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| Images by Erik Kabik |
THE PRESIDENT: Hello, Nevada! (Applause.)
It is great to be
back in Las Vegas. (Applause.)
AUDIENCE MEMBER: I love you!
THE PRESIDENT: I love you back. (Laughter.)
Although I always say, when we stay here for the night, I’ve got to
watch my staff to make sure that they get on the plane when we leave. (Laughter.) Sometimes they conveniently miss
the flight. (Laughter.)
But everybody please have a seat, have a
seat. It is great to see you. Joe, thanks for the introduction. Scott, thank you and the folks at UPS for
hosting us today. I want to thank all of
the elected officials and the tribal leaders who took the time to join us.
Before I get into the core of
my remarks, I just want to mention something that I said to Scott and I said to
Joe, and that is that UPS I think deserves just extraordinary credit for being
the best in its space, one of the best businesses we have in the United
States. But the reason is because it’s
got such outstanding workers -- (applause) -- and the relationship between its
workforce and management, cooperating, constantly figuring out how to make
things better is just an outstanding
organization. And so you guys all need
to be congratulated for everything that you do.
(Applause.)
Now, I’m here to talk a
little more about what I talked about at the State of the Union on Tuesday
night. And what I want to focus on is how
we’re going to restore the basic promise of America, something that folks at
UPS understand, which is, if you work hard, if you do the right thing, you should
be able to do well enough to raise a family and own a home and send your kids
to college and put a little away for retirement. That’s the American Dream. That’s what most people are looking for.
They don’t expect a
handout. They don’t expect anything to
come easy. They do expect, if they’re willing to work hard, to try to get
ahead. If they’re doing the right thing, then they can have a sense of security
and dignity, and help make sure that their family is moving forward. That’s what Americans are looking for. That’s what Americans deserve.
And today, three years after
the worst economic storm in three generations, our economy is growing again. Our businesses have created more than 3
million jobs. (Applause.) Last year, businesses created the most jobs
since 2005. American manufacturers are
hiring again and creating jobs for the first time since the 1990s.
Now, we’ve got more work to
do. But what we can’t do is go back to the
very same policies that got us into a mess in the first place. We can’t go backwards. We have to move forward. I said on Tuesday, and I will repeat today,
we will not -- we cannot -- go back to an economy weakened by outsourcing and
bad debt and phony financial profits. So
on Tuesday, at the State of the Union, I laid out my vision for how we move
forward. I laid a blueprint for an
economy that’s built to last, that has a firm foundation,
where we’re making stuff and selling stuff and moving it around and UPS drivers
are dropping things off everywhere.
(Applause.)
That’s the economy we want,
an economy built on American manufacturing with more good jobs and more
products made here in the United States of America. (Applause.)
An economy built on American energy, fueled by homegrown and alternative
sources that make us more secure and less dependent on foreign oil. (Applause.)
An economy built on the skills of American workers, getting
people the education and the training they need to prepare for the jobs of
today, but also to compete for the jobs of tomorrow. (Applause.)
And most importantly, I
talked about an economy that’s built on a renewal of American values -- hard
work, responsibility, and the same set of rules for everybody, from Wall Street
to Main Street. (Applause.) That has to
be our future. That’s how we restore
that basic American promise.
Now, part of my blueprint and
what I want to focus on a little bit today is for an economy built to last with
American energy. That’s why we’re
here. For decades, Americans have been
talking about how do we decrease our dependence on foreign oil. Well, my administration has actually begun to
do something about it.
Over the last three years, we
negotiated the toughest new efficiency standards for cars and trucks in
history. We’ve opened millions of new
acres for oil and gas exploration. Right
now, American oil production is the highest that it’s been in eight years. Eight years. Last year, we relied less on
foreign oil than in any of last 16 years.
That hasn’t gotten a lot of attention, but that’s important. (Applause.) We’re moving in the right direction when it
comes to oil and gas production.
And today, I’m announcing
that my administration will soon open up around 38 million acres in the Gulf of
Mexico for additional exploration and development, which could result in a lot
more production of domestic
energy. (Applause.)
But as I said on Tuesday, and
as the folks here at UPS understand, even with all this oil production, we only
have about 2 percent of the world’s oil reserves. So we got to have an all-out, all-in, all-of-the-above
strategy that develops every source of American energy –- a strategy that is cleaner
and cheaper and full of new jobs.
Now, a great place to start
is with natural gas. Some of you may not
have been following this, but because of new technologies, because we can now
access natural gas that we couldn’t access before in an economic way, we’ve got
a supply of natural gas under our feet that can last America nearly a hundred
years. Nearly a hundred years. Now, when
I say under our feet, I don’t know that there’s actually gas right here. (Laughter.)
I mean in all the United States.
And developing it could power
our cars and our homes and our factories in a cleaner and cheaper way. The experts believe it could support more
than 600,000 jobs by the end of the decade.
We, it turns out, are the Saudi Arabia of natural gas. (Applause.)
We’ve got a lot of it. We’ve got
a lot of it.
Now, removing that natural
gas obviously has to be done carefully. And I know that there are families that
are worried about the impact this could have on our environment and on the
health of our communities. And I share
that concern. So that’s why I’m
requiring -- for the first time ever -- that all companies drilling for gas on public
lands disclose the chemicals they use.
We want to make sure that this is done properly and safely. (Applause.)
America will develop this resource without
putting the health and safety of our citizens at risk.
But we’ve got to keep at
it. We’ve got to take advantage of this incredible
natural resource. And think about what
could happen if we do. Think about an
America where more cars and trucks are running on domestic natural gas than on
foreign oil. Think about an America where
our companies are leading the world in developing natural gas technology and
creating a generation of new energy jobs; where our natural gas resources are
helping make our manufacturers more competitive for decades. We can do this. And by the way, natural gas burns cleaner
than oil does, so it’s also potentially good for our environment as we make
this shift.
So last April, we issued a
challenge to shipping companies like UPS. We said if you upgrade your fleets to
run on less oil or no oil at all, we’re going to help you succeed. We want to help you with that experiment. So we started out with five companies that
accepted the challenge. And of course, UPS was one of the first. That’s how they roll. (Laughter and applause.)
So less than a year later,
we’ve got 14 companies on board, and together they represent 1 million vehicles
on the road. That’s a lot of trucks.
We should do more,
though. And that’s why we’re here today.
First, let’s get more of these natural gas vehicles on the road. Let’s get more
of them on the road. (Applause.) The federal fleet of cars is leading by
example. Turns out the federal
government has a lot of cars.
(Laughter.) We buy a lot of
cars. So we’ve got to help not only the
federal government but also local governments upgrade their fleet. If more of these brown trucks are going
green, more city buses should, too. There’s no reason why buses can’t go in the
same direction.
Second, let’s offer new tax
incentives to help companies buy more clean trucks like these. (Applause.)
Third, let’s make sure all
these new trucks that are running on natural gas have places to refuel. That’s one of the biggest impediments, is the
technology. We know how to make these
trucks, but if they don’t have a place to pull in and fill up, they got
problems.
So we’re going to keep
working with the private sector to develop up to five natural gas corridors
along our highways. These are highways that
have natural gas fueling stations between cities, just like the one that folks
at UPS, South Coast Air and Clean Energy Fuels are opening today between Los
Angeles and Salt Lake City. That’s a
great start. (Applause.) So now one of these trucks can go from Long
Beach all the way to Salt Lake City. And
they’re going to be able to refuel along the way.
And finally, to keep America
on the cutting edge of clean energy technology, I want my Energy Secretary,
Steven Chu, to launch a new competition that encourages our country’s brightest
scientists and engineers and entrepreneurs to discover new breakthroughs for
natural gas vehicles.
So we’re going to keep moving
on American energy. We’re going to keep boosting
American manufacturing. We’re going to
keep training our workers for these new jobs.
But an economy that’s built to last also means a renewal of the values
that made us who we are: hard work, fair play and shared
responsibility.
Right now, that means, first
of all, stopping a tax hike on 160 million working Americans at the end of next
month. (Applause.) People cannot afford
right now losing $40 out of each paycheck.
Your voices convinced Congress to extend this middle-class tax cut
before. I need your help to make sure they do it again. No drama, no delay. Let’s just get this done
for the American people and for our economy as a whole. (Applause.)
But we’ve got a longer-run
issue -- Scott and I were talking about this before we came out -- and that is
how do we get America’s fiscal house in order.
And we’re going to have to make some choices. The reason that we’ve got these debts and
deficit is because we’re not making hard choices. Right now, we’re supposed to spend nearly $1 trillion
more on what was intended to be a temporary tax cut for the wealthiest 2
percent of Americans. Supposed to be
temporary. Back in 2001. (Laughter.)
That’s a long time ago.
(Laughter.) A quarter of all
millionaires pay lower tax rates than millions of middle-class households. Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his
secretary. I know because she was at the State of the Union. (Laughter.)
She told me.
Now, that’s not fair. That doesn’t make sense. And the reason it’s important for us to
recognize that is, if we’re going to reduce our deficit, then we’ve got to have
a balanced approach that has spending cuts -- and we’ve already agreed to $2
trillion worth of spending cuts. We’ve
got to get rid of programs that don’t work.
We’ve got to make government more efficient. I have asked Congress for authority to
consolidate some of these agencies to make them run better. We’re going to have to be much more
effective when it comes to government spending.
We all acknowledge that and we’re making progress on that front.
But that alone doesn’t do
it. So if we want to actually deal with
the deficit, we’ve got to look at the other side of the ledger. Do we want to keep these tax cuts for the
wealthiest Americans? Or do we want to
keep investing in everything else -- like education, like clean energy --
(applause) -- like a strong military, like caring for our veterans who are
coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan? (Applause.) We can’t do both. We can’t do both.
So what I’ve said is let’s
follow the Buffett Rule: If you make
more than a million dollars a year, you should pay a tax rate of at least 30
percent -- (applause) -- which, by the way, is lower than you would have been
paying under Ronald Reagan. Nobody is
talking about anything crazy here. On the other hand, if you make less than $250,000
a year, which 98 percent of all Americans do, then your taxes shouldn’t go
up. (Applause.) I think that’s a fair approach.
And a lot of folks have been
running around saying, well, that’s class warfare. Asking a billionaire to pay at least as much
as his secretary in taxes, that’s just common sense. (Laughter.)
And I promise you, if we make this change, Warren Buffett will be doing fine. (Laughter.)
I will be doing fine. Scott will
be doing fine. (Applause.) We don’t need
more tax breaks. You’re the ones who
have seen your wages and your incomes stall while the cost of everything from groceries to college to
health care have been going up. You’re the
ones who deserve a break. (Applause.)
And I want to make one last
point: We do not begrudge success in America. We aspire to it. We want everybody to succeed. We want everybody to be rich. We want everybody to be working hard, making their
way, creating new products, creating new services, creating jobs
-- that’s the American
way. We don’t shy away from financial
success. We don’t apologize for it.
But what we do say is when this nation has
done so much for us, shouldn’t we be thinking about the country as a
whole? When Americans talk about folks
like me paying their fair share of taxes, it’s not because they envy the
rich. Just yesterday, Bill Gates said he
agrees with me that Americans who can afford it should pay their fair share. I
promise you, Bill Gates does not envy the rich.
(Laughter.) He doesn’t envy
wealthy people.
This has nothing to do with
envy. It has everything to do with math.
It’s what I talked about earlier. We’ve
got to make choices. Americans understand if I get a tax break I don’t need and
a tax break the country can’t afford, then one of two things are going to
happen. Either it’s going to add to our deficit or somebody else is going to have
to make up the difference.
A senior suddenly is going to
have to start paying more for their Medicare, or a student is going to have to
pay more for their student loan, or a family that’s trying to get by, they’re
going to have to do with less. And
that’s not right. That’s not who we
are. Each of us is only here because
somebody somewhere felt a responsibility to each other and to our country and
helped to create all this incredible opportunity that we call the United States
of America.
Now, it’s our turn to be
responsible. And it’s our turn to leave
an America that is built to last for the next generation. That’s our job and we can do it. (Applause.)
We can do it. We can do it. And I know we can do it, because I’ve seen in
states like Nevada and with people like you that I meet all across this
country, you understand the history of this country, generations of Americans
working together, looking out for each other, living by the idea that we rise or
fall together. Those are the values we
have to return to.
I mentioned praise for our
military at the State of the Union and the incredible work that they do. And the reason our military is so good, the
reason why they’re so admired is because they -- it’s not like everybody in the
military agrees on everything. You got
Democrats in the military. You got
Republicans in the military. You’ve got
folks who are conservative or liberal -- different races, different religions,
different backgrounds -- but they figure out how to focus on the mission. They figure out how to do their job.
And that sense of common
purpose is what we’re going to need to build an economy that lasts. And if we work together in common purpose, we
can build that economy and we can meet the challenges of our times. And we’ll
remind the entire world once again just why it is that the United States is the greatest
country on Earth.
Thank you, everybody. God bless you and God bless the United States
of America. (Applause.)
Images Credit: © Erik Kabik/ erikkabik.com
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