Short Attention Span Musing: Syria Edition

As most people have heard by now (and if you have the internet connection needed to read this, you are part of "most people"), the situation in Syria has deteriorated to the point where the world (mostly meaning the US) has two options -

1. Directly intercede with military forces.

2. Ignore it.

Both approaches have potentially significant downsides (and both will result in people dying), to the point that no matter what course of action (or inaction) is chosen, there will be legitimate criticisms.

It's one of those situations that contribute to US presidents entering office with a full head of (usually) dark hair and leaving office with hair that's gray, or even white.

Like most Americans who actually *think* about things, I'm torn on this one.

As a man with a moral center (maybe my cynicism shows through the most, but that cynicism is rooted in frustrated ideals), I am outraged by the use of gas as a weapon and utterly appalled by the targeting of civilians, including children.  The people responsible for that should be removed from the face of the Earth.

However, as a man who watched the previous presidential administration gin up a couple of forever wars that mostly have benefited only deep-pocketed defense contractors who are generous with only two things: 1) campaign contributions to elected officials who are in a position to help the contractors' profit margins and 2) the lives of American servicemen and -women (and the lives of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan).

Many in Congress (let's call them "Republicans") will oppose whatever course is chosen by the president, not so much because they think it is wrong, but just because it is supported by *this* president.

Whatever course is chosen (and as I write this, the President has announced that he has decided that limited military action is necessary, but has deferred that action pending Congressional consideration and approval of such action), the president and other leadership had better accept that support in the US and across the world will not be unanimous, no matter which course is chosen.

Addendum: Since the President has apparently decided on "limited" military action as the best course of action here, I'll say one more thing -

In this context, "limited" should mean "we have a clear, achievable goal, and our military forces will be limited to that which is necessary to efficiently achieve the goal with a minimum of harm to civilians, and no less.

In other words, go in, get the job done, and get out.

President Obama Marks the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington

Text of the remarks, courtesy WhiteHouse.gov - 

To the King family, who have sacrificed and inspired so much; to President Clinton; President Carter; Vice President Biden and Jill; fellow Americans. 
 
Five decades ago today, Americans came to this honored place to lay claim to a promise made at our founding:  “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

In 1963, almost 200 years after those words were set to paper, a full century after a great war was fought and emancipation proclaimed, that promise -- those truths -- remained unmet.  And so they came by the thousands from every corner of our country, men and women, young and old, blacks who longed for freedom and whites who could no longer accept freedom for themselves while witnessing the subjugation of others.

Across the land, congregations sent them off with food and with prayer.  In the middle of the night, entire blocks of Harlem came out to wish them well.  With the few dollars they scrimped from their labor, some bought tickets and boarded buses, even if they couldn’t always sit where they wanted to sit.  Those with less money hitchhiked or walked.  They were seamstresses and steelworkers, students and teachers, maids and Pullman porters.  They shared simple meals and bunked together on floors.

And then, on a hot summer day, they assembled here, in our nation’s capital, under the shadow of the Great Emancipator -- to offer testimony of injustice, to petition their government for redress, and to awaken America’s long-slumbering conscience.

We rightly and best remember Dr. King’s soaring oratory that day, how he gave mighty voice to the quiet hopes of millions; how he offered a salvation path for oppressed and oppressors alike.  His words belong to the ages, possessing a power and prophecy unmatched in our time.

But we would do well to recall that day itself also belonged to those ordinary people whose names never appeared in the history books, never got on TV.  Many had gone to segregated schools and sat at segregated lunch counters.  They lived in towns where they couldn’t vote and cities where their votes didn’t matter.  They were couples in love who couldn’t marry, soldiers who fought for freedom abroad that they found denied to them at home.  They had seen loved ones beaten, and children fire-hosed, and they had every reason to lash out in anger, or resign themselves to a bitter fate.

And yet they chose a different path.  In the face of hatred, they prayed for their tormentors.  In the face of violence, they stood up and sat in, with the moral force of nonviolence.  Willingly, they went to jail to protest unjust laws, their cells swelling with the sound of freedom songs.  A lifetime of indignities had taught them that no man can take away the dignity and grace that God grants us.

They had learned through hard experience what Frederick Douglass once taught -- that freedom is not given, it must be won, through struggle and discipline, persistence and faith.

That was the spirit they brought here that day.  That was the spirit young people like John Lewis brought to that day.  That was the spirit that they carried with them, like a torch, back to their cities and their neighborhoods.  That steady flame of conscience and courage that would sustain them through the campaigns to come -- through boycotts and voter registration drives and smaller marches far from the spotlight; through the loss of four little girls in Birmingham, and the carnage of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, and the agony of Dallas and California and Memphis.  Through setbacks and heartbreaks and gnawing doubt, that flame of justice flickered; it never died.

And because they kept marching, America changed.  Because they marched, a Civil Rights law was passed.  Because they marched, a Voting Rights law was signed.  Because they marched, doors of opportunity and education swung open so their daughters and sons could finally imagine a life for themselves beyond washing somebody else’s laundry or shining somebody else’s shoes. (Applause.)

Because they marched, city councils changed and state legislatures changed, and Congress changed, and, yes, eventually, the White House changed.  (Applause.) 

Because they marched, America became more free and more fair -- not just for African Americans, but for women and Latinos, Asians and Native Americans; for Catholics, Jews, and Muslims; for gays, for Americans with a disability.  America changed for you and for me.  and the entire world drew strength from that example, whether the young people who watched from the other side of an Iron Curtain and would eventually tear down that wall, or the young people inside South Africa who would eventually end the scourge of apartheid.  (Applause.)

Those are the victories they won, with iron wills and hope in their hearts.  That is the transformation that they wrought, with each step of their well-worn shoes.  That’s the debt that I and millions of Americans owe those maids, those laborers, those porters, those secretaries; folks who could have run a company maybe if they had ever had a chance; those white students who put themselves in harm’s way, even though they didn't have; those Japanese Americans who recalled their own internment; those Jewish Americans who had survived the Holocaust; people who could have given up and given in, but kept on keeping on, knowing that “weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” (Applause.)

On the battlefield of justice, men and women without rank or wealth or title or fame would liberate us all in ways that our children now take for granted, as people of all colors and creeds live together and learn together and walk together, and fight alongside one another, and love one another, and judge one another by the content of our character in this greatest nation on Earth.  (Applause.)

To dismiss the magnitude of this progress -- to suggest, as some sometimes do, that little has changed -- that dishonors the courage and the sacrifice of those who paid the price to march in those years.  (Applause.)  Medgar Evers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, Martin Luther King Jr. -- they did not die in vain.  (Applause.)  Their victory was great.

But we would dishonor those heroes as well to suggest that the work of this nation is somehow complete.  The arc of the moral universe may bend towards justice, but it doesn’t bend on its own.  To secure the gains this country has made requires constant vigilance, not complacency.  Whether by challenging those who erect new barriers to the vote, or ensuring that the scales of justice work equally for all, and the criminal justice system is not simply a pipeline from underfunded schools to overcrowded jails, it requires vigilance.  (Applause.)

And we'll suffer the occasional setback.  But we will win these fights.  This country has changed too much.  (Applause.)  People of goodwill, regardless of party, are too plentiful for those with ill will to change history’s currents.  (Applause.)
  
In some ways, though, the securing of civil rights, voting rights, the eradication of legalized discrimination -- the very significance of these victories may have obscured a second goal of the March.  For the men and women who gathered 50 years ago were not there in search of some abstract ideal.  They were there seeking jobs as well as justice -- (applause) -- not just the absence of oppression but the presence of economic opportunity.  (Applause.)

For what does it profit a man, Dr. King would ask, to sit at an integrated lunch counter if he can’t afford the meal?  This idea -- that one’s liberty is linked to one’s livelihood; that the pursuit of happiness requires the dignity of work, the skills to find work, decent pay, some measure of material security -- this idea was not new.  Lincoln himself understood the Declaration of Independence in such terms -- as a promise that in due time, “the weights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance.”
  
And Dr. King explained that the goals of African Americans were identical to working people of all races:  “Decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old-age security, health and welfare measures, conditions in which families can grow, have education for their children, and respect in the community.”

What King was describing has been the dream of every American.  It's what's lured for centuries new arrivals to our shores.  And it’s along this second dimension -- of economic opportunity, the chance through honest toil to advance one’s station in life -- where the goals of 50 years ago have fallen most short. 

Yes, there have been examples of success within black America that would have been unimaginable a half century ago.  But as has already been noted, black unemployment has remained almost twice as high as white unemployment, Latino unemployment close behind.  The gap in wealth between races has not lessened, it's grown.  And as President Clinton indicated, the position of all working Americans, regardless of color, has eroded, making the dream Dr. King described even more elusive. 
For over a decade, working Americans of all races have seen their wages and incomes stagnate, even as corporate profits soar, even as the pay of a fortunate few explodes.  Inequality has steadily risen over the decades.  Upward mobility has become harder.  In too many communities across this country, in cities and suburbs and rural hamlets, the shadow of poverty casts a pall over our youth, their lives a fortress of substandard schools and diminished prospects, inadequate health care and perennial violence. 

And so as we mark this anniversary, we must remind ourselves that the measure of progress for those who marched 50 years ago was not merely how many blacks could join the ranks of millionaires.  It was whether this country would admit all people who are willing to work hard regardless of race into the ranks of a middle-class life.  (Applause.)

The test was not, and never has been, whether the doors of opportunity are cracked a bit wider for a few.  It was whether our economic system provides a fair shot for the many -- for the black custodian and the white steelworker, the immigrant dishwasher and the Native American veteran.  To win that battle, to answer that call -- this remains our great unfinished business.

We shouldn’t fool ourselves.  The task will not be easy.  Since 1963, the economy has changed.  The twin forces of technology and global competition have subtracted those jobs that once provided a foothold into the middle class -- reduced the bargaining power of American workers.  And our politics has suffered.  Entrenched interests, those who benefit from an unjust status quo, resisted any government efforts to give working families a fair deal -- marshaling an army of lobbyists and opinion makers to argue that minimum wage increases or stronger labor laws or taxes on the wealthy who could afford it just to fund crumbling schools, that all these things violated sound economic principles.  We'd be told that growing inequality was a price for a growing economy, a measure of this free market; that greed was good and compassion ineffective, and those without jobs or health care had only themselves to blame.

And then, there were those elected officials who found it useful to practice the old politics of division, doing their best to convince middle-class Americans of a great untruth -- that government was somehow itself to blame for their growing economic insecurity; that distant bureaucrats were taking their hard-earned dollars to benefit the welfare cheat or the illegal immigrant.

And then, if we're honest with ourselves, we'll admit that during the course of 50 years, there were times when some of us claiming to push for change lost our way.  The anguish of assassinations set off self-defeating riots.  Legitimate grievances against police brutality tipped into excuse-making for criminal behavior.  Racial politics could cut both ways, as the transformative message of unity and brotherhood was drowned out by the language of recrimination.  And what had once been a call for equality of opportunity, the chance for all Americans to work hard and get ahead was too often framed as a mere desire for government support -- as if we had no agency in our own liberation, as if poverty was an excuse for not raising your child, and the bigotry of others was reason to give up on yourself.

All of that history is how progress stalled.  That's how hope was diverted.  It's how our country remained divided.  But the good news is, just as was true in 1963, we now have a choice. We can continue down our current path, in which the gears of this great democracy grind to a halt and our children accept a life of lower expectations; where politics is a zero-sum game where a few do very well while struggling families of every race fight over a shrinking economic pie -- that’s one path.  Or we can have the courage to change.

The March on Washington teaches us that we are not trapped by the mistakes of history; that we are masters of our fate.  But it also teaches us that the promise of this nation will only be kept when we work together.  We’ll have to reignite the embers of empathy and fellow feeling, the coalition of conscience that found expression in this place 50 years ago.

And I believe that spirit is there, that truth force inside each of us.  I see it when a white mother recognizes her own daughter in the face of a poor black child.  I see it when the black youth thinks of his own grandfather in the dignified steps of an elderly white man.  It’s there when the native-born recognizing that striving spirit of the new immigrant; when the interracial couple connects the pain of a gay couple who are discriminated against and understands it as their own. 

That’s where courage comes from -- when we turn not from each other, or on each other, but towards one another, and we find that we do not walk alone.  That’s where courage comes from. (Applause.)
And with that courage, we can stand together for good jobs and just wages.  With that courage, we can stand together for the right to health care in the richest nation on Earth for every person.  (Applause.)  With that courage, we can stand together for the right of every child, from the corners of Anacostia to the hills of Appalachia, to get an education that stirs the mind and captures the spirit, and prepares them for the world that awaits them.  (Applause.)

With that courage, we can feed the hungry, and house the homeless, and transform bleak wastelands of poverty into fields of commerce and promise.

America, I know the road will be long, but I know we can get there.  Yes, we will stumble, but I know we’ll get back up.  That’s how a movement happens.  That’s how history bends.  That's how when somebody is faint of heart, somebody else brings them along and says, come on, we’re marching.  (Applause.)

There’s a reason why so many who marched that day, and in the days to come, were young -- for the young are unconstrained by habits of fear, unconstrained by the conventions of what is.  They dared to dream differently, to imagine something better.  And I am convinced that same imagination, the same hunger of purpose stirs in this generation.

We might not face the same dangers of 1963, but the fierce urgency of now remains.  We may never duplicate the swelling crowds and dazzling procession of that day so long ago -- no one can match King’s brilliance -- but the same flame that lit the heart of all who are willing to take a first step for justice, I know that flame remains.  (Applause.) 

That tireless teacher who gets to class early and stays late and dips into her own pocket to buy supplies because she believes that every child is her charge -- she’s marching.  (Applause.)

That successful businessman who doesn't have to but pays his workers a fair wage and then offers a shot to a man, maybe an ex-con who is down on his luck -- he’s marching.  (Applause.)

The mother who pours her love into her daughter so that she grows up with the confidence to walk through the same door as anybody’s son -- she’s marching.  (Applause.)

The father who realizes the most important job he’ll ever have is raising his boy right, even if he didn't have a father -- especially if he didn't have a father at home -- he’s marching.  (Applause.)

The battle-scarred veterans who devote themselves not only to helping their fellow warriors stand again, and walk again, and run again, but to keep serving their country when they come home -- they are marching.  (Applause.)

Everyone who realizes what those glorious patriots knew on that day -- that change does not come from Washington, but to Washington; that change has always been built on our willingness, We The People, to take on the mantle of citizenship -- you are marching.  (Applause.)

And that’s the lesson of our past.  That's the promise of tomorrow -- that in the face of impossible odds, people who love their country can change it.  That when millions of Americans of every race and every region, every faith and every station, can join together in a spirit of brotherhood, then those mountains will be made low, and those rough places will be made plain, and those crooked places, they straighten out towards grace, and we will vindicate the faith of those who sacrificed so much and live up to the true meaning of our creed, as one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.  (Applause.)

Vent time: False equivalency

...Not that I've ever been accused of being overly eloquent or tactful, but this is definitely not going to be a post for those with tender sensibilities...

When it comes to assessing bad behavior, one of the favorite rhetorical conceits of two major political demographic groups in the US, the politically conservative and the politically lazy, is that of equating bad behavior by individual Democrats with the bad behavior of Republican elected officials, party apparatchiks, and their base.

The politically conservative do it because they understand that using the bad behavior of individual Ds to tar Ds as a group might serve to diminish the impact of the tarring of individual Rs with the bad behavior of Rs as a group.

The politically lazy do it because it's easier than actually observing and analyzing actions and policies for themselves.  You know, actually being civically engaged.

Early this past week, former president George W. Bush went into a hospital for a heart-related procedure (he had a stent put in to unblock an artery).  He received well wishes from people across the political spectrum and across the world (Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin chimed in...just not at the same time :) ).

However, many of the online stories received comments that were something other than "well wishes".  Most of the comment threads contain postings that wish continued ill health or even death upon Bush.  Other postings are milder, but indicate a distinct lack of sympathy for him.

One person who I deeply respect and care for, someone who is highly intelligent and (usually) highly perceptive, took in all of this on Tuesday morning and whipped off an email expressing outrage, and...wait for it...that the hate-filled expressions of anonymous individuals on the internet is proof that Democrats as a group are as filled with hate as Republicans as a group.

I spent the rest of Tuesday morning trying to come up with a response that was appropriately reasoned and thoughtful.

Then Tuesday afternoon hit, and nothing I could come up with was going to top the reality that is the state of "discourse" among the Republicans.

From Talking Points Memo, written by Perry Stein -

As President Barack Obama spoke in Phoenix Tuesday about responsible home ownership, hundreds of people stood outside protesting his policies, many shouting and carrying racially charged chants and signs.

"Bye Bye Black Sheep," the protestors shouted at one point, a reference to the president's skin color, according to the Arizona Republic.

Another protestor carried a sign that said "Impeach the Half-White Muslim!"

“He’s 47 percent Negro,” one protestor shouted.

“We have gone back so many years,” Judy Burris told the Republic. “He’s divided all the races. I hate him for that.”

Just a couple of points here, and this is where things get a little blunt.

1.  There are those who will try to claim that the bigotry shown by the protesters at the President's appearance in Ahwatukee was an isolated event that is hardly reflective of the demeanor and actions of Republican elected officials.  They will be lying.

2.  The anonymous rantings of morons on the internet don't reflect upon the entirety of Democrats in America any more than they reflect upon the entirety of Republicans.

3.  We (meaning Democrats) have our share of, oh, what's the technical term?  Oh yeah - freakin' loons at the fringes, as well as officeholders who bring great shame to their offices.  So do the Republicans.  The difference being that where we marginalize our loons and power abusers, they lionize theirs.

And when one (or more) of ours steps out of line, we call them on it - witness the sexual harassment complaints lodged against Democrat Bob Filner, mayor of San Diego, and the growing calls, by Democrats, for him to resign from office.

Compare this to the thunderous silence from the Right over the revelations surrounding AZ Attorney General Tom Horne and his pattern of giving his girlfriends taxpayer-funded jobs.

4.  Enough already.  I consider myself to be a pretty even-keeled kind of guy, but the next person who pontificates on how Democrats and Republicans are the same is going to hear three words from me. 

Bullshit.  Prove it.


And when they don't prove it, and they won't, I'm going to look them in the eye, call them a liar, turn my back upon them, and walk away.

President Obama Speaks on Restoring Security to Homeownership

Text courtesy The White House -

THE PRESIDENT:  Hey!  Hello, Phoenix!  (Applause.)  Hello, Arizona!  (Applause.)  It is --

AUDIENCE MEMBER:  We love you, Obama!

THE PRESIDENT:  I love you back.  It is good to be here.  (Applause.) 

I want to say thank you to the Thunder for hosting us here today.  (Applause.)  Well, we are so glad to be here.  I want you to give it up for somebody who’s been fighting for homeowners and working families every single day, who’s with me today -- Secretary Shaun Donovan, Secretary of HUD.  There he is right there.  Give him a big round of applause.  (Applause.)  We’ve got Congressman Ed Pastor who’s here as well.  (Applause.)  We’ve got your Mayor, Greg Stanton, here.  (Applause.)  Doing an outstanding job.  And to all the mayors and state legislators and tribal leaders who are here today, thank you.  (Applause.) 

Give Jorge a big round of applause for his introduction.  (Applause.)  To your superintendent, Dr. Kenneth Baca.  (Applause.)  Your principal, Dr. Anna Battle.  (Applause.)  And I appreciate everybody at Desert Vista for having me here today.  (Applause.)  It is good to see the students are pretty enthusiastic about being back in school.  (Laughter.)  I’m not sure I would have been that enthusiastic starting on the 6th.  (Laughter.) 

And I know this isn’t your typical school -- second day of school.  So I want to give a special shout-out to the new seniors, class of 2014.  (Applause.)  You are aware that you’re not finished yet.  (Laughter.)  Senior year, that’s sometimes tempting.  I want you all to stay focused.

Over the past couple weeks, I have been --

AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Happy birthday, Mr. President!

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you very much.  Thank you.  (Applause.)  It was my birthday two days ago.  (Laughter.)  Got some singers here.

AUDIENCE:  Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday, Mr. President.  (Applause.)

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.  (Applause.)  I am now 52, and Michelle says that I don’t look a day over 51.  (Laughter.)

So over the last few weeks, I’ve been visiting towns all across the country, talking about what we need to do to secure a better bargain for the middle class -- a national strategy to make sure that everybody who works hard has a chance to succeed in the 21st century economy.

And I think people in Arizona especially understand the challenges that are out there, because for the past four and a half years, together, we fought our way back from a devastating recession that cost millions of jobs for Americans.  A lot of folks lost their homes; a lot of folks lost their savings.  And what the recession showed was the long erosion of middle-class security that had been taking place for decades. 

But we fought back.  We took on a broken health care system. We took on a housing market that was in free fall.  We invested in new technologies to reverse our addiction to foreign oil.  We changed a tax code that had become tilted a little bit too much in favor of the wealthiest Americans at the expense of working families.  (Applause.)  We saved the auto industry.  We’ve now got GM that plans to hire a thousand new workers right next door in Chandler to make sure we’re building some of the best cars in the world right here in the United States of America.  (Applause.) 

Our businesses have created 7.3 million new jobs over the past 41 months.  We now sell more products made in America to the rest of the world than ever before.  Our exports are way up.  We produce more renewable energy than ever before, more natural gas than anybody else.  Health care costs have been growing at the slowest rate in 50 years.  And our deficits are coming down at the fastest rate in 60 years.  So we’re making progress.  (Applause.)

So thanks to the efforts of a lot of people like you, we’ve cleared away the rubble of the financial crisis.  We’re starting to lay the foundation for more stable, more durable economic growth.  But as any middle-class family will tell you, we’re not yet where we need to be.  Because even before the crisis hit, we had lived through a decade where a few at the top were doing better and better, but most families were working harder and harder just to get by. 

And reversing this trend should be -- must be -- Washington’s highest priority.  It’s my highest priority.  (Applause.)  I want to make sure that in America, it doesn’t matter what you look like, where you come from, who you love -- you should be able to make it when you try.  You should be able to make it.  (Applause.) 

Now, unfortunately, for the last year or so, we’ve had an endless parade of distractions and political posturing and phony scandals that shift focus away from what do we need to do to shore up middle-class families and create ladders of opportunity for folks to get into the middle class.  And as Washington heads towards another budget debate, the stakes could not be higher. 

And that’s why I’m traveling around, laying out my ideas for how we have to build the cornerstones of what it means to be middle class:  a good job with good wages; a home to call your own; a good education;  affordable health care that’s there for you when you get sick; a secure retirement even if you’re not rich; the opportunity -- the ladders of opportunity for people to earn their way into the middle class, to work their way out of poverty.  Those are the elements that I think all of us believe in, but right now we're not delivering as much as we should on those promises.

Now, last Tuesday, I went to Tennessee to talk about the first cornerstone, which is how do we make sure that we're creating good middle-class jobs here in the United States of America.  Today I've come to Phoenix to talk about the second component, which is the most tangible cornerstone that lies at the heart of the American Dream, at the heart of middle-class life -- and that's the chance to own your own home.  (Applause.) The chance to own your own home. 
  

We've got a lot of young people here who are thinking about college, they're going to get a higher education, they're going to find a job, they're going to find somebody they love, they're going to want to own a home.  And the reason they will is because a home is the ultimate evidence that here in America, hard work pays off, that responsibility is rewarded.

I think about my grandparents’ generation.  When my grandfather served in World War II, he fought in Patton's Army -- when he got back, this country gave him a chance to go to college on the G.I. Bill, but it also gave him the chance to buy his first home with a loan from the FHA.  To him, and to generations of Americans before and since, a home was more than just a house. It was a source of pride and a source of security.  It was a place to raise kids, to put down roots; a place where you could build up savings for college, or to start a business, or to retire with some security.

And buying a home required responsibility on everybody’s part.  You had to save up to buy a home.  And then banks were supposed to give you a fair deal, with terms you could understand, and buyers were supposed to live within their means and make sure that they could make their payments.  So in that earlier generation, houses weren’t for flipping around, they weren’t for speculation -- houses were to live in, and to build a life with.

And unfortunately, over time, responsibility too often gave way to recklessness.  You had reckless lenders who sold loans to people they knew couldn’t afford them.  And let's face it, we also had some reckless buyers who knew they couldn’t afford them and still took out loans.  And all this created a housing bubble. And especially in some places like Arizona, it was devastating  when that bubble finally burst -- triggered a recession.  Millions of Americans who had done everything right were hurt badly by the actions of other people.  Housing prices plummeted.

By the time I took office, home values had fallen almost 20 percent from the year before.  New housing starts had fallen nearly 80 percent from their peak.  Hundreds of thousands of construction workers had lost their jobs.  A record number of people were behind on their mortgage payments.  And a lot of people here in Phoenix, they saw that devastation.  This was part of Ground Zero for the housing bubble bursting.

So less than a month after I took office, I came here to Arizona and I laid out steps to stabilize the housing market and help responsible homeowners get back on their feet.  And the truth is it's been a long, slow process.  The housing market is so big that it was going to take some time to heal when it got hurt that badly.  It's taken longer than any of us would like.  But during that time, we helped millions of Americans save an average of $3,000 each year by refinancing at lower rates.  We helped millions of responsible homeowners stay in their homes, which was good for their neighbors because you don't want a bunch of foreclosure signs in your neighborhood.

Where Congress wouldn’t act, we went ahead and acted, so over the past few years, we had the Department of Justice stand up for buyers who had been discriminated against or conned by predatory lending.  And we won a settlement that gave more money to victims of discrimination in one year than in the previous 23 years combined.  (Applause.)
   

We worked with states to force big banks to repay more than $50 billion to more than 1.5 million families -- largest lending settlement in history.  (Applause.)  We extended the time that folks who had lost their jobs could delay their payment on their mortgages while they kept looking for work.  We cracked down on the bad practices that led to the crisis in the first place.  I mean, you had some loans back there in the bubble that were called “liar’s loan.”  Now, something that's called a liar's loan is probably a bad idea.  (Laughter.) 

So because of all these actions we've been taking, our housing market is beginning to heal.  Home prices are rising at the fastest pace in seven years.  Sales are up nearly 50 percent. Construction is up nearly 75 percent.  New foreclosures are down by nearly two-thirds.  Millions of families have been able to come up for air -- they’re no longer underwater on their mortgages.  (Applause.)
   

And just like the crisis hit Phoenix very hard, thanks to some great leadership here locally, Phoenix has also led one of the biggest comebacks in the country.  (Applause.)  So you should be proud of what you've done here.  Home prices in Phoenix have risen by nearly 20 percent over the last year.  New home sales are up by more than 25 percent.

This morning, right before I came here, I visited Erickson Construction -- (applause.)  We've got some Erickson folks here. And they were explaining how right when the bubble hit, Erickson shrank to less than a hundred workers.  Today they're employing 580 people -- and they’re hiring even more people -- (applause)  -- because the housing market is bouncing back.
   

So that's one of the things about housing.  It's not just important for the person who owns the house; our economy is so impacted by everything that happens in housing.  Consumers feel better when their home values are in a better place, so they're more willing to spend.  A lot of people who want to start a business, their savings may be locked up in their house.  Construction workers, contractors, suppliers, carpet makers, all these folks are impacted by the housing industry.

So we've made progress, and that's helped to move the economy forward.  But we've got to build on this progress.  We're not where we need to be yet.  We've got to give more hardworking Americans the chance to buy their first home.  (Applause.)  We have to help more responsible homeowners refinance their mortgages, because a lot of them still have a spread between the rates they're paying right now on their mortgage and what they could be getting if they were able to refinance.

And we’ve got to turn the page on this kind of bubble-and-bust mentality that helped to create this mess in the first place.  (Applause.)  We got to build a housing system that is durable and fair and rewards responsibility for generations to come.  That's what we’ve got to do.  (Applause.)

So I’ve already put forward a bunch of ideas that will help accomplish that.  And, look, the fact of the matter is Congress hasn’t enacted all of them, so I’d like you to encourage members of Congress to take some of these actions.  (Applause.)

But like the other actions that we’ve taken, these will not help the neighbors down the street who bought a house that they couldn’t afford, and then walked away from it and left a foreclosed home behind.  We don't want to help speculators who bought multiple homes just to make a quick buck. 

What we want to do is put forward ideas that will help millions of responsible, middle-class homeowners who still need relief.  And we want to help hardworking Americans who dream of owning their own home fair and square, have a down payment, are willing to make those payments, understand that owning a home requires responsibility.  And there are some immediate actions we could take right now that would help on that front, that would make a difference.  So let me just list a couple of them.

Number one:  Congress should pass a good, bipartisan idea to allow every homeowner the chance to save thousands of dollars a year by refinancing their mortgage at today’s rates.  (Applause.) We need to get that done.  We’ve been talking about it for a year and a half, two years, three years.  There’s no reason not to do it.  (Applause.) 

Step number two:  Now that we’ve made it harder for reckless buyers to buy homes that they can’t afford, let’s make it a little bit easier for qualified buyers to buy the homes that they can afford.  (Applause.)  So Shaun Donovan has been working with the finance industry to make sure we’re simplifying overlapping regulations; we’re cutting red tape for responsible families who want to get a mortgage but keep getting rejected by the banks.  We need to give well-qualified Americans who lost their jobs during the crisis a fair chance to get a loan if they’ve worked hard to repair their credit.

And step three is something that you don’t always hear about when it comes to the housing market, and that is fixing our broken immigration system.  It would actually help our housing market.  (Applause.)

It’s pretty simple:  When more people buy homes and play by the rules, home values go up for everybody.  And according to one recent study, the average homeowner has already seen the value of their home boosted by thousands of dollars just because of immigration.  And the good news is, with the help of your Senators, John McCain and Jeff Flake, the Senate has already passed a bipartisan immigration bill.  It’s got the support of CEOs and labor and law enforcement.  (Applause.)   This could help homeownership here.

So I want you to encourage Republicans in the House of Representatives to stop dragging their feet.  Let’s go ahead and get this done.
     

Step number four:  We should address the uneven recovery by rebuilding the communities hit the hardest by the housing crisis, including many right here in Arizona.  Let’s put construction back -- construction workers back to work repairing rundown homes, tearing down vacant properties so that the value of homes in those surrounding areas start picking up.  We can put people to work right now and improve the remaining housing stock that's out there.  (Applause.)  Places that are facing a longer road back from the crisis should have their country’s help to get back on their feet.

Step five:  We should make sure families that don’t want to buy a home or can’t yet afford to buy one still have a decent place to rent.  (Applause.)   It’s important for us to encourage homeownership, but a lot of people rent and there’s nothing wrong with renting.  And we got to make sure that we are creating affordable opportunities when it comes to rental properties.

In the run-up to the crisis, banks and governments too often made everybody feel like they had to own a home, even if they weren’t ready and didn't have the payments.  That’s a mistake we should not repeat.  Instead, let’s invest in affordable rental housing.  Let’s bring together cities and states to address local barriers that drive up rents for working families.  (Applause.)
  

So if we help more Americans refinance their homes, if we help qualified families get a mortgage, we reform our immigration system, we rebuild the hardest-hit communities, we make sure that folks have a decent place to rent if they're not yet able to buy -- all these steps will give more middle-class families the chance to either buy their own home now or eventually buy their own home.  It's going to give more relief to responsible homeowners.  It gives more options to families who aren’t yet ready to buy.  All that is going to improve the housing market and will improve the economy.

But -- and this is the last key point I want to make -- as home prices rise, we can’t just re-inflate another housing bubble.  I hope everybody here in Arizona learned some hard lessons from what happened.  Housing prices generally don't just keep on going up forever at the kind of pace it was going up.  It was crazy.  So what we want to do is something stable and steady. And that's why I want to lay a rock-solid foundation to make sure the kind of crisis we went through never happens again.  We've got to make sure it doesn't happen again.  (Applause.)
  

And one of the key things to make sure it doesn't happen again is to wind down these companies that are not really government, but not really private sector -- they're known as Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.  For too long, these companies were allowed to make huge profits buying mortgages, knowing that if their bets went bad, taxpayers would be left holding the bag.  It was “heads we win, tails you lose.”  And it was wrong.  And along with what happened on Wall Street, it helped to inflate this bubble in a way that ultimately killed Main Street.

So the good news is, right now there’s a bipartisan group of senators working to end Fannie and Freddie as we know them.  And I support these kinds of reform efforts.  And they're following four core principles for what I believe this reform should look like. 

First, private capital should take a bigger role in the mortgage market.  I know that sounds confusing to folks who call me a socialist -- I think I saw some posters there on the way in. (Laughter.)  But I actually believe in the free market.  And just like the health care law that we put in place, Obamacare -- (applause) -- which, by the way, if you don't have health insurance or you're buying it at exorbitant rates on the individual market, starting on October 1st, you can join a marketplace and be part of a pool that gives you much lower premiums, saves you a lot of money.  (Applause.)

But in the same way that what we did with health care was to set up clear rules for insurance companies to protect consumers, make it more affordable, but still built on the private marketplace, I believe that our housing system should operate where there's a limited government role and private lending should be the backbone of the housing market.  And that includes, by the way, community-based lenders who view their borrowers not as a number, but as a neighbor.  So that's one principle.

A second principle is we can't leave taxpayers on the hook for irresponsibility or bad decisions by some of these lenders or Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.  (Applause.)  We've got to encourage the pursuit of profit, but the era of expecting a bailout after you pursue your profit and you don't manage your risk well -- well, that puts the whole country at risk.  And we're ending those days.  We're not going to do that anymore.  (Applause.)

The third principle is we should preserve access to safe and simple mortgage products like the 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage.  That’s something families should be able to rely on when they're making the most important purchase of their lives.  (Applause.)
  

Number four, we've got to keep housing affordable for first-time homebuyers -- like all these young people.  When they're ready to buy a house, we've got to make sure it's affordable.  Families who are working to climb their way into the middle class, we've got to do what we can to make housing affordable.  And that means we've got to strengthen the FHA so it gives today’s families the same kind of chance it gave my grandparents to buy a home, and it preserves those rungs on the ladder of opportunity. 

And we've got to support, as I said, affordable rental housing.  And, by the way, we've also got to keep up our fight against homelessness.  (Applause.)  The Mayor of Phoenix has been doing a great job here in Phoenix on that front.  We've got to continue to improve it.  (Applause.)
   

Since I took office, we helped bring one in four homeless veterans off the streets.  (Applause.)  We should be proud of that.  Here in Phoenix, thanks to the hard work of everyone from Mayor Stanton to the local United Way to US Airways, you’re on track to end chronic homelessness for veterans, period, by 2014. (Applause.)

But we've got to keep going, because nobody in America, and certainly no veteran, should be left to live on the streets.  (Applause.)

So here's the bottom line:  Put all these principles together, that's going to protect our entire economy and it will improve the housing market not just here in Phoenix, but throughout the state and throughout the country.

We're also going to need to make sure, though, that we're protecting individual homeowners.  We've got to give them the tools that they can protect themselves.  So we've got a Consumer Finance Protection Bureau that we created.  (Applause.)  And it's laying down new rules of the road that everybody can count on when they’re shopping for a mortgage.  They’re designing a new, simple mortgage form that will be in plain English, so you can actually read it without a lawyer -- (applause) -- although, you may still want a lawyer obviously.  I'm not saying you don't.  I'm just saying you'll be able to read it.  (Laughter.)  There won't be a lot of fine print.  That way you know before you owe. (Laughter and applause.)

And the Senate finally confirmed Richard Cordray as the head of this -- head watchdog for the CFPB.  (Applause.)  So he's out there aggressively protecting consumers and homeowners. 

When it comes to some of the other leaders we need to look out for the American people, the Senate still has a job to do.  Months ago, I nominated a man named Mel Watt to be our nation’s top housing regulator.  He is an outstanding member of Congress. And during that time, he was on the Housing Committee -- worked with banks, worked with borrowers to protect consumers, to help responsible lenders provide credit.  He is the right person for the job.  Congress and the Senate should give his nomination an up or down vote without any more obstruction or delay.  We don't have time for those kinds of games.  (Applause.)

So I want to be honest with you.  No program or policy is going to solve all the problems in a multi-trillion dollar housing market.  The housing bubble went up so high, the heights it reached before it burst were so unsustainable, that we knew it was going to take some time for us to fully recover.  But if we take the steps that I talked about today, then I know we will restore not just our home values, but also our common values.  We’ll make owning a home a symbol of responsibility, not speculation -- a source of security for generations to come, just like it was for my grandparents.  I want it to be just like that for all the young people who are here today and their children and their grandchildren.  (Applause.)

And if we stay focused on middle-class security and opportunities to get into the middle class, if we take the strategy that I'm laying out for the entire economy -- for jobs and housing and education, health care, retirement, creating ladders of opportunity -- then we will secure that better bargain for all Americans, where hard work is once again rewarded with a shot at a middle-class life, which means more Americans will know the pride of that first paycheck.  More Americans will know the satisfaction of flipping the sign to “Open” on their own business.  More Americans will know the joy of scratching the child’s height on the door of their new home -- with pencil, of course.  (Laughter.) 

We can do all this if we work together.  And it won’t be easy.  But if we take just a few bold steps -- and if Washington will just end the gridlock, set aside the slash-and-burn partisanship -- (applause) -- actually try to solve problems instead of scoring political points, our economy will grow stronger a year from now, five years from now, 10 years from now. (Applause.)

And as long as I've got the privilege to serve as your President, that's what I'm going to be fighting for.

Thank you very much, everybody.  God bless you.  (Applause.)

President Obama Speaks on the Economy

Transcript of the speech, courtesy the White House - 

THE PRESIDENT:  Hello, Galesburg!  (Applause.)  Well, it’s good to be home in Illinois!  (Applause.)  It is good to be back. It’s good to be back.  Thank you.  Thank you so much, everybody. (Applause.)  Thank you.  Everybody, have a seat, have a seat.  Well, it is good to be back.

I want to, first of all, thank Knox College -- (applause) -- I want to thank Knox College and your president, Teresa Amott, for having me here today.  Give Teresa a big round of applause.  (Applause.)   I want to thank your Congresswoman, Cheri Bustos, who’s here.  (Applause.)  We've got Governor Quinn here.  (Applause.)  I'm told we've got your Lieutenant Governor, Sheila Simon, is here.  (Applause.)  There she is.  Attorney General Lisa Madigan is here.  (Applause.)

I see a bunch of my former colleagues, some folks who I haven't seen in years and I'm looking forward to saying hi to.  One in particular I've got to mention, one of my favorites from the Illinois Senate -- John Sullivan is in the house.  (Applause.)  John was one of my earliest supporters when I was running for the U.S. Senate, and it came in really handy because he’s got, like, 10 brothers and sisters, and his wife has got 10 brothers and sisters -- (laughter) -- so they’ve got this entire precinct just in their family.  (Laughter.)  And they all look like John -- the brothers do -- so he doesn’t have to go to every event.  He can just send one of his brothers out.  (Laughter.)  It is good to see him.

Dick Durbin couldn’t make it today, but he sends his best. And we love Dick.  (Applause.)  He’s doing a great job.  And we’ve got one of my favorite neighbors, the Senator from Missouri, Claire McCaskill, in the house, because we’re going to Missouri later this afternoon.  (Applause.)

And all of you are here, and it’s great to see you.  (Applause.)  And I hope everybody is having a wonderful summer.  The weather is perfect.  Whoever was in charge of that, good job. (Laughter.)

So, eight years ago, I came here to deliver the commencement address for the class of 2005.  Things were a little different back then.  For example, I had no gray hair -- (laughter) -- or a motorcade.  Didn’t even have a prompter.  In fact, there was a problem in terms of printing out the speech because the printer didn’t work here and we had to drive it in from somewhere.  (Laughter.)  But it was my first big speech as your newest senator.

And on the way here I was telling Cheri and Claire about how important this area was, one of the areas that I spent the most time in outside of Chicago, and how much it represented what’s best in America and folks who were willing to work hard and do right by their families.  And I came here to talk about what a changing economy was doing to the middle class -- and what we, as a country, needed to do to give every American a chance to get ahead in the 21st century.

See, I had just spent a year traveling the state and listening to your stories -- of proud Maytag workers losing their jobs when the plant moved down to Mexico.  (Applause.)  A lot of folks here remember that.  Of teachers whose salaries weren’t keeping up with the rising cost of groceries.  (Applause.)  Of young people who had the drive and the energy, but not the money to afford a college education.  (Applause.)

So these were stories of families who had worked hard, believed in the American Dream, but they felt like the odds were increasingly stacked against them.  And they were right.  Things had changed.

In the period after World War II, a growing middle class was the engine of our prosperity.  Whether you owned a company, or swept its floors, or worked anywhere in between, this country offered you a basic bargain -- a sense that your hard work would be rewarded with fair wages and decent benefits, the chance to buy a home, to save for retirement, and most of all, a chance to hand down a better life for your kids.

But over time, that engine began to stall -- and a lot of folks here saw it -- that bargain began to fray.  Technology made some jobs obsolete.  Global competition sent a lot of jobs overseas.  It became harder for unions to fight for the middle class.  Washington doled out bigger tax cuts to the very wealthy and smaller minimum wage increases for the working poor.

And so what happened was that the link between higher productivity and people’s wages and salaries was broken.  It used to be that, as companies did better, as profits went higher, workers also got a better deal.  And that started changing.  So the income of the top 1 percent nearly quadrupled from 1979 to 2007, but the typical family’s incomes barely budged.

And towards the end of those three decades, a housing bubble, credit cards, a churning financial sector was keeping the economy artificially juiced up, so sometimes it papered over some of these long-term trends.  But by the time I took office in 2009 as your President, we all know the bubble had burst, and it cost millions of Americans their jobs, and their homes, and their savings.  And I know a lot of folks in this area were hurt pretty bad.  And the decades-long erosion that had been taking place -- the erosion of middle-class security -- was suddenly laid bare for everybody to see.

Now, today, five years after the start of that Great Recession, America has fought its way back.  (Applause.)  We fought our way back.  Together, we saved the auto industry; took on a broken health care system.  (Applause.)  We invested in new American technologies to reverse our addiction to foreign oil.  We doubled wind and solar power.  (Applause.)  Together, we put in place tough new rules on the big banks, and protections to crack down on the worst practices of mortgage lenders and credit card companies.  (Applause.)  We changed a tax code too skewed in favor of the wealthiest at the expense of working families -- so we changed that, and we locked in tax cuts for 98 percent of Americans, and we asked those at the top to pay a little bit more.  (Applause.)

So you add it all up, and over the past 40 months, our businesses have created 7.2 million new jobs.  This year, we’re off to our strongest private sector job growth since 1999.

And because we bet on this country, suddenly foreign companies are, too.  Right now, more of Honda’s cars are made in America than anyplace else on Earth.  (Applause.)  Airbus, the European aircraft company, they’re building new planes in Alabama.  (Applause.)  And American companies like Ford are replacing outsourcing with insourcing -- they’re bringing jobs back home.  (Applause.)

We sell more products made in America to the rest of the world than ever before.  We produce more natural gas than any country on Earth.  We’re about to produce more of our own oil than we buy from abroad for the first time in nearly 20 years.  (Applause.)  The cost of health care is growing at its slowest rate in 50 years.  (Applause.)  And our deficits are falling at the fastest rate in 60 years.  (Applause.)

So thanks to the grit and resilience and determination of the American people -- of folks like you -- we’ve been able to clear away the rubble from the financial crisis.  We started to lay a new foundation for stronger, more durable economic growth. And it's happening in our own personal lives as well, right?  A lot of us tightened our belts, shed debt, maybe cut up a couple of credit cards, refocused on those things that really matter.

As a country, we’ve recovered faster and gone further than most other advanced nations in the world.  With new American revolutions in energy and technology and manufacturing and health care, we're actually poised to reverse the forces that battered the middle class for so long, and start building an economy where everyone who works hard can get ahead.

But -- and here's the big “but” -- I’m here to tell you today that we're not there yet.  We all know that.  We're not there yet.  We've got more work to do.  Even though our businesses are creating new jobs and have broken record profits, nearly all the income gains of the past 10 years have continued to flow to the top 1 percent.  The average CEO has gotten a raise of nearly 40 percent since 2009.  The average American earns less than he or she did in 1999.  And companies continue to hold back on hiring those who’ve been out of work for some time.

Today, more students are earning their degree, but soaring costs saddle them with unsustainable debt.  Health care costs are slowing down, but a lot of working families haven’t seen any of those savings yet.  The stock market rebound helped a lot of families get back much of what they had lost in their 401(k)s, but millions of Americans still have no idea how they’re going to be able to retire.

So in many ways, the trends that I spoke about here in 2005 -- eight years ago -- the trend of a winner-take-all economy where a few are doing better and better and better, while everybody else just treads water -- those trends have been made worse by the recession.  And that's a problem.

This growing inequality not just of result, inequality of opportunity -- this growing inequality is not just morally wrong, it’s bad economics.  Because when middle-class families have less to spend, guess what, businesses have fewer consumers.  When wealth concentrates at the very top, it can inflate unstable bubbles that threaten the economy.  When the rungs on the ladder of opportunity grow farther and farther apart, it undermines the very essence of America -- that idea that if you work hard you can make it here.

And that’s why reversing these trends has to be Washington’s highest priority.  (Applause.)  It has to be Washington's highest priority.  (Applause.)  It’s certainly my highest priority.  (Applause.)

Unfortunately, over the past couple of years, in particular, Washington hasn’t just ignored this problem; too often, Washington has made things worse.  (Applause.)

And I have to say that -- because I'm looking around the room -- I've got some friends here not just who are Democrats,  I've got some friends here who are Republicans -- (applause) -- and I worked with in the state legislature and they did great work.  But right now, what we’ve got in Washington, we've seen a sizable group of Republican lawmakers suggest that they wouldn’t vote to pay the very bills that Congress rang up.  And that fiasco harmed a fragile recovery in 2011 and we can't afford to repeat that.

Then, rather than reduce our deficits with a scalpel -- by cutting out programs we don’t need, fixing ones that we do need that maybe are in need of reform, making government more efficient -- instead of doing that, we've got folks who’ve insisted on leaving in place a meat cleaver called the sequester that's cost jobs.  It's harmed growth.  It's hurt our military.  It's gutted investments in education and science and medical research.  (Applause.)

Almost every credible economist will tell you it's been a huge drag on this recovery.  And it means that we're underinvesting in the things that this country needs to make it a magnet for good jobs.

Then, over the last six months, this gridlock has gotten worse.  I didn't think that was possible.  (Laughter.)  The good news is a growing number of Republican senators are looking to join their Democratic counterparts and try to get things done in the Senate.  So that's good news.  (Applause.)  For example, they worked together on an immigration bill that economists say will boost our economy by more than a trillion dollars, strengthen border security, make the system work.

But you've got a faction of Republicans in the House who won’t even give that bill a vote.  And that same group gutted a farm bill that America’s farmers depend on, but also America's most vulnerable children depend on.

AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Booo --

THE PRESIDENT:  And if you ask some of these folks, some of these folks mostly in the House, about their economic agenda how it is that they'll strengthen the middle class, they’ll shift the topic to “out-of-control government spending” –- despite the fact that we've cut the deficit by nearly half as a share of the economy since I took office.  (Applause.)

Or they’ll talk about government assistance for the poor, despite the fact that they’ve already cut early education for vulnerable kids.  They've already cut insurance for people who’ve lost their jobs through no fault of their own.  Or they’ll bring up Obamacare -- this is tried and true -- despite the fact that our businesses have created nearly twice as many jobs in this recovery as businesses had at the same point in the last recovery when there was no Obamacare.  (Applause.)

AUDIENCE MEMBER:  My daughter has insurance now!

THE PRESIDENT:  I appreciate that.  (Applause.)  That’s what this is about.  That’s what this is about.  (Applause.)  That’s what we've been fighting for.

But with this endless parade of distractions and political posturing and phony scandals, Washington has taken its eye off the ball.  And I am here to say this needs to stop.  (Applause.) This needs to stop.

This moment does not require short-term thinking.  It does not require having the same old stale debates.  Our focus has to be on the basic economic issues that matter most to you, the people we represent.  That’s what we have to spend our time on and our energy on and our focus on.  (Applause.)

And as Washington prepares to enter another budget debate, the stakes for our middle class and everybody who is fighting to get into the middle class could not be higher.  The countries that are passive in the face of a global economy, those countries will lose the competition for good jobs.  They will lose the competition for high living standards.  That’s why America has to make the investments necessary to promote long-term growth and shared prosperity -- rebuilding our manufacturing base, educating our workforce, upgrading our transportation systems, upgrading our information networks.  (Applause.)  That’s what we need to be talking about.  That’s what Washington needs to be focused on.

And that’s why, over the next several weeks, in towns across this country, I will be engaging the American people in this debate.  (Applause.)  I'll lay out my ideas for how we build on the cornerstones of what it means to be middle class in America, and what it takes to work your way into the middle class in America:  Job security, with good wages and durable industries.  A good education.   A home to call your own.  Affordable health care when you get sick.  (Applause.)  A secure retirement even if you’re not rich.  Reducing poverty.  Reducing inequality.  Growing opportunity.  That’s what we need.  (Applause.)  That’s what we need.  That’s what we need right now.  That’s what we need to be focused on.  (Applause.)

Now, some of these ideas I’ve talked about before.  Some of the ideas I offer will be new.  Some will require Congress.  Some I will pursue on my own.  (Applause.)  Some ideas will benefit folks right away.  Some will take years to fully implement.  But the key is to break through the tendency in Washington to just bounce from crisis to crisis.  What we need is not a three-month plan, or even a three-year plan; we need a long-term American strategy, based on steady, persistent effort, to reverse the forces that have conspired against the middle class for decades. That has to be our project.  (Applause.)

Now, of course, we’ll keep pressing on other key priorities. I want to get this immigration bill done.  We still need to work on reducing gun violence.  (Applause.)  We’ve got to continue to end the war in Afghanistan, rebalance our fight against al Qaeda. (Applause.)  We need to combat climate change.  We’ve got to standing up for civil rights.  We’ve got to stand up for women’s rights.  (Applause.)

So all those issues are important, and we’ll be fighting on every one of those issues.  But if we don’t have a growing, thriving middle class then we won’t have the resources to solve a lot of these problems.  We won’t have the resolve, the optimism, the sense of unity that we need to solve many of these other issues.

Now, in this effort, I will look to work with Republicans as well as Democrats wherever I can.  And I sincerely believe that there are members of both parties who understand this moment, understand what’s at stake, and I will welcome ideas from anybody across the political spectrum.  But I will not allow gridlock, or inaction, or willful indifference to get in our way.  (Applause.)

That means whatever executive authority I have to help the middle class, I’ll use it.  (Applause.)  Where I can’t act on my own and Congress isn’t cooperating, I’ll pick up the phone -- I’ll call CEOs; I’ll call philanthropists; I’ll call college presidents; I’ll call labor leaders.  I’ll call anybody who can help -- and enlist them in our efforts.  (Applause.)

Because the choices that we, the people, make right now will determine whether or not every American has a fighting chance in the 21st century.  And it will lay the foundation for our children’s future, our grandchildren’s future, for all Americans.
So let me give you a quick preview of what I’ll be fighting for and why.  The first cornerstone of a strong, growing middle class has to be, as I said before, an economy that generates more good jobs in durable, growing industries.  That's how this area was built.  That's how America prospered.  Because anybody who was willing to work, they could go out there and they could find themselves a job, and they could build a life for themselves and their family.

Now, over the past four years, for the first time since the 1990s, the number of American manufacturing jobs has actually gone up instead of down.  That's the good news.  (Applause.)  But we can do more.  So I’m going to push new initiatives to help more manufacturers bring more jobs back to the United States.  (Applause.)  We’re going to continue to focus on strategies to make sure our tax code rewards companies that are not shipping jobs overseas, but creating jobs right here in the United States of America.  (Applause.)

We want to make sure that -- we’re going to create strategies to make sure that good jobs in wind and solar and natural gas that are lowering costs and, at the same time, reducing dangerous carbon pollution happen right here in the United States.  (Applause.)

And something that Cheri and I were talking about on the way over here -- I’m going to be pushing to open more manufacturing innovation institutes that turn regions left behind by global competition into global centers of cutting-edge jobs.  So let’s tell the world that America is open for business.  (Applause.)  I know there’s an old site right here in Galesburg, over on Monmouth Boulevard -- let’s put some folks to work.  (Applause.)

Tomorrow, I’ll also visit the Port of Jacksonville, Florida to offer new ideas for doing what America has always done best, which is building things.  Pat and I were talking before I came  -- backstage -- Pat Quinn -- he was talking about how I came over the Don Moffitt Bridge.  (Applause.)  But we’ve got work to do all across the country.  We’ve got ports that aren’t ready for the new supertankers that are going to begin passing through the new Panama Canal in two years’ time.  If we don’t get that done, those tankers are going to go someplace else.  We’ve got more than 100,000 bridges that are old enough to qualify for Medicare. (Laughter and applause.)

Businesses depend on our transportation systems, on our power grids, on our communications networks.  And rebuilding them creates good-paying jobs right now that can’t be outsourced.  (Applause.)

And by the way, this isn’t a Democratic idea.  Republicans built a lot of stuff.  This is the Land of Lincoln.  Lincoln was all about building stuff -- first Republican President.  (Applause.)  And yet, as a share of our economy, we invest less in our infrastructure than we did two decades ago.  And that’s inefficient at a time when it’s as cheap as it’s been since the 1950s to build things.  It’s inexcusable at a time when so many of the workers who build stuff for a living are sitting at home waiting for a call.

The longer we put this off, the more expensive it will be and the less competitive we will be.  Businesses of tomorrow will not locate near old roads and outdated ports.  They’ll relocate to places with high-speed Internet, and high-tech schools, and systems that move air and auto traffic faster, and not to mention will get parents home quicker from work because we’ll be eliminating some of these traffic jams.  And we can watch all of that happen in other countries, and start falling behind, or we can choose to make it happen right here, in the United States.  (Applause.)

In an age when jobs know no borders, companies are also going to seek out the countries that boast the most talented citizens, and they’ll reward folks who have the skills and the talents they need -- they’ll reward those folks with good pay.

The days when the wages for a worker with a high school degree could keep pace with the earnings of somebody who got some sort of higher education -- those days are over.  Everybody here knows that.  There are a whole bunch of folks here whose dads or grandpas worked at a plant, didn’t need a high school education. You could just go there.  If you were willing to work hard, you might be able to get two jobs.  And you could support your family, have a vacation, own your home.  But technology and global competition, they’re not going away.  Those old days aren’t coming back.

So we can either throw up our hands and resign ourselves to diminishing living standards, or we can do what America has always done, which is adapt, and pull together, and fight back, and win.  That’s what we have to do.  (Applause.)

And that brings me to the second cornerstone of a strong middle class -- and everybody here knows it -- an education that prepares our children and our workers for the global competition that they’re going to face.  (Applause.)  And if you think education is expensive, wait until you see how much ignorance costs in the 21st century.  (Laughter and applause.)

If we don’t make this investment, we’re going to put our kids, our workers, and our country at a competitive disadvantage for decades.  So we have to begin in the earliest years.  And that’s why I’m going to keep pushing to make high-quality preschool available for every 4-year-old in America.  (Applause.) Not just because we know it works for our kids, but because it provides a vital support system for working parents.

And I’m going to take action in the education area to spur innovation that don’t require Congress.  (Applause.)  So, today, for example, as we speak, federal agencies are moving on my plan to connect 99 percent of America’s students to high-speed Internet over the next five years.  We’re making that happen right now.  (Applause.)  We’ve already begun meeting with business leaders and tech entrepreneurs and innovative educators to identify the best ideas for redesigning our high schools so that they teach the skills required for a high-tech economy.

And we’re also going to keep pushing new efforts to train workers for changing jobs.  So here in Galesburg, for example, a lot of the workers that were laid off at Maytag chose to enroll in retraining programs like the one at Carl Sandburg College.  (Applause.)  And while it didn’t pay off for everyone, a lot of the folks who were retrained found jobs that suited them even better and paid even more than the ones they had lost.

And that’s why I’ve asked Congress to start a Community College to Career initiative, so that workers can earn the skills that high-tech jobs demand without leaving their hometown.  (Applause.)  And I’m going to challenge CEOs from some of America’s best companies to hire more Americans who’ve got what it takes to fill that job opening but have been laid off for so long that nobody is giving their résumé an honest look.

AUDIENCE MEMBER:  More talent!

THE PRESIDENT:  That, too.

I’m also going to use the power of my office over the next few months to highlight a topic that’s straining the budgets of just about every American family -- and that’s the soaring cost of higher education.  (Applause.)  Everybody is touched by this, including your President, who had a whole bunch of loans he had to pay off.  (Laughter.)

Three years ago, I worked with Democrats to reform the student loan system so that taxpayer dollars stopped padding the pockets of big banks, and instead helped more kids afford college.  (Applause.)  Then, I capped loan repayments at 10 percent of monthly incomes for responsible borrowers, so that if somebody graduated and they decided to take a teaching job, for example, that didn’t pay a lot of money, they knew that they were never going to have to pay more than 10 percent of their income and they could afford to go into a profession that they loved.  That’s in place right now.  (Applause.)  And this week, we’re working with both parties to reverse the doubling of student loan rates that happened a few weeks ago because of congressional inaction.  (Applause.)

So this is all a good start -- but it isn’t enough.  Families and taxpayers can’t just keep paying more and more and more into an undisciplined system where costs just keep on going up and up and up.  We’ll never have enough loan money, we’ll never have enough grant money, to keep up with costs that are going up 5, 6, 7 percent a year.  We’ve got to get more out of what we pay for.

Now, some colleges are testing new approaches to shorten the path to a degree, or blending teaching with online learning to help students master material and earn credits in less time.  In some states, they’re testing new ways to fund college based not just on how many students enroll, but how many of them graduate, how well did they do.

So this afternoon, I’ll visit the University of Central Missouri to highlight their efforts to deliver more bang for the buck to their students.  And in the coming months, I will lay out an aggressive strategy to shake up the system, tackle rising costs, and improve value for middle-class students and their families.  It is critical that we make sure that college is affordable for every single American who’s willing to work for it.  (Applause.)

Now, so you’ve got a good job; you get a good education -- those have always been the key stepping stones into the middle class.  But a home of your own has always been the clearest expression of middle-class security.  For most families, that’s your biggest asset.  For most families, that’s where your life’s work has been invested.  And that changed during the crisis, when we saw millions of middle-class families experience their home values plummeting.  The good news is over the past four years, we’ve helped more responsible homeowners stay in their homes.  And today, sales are up and prices are up, and fewer Americans see their homes underwater.

But we’re not done yet.  The key now is to encourage homeownership that isn’t based on unrealistic bubbles, but instead is based on a solid foundation, where buyers and lenders play by the same set of rules, rules that are clear and transparent and fair.

So already, I’ve asked Congress to pass a really good, bipartisan idea -- one that was championed, by the way, by Mitt Romney’s economic advisor -- and this is the idea to give every homeowner the chance to refinance their mortgage while rates are still low so they can save thousands of dollars a year.  (Applause.)  It will be like a tax cut for families who can refinance.

I’m also acting on my own to cut red tape for responsible families who want to get a mortgage but the bank is saying no.  We’ll work with both parties to turn the page on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and build a housing finance system that’s rock-solid for future generations.

So we’ve got more work to do to strengthen homeownership in this country.  But along with homeownership, the fourth cornerstone of what it means to be middle class in this country is a secure retirement.  (Applause.)  I hear from too many people across the country, face to face or in letters that they send me, that they feel as if retirement is just receding from their grasp.  It’s getting farther and farther away.  They can't see it.

Now, today, a rising stock market has millions of retirement balances going up, and some of the losses that had taken place during the financial crisis have been recovered.  But we still live with an upside-down system where those at the top, folks like me, get generous tax incentives to save, while tens of millions of hardworking Americans who are struggling, they get none of those breaks at all.  So as we work to reform our tax code, we should find new ways to make it easier for workers to put away money, and free middle-class families from the fear that they won't be able to retire.  (Applause.)

And if Congress is looking for a bipartisan place to get started, I should just say they don’t have to look far.  We mentioned immigration reform before.  Economists show that immigration reform makes undocumented workers pay their full share of taxes, and that actually shores up the Social Security system for years.  So we should get that done.  (Applause.)

Good job; good education for your kids; home of your own; secure retirement.

Fifth, I'm going to keep focusing on health care -- (applause) -- because middle-class families and small business owners deserve the security of knowing that neither an accident or an illness is going to threaten the dreams that you’ve worked a lifetime to build.

As we speak, we're well on our way to fully implementing the Affordable Care Act.  (Applause.)  We're going to implement it.  Now, if you’re one of the 85 percent of Americans who already have health insurance either through the job or Medicare or Medicaid, you don’t have to do anything, but you do have new benefits and better protections than you did before.  You may not know it, but you do.  Free checkups, mammograms, discounted medicines if you're on Medicare -- that’s what the Affordable Care Act means.  You're already getting a better deal.  No lifetime limits.

If you don’t have health insurance, then starting on October 1st, private plans will actually compete for your business, and you'll be able to comparison-shop online.  There will be a marketplace online, just like you’d buy a flat-screen TV or plane tickets or anything else you're doing online, and you'll be able to buy an insurance package that fits your budget and is right for you.

And if you're one of the up to half of all Americans who’ve been sick or have a preexisting condition -- if you look at this auditorium, about half of you probably have a preexisting condition that insurance companies could use to not give you insurance if you lost your job or lost your insurance -- well, this law means that beginning January 1st, insurance companies will finally have to cover you and charge you the same rates as everybody else, even if you have a preexisting condition.  (Applause.)  That’s what the Affordable Care Act does.  That’s what it does.  (Applause.)

Now, look, I know because I've been living it that there are folks out there who are actively working to make this law fail.  And I don’t always understand exactly what their logic is here, why they think giving insurance to folks who don’t have it and making folks with insurance a little more secure, why they think that’s a bad thing.  But despite the politically motivated misinformation campaign, the states that have committed themselves to making this law work are finding that competition and choice are actually pushing costs down.

So just last week, New York announced that premiums for consumers who buy their insurance in these online marketplaces will be at least 50 percent lower than what they're paying today -- 50 percent lower.  (Applause.)  So folks' premiums in the individual market will drop by 50 percent.  And for them and for the millions of Americans who’ve been able to cover their sick kids for the first time -- like this gentlemen who just said his daughter has got health insurance -- or have been able to cover their employees more cheaply, or are able to have their kids who are younger than -- who are 25 or 26 stay on their parents' plan -- (applause) -- for all those folks, you'll have the security of knowing that everything you’ve worked hard for is no longer one illness away from being wiped out.  (Applause.)

Finally, as we work to strengthen these cornerstones of middle-class security -- good job with decent wages and benefits, a good education, home of your own, retirement security, health care security -- I’m going to make the case for why we've got to rebuild ladders of opportunity for all those Americans who haven't quite made it yet -- who are working hard but are still suffering poverty wages, who are struggling to get full-time work.  (Applause.)

There are a lot of folks who are still struggling out here, too many people in poverty.  Here in America, we’ve never guaranteed success -- that's not what we do.  More than some other countries, we expect people to be self-reliant.  Nobody is going to do something for you.  (Applause.)  We've tolerated a little more inequality for the sake of a more dynamic, more adaptable economy.  That's all for the good.  But that idea has always been combined with a commitment to equality of opportunity to upward mobility -- the idea that no matter how poor you started, if you're willing to work hard and discipline yourself and defer gratification, you can make it, too.  That's the American idea.  (Applause.)

Unfortunately, opportunities for upward mobility in America have gotten harder to find over the past 30 years.  And that’s a betrayal of the American idea.  And that’s why we have to do a lot more to give every American the chance to work their way into the middle class.

The best defense against all of these forces -- global competition, economic polarization -- is the strength of the community.  So we need a new push to rebuild rundown neighborhoods.  (Applause.)  We need new partnerships with some of the hardest-hit towns in America to get them back on their feet.  And because no one who works full-time in America should have to live in poverty, I am going to keep making the case that we need to raise the minimum wage -- (applause) -- because it's lower right now than it was when Ronald Reagan took office.  It's time for the minimum wage to go up.  (Applause.)

We're not a people who allow chance of birth to decide life’s biggest winners or losers.  And after years in which we’ve seen how easy it can be for any of us to fall on hard times -- folks in Galesburg, folks in the Quad Cities, you know there are good people who work hard and sometimes they get a bad break.  A plant leaves.  Somebody gets sick.  Somebody loses a home.  We've seen it in our family, in our friends and our neighbors.  We've seen it happen.  And that means we cannot turn our backs when bad breaks hit any of our fellow citizens.

So good jobs; a better bargain for the middle class and the folks who are working to get into the middle class; an economy that grows from the middle out, not the top down -- that's where I will focus my energies.  (Applause.)  That's where I will focus my energies not just for the next few months, but for the remainder of my presidency.

These are the plans that I'll lay out across this country.  But I won’t be able to do it alone, so I'm going to be calling on all of us to take up this cause.  We’ll need our businesses, who are some of the best in the world, to pressure Congress to invest in our future.  And I’ll be asking our businesses to set an example by providing decent wages and salaries to their own employees.  And I’m going to highlight the ones that do just that.

There are companies like Costco, which pays good wages and offers good benefits.  (Applause.)  Companies like -- there are companies like the Container Store, that prides itself on training its employees and on employee satisfaction -- because these companies prove that it’s not just good for the employees, it’s good for their businesses to treat workers well.  It’s good for America.  (Applause.)

So I’m going to be calling on the private sector to step up. I will be saying to Democrats we’ve got to question some of our old assumptions.  We’ve got to be willing to redesign or get rid of programs that don't work as well as they should.  (Applause.) We’ve got to be willing to -- we’ve got to embrace changes to cherished priorities so that they work better in this new age.  We can't just -- Democrats can't just stand pat and just defend whatever government is doing.  If we believe that government can give the middle class a fair shot in this new century -- and I believe that -- we’ve an obligation to prove it.  And that means that we’ve got to be open to new ways of doing things.

And we’ll need Republicans in Congress to set aside short-term politics and work with me to find common ground.  (Applause.)

It’s interesting, in the run-up to this speech, a lot of reporters say that, well, Mr. President, these are all good ideas, but some of you’ve said before; some of them sound great, but you can't get those through Congress.  Republicans won’t agree with you.  And I say, look, the fact is there are Republicans in Congress right now who privately agree with me on a lot of the ideas I’ll be proposing.  I know because they’ve said so.  But they worry they’ll face swift political retaliation for cooperating with me.

Now, there are others who will dismiss every idea I put forward either because they’re playing to their most strident supporters, or in some cases because, sincerely, they have a fundamentally different vision for America -- one that says inequality is both inevitable and just; one that says an unfettered free market without any restraints inevitably produces the best outcomes, regardless of the pain and uncertainty imposed on ordinary families; and government is the problem and we should just shrink it as small as we can.

In either case, I say to these members of Congress:  I’m laying out my ideas to give the middle class a better shot.  So now it’s time for you to lay out your ideas.  (Applause.)  You can't just be against something.  You got to be for something.  (Applause.)

Even if you think I’ve done everything wrong, the trends I just talked about were happening well before I took office.  So it’s not enough for you just to oppose me.  You got to be for something.  What are your ideas?  If you’re willing to work with me to strengthen American manufacturing and rebuild this country’s infrastructure, let’s go.  If you’ve got better ideas to bring down the cost of college for working families, let’s hear them.  If you think you have a better plan for making sure that every American has the security of quality, affordable health care, then stop taking meaningless repeal votes, and share your concrete ideas with the country.  (Applause.)

Repealing Obamacare and cutting spending is not an economic plan.  It’s not.

If you’re serious about a balanced, long-term fiscal plan that replaces the mindless cuts currently in place, or if you’re interested in tax reform that closes corporate loopholes and gives working families a better deal, I’m ready to work.  (Applause.)  But you should know that I will not accept deals that don’t meet the basic test of strengthening the prospects of hardworking families.  This is the agenda we have to be working on.  (Applause.)

We’ve come a long way since I first took office.  (Applause.)  As a country, we’re older and wiser.  I don’t know if I’m wiser, but I’m certainly older.  (Laughter.)  And as long as Congress doesn’t manufacture another crisis -- as long as we don’t shut down the government just because I’m for keeping it open -- (laughter) -- as long as we don’t risk a U.S. default over paying bills that we’ve already racked up, something that we’ve never done -- we can probably muddle along without taking bold action.  If we stand pat and we don’t do any of the things I talked about, our economy will grow, although slower than it should.  New businesses will form.  The unemployment rate will probably tick down a little bit.  Just by virtue of our size and our natural resources and, most of all, because of the talent of our people, America will remain a world power, and the majority of us will figure out how to get by.

But you know what, that’s our choice.  If we just stand by and do nothing in the face of immense change, understand that part of our character will be lost.  Our founding precepts about wide-open opportunity, each generation doing better than the last -- that will be a myth, not reality.  The position of the middle class will erode further.  Inequality will continue to increase. Money’s power will distort our politics even more.

Social tensions will rise, as various groups fight to hold on to what they have, or start blaming somebody else for why their position isn’t improving.  And the fundamental optimism that’s always propelled us forward will give way to cynicism or nostalgia.

And that’s not the vision I have for this country.  It’s not the vision you have for this country.  That’s not the America we know.  That’s not the vision we should be settling for.  That’s not a vision we should be passing on to our children.

I have now run my last campaign.  I do not intend to wait until the next campaign or the next President before tackling the issues that matter.  I care about one thing and one thing only, and that’s how to use every minute -- (applause) -- the only thing I care about is how to use every minute of the remaining 1,276 days of my term -- (laughter) -- to make this country work for working Americans again.  (Applause.)  That’s all I care about.  I don’t have another election.  (Applause.)

Because I’ll tell you, Galesburg, that’s where I believe America needs to go.  I believe that’s where the American people want to go.  And it may seem hard today, but if we’re willing to take a few bold steps -- if Washington will just shake off its complacency and set aside the kind of slash-and-burn partisanship that we’ve just seen for way too long -- if we just make some common-sense decisions, our economy will be stronger a year from now.  It will be stronger five years from now.  It will be stronger 10 years from now.  (Applause.)

If we focus on what matters, then more Americans will know the pride of that first paycheck.  More Americans will have the satisfaction of flipping the sign to “Open” on their own business.  More Americans will have the joy of scratching the height of their kid on that door of their brand-new home.  (Applause.)

And in the end, isn't that what makes us special?  It's not the ability to generate incredible wealth for the few; it's our ability to give everybody a chance to pursue their own true measure of happiness.  (Applause.)  We haven’t just wanted success for ourselves -- we want it for our neighbors, too.  (Applause.)

When we think about our own communities -- we're not a mean people; we're not a selfish people; we're not a people that just looks out for “number one.”  Why should our politics reflect those kinds of values?  That’s why we don’t call it John’s dream or Susie’s dream or Barack’s dream or Pat's dream -- we call it the American Dream.  And that’s what makes this country special  -- the idea that no matter who you are or what you look like or where you come from or who you love, you can make it if you try. (Applause.)  That’s what we're fighting for.

So, yes, Congress is tough right now, but that’s not going to stop me.  We're going to do everything we can, wherever we can, with or without Congress, to make things happen.  We're going to go on the road and talk to you, and you'll have ideas, and we want to see which ones we can implement.  But we're going to focus on this thing that matters.

One of America’s greatest writers, Carl Sandburg, born right here in Galesburg over a century ago -- (applause) -- he saw the railroads bring the world to the prairie, and then the prairie sent out its bounty to the world.  And he saw the advent of new industries, new technologies, and he watched populations shift.  He saw fortunes made and lost.  And he saw how change could be painful -- how a new age could unsettle long-held customs and ways of life.  But he had that frontier optimism, and so he saw something more on the horizon.  And he wrote, “I speak of new cities and new people.  The past is a bucket of ashes.  Yesterday is a wind gone down, a sun dropped in the west.  There is only an ocean of tomorrows, a sky of tomorrows.”

Well, America, we’ve made it through the worst of yesterday’s winds.  We just have to have the courage to keep moving forward.  We've got to set our eyes on the horizon.  We will find an ocean of tomorrows.  We will find a sky of tomorrows for the American people and for this great country that we love.

So thank you.  God bless you.  And God bless the United States of America.  (Applause.)