here in California, the 2% of "millionaires and billionaires" making $300,000 or more pay over 50% of all state income taxes, single-handedly fund quarter of the entire General Fund, and pay an effective tax rate eight time higher than the majority of Californians. I wish the President could actual define what their "fair share" should be. I'm nowhere close to making $300,000 but I see the mistake in eating the Golden Goose for dinner.
It's particularly ironic that the President proposes that "
everyone plays by the same rules." Later in the speech, the President proclaimed, "
Inequality also distorts our democracy. It gives an outsized voice to the few who can afford high-priced lobbyists and unlimited campaign contributions, and it runs the risk of selling out our democracy to the highest bidder."
How very ironic. The President is essentially saying "Do as I say, not as I do." Never mind that the President is
THE largest recipient of campaign cash from the securities and investment industry.
Let's look at a few of the President's advisors and partners.
Jeffrey Immelt, President Obama's Jobs Czar. CEO of General Electric, who paid zero federal income taxes despite billions in revenue and after receiving a federal bailout. If you have the money for Washington lobbyists, you can reap huge returns on your investment through crony capitalism. This is essentially GE's strategy. It beats actually having to innovate and take the risks of developing a product that people actually want. However, if you earn your money the old-fashioned way by competing in the free-market, you are subject to the full impact of the world's highest corporate taxes.
Jon Corzine, President Obama's Wall Street financier on Wall Street and trusted economic advisor. Former New Jersey Senator and Governor. Former CEO of Goldman-Sachs. Former CEO of MF Global, who cannot account for $1,200,000,000 in client money. Naturally, the President criticized previous Administrations whose "Regulators who were supposed to warn us about the dangers of all this, but looked the other way or didn't have the authority to look at all." Apparently the President missed the giant plank stuck in his own Administration's eye. I'll bet we all feel safer after the so-called Dodd-Frank financial reform bill, right? Our "too-big-to-fail" banks are even bigger and MORE consolidated.
How about something closer to home. Anybody remember
Solyndra? You cannot miss the giant sign off 880. Here's a "green jobs" program that created a lot of "green" for some of President Obama's major contributors. There's
George Kaiser, a billionaire from Oklahoma who raised up to $100,000 for the President and visited the White House on at least four occasions. The Solyndra loan guarantee was unusual in that it put the investors before taxpayers in case of bankruptcy. Oops, there goes another $535 million dollars.
Obviously, the President is against free-market capitalism because he and his cronies benefit so much from
crony capitalism.
I'm sorry, but actions speak much louder than words. The President is a PHONEY! Don't be fooled by his pretty words and useless rhetoric.
Transcript of the President's speech
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I want to start by thanking a few
folks who’ve joined us today. We’ve got the mayor of Osawatomie, Phil
Dudley is here. (Applause.) We have your superintendent Gary French
in the house. (Applause.) And we have the principal of Osawatomie
High, Doug Chisam. (Applause.) And I have brought your former
governor, who is doing now an outstanding job as Secretary of Health and Human
Services – Kathleen Sebelius is
in the house. (Applause.) We love Kathleen.
Well, it is great
to be back in the state of Tex — (laughter) — state of Kansas. I was
giving Bill Self a hard time, he was here a while back. As many of you
know, I have roots here. (Applause.) I’m sure you’re all familiar
with the Obamas of Osawatomie. (Laughter.) Actually, I like to say
that I got my name from my father, but I got my accent — and my values — from
my mother. (Applause.) She was born in Wichita.
(Applause.) Her mother grew up in Augusta. Her father was from El
Dorado. So my Kansas roots run deep.
My grandparents
served during World War II.
He was a soldier in Patton’s Army; she was a worker on a bomber assembly
line. And together, they shared the optimism of a nation that triumphed
over the Great Depression and over fascism. They believed in an America
where hard work paid off, and responsibility was rewarded, and anyone could
make it if they tried — no matter who you were, no matter where you came from,
no matter how you started out. (Applause.)
And these values
gave rise to the largest middle class and the strongest economy that the world
has ever known. It was here in America that the most productive workers,
the most innovative companies turned out the best products on Earth. And
you know what? Every American shared in that pride and in that success —
from those in the executive suites to those in middle management to those on
the factory floor. (Applause.) So you could have some confidence
that if you gave it your all, you’d take enough home to raise your family and
send your kids to school and have your health care covered, put a little away
for retirement.
Today we are
still home to the world’s most productive workers. We’re still home to
the world’s most innovative companies. But for most Americans, the basic
bargain that made this country great has eroded. Long before the
recession hit, hard work stopped paying off for too many people. Fewer
and fewer of the folks who contributed to the success of our economy actually
benefited from that success. Those at the very top grew wealthier from
their incomes and their investments — wealthier than ever before. But
everybody else struggled with costs that were growing and paychecks that
weren’t — and too many families found themselves racking up more and more debt
just to keep up.
Now, for many
years, credit cards and home equity loans papered over this harsh
reality. But in 2008, the house of cards collapsed. We all know the
story by now: Mortgages sold to people who couldn’t afford them, or even
sometimes understand them. Banks and investors allowed to keep packaging
the risk and selling it off. Huge bets — and huge bonuses — made with
other people’s money on the line. Regulators who were supposed to warn us
about the dangers of all this, but looked the other way or didn’t have the
authority to look at all.
It was
wrong. It combined the breathtaking greed of a few with irresponsibility
all across the system. And it plunged our economy and the world into a
crisis from which we’re still fighting to recover. It claimed the jobs
and the homes and the basic security of millions of people — innocent,
hardworking Americans who had met their responsibilities but were still left
holding the bag.
And ever since,
there’s been a raging debate over the best way to restore growth and
prosperity, restore balance, restore fairness. Throughout the country,
it’s sparked protests and political movements — from the tea party to the
people who’ve been occupying the streets of New York and other cities.
It’s left Washington in a near-constant state of gridlock. It’s been the
topic of heated and sometimes colorful discussion among the men and women
running for president.
(Laughter.)
But, Osawatomie,
this is not just another political debate. This is the defining issue of our
time. This is a make-or-break moment for the middle class, and for all
those who are fighting to get into the middle class. Because what’s at
stake is whether this will be a country where working people can earn enough to
raise a family, build a modest savings, own a home, secure their retirement.
Now, in the midst
of this debate, there are some who seem to be suffering from a kind of
collective amnesia. After all that’s happened, after the worst economic crisis,
the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, they want to return to
the same practices that got us into this mess. In fact, they want to go
back to the same policies that stacked the deck against middle-class Americans
for way too many years. And their philosophy is simple: We are
better off when everybody is left to fend for themselves and play by their own
rules.
I am here to say
they are wrong. (Applause.) I’m here in Kansas to reaffirm my deep
conviction that we’re greater together than we are on our own. I believe
that this country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does
their fair share, when everyone plays by the same rules.
(Applause.) These aren’t Democratic values or Republican values.
These aren’t 1 percent values or 99 percent values. They’re American
values. And we have to reclaim them. (Applause.)
You see, this
isn’t the first time America has faced this choice. At the turn of the
last century, when a nation of farmers was transitioning to become the world’s
industrial giant, we had to decide: Would we settle for a country where
most of the new railroads and factories were being controlled by a few giant
monopolies that kept prices high and wages low? Would we allow our
citizens and even our children to work ungodly hours in conditions that were
unsafe and unsanitary? Would we restrict education to the privileged
few? Because there were people who thought massive inequality and
exploitation of people was just the price you pay for progress.
Theodore Roosevelt disagreed.
He was the Republican son of a wealthy family. He praised what the titans
of industry had done to create jobs and grow the economy. He believed
then what we know is true today, that the free market is the greatest force for
economic progress in human history. It’s led to a prosperity and a
standard of living unmatched by the rest of the world.
But Roosevelt
also knew that the free market has never been a free license to take whatever
you can from whomever you can. (Applause.) He understood the free
market only works when there are rules of the road that ensure competition is
fair and open and honest. And so he busted up monopolies, forcing those
companies to compete for consumers with better services and better
prices. And today, they still must. He fought to make sure
businesses couldn’t profit by exploiting children or selling food or medicine
that wasn’t safe. And today, they still can’t.
And in 1910,
Teddy Roosevelt came here to Osawatomie and he laid out his vision for what he
called a New Nationalism. “Our country,” he said, “…means nothing unless
it means the triumph of a real democracy…of an economic system under which each
man shall be guaranteed the opportunity to show the best that there is in
him.” (Applause.)
Now, for this,
Roosevelt was called a radical. He was called a socialist — (laughter) —
even a communist. But today, we are a richer nation and a stronger
democracy because of what he fought for in his last campaign: an
eight-hour work day and a minimum wage for women — (applause) — insurance for
the unemployed and for the elderly, and those with disabilities; political
reform and a progressive income tax. (Applause.)
Today, over 100
years later, our economy has gone through another transformation. Over
the last few decades, huge advances in technology have allowed businesses to do
more with less, and it’s made it easier for them to set up shop and hire
workers anywhere they want in the world. And many of you know firsthand
the painful disruptions this has caused for a lot of Americans.
Factories where
people thought they would retire suddenly picked up and went overseas, where
workers were cheaper. Steel mills that needed 100 — or 1,000 employees
are now able to do the same work with 100 employees, so layoffs too often
became permanent, not just a temporary part of the business cycle. And
these changes didn’t just affect blue-collar workers. If you were a bank
teller or a phone operator or a travel agent, you saw many in your profession
replaced by ATMs and the Internet.
Today, even
higher-skilled jobs, like accountants and middle management can be outsourced
to countries like China or India.
And if you’re somebody whose job can be done cheaper by a computer or someone
in another country, you don’t have a lot of leverage with your employer when it
comes to asking for better wages or better benefits, especially since fewer
Americans today are part of a union.
Now, just as
there was in Teddy Roosevelt’s time, there is a certain crowd in Washington who,
for the last few decades, have said, let’s respond to this economic challenge
with the same old tune. “The market will take care of everything,” they
tell us. If we just cut more regulations and cut more taxes — especially
for the wealthy — our economy will grow stronger. Sure, they say, there
will be winners and losers. But if the winners do really well, then jobs
and prosperity will eventually trickle down to everybody else. And, they
argue, even if prosperity doesn’t trickle down, well, that’s the price of
liberty.
Now, it’s a
simple theory. And we have to admit, it’s one that speaks to our rugged
individualism and our healthy skepticism of too much government. That’s
in America’s DNA. And that theory fits well on a bumper sticker.
(Laughter.) But here’s the problem: It doesn’t work. It has
never worked. (Applause.) It didn’t work when it was tried in the
decade before the Great Depression. It’s not what led to the incredible
postwar booms of the ‘50s and ‘60s. And it didn’t work when we tried it
during the last decade. (Applause.) I mean, understand, it’s not as
if we haven’t tried this theory.
Remember in those
years, in 2001 and 2003, Congress passed two of the most expensive tax cuts for
the wealthy in history. And what did it get us? The slowest job
growth in half a century. Massive deficits that have made it much harder
to pay for the investments that built this country and provided the basic
security that helped millions of Americans reach and stay in the middle class —
things like education and infrastructure, science and technology, Medicare and Social
Security.
Remember that in
those same years, thanks to some of the same folks who are now running
Congress, we had weak regulation, we had little oversight, and what did it get
us? Insurance companies that jacked up people’s premiums with impunity
and denied care to patients who were sick, mortgage lenders that tricked
families into buying homes they couldn’t afford, a financial sector where
irresponsibility and lack of basic oversight nearly destroyed our entire
economy.
We simply cannot
return to this brand of “you’re on your own” economics if we’re serious about
rebuilding the middle class in this country. (Applause.) We know
that it doesn’t result in a strong economy. It results in an economy that
invests too little in its people and in its future. We know it doesn’t
result in a prosperity that trickles down. It results in a prosperity
that’s enjoyed by fewer and fewer of our citizens.
Look at the
statistics. In the last few decades, the average income of the top 1
percent has gone up by more than 250 percent to $1.2 million per year.
I’m not talking about millionaires, people who have a million dollars.
I’m saying people who make a million dollars every single year. For the
top one hundredth of 1 percent, the average income is now $27 million per
year. The typical CEO who used to earn about 30 times more than his or
her worker now earns 110 times more. And yet, over the last decade the
incomes of most Americans have actually fallen by about 6 percent.
Now, this kind of
inequality — a level that we haven’t seen since the Great Depression — hurts us
all. When middle-class families can no longer afford to buy the goods and
services that businesses are selling, when people are slipping out of the
middle class, it drags down the entire economy from top to bottom.
America was built on the idea of broad-based prosperity, of strong consumers
all across the country. That’s why a CEO like Henry Ford made it
his mission to pay his workers enough so that they could buy the cars he
made. It’s also why a recent study showed that countries with less
inequality tend to have stronger and steadier economic growth over the long
run.
Inequality
also distorts our democracy. It gives an outsized voice to the few who
can afford high-priced lobbyists and unlimited campaign contributions, and it
runs the risk of selling out our democracy to the highest bidder.
(Applause.) It leaves everyone else rightly suspicious that the system in
Washington is rigged against them, that our elected representatives aren’t
looking out for the interests of most Americans.
But there’s an
even more fundamental issue at stake. This kind of gaping inequality
gives lie to the promise that’s at the very heart of America: that this
is a place where you can make it if you try. We tell people — we tell our
kids — that in this country, even if you’re born with nothing, work hard and
you can get into the middle class. We tell them that your children will
have a chance to do even better than you do. That’s why immigrants from
around the world historically have flocked to our shores.
And yet, over the
last few decades, the rungs on the ladder of opportunity have grown farther and
farther apart, and the middle class has shrunk. You know, a few years
after World War II, a child who was born into poverty had a slightly better
than 50-50 chance of becoming middle class as an adult. By 1980, that
chance had fallen to around 40 percent. And if the trend of rising
inequality over the last few decades continues, it’s estimated that a child
born today will only have a one-in-three chance of making it to the middle
class — 33 percent.
It’s
heartbreaking enough that there are millions of working families in this
country who are now forced to take their children to food banks for a decent
meal. But the idea that those children might not have a chance to climb
out of that situation and back into the middle class, no matter how hard they
work? That’s inexcusable. It is wrong. (Applause.) It
flies in the face of everything that we stand for. (Applause.)
Now, fortunately,
that’s not a future that we have to accept, because there’s another view about
how we build a strong middle class in this country — a view that’s truer to our
history, a vision that’s been embraced in the past by people of both parties
for more than 200 years.
It’s not a view
that we should somehow turn back technology or put up walls around
America. It’s not a view that says we should punish profit or success or
pretend that government knows how to fix all of society’s problems. It is
a view that says in America we are greater together — when everyone engages in
fair play and everybody gets a fair shot and everybody does their fair share.
(Applause.)
So what does that
mean for restoring middle-class security in today’s economy? Well, it
starts by making sure that everyone in America gets a fair shot at
success. The truth is we’ll never be able to compete with other countries
when it comes to who’s best at letting their businesses pay the lowest wages,
who’s best at busting unions, who’s best at letting companies pollute as much
as they want. That’s a race to the bottom that we can’t win, and we
shouldn’t want to win that race. (Applause.) Those countries don’t
have a strong middle class. They don’t have our standard of living.
The race we want
to win, the race we can win is a race to the top — the race for good jobs that
pay well and offer middle-class security. Businesses will create those
jobs in countries with the highest-skilled, highest-educated workers, the most
advanced transportation and communication, the strongest commitment to research
and technology.
The world is
shifting to an innovation economy and nobody does innovation better than
America. Nobody does it better. (Applause.) No one has better
colleges. Nobody has better universities. Nobody has a greater
diversity of talent and ingenuity. No one’s workers or entrepreneurs are
more driven or more daring. The things that have always been our
strengths match up perfectly with the demands of the moment.
But we need to
meet the moment. We’ve got to up our game. We need to remember that
we can only do that together. It starts by making education a national
mission — a national mission. (Applause.) Government and
businesses, parents and citizens. In this economy, a higher education is
the surest route to the middle class. The unemployment rate for Americans
with a college degree or more is about half the national average. And
their incomes are twice as high as those who don’t have a high school
diploma. Which means we shouldn’t be laying off good teachers right now —
we should be hiring them. (Applause.) We shouldn’t be expecting
less of our schools –- we should be demanding more. (Applause.) We
shouldn’t be making it harder to afford college — we should be a country where
everyone has a chance to go and doesn’t rack up $100,000 of debt just because
they went. (Applause.)
In today’s
innovation economy, we also need a world-class commitment to science and
research, the next generation of high-tech manufacturing. Our factories
and our workers shouldn’t be idle. We should be giving people the chance
to get new skills and training at community colleges so they can learn how to
make wind turbines and semiconductors and high-powered batteries. And by
the way, if we don’t have an economy that’s built on bubbles and financial
speculation, our best and brightest won’t all gravitate towards careers in
banking and finance. (Applause.) Because if we want an
economy that’s built to last, we need more of those young people in science and
engineering. (Applause.) This country should not be known for bad
debt and phony profits. We should be known for creating and selling products
all around the world that are stamped with three proud words: Made in
America. (Applause.)
Today,
manufacturers and other companies are setting up shop in the places with the
best infrastructure to ship their products, move their workers, communicate
with the rest of the world. And that’s why the over 1 million
construction workers who lost their jobs when the housing market collapsed,
they shouldn’t be sitting at home with nothing to do. They should be
rebuilding our roads and our bridges, laying down faster railroads and
broadband, modernizing our schools — (applause) — all the things other
countries are already doing to attract good jobs and businesses to their
shores.
Yes, business,
and not government, will always be the primary generator of good jobs with
incomes that lift people into the middle class and keep them there. But
as a nation, we’ve always come together, through our government, to help create
the conditions where both workers and businesses can succeed. (Applause.)
And historically, that hasn’t been a partisan idea. Franklin
Roosevelt worked with Democrats and Republicans to give
veterans of World War II — including my grandfather, Stanley Dunham — the
chance to go to college on the G.I. Bill. It was a Republican President,
Dwight Eisenhower, a proud son of Kansas — (applause) — who started the
Interstate Highway System, and doubled down on science and research to stay
ahead of the Soviets.
Of course, those
productive investments cost money. They’re not free. And so we’ve
also paid for these investments by asking everybody to do their fair
share. Look, if we had unlimited resources, no one would ever have to pay
any taxes and we would never have to cut any spending. But we don’t have
unlimited resources. And so we have to set priorities. If we want a
strong middle class, then our tax code must reflect our values. We have
to make choices.
Today that choice
is very clear. To reduce our deficit, I’ve already signed nearly $1
trillion of spending cuts into law and I’ve proposed trillions more, including
reforms that would lower the cost of Medicare and Medicaid. (Applause.)
But in order to structurally
close the deficit, get our fiscal house in order, we have to decide what our
priorities are. Now, most immediately, short term, we need to extend a payroll
tax cut that’s set to expire at the end of this month. (Applause.)
If we don’t do that, 160 million Americans, including most of the people here,
will see their taxes go up by an average of $1,000 starting in January and it
would badly weaken our recovery. That’s the short term.
In the long term,
we have to rethink our tax system more fundamentally. We have to ask
ourselves: Do we want to make the investments we need in things like
education and research and high-tech manufacturing — all those things that
helped make us an economic superpower? Or do we want to keep in place the
tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans in our country? Because we can’t
afford to do both. That is not politics. That’s just math.
(Laughter and applause.)
Now, so far, most
of my Republican friends in Washington have refused under any circumstance to
ask the wealthiest Americans to go to the same tax rate they were paying whenBill Clinton was
president. So let’s just do a trip down memory lane here.
Keep in mind,
when President Clinton first proposed these tax increases, folks in Congress
predicted they would kill jobs and lead to another recession. Instead,
our economy created nearly 23 million jobs and we eliminated the deficit.
(Applause.) Today, the wealthiest Americans are paying the lowest taxes
in over half a century. This isn’t like in the early ‘50s, when the top
tax rate was over 90 percent. This isn’t even like the early ‘80s, when
the top tax rate was about 70 percent. Under President Clinton, the top
rate was only about 39 percent. Today, thanks to loopholes and shelters,
a quarter of all millionaires now pay lower tax rates than millions of you,
millions of middle-class families. Some billionaires have a tax rate as
low as 1 percent. One percent.
That is the
height of unfairness. It is wrong. (Applause.) It’s wrong
that in the United States of America, a teacher or a nurse or a construction
worker, maybe earns $50,000 a year, should pay a higher tax rate than somebody
raking in $50 million. (Applause.) It’s wrong for Warren Buffett‘s secretary
to pay a higher tax rate than Warren Buffett. (Applause.) And by
the way, Warren Buffett agrees with me. (Laughter.) So do most
Americans — Democrats, independents and Republicans. And I know that many
of our wealthiest citizens would agree to contribute a little more if it meant
reducing the deficit and strengthening the economy that made their success
possible.
This isn’t about
class warfare. This is about the nation’s welfare. It’s about
making choices that benefit not just the people who’ve done fantastically well
over the last few decades, but that benefits the middle class, and those
fighting to get into the middle class, and the economy as a whole.
Finally, a strong
middle class can only exist in an economy where everyone plays by the same
rules, from Wall Street to Main Street. (Applause.) As infuriating
as it was for all of us, we rescued our major banks from collapse, not only
because a full-blown financial meltdown would have sent us into a second
Depression, but because we need a strong, healthy financial sector in this
country.
But part of the
deal was that we wouldn’t go back to business as usual. And that’s why
last year we put in place new rules of the road that refocus the financial
sector on what should be their core purpose: getting capital to the
entrepreneurs with the best ideas, and financing millions of families who want
to buy a home or send their kids to college.
Now, we’re not
all the way there yet, and the banks are fighting us every inch of the
way. But already, some of these reforms are being implemented.
If you’re a big
bank or risky financial institution, you now have to write out a “living will”
that details exactly how you’ll pay the bills if you fail, so that taxpayers
are never again on the hook for Wall Street’s mistakes. (Applause.)
There are also limits on the size of banks and new abilities for regulators to
dismantle a firm that is going under. The new law bans banks from making
risky bets with their customers’ deposits, and it takes away big bonuses and
paydays from failed CEOs, while giving shareholders a say on executive
salaries.
This is the law
that we passed. We are in the process of implementing it now. All
of this is being put in place as we speak. Now, unless you’re a financial
institution whose business model is built on breaking the law, cheating
consumers and making risky bets that could damage the entire economy, you
should have nothing to fear from these new rules.
Some of you may
know, my grandmother worked as a banker for most of her life — worked her way
up, started as a secretary, ended up being a vice president of a bank.
And I know from her, and I know from all the people that I’ve come in contact
with, that the vast majority of bankers and financial service professionals,
they want to do right by their customers. They want to have rules in
place that don’t put them at a disadvantage for doing the right thing.
And yet, Republicans in Congress are fighting as hard as they can to make sure
that these rules aren’t enforced.
I’ll give
you a specific example. For the first time in history, the reforms that
we passed put in place a consumer watchdog who is charged with protecting
everyday Americans from being taken advantage of by mortgage lenders or payday
lenders or debt collectors. And the man we nominated for the post,
Richard Cordray, is a former attorney general of Ohio who has the support of
most attorney generals, both Democrat and Republican, throughout the
country. Nobody claims he’s not qualified.
But the Republicans
in the Senate refuse to
confirm him for the job; they refuse to let him do his job. Why?
Does anybody here think that the problem that led to our financial crisis was
too much oversight of mortgage lenders or debt collectors?
AUDIENCE:
No!
THE
PRESIDENT: Of course not. Every day we go without a consumer
watchdog is another day when a student, or a senior citizen, or a member of our
Armed Forces — because they are very vulnerable to some of this stuff — could
be tricked into a loan that they can’t afford — something that happens all the
time. And the fact is that financial institutions have plenty of
lobbyists looking out for their interests. Consumers deserve to have
someone whose job it is to look out for them. (Applause.) And I
intend to make sure they do. (Applause.) And I want you to hear me,
Kansas: I will veto any effort to delay or defund or dismantle the new
rules that we put in place. (Applause.)
We shouldn’t be
weakening oversight and accountability. We should be strengthening
oversight and accountability. I’ll give you another example. Too
often, we’ve seen Wall Street firms violating major anti-fraud laws because the
penalties are too weak and there’s no price for being a repeat offender.
No more. I’ll be calling for legislation that makes those penalties count
so that firms don’t see punishment for breaking the law as just the price of doing
business. (Applause.)
The fact is this
crisis has left a huge deficit of trust between Main Street and Wall
Street. And major banks that were rescued by the taxpayers have an
obligation to go the extra mile in helping to close that deficit of
trust. At minimum, they should be remedying past mortgage abuses that led
to the financial crisis. They should be working to keep responsible
homeowners in their home. We’re going to keep pushing them to provide
more time for unemployed homeowners to look for work without having to worry
about immediately losing their house.
The big banks
should increase access to refinancing opportunities to borrowers who haven’t
yet benefited from historically low interest rates. And the big banks
should recognize that precisely because these steps are in the interest of
middle-class families and the broader economy, it will also be in the banks’
own long-term financial interest. What will be good for consumers over
the long term will be good for the banks. (Applause.)
Investing in things
like education that give everybody a chance to succeed. A tax code that
makes sure everybody pays their fair share. And laws that make sure
everybody follows the rules. That’s what will transform our
economy. That’s what will grow our middle class again. In the end,
rebuilding this economy based on fair play, a fair shot, and a fair share will
require all of us to see that we have a stake in each other’s success.
And it will require all of us to take some responsibility.
It will require
parents to get more involved in their children’s education. It will
require students to study harder. (Applause.) It will require some
workers to start studying all over again. It will require greater
responsibility from homeowners not to take out mortgages they can’t
afford. They need to remember that if something seems too good to be
true, it probably is.
It will require
those of us in public service to make government more efficient and more
effective, more consumer-friendly, more responsive to people’s needs.
That’s why we’re cutting programs that we don’t need to pay for those we
do. (Applause.) That’s why we’ve made hundreds of regulatory
reforms that will save businesses billions of dollars. That’s why we’re
not just throwing money at education, we’re challenging schools to come up with
the most innovative reforms and the best results.
And it will require American business leaders to understand that their
obligations don’t just end with their shareholders. Andy Grove, the
legendary former CEO of Intel, put it best.
He said, “There is another obligation I feel personally, given that everything
I’ve achieved in my career, and a lot of what Intel has achieved…were made
possible by a climate of democracy, an economic climate and investment climate
provided by the United States.”
This broader
obligation can take many forms. At a time when the cost of hiring workers
in China is rising rapidly, it should mean more CEOs deciding that it’s time to
bring jobs back to the United States — (applause) — not just because it’s good
for business, but because it’s good for the country that made their business
and their personal success possible. (Applause.)
I think about the
Big Three auto companies who, during recent negotiations, agreed to create more
jobs and cars here in America, and then decided to give bonuses not just to
their executives, but to all their employees, so that everyone was invested in
the company’s success. (Applause.)
I think about a
company based in Warroad, Minnesota. It’s called Marvin Windows and
Doors. During the recession, Marvin’s competitors closed dozens of
plants, let hundreds of workers go. But Marvin’s did not lay off a single
one of their 4,000 or so employees — not one. In fact, they’ve only laid
off workers once in over a hundred years. Mr. Marvin’s grandfather even
kept his eight employees during the Great Depression.
Now, at Marvin’s
when times get tough, the workers agree to give up some perks and some pay, and
so do the owners. As one owner said, “You can’t grow if you’re cutting
your lifeblood — and that’s the skills and experience your workforce
delivers.” (Applause.) For the CEO of Marvin’s, it’s about the
community. He said, “These are people we went to school with. We go
to church with them. We see them in the same restaurants. Indeed, a
lot of us have married local girls and boys. We could be anywhere, but we
are in Warroad.”
That’s how America
was built. That’s why we’re the greatest nation on Earth. That’s
what our greatest companies understand. Our success has never just been
about survival of the fittest. It’s about building a nation where we’re
all better off. We pull together. We pitch in. We do our
part. We believe that hard work will pay off, that responsibility will be
rewarded, and that our children will inherit a nation where those values live
on. (Applause.)
And it is that
belief that rallied thousands of Americans to Osawatomie — (applause) — maybe
even some of your ancestors — on a rain-soaked day more than a century
ago. By train, by wagon, on buggy, bicycle, on foot, they came to hear
the vision of a man who loved this country and was determined to perfect it.
“We are all
Americans,” Teddy Roosevelt told them that day. “Our common interests are as
broad as the continent.” In the final years of his life, Roosevelt took that
same message all across this country, from tiny Osawatomie to the heart of New
York City, believing that no matter where he went, no matter who he was talking
to, everybody would benefit from a country in which everyone gets a fair
chance. (Applause.)
And well into our
third century as a nation, we have grown and we’ve changed in many ways since
Roosevelt’s time. The world is faster and the playing field is larger and
the challenges are more complex. But what hasn’t changed — what can never
change — are the values that got us this far. We still have a stake in
each other’s success. We still believe that this should be a place where
you can make it if you try. And we still believe, in the words of the man
who called for a New Nationalism all those years ago, “The fundamental rule of
our national life,” he said, “the rule which underlies all others — is that, on
the whole, and in the long run, we shall go up or down together.” And I
believe America is on the way up. (Applause.)
Thank you.
God bless you. God bless the United States of America.
