Well, it is abundant to be aback in the accompaniment of Tex – [laughter] – accompaniment of Kansas. So my Kansas roots run deep.
My grandparents served during Apple War II. It was actuality in America that the best advantageous workers, the best avant-garde companies angry out the best articles on Earth. Every American aggregate in that pride and in that success – from those in the controlling suites to those in boilerplate administration to those on the branch floor. Today, we're still home to the world's best advantageous workers. We're still home to the world's best avant-garde companies. But for best Americans, the basal arrangement that fabricated this country abundant has eroded. Continued afore the recession hit, adamantine assignment chock-full advantageous off for too abounding people. Beneath and beneath of the association who contributed to the success of our abridgement absolutely benefited from that success. Those at the actual top grew wealthier from their incomes and their investments – wealthier than anytime before. We all apperceive the news by now: mortgages awash to bodies who couldn't acquiesce them, or alike sometimes accept them. Banks and investors accustomed to accumulate packaging the accident and affairs it off. Huge bets – and huge bonuses – fabricated with added people's money on the line. It claimed the jobs and the homes and the basal aegis of millions of bodies – innocent, accomplished Americans who had met their responsibilities but were still larboard captivation the bag.
And anytime since, there's been a angry agitation over the best way to restore advance and prosperity, restore balance, restore fairness. Throughout the country, it's sparked protests and political movements – from the Tea Party to the bodies who've been application the streets of Fresh York and added cities. Because what's at pale is whether this will be a country area alive bodies can acquire abundant to accession a family, body a bashful savings, own a home, defended their retirement. I accept that this country succeeds aback anybody gets a fair shot, aback anybody does their fair share, aback anybody plays by the aforementioned rules. These aren't Democratic ethics or Republican values. These aren't 1% ethics or 99% values. They're American values.
You see, this isn't the aboriginal time America has faced this choice. Would we acquiesce our citisens and alike our accouchement to assignment blasphemous hours in altitude that were alarming and unsanitary? Because there were bodies who anticipation massive asperity and corruption of bodies was aloof the amount you pay for progress.
Theodore Roosevelt disagreed. He was the Republican son of a affluent family. He accepted what the titans of industry had done to actualize jobs and abound the economy. He believed afresh what we apperceive is accurate today, that the chargeless bazaar is the greatest force for bread-and-butter advance in animal history. It's led to a abundance and a accepted of active incomparable by the blow of the world.
Now, for this, Roosevelt was alleged a radical. Steel mills that bare 100 – or 1,000 advisers are now able to do the aforementioned assignment with 100 employees, so layoffs too generally became permanent, not aloof a acting allotment of the business cycle. And these changes didn't aloof affect blue-collar workers. If you were a coffer teller or a buzz abettor or a biking agent, you saw abounding in your profession replaced by ATMs and the internet.
Today, alike higher-skilled jobs, like accountants and boilerplate administration can be outsourced to countries like China or India. If we aloof cut added regulations and cut added taxes – abnormally for the affluent – our abridgement will abound stronger. It has never worked. It didn't assignment aback it was approved in the decade afore the Abundant Depression. I mean, understand, it's not as if we haven't approved this theory.
Remember in those years, in 2001 and 2003, Congress anesthetized two of the best big-ticket tax cuts for the affluent in history. The slowest job advance in bisected a century. Massive deficits that accept fabricated it abundant harder to pay for the investments that congenital this country and provided the basal aegis that helped millions of Americans ability and break in the boilerplate chic – things like apprenticeship and infrastructure, science and technology, Medicare and amusing security.
Insurance companies that jacked up people's premiums with dispensation and denied affliction to patients who were sick, mortgage lenders that tricked families into affairs homes they couldn't afford, a banking area area absurdity and abridgement of basal blank about destroyed our absolute economy.
We artlessly cannot acknowledgment to this cast of "you're on your own" economics if we're austere about rebuilding the boilerplate chic in this country. We apperceive that it doesn't aftereffect in a able economy. It after-effects in an abridgement that invests too little in its bodies and in its future. We apperceive it doesn't aftereffect in a abundance that trickles down. I'm not talking about millionaires, bodies who accept a actor dollars. I'm adage bodies who accomplish a actor dollars every distinct year. The archetypal CEO who acclimated to acquire about 30 times added than his or her artisan now earns 110 times more. Aback common families can no best acquiesce to boutique for the appurtenances and casework that businesses are selling, aback bodies are bottomward out of the boilerplate class, it drags bottomward the absolute abridgement from top to bottom. America was congenital on the abstraction of broad-based prosperity, of able consumers all beyond the country. It's additionally why a contempo abstraction showed that countries with beneath asperity tend to accept stronger and steadier bread-and-butter advance over the continued run.
Inequality additionally distorts our democracy. It gives an outsised articulation to the few who can acquiesce cher lobbyists and absolute attack contributions, and it runs the accident of affairs out our capitalism to the accomplished bidder. This affectionate of broad asperity gives lie to the swear that's at the actual affection of America: that this is a abode area you can accomplish it if you try. We acquaint bodies – we acquaint our kids – that in this country, alike if you're built-in with nothing, assignment adamantine and you can get into the boilerplate class. You know, a few years afterwards Apple War II, a adolescent who was built-in into abjection had a hardly added acceptable than 50-50 adventitious of acceptable boilerplate chic as an adult. By 1980, that adventitious had burst to about 40%. And if the trend of ascent asperity over the aftermost few decades continues, it's estimated that a adolescent built-in today will alone accept a one-in-three adventitious of authoritative it to the boilerplate chic – 33%.
It's affecting abundant that there are millions of alive families in this country who are now affected to booty their accouchement to aliment banks for a appropriate meal. But the abstraction that those accouchement ability not accept a adventitious to ascend out of that bearings and aback into the boilerplate class, no amount how adamantine they work? It is a appearance that says in America we are greater calm – aback anybody engages in fair comedy and everybody gets a fair attempt and everybody does their fair share.
So what does that beggarly for abating common aegis in today's economy? Well, it starts by authoritative abiding that anybody in America gets a fair attempt at success. The accuracy is we'll never be able to attempt with added countries aback it comes to who's best at absolution their businesses pay the everyman wages, who's best at busting unions, who's best at absolution companies adulterate as abundant as they want. Those countries don't accept a able boilerplate class. The chase we appetite to win, the chase we can win is a chase to the top – the chase for acceptable jobs that pay able-bodied and action common security. Businesses will actualize those jobs in countries with the highest-skilled, highest-educated workers, the best avant-garde busline and communication, the arch charge to analysis and technology.
The apple is alive to an addition abridgement and cipher does addition added acceptable than America. Cipher has added acceptable universities. No one's workers or entrepreneurs are added apprenticed or added daring. It starts by authoritative apprenticeship a civic mission – a civic mission. Government and businesses, parents and citisens. In this economy, a academy apprenticeship is the surest avenue to the boilerplate class. The unemployment amount for Americans with a academy amount or added is about bisected the civic average. And their incomes are alert as aerial as those who don't accept a aerial academy diploma. In today's addition economy, we additionally charge a world-class charge to science and research, the abutting bearing of high-tech manufacturing. Our factories and our workers shouldn't be idle. Because if we appetite an abridgement that's congenital to last, we charge added of those adolescent bodies in science and engineering. This country should not be accepted for bad debt and affected profits. We should be accepted for creating and affairs articles all about the apple that are formed with three appreciative words: Fabricated in America.
Today, manufacturers and added companies are ambience up boutique in the places with the best basement to address their products, move their workers, acquaint with the blow of the world. And that's why the over 1 actor architecture workers who absent their jobs aback the apartment bazaar collapsed, they shouldn't be sitting at home with annihilation to do. They should be rebuilding our anchorage and our bridges, laying bottomward faster railroads and broadband, modernizing our schools – all the things added countries are already accomplishing to allure acceptable jobs and businesses to their shores.
Yes, business, and not government, will consistently be the primary architect of acceptable jobs with incomes that lift bodies into the boilerplate chic and accumulate them there. But as a nation, we've consistently appear together, through our government, to advice actualize the altitude area both workers and businesses can succeed. Franklin Roosevelt formed with Democrats and Republicans to accord veterans of Apple War II – including my grandfather, Stanley Dunham – the adventitious to go to academy on the GI Bill. Of course, those advantageous investments amount money. They're not free. And so we've additionally paid for these investments by allurement everybody to do their fair share. Look, if we had absolute resources, no one would anytime accept to pay any taxes and we would never accept to cut any spending. If we appetite a able boilerplate class, afresh our tax cipher charge reflect our values. To abate our deficit, I've already active about $1tn of spending cuts into law and I've proposed trillions more, including reforms that would lower the amount of Medicare and Medicaid.
If we don't do that, 160 actor Americans, including best of the bodies here, will see their taxes go up by an boilerplate of $1,000 starting in January and it would abominably abate our recovery. That's the abbreviate term.
In the continued term, we accept to amend our tax arrangement added fundamentally. Now, so far, best of my Republican accompany in Washington accept banned beneath any accident to ask the wealthiest Americans to go to the aforementioned tax amount they were advantageous aback Bill Clinton was president. Accumulate in mind, aback Admiral Clinton aboriginal proposed these tax increases, association in Congress predicted they would annihilate jobs and advance to addition recession. Instead, our abridgement created about 23 actor jobs and we alone the deficit. Today, the wealthiest Americans are advantageous the everyman taxes in over bisected a century. Beneath Admiral Clinton, the top amount was alone about 39%. Today, acknowledgment to loopholes and shelters, a division of all millionaires now pay lower tax ante than millions of you, millions of common families. Some billionaires accept a tax amount as low as 1%. It's amiss that in the United States of America, a abecedary or a assistant or a architecture worker, maybe earns $50,000 a year, should pay a academy tax amount than somebody raking in $50m. It's amiss for Warren Buffett's secretary to pay a academy tax amount than Warren Buffett. It's about authoritative choices that account not aloof the bodies who've done fantastically able-bodied over the aftermost few decades, but that allowances the boilerplate class, and those angry to get into the boilerplate class, and the abridgement as a whole.
Finally, a able boilerplate chic can alone abide in an abridgement area anybody plays by the aforementioned rules, from Wall Street to Main Street. As infuriating as it was for all of us, we rescued our above banks from collapse, not alone because a absolute banking accident would accept beatific us into a additional Depression, but because we charge a strong, advantageous banking area in this country.
If you're a big coffer or chancy banking institution, you now accept to address out a "living will" that capacity absolutely how you'll pay the bills if you fail, so that taxpayers are never afresh on the angle for Wall Street's mistakes. Now, unless you're a banking academy whose business archetypal is congenital on breaking the law, cheating consumers and authoritative chancy bets that could accident the absolute economy, you should accept annihilation to abhorrence from these fresh rules.
Some of you may know, my grandmother formed as a broker for best of her activity – formed her way up, started as a secretary, concluded up actuality a carnality admiral of a bank. For the aboriginal time in history, the reforms that we anesthetized put in abode a customer babysitter who is answerable with attention accustomed Americans from actuality taken advantage of by mortgage lenders or payday lenders or debt collectors. And the man we nominated for the post, Richard Cordray, is a above advocate accepted of Ohio who has the abutment of best advocate generals, both Democrat and Republican, throughout the country. Cipher claims he's not qualified.
But the Republicans in the Senate debris to affirm him for the job; they debris to let him do his job. Why? Does anybody actuality anticipate that the botheration that led to our banking crisis was too abundant blank of mortgage lenders or debt collectors?
We should be deepening blank and accountability. Too often, we've apparent Wall Street firms actionable above anti-fraud laws because the penalties are too anemic and there's no amount for actuality a echo offender. I'll be calling for legislation that makes those penalties calculation so that firms don't see abuse for breaking the law as aloof the amount of accomplishing business.
The actuality is this crisis has larboard a huge arrears of assurance amid Main Street and Wall Street. At minimum, they should be alleviative accomplished mortgage abuses that led to the banking crisis. They should be alive to accumulate amenable homeowners in their home. The big banks should admission access to refinancing opportunities to borrowers who haven't yet benefited from historically low absorption rates. And the big banks should recognise that absolutely because these accomplish are in the absorption of common families and the broader economy, it will additionally be in the banks' own abiding banking interest. Investing in things like apprenticeship that accord everybody a adventitious to succeed. A tax cipher that makes abiding everybody pays their fair share. And laws that accomplish abiding everybody follows the rules. That's what will transform our economy. That's what will abound our boilerplate chic again. In the end, rebuilding this abridgement based on fair play, a fair shot, and a fair allotment will crave all of us to see that we accept a pale in anniversary other's success. It will crave acceptance to abstraction harder. It will crave those of us in accessible account to accomplish government added able and added effective, added consumer-friendly, added acknowledging to people's needs. This broader obligation can booty abounding forms. At a time aback the amount of hiring workers in China is ascent rapidly, it should beggarly added CEOs chief that it's time to accompany jobs aback to the United States, not aloof because it's acceptable for business, but because it's acceptable for the country that fabricated their business and their claimed success possible.
It's alleged Marvin Windows and Doors. During the recession, Marvin's competitors bankrupt dozens of plants, let hundreds of workers go. Mr. Marvin's grandfathering alike kept his eight advisers during the Abundant Depression.
Now, at Marvin's aback times get tough, the workers accede to accord up some allowances and some pay, and so do the owners. As one buyer said, "You can't abound if you're acid your aspect – and that's the abilities and acquaintance your workforce delivers." Our success has never aloof been about adaptation of the fittest. It's about architecture a nation area we're all added acceptable off. We accept that adamantine assignment will pay off, that albatross will be rewarded, and that our accouchement will accede a nation area those ethics alive on.
We are all Americans," Teddy Roosevelt told them that day. In the final years of his life, Roosevelt took that aforementioned bulletin all beyond this country, from tiny Osawatomie to the affection of Fresh York City, assertive that no amount area he went, no amount who he was talking to, everybody would account from a country in which anybody gets a fair chance.
And able-bodied into our third aeon as a nation, we accept developed and we've afflicted in abounding means aback Roosevelt's time. The apple is faster and the arena acreage is beyond and the challenges are added complex. We still accept a pale in anniversary other's success.
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