And before that:
Roanoke knows something about transportation -- this was a railroad hub for a long time. So you know how important that is to growing an economy. Let’s take some of that money and rebuild our roads and our bridges and our rail systems, and let’s build wireless networks into rural communities so everybody can tap into world markets. Let’s put construction workers back to work doing what they do best and that is rebuilding America. That’s why I’m running for a second term as President of the United States. That’s the choice you face. (Applause.)
I’m running to make sure that our kids are getting the best education in the world. When I came into office, we passed a tuition tax credit that has saved millions of families thousands of dollars, and now I want to extend it. But I don’t want to stop there. We just won a fight thanks to some of the folks who are here, including students from VT that -- we just won a fight to make sure that student loan interest rates would not double.
But that’s not enough. I want to lower tuition to make it more affordable for all young people. (Applause.) I want to help our elementary schools and our middle schools and our high schools hire more teachers, especially in math and science. I want 2 million more people to be able to go to community colleges to get trained in the jobs that businesses are hiring for right now -- because a higher education, a good education is not a luxury, it is an economic necessity. That’s how we’re going to win the race for the future. And that’s why I’m running for a second term as President -- to finish the job we started in 2008. (Applause.)
We’ve got to deal with homeownership, and the fact of the matter is that my opponent’s philosophy when it comes to dealing with homeowners is, let the market bottom out and let as many foreclosures happen as it takes. I don’t think that’s part of a solution -- that’s part of the problem.
So what I want to do is, I want to let every single person refinance their homes and save about $3,000 a year because you’ll spend that $3,000 on some of these stores right here in downtown. You’ll help small businesses and large businesses grow because they’ll have more customers. It will be good for you and it will be good for the economy. And that’s why I’m running for a second term as President -- because I want to help America’s homeowners. (Applause.)
I am running because I still believe that you shouldn’t go bankrupt when you get sick. We passed that health care law because it was the right thing to do. (Applause.) And because we did, 30 million people who don’t have health insurance are going to get help getting health insurance. (Applause.) Six million young people who didn’t have health insurance can now stay on their parent’s plan and get health insurance.
Seniors are seeing their prescription drug costs go down. And, by the way, if you’ve got health insurance, you’re not getting hit by a tax. The only thing that’s happening to you is that you now have more security because insurance companies can’t drop you when you get sick. (Applause.) And they can’t mess around with you because of some fine print in your policy. If you’re paying your policy, you will get the deal that you paid for. That’s why we passed health care reform. (Applause.)
Now, one last thing -- one of the biggest differences is how we pay down our debt and our deficit. My opponent, Mr. Romney’s plan is he wants to cut taxes another $5 trillion on top of the Bush tax cuts.
AUDIENCE: Booo --
THE PRESIDENT: Well, first of all, like I said, the only way you can pay for that -- if you’re actually saying you’re bringing down the deficit -- is to cut transportation, cut education, cut basic research, voucherize Medicare, and you’re still going to end up having to raise taxes on middle-class families to pay for this $5 trillion tax cut. That’s not a deficit reduction plan. That’s a deficit expansion plan.
I’ve got a different idea. I do believe we can cut -- we’ve already made a trillion dollars’ worth of cuts. We can make some more cuts in programs that don’t work, and make government work more efficiently. (Applause.) Not every government program works the way it’s supposed to. And frankly, government can’t solve every problem. If somebody doesn’t want to be helped, government can’t always help them. Parents -- we can put more money into schools, but if your kids don’t want to learn it’s hard to teach them. (Applause.)
But you know what, I’m not going to see us gut the investments that grow our economy to give tax breaks to me or Mr. Romney or folks who don’t need them. So I’m going to reduce the deficit in a balanced way. We’ve already made a trillion dollars’ worth of cuts. We can make another trillion or trillion-two, and what we then do is ask for the wealthy to pay a little bit more. (Applause.) And, by the way, we’ve tried that before -- a guy named Bill Clinton did it. We created 23 million new jobs, turned a deficit into a surplus, and rich people did just fine. We created a lot of millionaires.
OR:
I know, let's cut taxes on the bloated rich, destroy Medicare and health reform, raise taxes and fees on the nonrich, let corporate cheats run wild, cut aid to states and localities, raise military spending to more than the rest of the world combined, and worry about the debt in 2035. Absolute idiocy, dupes
Roanoke knows something about transportation -- this was a railroad hub for a long time. So you know how important that is to growing an economy. Let’s take some of that money and rebuild our roads and our bridges and our rail systems, and let’s build wireless networks into rural communities so everybody can tap into world markets. Let’s put construction workers back to work doing what they do best and that is rebuilding America. That’s why I’m running for a second term as President of the United States. That’s the choice you face. (Applause.)
I’m running to make sure that our kids are getting the best education in the world. When I came into office, we passed a tuition tax credit that has saved millions of families thousands of dollars, and now I want to extend it. But I don’t want to stop there. We just won a fight thanks to some of the folks who are here, including students from VT that -- we just won a fight to make sure that student loan interest rates would not double.
But that’s not enough. I want to lower tuition to make it more affordable for all young people. (Applause.) I want to help our elementary schools and our middle schools and our high schools hire more teachers, especially in math and science. I want 2 million more people to be able to go to community colleges to get trained in the jobs that businesses are hiring for right now -- because a higher education, a good education is not a luxury, it is an economic necessity. That’s how we’re going to win the race for the future. And that’s why I’m running for a second term as President -- to finish the job we started in 2008. (Applause.)
We’ve got to deal with homeownership, and the fact of the matter is that my opponent’s philosophy when it comes to dealing with homeowners is, let the market bottom out and let as many foreclosures happen as it takes. I don’t think that’s part of a solution -- that’s part of the problem.
So what I want to do is, I want to let every single person refinance their homes and save about $3,000 a year because you’ll spend that $3,000 on some of these stores right here in downtown. You’ll help small businesses and large businesses grow because they’ll have more customers. It will be good for you and it will be good for the economy. And that’s why I’m running for a second term as President -- because I want to help America’s homeowners. (Applause.)
I am running because I still believe that you shouldn’t go bankrupt when you get sick. We passed that health care law because it was the right thing to do. (Applause.) And because we did, 30 million people who don’t have health insurance are going to get help getting health insurance. (Applause.) Six million young people who didn’t have health insurance can now stay on their parent’s plan and get health insurance.
Seniors are seeing their prescription drug costs go down. And, by the way, if you’ve got health insurance, you’re not getting hit by a tax. The only thing that’s happening to you is that you now have more security because insurance companies can’t drop you when you get sick. (Applause.) And they can’t mess around with you because of some fine print in your policy. If you’re paying your policy, you will get the deal that you paid for. That’s why we passed health care reform. (Applause.)
Now, one last thing -- one of the biggest differences is how we pay down our debt and our deficit. My opponent, Mr. Romney’s plan is he wants to cut taxes another $5 trillion on top of the Bush tax cuts.
AUDIENCE: Booo --
THE PRESIDENT: Well, first of all, like I said, the only way you can pay for that -- if you’re actually saying you’re bringing down the deficit -- is to cut transportation, cut education, cut basic research, voucherize Medicare, and you’re still going to end up having to raise taxes on middle-class families to pay for this $5 trillion tax cut. That’s not a deficit reduction plan. That’s a deficit expansion plan.
I’ve got a different idea. I do believe we can cut -- we’ve already made a trillion dollars’ worth of cuts. We can make some more cuts in programs that don’t work, and make government work more efficiently. (Applause.) Not every government program works the way it’s supposed to. And frankly, government can’t solve every problem. If somebody doesn’t want to be helped, government can’t always help them. Parents -- we can put more money into schools, but if your kids don’t want to learn it’s hard to teach them. (Applause.)
But you know what, I’m not going to see us gut the investments that grow our economy to give tax breaks to me or Mr. Romney or folks who don’t need them. So I’m going to reduce the deficit in a balanced way. We’ve already made a trillion dollars’ worth of cuts. We can make another trillion or trillion-two, and what we then do is ask for the wealthy to pay a little bit more. (Applause.) And, by the way, we’ve tried that before -- a guy named Bill Clinton did it. We created 23 million new jobs, turned a deficit into a surplus, and rich people did just fine. We created a lot of millionaires.
OR:
I know, let's cut taxes on the bloated rich, destroy Medicare and health reform, raise taxes and fees on the nonrich, let corporate cheats run wild, cut aid to states and localities, raise military spending to more than the rest of the world combined, and worry about the debt in 2035. Absolute idiocy, dupes
