Remarks by the First Lady at a Campaign Event

National Constitution Center
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 

3:39 P.M. EDT

MRS. OBAMA:  Yes!  (Applause.)  Wow!  Thank you so much.  What a great crowd!  I am beyond  thrilled to be here with all of you today.  Wow! 

Let me start by thanking Erin for that very kind introduction and for all of her terrific work not just on this campaign, but working for our kids.  Let’s give her another round of applause.  Yay, Erin!  (Applause.)  I also want to recognize your outstanding Mayor and my dear friend, Mayor Nutter.  Mr. Mayor.  (Applause.)  I also want to recognize your outstanding District Attorney, Seth Williams, who is here.  (Applause.)  And Kathleen Kane, who is here -- she's going to make an outstanding Attorney General here in Pennsylvania.  (Applause.)   

And finally, I want to thank all of you, our extraordinary volunteers and organizers.  Thank you for everything you all do -- oh, day in and day out -- to make this campaign possible.  Especially you all down there.  (Applause.)  Thank you all.  I want to thank you for doing all that hard work, knocking on those doors, making all those phone calls, registering those voters.  (Applause.)  And I want to thank you for giving folks the information they need about the issues they care about. 

And I want you to know that the kind of grassroots work that you all are doing to get people focused and fired up -- you know, that kind of work -- that work is at the core of this campaign.  It's everything we're about.  And that’s how we did it four years ago; that’s how we’re going to do it again today.  (Applause.)   

And let me tell you something.  What I know is that what you all are doing isn’t easy, that kind of work.  I know that you all are putting in long hours.  And I know that you're doing it although you have busy lives.  I know all of you have families to raise, jobs to do, classes to attend.  But I also know that there is a reason why all of us are here today.  And it’s not just because we all support one extraordinary man -- (applause) -- and I have to admit I’m a little biased about our President.  (Applause.)  And it’s not just because we want to win an election -- which we do.  We’re doing this because of the values we believe in.  We’re doing this because of the vision for this country that we all share. 

We’re doing this because we want all of our children, all of them, to have good schools -- (applause) -- the kind of schools that push them and inspire them, and prepare them for good jobs -- right?  (Applause.)  We want our parents and our  grandparents to retire with dignity -- because we believe that after a lifetime of hard work, they should be able to enjoy their golden years -- right?  (Applause.)  We want to restore that basic middle-class security for our families in this country, because we believe that folks shouldn’t go bankrupt because somebody gets sick, they shouldn’t lose their home because someone loses a job -- right?  (Applause.)   

We believe that responsibility should be rewarded and that hard work should pay off.  We believe that everyone should do their fair share and play by the same rules.  (Applause.)  These are basic American values.  They’re the values that so many of us were raised with, including myself.

You all know my story.  My father was a blue-collar worker at the city water plant.  My family -- we lived in a little- bitty apartment on the South Side of Chicago.  My parents never had the kinds of educational opportunities that me and my brother had.  But let me tell you, growing up, I saw how they saved and they sacrificed, and they poured everything they had into me and my brother -- because they wanted us to have the kind of education they could only dream of. 

And while pretty much all of my college tuition came from student loans and grants -- some of you know how that feels -- (applause) -- my Dad still paid a tiny portion of that tuition himself.  Now, let me tell you, every semester he was determined to pay that bill and pay it on time.  See, because he was so proud to be sending his kids to college.  He couldn’t bear the thought of me or my brother missing that registration deadline because his check was late. 

Like so many people in this country, my father took great pride in being able to earn a living that allowed him to handle his business, to take care of his responsibilities to his family, to pay all of his bills and to pay them on time.  That meant something to my dad. 

And really more than anything else, that's what’s at stake in this election.  That's what this all this work is about.  It’s that fundamental promise that in America, no matter who you are or how you started out, if you work hard you can build a decent life for yourself and an even better life for your kids.  (Applause.)  And it is that promise -- that promise -- that binds us all together as Americans.  It’s what makes us who we are.  It's what makes this country special.   

Now, let me tell you something.  From now until November, Barack needs all of you to get out there and tell everyone you know about our values and about our vision, and about everything that’s at stake in this election.  That's what he needs you to do.  And you can start by telling them how Barack fought for tax cuts for working families and small businesses -- (applause) -- because an economy built to last starts with the middle class and with folks who are creating jobs and putting people back to work. 

And remind people how, back when Barack first took office, our economy was losing an average of 750,000 jobs a month.  That's what he inherited.  But for the past 27 straight months, let them know, we have actually been gaining private sector jobs -- a total of 4 million jobs -- 4 million jobs -- in just two years.  (Applause.)  So while we still have a long way to go to rebuild our economy, today millions -- millions -- of people are collecting a paycheck again.  Millions of people like my dad are able to pay their bills again.  (Applause.)

You can also remind people about how all those folks in Washington were telling Barack to let the auto industry go under -- remember that?

AUDIENCE:  Yes!

MRS. OBAMA:  With more than a million jobs on the line.   But what did your President do?  Barack had the backs of American workers.  He put his faith in the American people.  And as a result, today the auto industry is back on its feet again, and more importantly, people are back at work, providing for their families again.  (Applause.)

And I want you to tell people how, because this administration passed health reform, tell them how insurance companies -- because of that reform, insurance companies will now have to cover preventive care.  (Applause.)  Things like contraception, cancer screenings, prenatal care at no extra cost.  Let them know that because of this reform millions of our senior citizens have saved an average of more than $600 a year on their prescription drugs.  Let them know.  (Applause.)  And our children can now stay on their parent's insurance until they’re 26 years old.  (Applause.)   And that’s how 2.5 million young people are now getting their health care, the care that they need. 

You can also tell people how Barack is working to raise standards in our public schools and make college more affordable for millions of young people, so that by the end of this decade, more Americans will hold a college degree than any other country in the world.  (Applause.)  That’s Barack’s vision for us.

You can tell people how Barack has been fighting for the DREAM Act, because he believes that it is time to stop denying citizenship to responsible young people just because they’re the children of undocumented immigrants.  It’s time to give them a chance.  (Applause.)

You can remind folks that Barack kept his promise to bring our troops home from Iraq.  (Applause.)  And you can remind them about how our brave men and women in uniform brought to justice the man behind the 9/11 attacks.  Remind them about that.  (Applause.)  And also tell them that now our troops do not have to lie about who they are to serve the country they love --because Barack finally ended "don't ask, don't tell."  (Applause.)

And please tell people that it is now easier for women to get equal pay for equal work -- (applause) -- and that’s because of the very first bill Barack signed into law, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.  Remind them about that.  And understand that Barack signed this bill because he knows that closing that pay gap can mean the difference between women losing $50, $100, $500 from each paycheck, or having that money in their pockets to buy gas and groceries and put clothes on the backs of their kids.  He did it because when so many women are now breadwinners for our family, women's success in this economy is the key to families' success in this economy.  (Applause.)  Let them know. 

And finally, don’t forget to tell people about those two brilliant Supreme Court justices that my husband appointed, and how, for the first time in history, our daughters and sons watched three women take their seat on our nation’s highest court.  (Applause.)  Let them know.  We need you to tell them about it.

But we also need to make sure that people know that all of this -- and so much more -- is at stake this November.  It’s all at stake.  And in the end, it all boils down to one simple question:  Will we continue the change we’ve begun and the progress we’ve made, or will we allow everything we’ve fought for to just slip away?  No, we know what we need to do, right?

AUDIENCE:  Yes!

MRS. OBAMA:  We cannot turn back now -- not now.  We have to keep moving forward.  And more than anything else, that's what we’re working for -- the chance to finish what we started; the chance to keep fighting for the values we believe in and the vision that we all share.

And let me tell you, that’s what my husband has been doing every single day as President.  And I have to tell you, over the past three and a half years, I have had the chance to see up close and personal what being President looks like.  So let me tell you what I’ve seen.  I have seen how the issues that come across a President’s desk are always the hard ones -- always.  The problems with no easy solutions, the judgment calls where the stakes are so high and the margin for error absent.

And as President, you can get all kinds of advice and opinions from all kinds of people.  But at the end of the day, when it comes time to make that decision, as President, all you have to guide you are your life experiences.  All you have to guide you are your values, are your visions for this country.  And in the end, when you’re making those impossible choices, it all boils down to who you are and what you stand for.  (Applause.)  

But, Philly, we all know who my husband is -- right?  (Applause.)  And we all know what Barack Obama stands for.  (Applause.)  See, Barack is the son of a single mother who struggled to put herself through school and pay the bills.  That's who he is.  He is the grandson of a woman who woke up before dawn every day to catch a bus to her job at the bank.  And even though Barack’s grandmother worked hard to help support her family and she was good at her job, like so many women, she hit that glass ceiling, and watched men no more qualified than she was promoted up the ladder ahead of her. 

So let me tell you something.  Barack Obama knows what it means when a family struggles.  He knows what it means when someone doesn’t have a chance to fulfill their potential.  And today, trust me, as a father, he knows what it means to want something better for your kids. 

Those are the experiences that have made him the man -- and more importantly, the President -- he is today.  (Applause.)  So the thing I want you all to remember is that when it comes time to stand up for American workers and American families, you know what my husband is going to do.  When there’s a choice between protecting our rights and our freedoms, you know where Barack stands.  And when we need a leader to make the hard decisions to keep this country moving forward, you know you can count on my husband, your President, because that is what he has been doing every single day in the Oval Office as President of the United States.  (Applause.)  

But I have said this before and I will say it again, and again, and again -- he cannot do this alone. 

AUDIENCE MEMBER:  We got your back!  Yes, we can!  (Applause.)

MRS. OBAMA:  Yes, we can.  Barack needs your help.  He needs you to keep doing what you're doing, making those calls -- more importantly, register those voters.  He needs you to take those commit-to-vote cards -- you know those?  Find them, get them, sign up your friends and your neighbors and your colleagues.  Convince them with every ounce of energy in your soul to join you in giving a little part of your life each week to this campaign. 

And then, send them to BarackObama.com.  Send them to that website for more information on how they can get started making that difference.  As Barack has said -- and don't forget, this election will be even closer than ever before.  And if you have any doubt about the difference that you can make, I just want you to remember that in the end, this could all come down to those last few thousand people that we register to vote. 

It could all come down to those last few thousand people we help get to the polls on November the 6th.

And so I want you to just take a minute to think about what these kinds of numbers mean when they’re spread out over an entire state.  It might mean registering just one more person in your town, in your community, in your neighborhood -- just one more.  It could mean helping just one more person get out and vote on Election Day -- just one more. 

So just think about this:  With every door you knock on, with every event you host, with every conversation that you have with anyone, I want you to just think -- think, this could be the one -- right?  This could be the one that makes the difference.  (Applause.)  And that is the kind of impact that each of us can have.  That’s why you’re so important.

And I am not going to kid you, this journey is going to be long and it is going to be hard.  And there will be plenty of twists and turns along the way.  But just remember that’s how change always happens in this country.  And if we keep showing up, if we keep fighting the good fight, then eventually we get there.  We always do.  Maybe not in our lifetimes, but maybe in our children’s lifetimes, maybe in our grandchildren’s lifetimes. 

Because, in the end, that’s what this is all about.  That’s what I think about when I tuck my girls in at night and I think about the world I want to leave for them, and all our sons and daughters.  I think about how I want to do for them what my dad did for me.  I want to give them a foundation for their dreams.  I want to give them opportunities worthy of their promise -- all of our children.  (Applause.)  I want to give them a sense of limitless possibility -- that belief that here in America, there is always something better out there if you’re willing to work for it.  (Applause.) 

So we cannot turn back now.  Not now.  We have come too far -- but we have so much more work to do.  So I have one last question to ask you:  Are you in? 

AUDIENCE:  Yes!  (Applause.)

MRS. OBAMA:  Are you ready for this?

AUDIENCE:  Yes!  (Applause.)

MRS. OBAMA:  Are you ready to do the work?  Are you ready to roll up your sleeves?  Are you ready to fight for our children?  (Applause.) 

I hope you are fired up, because if you can’t tell, I am fired up.  (Applause.)  I am going to be working so hard over the next couple of months.  We need you more than you can ever know.  You will make the difference in this election.  Keep working.  We love you.  God bless.

END
4:00 P.M. EDT

Remarks by the First Lady at Disney Press Conference

Newseum
Washington, D.C.

11:13 A.M. EDT

MRS. OBAMA:  Thank you.  (Applause.)  Thank you, everyone.  Good morning.  Oh my goodness.  I am so thrilled to be with all of you today, and I want to start by thanking Bob for that very kind introduction and for his tremendous leadership at Disney. 

I'd also like to thank Leslie for all of her hard work in this effort.  Also, everyone from the Newseum for hosting us today, and also to all of the parents and advocates who are here today who have been working so hard for so many years on these issues.  And finally, I want to thank everyone at Disney for making this day possible. 

This new initiative is truly a game changer for the health of our children.  See, for years people told us that no matter what we did to get our kids to eat well and exercise, we would never solve our childhood obesity crisis until companies changed the way they sell food to our children.  And we all know the conventional wisdom about that.  We've heard all the cynics who say that we simply can't change the market, or that concerned parents are no match for corporate bottom lines, or that companies will never change their business model for the good of our kids.

But truly, today, Disney has turned that conventional wisdom on its head.  This is a major American company, a global brand that is literally changing the way it does business so that our kids can lead healthier lives.  With this new initiative, Disney is doing what no major media company has ever done before in the United States.  And what I hope every company will do going forward when it comes to the ads they show and the food they sell they're asking themselves one simple question:  Is this good for our kids? 

And make no mistake about it -- this is huge.  That’s why I'm here.  It's huge.  Just think about it.  Just a few years ago if you had told me or any other mom or dad in America that our kids wouldn’t see a single ad for junk food while they watched their favorite cartoons on a major TV network, we wouldn’t have believed you because parents know better than anyone else just how effective and pervasive those advertisements have become -- Bob mentioned it. 

Our kids see an estimated $1.6 billion a year worth of food and beverage marketing, and many of those ads are for foods that are high in calories and sugar but low in nutrition.  So our kids are constantly bombarded with sophisticated messages designed to sell them foods that simply aren't good for them.  And let me tell you, we know it works, right?

As parents, we know that whatever is on TV is what our kids are going to want.  I remember, as Bob has discussed, going to the grocery store with the kids, and the minute you walk down the aisle the kids are singing some jingle, or they're pulling on your leg begging you, pleading you for whatever they saw on TV.  And as a mom, I know how that makes it even harder for us to keep our kids healthy.

So many parents are working so hard to serve their kids a balanced diet.  We're preparing those nutritious meals and snacks, and we're doing our best to teach our kids healthy habits.  But when the kids turn on the TV to watch their favorite shows and -- all that hard work is undermined whenever there is a commercial break.  I mean, it's a constant battle, and it's a tough one.  And so many parents are left feeling like the deck is stacked against them. 

And, truly, that's really what today is all about.  In fact, that's what our entire Let's Move initiative is about.  It's about empowering parents, because we know that government doesn’t have all the answers and there's no one-size solution to this problem.  This is about what all of us can do as moms and dads, as CEOs and school superintendents, as mayors and doctors, and, yes, even Mickey Mouse.  It's about all of us doing what we can with the tools we have to help parents make healthier choices for their kids. 

And that's why I am so thrilled about today's announcements.  I am thrilled that Disney is stepping forward in such a big way to stand alongside America's parents.  I am thrilled that they're raising their nutrition standards and introducing the Mickey Check and making it easier for moms and dads to make those decisions.

And I'm thrilled that over the next couple of years, when our kids tune into their favorite shows on Disney channels or they log onto the Disney web site, they will no longer be bombarded with unhealthy messages during those commercial breaks.  Instead, they will see ads for foods that we might actually want them to eat -- ads that can reinforce healthy habits and teach kids very important lessons. 

And as you heard from Bob and Leslie, Disney has been taking steps to help our kids lead healthier lives for many years.  Their Magic of Healthy Living campaign is helping kids eat healthy, get active, and have fun while doing it.  They've helped build playgrounds and community gardens in neighborhoods all across this country.  And even earlier this year, they got me to do the platypus walk.  (Laughter.)  Yes, dancing with about 1,500 kids down in Disney World. 

So we're all willing to do our part.  And leaders at Disney are doing all of this not just as parents and as grandparents who care about the health and well-being of their kids and the future of this nation, but, as Bob said, they're also doing it as corporate leaders who care about the bottom line.  And that's a very important point to make. 

They have listened to parents who are more and more concerned about what their kids are eating.  They've seen the market shifting as folks are increasingly interested in buying healthier food, and they’ve seen the momentum building all across this country on behalf of our children’s health.  And they’ve realized that what is good for our children can also be good business. 

So I hope that businesses all across this country will understand this as well, and, even more importantly, I hope that parents will take notice when companies like Disney do the right thing for our kids.  Because as parents, it isn’t enough to just ask for change.  It’s not enough just to make the right choices for our kids.  We also need to support those companies who are listening to us, because if we do that as parents and consumers, if we make a statement not just with our voices but also with our feet and with our wallets, then we will keep seeing the changes that we hope for.  We will keep seeing more choices available for our kids. 

We’re going to keep seeing more days like today, which is what we’re working for.  And that is what is going to take us to the finish line and get us where we want to go on this issue.  That’s what it’s going to take to ensure that our children can grow up healthy and reach their full potential. 

And I say this all time -- we know it won’t be easy, but everything that I have seen since we started Let’s Move gives me hope.  Every day I am hearing from someone who wants to get involved -- school districts revamping their menus; communities planting gardens; food companies reducing the sugar, salt and fat in their foods; nationwide chains building grocery stores in underserved communities; leaders from both parties in Congress coming together to fund healthy school lunches. 

And more importantly, every day I am getting wonderful letters from kids who tell me about how they’re eating healthier -- the same things that Bob is seeing in his research, I’m seeing it anecdotally.  Kids telling me about how they’re getting more exercise and how they’re loving every minute of it.  They want to be healthy.  They’re excited about improving their lives.  That is the change that all of us are making together.  That’s why every day I am more hopeful.  Every day I’m more confident than ever that we can get this done and we can give all of our kids the healthy futures they deserve.

So today, again, I want to once again thank Disney for taking this monumental step forward and setting the bar very high.  And I look forward to standing with even more businesses and partners who support the health of America’s families in the months and years ahead.  And I can’t wait to see the difference that it makes for our children and for our country.

So thank you all.  Thank you, Bob.  Congratulations and God bless.  (Applause.)

END
11:23 A.M. EDT

Remarks by President Obama and President Clinton at a Campaign Event

Waldorf Astoria Hotel
New York, New York

8:40 P.M. EDT

PRESIDENT CLINTON:  Thank you.  (Applause.)  Thank you very much.  I am the warm-up act for the President.  (Laughter.)  And I will attempt to bring him on while you're still warm.  (Laughter.) 

I want to thank Eric Schneiderman for his lucid statement of the case of what's at stake in this election, and for his exceptional service to the state of New York.  Thank you, Assemblyman Keith Wright, and thank you, Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner, for co-chairing this dinner.  And, Representative Carolyn Maloney, thank you very much for your friendship and everything you've done.  (Applause.)  And I believe on his last day as chairman of the New York State Democratic Party -- thank you, Jay Jacobs, for being one of the best Democratic chairmen in the entire nation.  (Applause.) 

I want to thank my longtime friend, Jon Bon Jovi, for performing and for always being there for us.  (Applause.) 

Now, here's what I want to say to you.  Most of my life now has nothing to do with politics.  You know that.  I work on my foundation; I work around the world; I work in America.  I work with Democrats and Republicans and independents, and half the time I don't know who I'm working with, politically.  But I do spend two hours a day still studying the economic trends around the world and studying what is going on in America.  And I care about the long-term debt of the country a lot.  Remember me?  I'm the only guy that gave you four surplus budgets out of the eight I sent.  (Applause.)  So I hope what I say to you will have some weight, because I want you to say it to everybody you see between now and November.

I don't think it's important to reelect the President; I think it is essential to reelect the President -- (applause) -- if we want this country to have the kind of future that our children and grandchildren deserve.  And here's why.

When I left office, we returned to the trickle-down policies -- big tax cuts, mostly for people of my income group -- I love saying this because I never had any money until I got out of the White House.  (Laughter.)  Maybe that's why I don't mind paying those taxes -- since I never had it before I don't know what it was like.  (Laughter.) 

And we doubled our debt of the country again.  And then, after totally anemic growth for seven years and eight months, on the day before the financial collapse, median family income was $2,000 lower than it was the day I left office, while the cost of health care had gone up three times the rate of inflation, college twice the rate of inflation. 

Then all of a sudden, September 15th comes and goes and poof!  The good news was for President Obama is that he was elected President on September 15, 2008.  He's the only person in the history of the country ever to be elected President before the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.  (Laughter.) 

The bad news is he was elected President on September 15, 2008 -- (laughter) -- in the teeth of the worst recession since the Great Depression, a financial collapse of enormous proportion.  In the last 500 years, such financial collapses have taken on average five to 10 years to get over -- and when they're deep and big and accompanied by mortgage collapse, almost always 10 years. 

He set about to try to keep his original dream, to return broad-based prosperity, to return the reality of the American Dream to our country, and to do it in a way that made a world with more partners and fewer adversaries.  And he did it under unimaginably difficult circumstances -- 800,000 jobs were lost the month he was sworn in as President.  And it is my opinion that he has performed extremely well under very, very difficult circumstances.  (Applause.)  And I want to tell you why.  (Applause.)
 
So he set about to do what was necessary to prevent a financial collapse again, to put a floor under the recession and to begin to create jobs again, to save a million or more state and local jobs of teachers and health care workers and people who work for fire and police departments.  He set about to bring American manufacturing back, to make America a leading nation in the green energy revolution -- which is sweeping the globe and which only the American Republican Party seems to deny is necessary. 

And he set about to reform health care, knowing it was a moral, a health, and an economic issue because we are now spending almost 18 percent of our income on health care.  None of our major competitors is over 11.8 percent.  That’s $1 trillion a year that could be going to pay-raises for the middle class.  It could be going for small businesses to hire new people.
 
And he did it while trying to make college more affordable, because we had dropped from first to 15th in the world in the last decade in the percentage of our young adults graduating with degrees.  And while doing that, he presented a plan to deal with the long-term debt of the country, understanding that when you have a total financial collapse -- interest rates are zero, no private demand, no private investment -- you can’t have austerity now. 

You remember those surplus budgets?  They came about for three reasons -- spending control, adequate revenues and economic growth.  If you do not have economic growth, no amount of austerity will balance the budget, because you will always have revenues go down more than you can possibly cut spending.  (Applause.)
 
And so what he did was to say growth today, restraint in a big way tomorrow; here's my 10-year budget.  So growth in jobs today, build the economy, then take the burden of the debt off our children’s future, and avoid the exploding interest rates and the declining living standards that it would impose on their future. 

So where are we?  Oh, and by the way, he offered a politics of cooperation.  He said, you Republicans start off with that individual mandate.  We’ll do health care reform that way.  All of a sudden, they weren’t for it anymore.  He said, let’s have a bipartisan deficit reduction commission.  And when it came to a vote in the Senate, all the Republicans who co-sponsored the bill were forced to vote against it by their party.  It’s the first I ever saw somebody sponsor a bill and vote against it.

And I could give you lots and lots of other -- he said, let’s have an infrastructure bank so we can have private and public capital like other countries do.  It’s a great return on investment.  It’s always been a bipartisan area.  Once he was for it, they were all against it.  Besides, it might put somebody to work and help him get reelected.  (Laughter.)

So where are we in spite of that?  In the last 27 months, this economy has produced 4.3 million private sector jobs.  (Applause.)  That is about what it produced on a monthly basis during my two terms, coming back.  Why did the numbers show 3.7 million?  Because the Congress refused to pass his bill to send money to states and localities to keep the teachers on the job, to keep the firefighters and the police officers on the job.  I was in Wisconsin a couple of days ago -- 73 percent of the school districts have laid teachers off.
 
That’s the austerity policy.  It isn’t good economics.  The Obama policy is.  That 4.3 million private sector jobs is -- listen to this -- 60 percent more private jobs than came into this economy in the seven years and eight months of the previous administration before the financial meltdown.  And you need to tell people that.  (Applause.)

And what happened with manufacturing?  It’s growing again for the first time since the '90s.  There was an article in the paper today that said, oh, we’re going to have 2 or 3 million manufacturing jobs within three more years.  In seven or eight or nine areas, jobs flooding back into this country. 

What happened in clean energy?  Governor Romney goes out to a company that had a loan that didn’t work out and says, oh, this is a whole bust.  Here’s what I know.  We ranked first or second in the world in every major scientific survey in the capacity to generate electricity from the sun and the wind.  During the worst of the meltdown, clean-energy jobs grew twice as fast as the rest of the economy, paid 35 percent more. 

This weekend, Germany became the first country in history to generate 22 gigawatts of electricity from the sun.  That doesn’t mean much to you, so I’ll tell you in plain language what it means.  That’s as much as 20 big nuclear power plants.  (Applause.)  And they have generated over 300,000 new jobs out of it.  They’re a fourth our size, and only half as capable to generate solar energy.  If we did what they did, that’s a million jobs alone.  Now, that’s what President Obama has done on the jobs front.  (Applause.) 

And where he could cooperate with people -- the automakers, management and labor -- they restructured the auto industry and what happened?  We have 80,000 more people working making cars today than we did the day he took office, and we saved 1.5 million jobs that would have gone right down the tubes if those two companies had failed.  (Applause.)  America is back in the car business.  (Applause.) 

And then labor, management, the environmental groups and the government got together and agreed on a schedule to raise the car mileage standards, to double them, and guess what -- it will create 150,000 new high-tech jobs.

In health care -- just before you roll over and play dead on this issue, let me just give you two or three issues -- facts here.  For the last few years, for the first time in 50 years, health care inflation has been at 4 percent.  Hasn’t been that low in 50 years.  It’s been killing people, economically.  (Applause.)  Americans got $1.3 billion in refunds on their insurance policy -- because you’ve got to spend 85 percent of your premium on your health care now -- and that’s not counting California, they’re not reported in yet -- 2.6 million young people 26 years of age or younger are on their parent's policy now, all because of the health care bill the President signed.  (Applause.) 

I spend a lot of time with people in the health care business -- with doctors and people who manage medical practices, with people who manage hospitals, and people who manage insurance plans.  I don’t know anybody that wants to repeal Obamacare.  Not anybody.  I don’t know anybody who doesn’t believe that we shouldn’t start paying for performance, not for procedure in health care, and improve our quality and bring our costs in line with our competitors.  And that’s what people in the health care business are doing today because that law passed.  (Applause.)

And finally, never a day goes by I don’t see some article about the burden of student loans.  But when President Obama’s student loan reform is fully implemented, the cost of the loans will go down and no one will ever have to drop out of college again because of the cost.  Because now everybody will be able to pay their loans back as a small, fixed percentage of their income for up to 20 years.  Do you understand what that means?  That one bill can take us back to number one in the world in college graduates again because nobody -- nobody -- will ever have to drop out again.  (Applause.)

And his plan to reduce the debt has extraordinary spending restraint -- including in Medicare -- has modest tax increases, and is phased in as we grow the economy. 

Now, his opponent, who says that he’s got a better idea, was the governor of the state that was 47th in the country in job growth.  He promised that if elected he would grow the economy and reduce the debt, and when he left office the debt of the state was going up.  And his plan -- his plan is to go back to the Bush program, except on steroids.  (Laughter.)  Cut out everything that helps middle-class people, cut out everything that helps poor people work their way to the middle class. 

And all of the objective analyses, the non-partisan analyses, say that every Republican plan, including the nominee for the President’s plan, would add $1 trillion to $2 trillion to what the debt is going to be over the next 10 years if we don’t do anything.  And all of the objective plans say that if the President’s plan were implemented, it would reduce the debt by several trillion dollars over what it’s going to be if we don’t do anything.

But he’s got the order right, President Obama does.  Growth now; restraint later.  The Romney/Republican plan is austerity and more unemployment now, and blow the lid off later, just at the time when we’ll be worried about high interest rates. 

What’s the difference here?  Shared prosperity versus continued austerity and high unemployment.  A politics of cooperation versus constant conflict and divide and conquer. 

Listen, this is a big, clear election.  Also, for me, it’s important to say, in my opinion, he’s done an amazing job making our country more secure, more safe, more peaceful, and building a world with more partners and fewer adversaries.  And that is very, very important.  (Applause.)

And he’s had to get all this done while people as recently as last week were still saying he wasn’t born in America.  (Laughter.)  He’s had to get all this done with a House of Representatives that had one of the tea party members claim that 78 to 81 members of the Democratic caucus were members of the Communist Party.  And neither the presidential nominee, nor any of the leaders rebuked him for saying that.  This is not the 1950s.  At least Joe McCarthy could skate on the fact that there was one or two living Communists walking around.  (Laughter.)  Nobody has seen a Communist in over a decade.  (Laughter and applause.)

No criticism is too vicious and too fact-free.  You have to take the facts out there -- take the facts on the economy, the facts on health care, the facts on energy, the facts on education.  And the fact is we’ve got an economic policy that has a real chance to bring America back.  Why do you think long-term interest rates -- remember the Republicans said, oh, that Obama, he’s such a big spender, we’re going to have a weak dollar and interest rates are going to go through the roof.  You know what the 10-year Treasury note interest rate was today?  One-quarter of 1 percent.  We ought to all go buy one.  They're giving away the money.  (Laughter.)   

Now, you’re laughing.  But why are they doing that?  Because people believe America has a solid economic strategy for the long run.  And who would have ever thought that the Republicans would embrace the austerity and jobless policies of what they used to derisively call “old Europe.”  I never thought I’d live to breathe and see, here they are saying, let’s do the eurozone’s economic policy -- they got 11 percent unemployment; we can get up there if we work at it.  (Laughter.) 

We’re laughing, folks, this is serious.  Too much of politics is fact-free.  Just think about the world you want your children and your grandchildren to live in.  Think about what the 21st century can be.  Remember there is nothing wrong with America that can't be fixed, and our inherent advantages including our diversity, our relative youth, the strength of our system are there.  But you got to have the right captain of the ship.  And I am depending on you to take care of future generations by making sure that that captain is President Barack Obama. 

Bring him on.  (Applause.)

PRESIDENT OBAMA:  I love New York!  (Applause.)  Thank you! Well, thank you, everybody.  (Applause.)  Thank you.  Thank you so much.  Thank you.  (Applause.)  Everybody have a seat.

AUDIENCE:  Four more years!

PRESIDENT OBAMA:  Thank you.  I plan on getting four more years -- because of you.  (Applause.) 

Let me just say some thank-yous at the front here.  First of all, you've got an outstanding Attorney General -- please give Eric Schneiderman a big round of applause.  (Applause.)  He is doing the right thing on behalf of consumers and working people all across this great state and having an influence all across the country.

I want to thank my dear friend, Jon Bon Jovi, who has -- (applause) -- been a great supporter for a long, long time.  I have to say that the only thing worse than following Jon is following Jon and Bill Clinton.  (Laughter.) 

I want to acknowledge -- Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney is here.  Where is Carolyn?  (Applause.)  Thank you, Carolyn.  Party Chair Jacobs, thanks for the great work you've done.  I want to thank all of you who helped to make this event possible tonight.

And most of all, I want to thank the guy behind me here. 
President Clinton and I had a chance to talk over dinner before we came out, and we talk about a lot of things.  We talk about basketball.  (Laughter.)  We talk about our daughters, and agree that you can't beat daughters.  (Applause.)  Sons who are out there, we love you, too -- (laughter) -- but I'm just saying, we bond on that front.  We both agree that we have improved our gene pool because we married outstanding women.  (Applause.) 

But whatever the topic, whatever the subject, what I was reminded of as I was talking to President Clinton is just how incredibly passionate he is about this country and the people in it.  You don’t talk to Bill without hearing at least 30 stories about extraordinary Americans who are involved in clean energy, or starting a whole new project to teach kids math, or figuring out how to build some new energy-efficient building, or you name it.  And it's that passion and connection that he has to the American people that is infectious.  And it's a curiosity and a love for people that is now transforming the world. 

And so I could not be prouder to have called him President.  I could not be prouded to know him as a friend.  And I could not be more grateful for him taking the time to be here tonight.  (Applause.)  And I thank him for putting up with a very busy Secretary of State.  (Laughter and applause.) 

Now, the reason I’m here tonight is not just because I need your help.  It’s because the country needs your help.  If you think about why we came together back in 2008, it wasn’t about me.  It wasn’t even necessarily just about the Democratic Party. It was about a common set of values that we held dear; a set of beliefs that we had about America -- a belief that if you’re willing to work hard, in this country you should be able to make it.  You should be able to find a job that pays a living wage.  You should be able to own a home, send your kids to college, retire with dignity and respect, not go bankrupt when you get sick; that everybody in this country -- regardless of what you look like, where you come from, whether you’re black, white, gay, straight, Hispanic, disabled, not -- doesn’t matter, if you’re willing to put in the effort this is a place where you make dreams happen.  And by you putting in that effort, not only do you do well for yourself but you build the country in the process.

And we had seen that those values were eroding, a sense that that bedrock compact that we make with each other was starting to diminish.  We had seen a surplus, a historic surplus, wasted away on tax cuts for folks who didn’t need them and weren’t even asking for them.  Suddenly surpluses turned to deficits.  We had seen two wars fought on a credit card.  We had seen a recklessness of a few almost bring the entire system to collapse.
And there was a sense that, although a few of us were doing really, really well, that you had a growing number of folks who were struggling just to get by no matter how hard they worked. 

So what we set out to do in 2008 was reclaim that basic American promise.  And it wasn’t easy, and many of you who supported me certainly -- you guys didn't do it because it was easy.  When you support a guy named Barack Hussein Obama for the presidency you know that's not a sure thing.  (Laughter.)  But you did it because you sensed that the country was ready for change.

Now, we didn't know at the time -- we knew that there had been a decade of problems, that since this man had left office we had been going in the wrong direction.  We didn't realize how this would culminate in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.  As Bill said, the month I was sworn in, 800,000 jobs lost.  We had lost 3 million before the election had even taken place. 

But we didn't give up.  We didn't quit, because that's not what the American people do.  And so all across this country, you had folks who just dug in.  They focused on what was necessary.  And I do believe we implemented the right policies.  When folks said that we should let Detroit go bankrupt, we said, no, we’re not going to let over a million jobs go.  We’re not going to let an iconic industry waste away.  (Applause.) 

And so we brought workers together and management, and now GM is back on top, and we’ve seen more growth in the U.S. auto industry and more market share than we’ve seen in a very, very long time.  And manufacturing is coming back.  (Applause.)  Even though that decision wasn’t popular, we made the right decision. 
We made the right decision in starting to free up credit again so that companies could borrow and small businesses could keep their doors open.  We made the right decision when it came to ensuring that all across this country states got help to keep teachers and firefighters and police officers on the job.  We made the right decision in making sure that we used this opportunity to rebuild big chunks of America -- our roads and our bridges and our rail lines. 

So we made a lot of good policy decisions.  But the reason we came back is ultimately because of the American people, because of their resilience and their strength.  They made it happen.  They decided, you know what, maybe I'll retrain for school.  A small business decided, I'm going to keep my doors open even though it's very hard to make payroll right now. 

One of the great privileges of being President is you go to every corner of the country and you see people from every walk of life, and it makes you optimistic about the American people.  Even over these last three and a half years, as tough as things have been, it made me more optimistic about the American people, that we have all the ingredients for success.

It's because of them that we've seen more than 4 million jobs created, more than 800,000 jobs just this year alone.  It's because of them that we're seeing more manufacturing jobs coming back than any time since the 1990s. 

But -- and this is where you come in -- all that work that we've done, all that effort, that stands to be reversed because we've had an opposition that has had a fundamentally different vision of where we should take America.  They had it from the day I was sworn in.  They made a determination that politics would trump what was needed to move this country forward.  And they have tried to put sand in the gears in Congress ever since.

And now they've got a nominee who is expressing support for an agenda that would reverse the progress we've made and take us back to the exact same policies that got us into this mess in the first place.  And the reason we're here today is because we're not going back.  We're going forward.  (Applause.)  We have worked too hard and too long to right the ship and move us in the right direction.  We're not going backwards, we're going forwards.  (Applause.)  That's what we're doing, New York.  And we're going to do it with your help!  (Applause.)

Now, the reason that they think they may be able to pull this off is because things are still tough.  There are a lot of folks still hurting out there; too may folks still looking for work, too many people whose homes are still underwater.  So we know we've got more to do.  That's why I'm running again, because our job isn't finished yet.  And this election in some ways is going to be even more consequential than 2008, because the choices are going to be starker this time. 

Keep in mind, when I ran in 2008, I was running against a Republican who believed in climate change, believed in immigration reform, believed in campaign finance reform, had some history of working across the aisle.  We had profound disagreements, but even during the midst of the financial crisis there was an agreement of the need for action -- to create jobs and create growth early. 

We don’t have that this time.  My opponent, Governor Romney, is a patriotic American.  He has seen enormous financial success, and God bless him for that.  He has got a beautiful family.  But his vision of how you move this country forward is what Bill Clinton said -- the same agenda as the previous administration, except on steroids.  So it's not enough just to maintain tax cuts for the wealthy, we're going to double tax cuts.  We're going to do even more of the same.  It's not enough just to roll back the regulations that we put in place to make sure that, for example, the financial system is transparent and working effectively so we don’t have taxpayer bailouts anymore, we're going to do even more to eliminate regulations that have kept our air clean and our water clean and protected our kids for 20, 30 years. 

When you look at the budget that they've put forward, they're not just talking about rolling back Obamacare; they're talking about rolling back the New Deal.  (Laughter.)  And that’s not an exaggeration. 

And so there's an enormous amount at stake.  And we're going to have to make sure that in this election, we are describing clearly what's at stake.  And we shouldn’t be afraid of this debate, because we've got the better argument.  We have got the better argument.

It's not just a matter of being able to say the change that we brought about in lifting the auto industry back, that’s something we're proud of.  It's not just the 4.3 million jobs.  It's not just the fact that 2.5 million young people have health insurance that didn’t have it before.  It's not just the fact that, as a consequence of our policies, millions of young people are getting Pell grants and have the capacity to go to college who didn’t have it before.  It's not just the track record I've amassed over the last three-and-a-half years that I am proud of. But it’s also the fact that when you look at our history, America has not grown, it has not prospered, it has not succeeded with a philosophy that says, "you’re all on your own." 

That's not how we built this country.  The reason we became an economic superpower is because for all our individual initiative, all our entrepreneurship, all our belief in personal responsibility, despite all those things, what we’ve also understood is there’s certain things we do better together.  Creating a public school system that works so that everybody gets educated -- we understand that.  (Applause.) 

The first Republican President understanding we built a Transcontinental Railroad to stitch this country together -- he understood that there’s certain things we do better together.  Investments in the National Academy of Sciences, investment in land grant colleges.  Eisenhower building the Interstate Highway System.  My grandfather and his generation going to college on the GI Bill.  Building the Hoover Dam, building the Golden Gate Bridge -- these things we did together.  And it created a platform where everybody had a chance, everybody got a fair shot, everybody did their fair share, everybody played by the same rules.

If you look at our history, the reason why we have the best capital markets in the world, the reason why Wall Street is the center of finance -- because we had rules in place that made us the most transparent, where investors could trust if they put their money there they weren’t going to be cheated.  You had a strong SEC.  You had FDIC.  You had an entire infrastructure that allowed our capital markets to thrive.  That's been a strength; not a weakness. 

Throughout our history, there have been certain things that we have to do together.  And what was true in the past is true now as well.  So that’s what’s at stake in this election.  I’m not going to go back to the days when suddenly our young people can’t afford to go to college just to pay for tax cuts for me and Bill Clinton. 

We’re not going to go back to the day where 30 million people can’t get health insurance despite working two jobs; where young people can’t stay on their parent’s policies, or seniors suddenly find prescription drugs more expensive again.  We’re not going to go back to the days when suddenly women don’t have preventive care, or we eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood. We’re not going back to those days.  I want my daughters to have the same opportunities as our sons.  And I want our women to have the same ability to control their health care decisions as anybody else.  We’re not going backwards.  (Applause.)

We’re not going to go back to the days when you couldn’t serve in our military and at the same time admit who it is that you loved.  (Applause.)  We’re moving forward with an agenda of dignity and respect for everybody. 

We’re not going to go back to the days when folks thought somehow there was a conflict between economic growth and looking after our environment and good stewardship for the next generation.  We’re not going back to those days.  (Applause.)

But we're going to have to fight for it.  This is not going to be an easy race.  Because of the Citizens United decision we’re seeing hundreds of millions of dollars spent, unprecedented numbers.  We haven’t seen this kind of spending.  There’s never been this amount of negative spending before.  There was a brief -- a newspaper just printed somebody had evaluated negative ads  -- 70 percent of our ads have been positive; 70 percent of their ads have been negative.  And I suspect that ratio could become even more pronounced as the weeks go by. 

And as I said, folks out there are still anxious and they’re still scared about the future.  And so what the other side is counting on is fear and frustration, that hat in and of itself is going to be good enough -- because they’re sure not offering any new ideas.  All they’re offering is the same old ideas that didn’t work then and won’t work now. 

Even when it comes to their big issue of deficits and debt, as President Clinton just mentioned, the truth is, is that the two Presidents over the last 30 years, 40 years, who’ve had the lowest increases in government spending, you’re looking at them right here.  (Applause.)  They're on this stage.  They are on this stage.  (Applause.)

And the agenda that we’ve put forward -- which says let’s put people to work right now rebuilding our roads and our bridges and putting teachers back in the classroom to accelerate growth now at the same time as we couple it with long-term spending restraint -- that's a recipe that works.  We’ve seen it work before.  We saw it work in the ‘90s.  There’s no reason why it wouldn’t work now.  And that will allow us to make sure that we can still invest in our future.

As I travel around the world -- and I know President Clinton does, as well -- you talk to people; nothing gets me more frustrated when I hear sometimes reports in the press about America’s decline, because around the world there’s nobody who wouldn’t trade places with us.  (Applause.)  We’ve got the best universities, the most productive workers, the best entrepreneurs, the best scientists.  We’ve got all the ingredients we need to make it work.  Now we just need the best politics.  Now we just need the best politics.  (Applause.)  And that's what this election is going to be all about.

So the bottom line is this:  All of you, you're going to have to work not just as hard as we did in 2008, we’re going to need you to work harder.  One of the things we learned in 2008 is for all the negative ads, for all the rough-and-tumble of politics, for all the distortions and just plain nonsense that you sometimes hear, when folks come together, when citizens come together and insist that it’s time for a change, guess what -- change happens. 

And what was true then is just as true now.  And I want you guys to know that it is true that my hair is grayer -- I haven’t quite caught up to Bill yet -- (laughter) -- but I’m getting there.  Those of us who have this awesome privilege of holding this office, we end up showing a few dings and dents along the way.  That's inevitable.  But I am more determined now than I was in 2008.  (Applause.)  I am more inspired by America now than I even was then, because I've seen more of this country, and I've seen its strength and I've seen its passion.  I've seen what's possible. 

I've seen the changes we've already brought.  And it shouldn’t make us complacent, but it should make us confident about the changes that we can bring about in the future.  (Applause.)  It means that we're going to be able to do even more to double clean energy.  It means we're going to be able to do even more to bring back manufacturing.  We're going to be able to do more to put people back to work.  We're going to be able to make sure that we're a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants. 
All those things on our checklist that we haven't yet gotten done we will get done.  But we're only going to get it done because of you.  I'm only going to get it done because of you.  (Applause.)

You know, I used to say that I'm not a perfect man -- Michelle will tell you -- and I'll never be a perfect President. No President is.  But I promised you I would always tell you what I thought, I'd always tell you where I stood, and I'd wake up every single day just thinking about how I can make the lives of the American people a little bit better, and I'd work as hard as I knew how to make that happen.  And I have kept that promise.  I have kept that promise because I still believe in you.  And I hope you still believe in me.  (Applause.)

Because if you're willing to join me this time out, and knock on doors, and make phone calls, and get out there and talk to your friends and talk to your neighbors, I promise you we will finish what we started in 2008.  (Applause.)  We will not go backward.  We will go forward.  And we will remind the entire world just why it is the United States of America is the greatest nation on Earth.

Thank you, New York.  I love you.  God bless you.  God bless America.  (Applause.)

END
9:28 P.M. EDT

Remarks by Vice President Joe Biden at the Cypress Bay High School Graduation Ceremony

Marlins Park
Miami, Florida

5:18 P.M. EST

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Thank you all very much. (Applause.) Please, please be seated.

As a kid, this was my dream, standing at home plate at a major league ballpark, not as a speaker but as a batter. But I had to settle for becoming Vice President. (Laughter.)

Ladies and gentlemen, parents, the graduating class, grandparents, brothers and sisters, what a great day for all of you, the parents of those graduating today. To you, Principal Neely, affectionately known as the “Big Kahuna” -- (laughter) -- to the administrators, the faculty, this entire community, this is truly a remarkable school. What you’ve built in 10 years is amazing.

When Debbie asked me a while ago whether I would come down and be your commencement speaker, I was honored. But as she started to tell me about the school, I began to wonder whether or not she was just overselling to get me to come the day after my daughter’s wedding.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, you are absolutely amazing, and nothing is more amazing than you students. (Applause.) Class of 2012, you are a remarkable, remarkable group of graduates. (Applause.)

As we’ve heard from your principal, you haven’t just distinguished yourself on the field; you’ve distinguished yourself in every field: soccer championships, tennis championships, math championships, more AP tests than I can count and nationally ranked debaters.

More importantly, from my observation, it’s the atmosphere you’ve created here that has enabled you to excel; an atmosphere of acceptance and support for one another; a cohesion that is rare in any school, much less a school as big as this one.

If you can take that attitude with you –- the attitude where you don’t simply tolerate differences of background and opinion, you accept it, you even solicit the differences -- if you can take that with you, it will be one of the keys for your success in life, because there is nothing, nothing your world is going to need more than being able to accept, support, and work with people with very different views.

As the world shrinks, what happens in a remote province of Pakistan or Nigeria or Brazil is known by the entire world within a matter of minutes. The democratic movement that has swept across the Middle East, the so-called Arab Spring, began when a simple fruit vendor set himself on fire to protest a corrupt government. And a wildfire spread across a quarter of the world, a confrontation that was magnified by social media, and has set off a revolution. Isolation is obsolete today, even where it may still be desired.

But here’s the thing: As the world shrinks, the cultural divides in the world do not shrink. The lines marking cultural and religious differences do not blur. In fact, those lines become more stark as we confront those differences up close.

And those lines don’t have to be halfway across the world. You know that. They can be in your neighborhood or in your school. You can see them in the hallways, in the cafeteria, in the locker next to yours.

At the same time, the same technology that can inspire a democratic movement across the Middle East -- well, it can also bring a school or a community together or it can tear it apart. Information today moves fast, and the world you’re about to enter it will move even faster.

But so does gossip. You can build lifelong friendships and loyalties or tear someone down. Tolerance, respect and understanding are not some obsolete old notions that don’t matter anymore. In the new world you’re inheriting, they will matter more than they ever did in the history of mankind.

You know, there’s a lot of talk these days that America’s future is not as bright as its past. But I’m here to tell you don’t believe that not for a single moment. Class of 2012, you’re going to live through a period of the most remarkable and rapid technological, scientific and medical breakthroughs in the history of mankind. And we’re going to lead those changes from America. And you’re going to lead those changes as you leave this school.

So, don’t sell yourself short. Don’t think small. Don’t give in to the cynicism, the pettiness and the negativity that so often pervades our public discourse. Believe in yourself, and believe in the promise of this country.

And, imagine. That’s my simple advice to you today: Imagine. Imagine the progress you will see and achieve in your lifetime. Imagine the breakthroughs that are on the horizon and just beyond it.

Imagine, by the time you’re in a position to buy your first home, putting a roof of solar shingles that will cost no more than today’s ordinary shingles, will be able to power your home –- heating, cooling, running appliances -- at a fraction of the cost your parents pay today.

Imagine a day within your lifetime when doctors can and will engineer your white blood cells to attack cancer cells, and leave healthy cells untouched, allowing cancer patients to live out a full life without undergoing the difficulties some of you observe -- painful chemotherapy and radiation procedures.

Imagine the day, when in your lifetimes, doctors are able to regenerate entire body organs and limbs that have been damaged and lost -- not only saving tens of thousands of lives, but restoring the thousands of our Iraq and Afghan veterans coming back in need of prostheses, so they’ll be able to live a full and ambulatory life.
 
As an aside, in the future -- just one example -- using 3D printers, we’re going to be able to restore tissue after traumatic injury or a burn, restore it back to its original state. It’s literally around the corner.

Imagine a world in which hunger is vanquished by crops that don’t depend on the soil, water, or fertilizer or pesticides to thrive. They’re just around the corner. Imagine famine being a memory, and with it, the end of so much war and conflict that plagues so many parts of the world.
 
Imagine a world in which nations no longer depend on nuclear weapons for their defense.
 
And imagine a day when the lightweight materials, cleaner fuels, advanced engines simultaneously make our air cleaner, allowing us to go the equivalent of hundreds of miles to the gallon and maybe most importantly, freeing us from our dependence on foreign oil and all that entails for our nation. And imagine when your “senior spots” are all charging stations, powering up cars that can go hundreds of miles on a single charge.
 
What we imagine today, you will build tomorrow. And when you do, it will be revolutionary not only for your generation, but for this nation.

In this new world, you have a great advantage over so many others. And that advantage was instilled in you right here at Cypress Bay. You may not have seen it, you may not have recognized it, known it was even happening -- but it was, because beyond your academic excellence, here is what will separate those of you who will succeed from those of who will fail. And that is your ability to be able to discern between what’s noble and what is ignoble, between what is pure arrogance and what is done to genuinely help the lives of human beings.

You will need an appreciation and a capacity for tolerance, a tolerance of different traditions and different views. You will need an ability and a willingness to recognize that people pursue truth in different ways. You will need an innate skepticism about those who claim they have the answer when it comes to what is true and right.

The United States is at this moment, as a former President said, and I quote, “the indispensable nation,” not because we’re perfect, but because we’re tolerant, because we’re open. We reach out to others. We understand we cannot afford to waste anyone’s talents. And what makes -- and that’s the very thing that makes you the “indispensable generation”.

You’ll be at the forefront as we leave two wars behind us. You will be at the forefront in shaping whether the age in front of us is an age of deepening conflict or increasing tolerance. You will be determining not only the future of this country, but what its heart and soul is.

That’s why I started this speech by saying that what is most remarkable about you is the atmosphere of acceptance and support for one another, tolerance. I said at the beginning that technological change can cause cultural clashes. When I was a kid in grade school, it was the television that showed all of America how black America was being treated. When Bull Connor sicced his dogs on women and children peacefully assembling in their Sunday best, it awakened an entire nation and inspired my generation, a generation most of whom had never seen anything like that before.
 
And many people of my parents’ generation and mine wondered, would we ever be able to bring this country together, to live together? Would we ever be able to have real equality in the face of that kind of brutality that the television screen brought into our living rooms?

The Civil Rights movement -- which I was involved in, in my little small way at home -- reached a calamitous point when I was graduating from law school. Dr. Martin Luther king was assassinated in Memphis three months before my graduation day. There were riots in many cities in America, including my own. Wilmington, Delaware was burning. As a young public defender, I still imagined, with my generation, that we could heal this God-awful situation; that we could rise out of the ashes, and maybe find a way out together.

But the cynics told us we couldn’t. Then, 40 years from the time Dr. King was assassinated, I was standing on a railroad platform in Wilmington, Delaware. It was a January 17th, 2009 -- a bitter, cold, but glorious day. Thousands of people were in the streets of Wilmington and the parking lots, waiting for the same thing I was.

As I stood on that platform and waited, I looked out over my city -- a part of the city that was in chaos when I had returned 40 years earlier, when I imagined and prayed we could live together. I was standing there with those thousands of other people, waiting for a man on a train coming from Philadelphia to pick me up and take me a short 125-mile train ride, a ride I had literally taken several thousand times before as a U.S. senator, to Washington D.C.; only, this time, for a very different purpose, I was being picked up by a friend, and African American friend. Barack Obama. (Applause.)

We were taking -- regardless of your politics; this is not a political comment. It’s about transition in America. We were taking that short ride to be sworn in as President and Vice President of the United States of America. Not only can and do we live together -- we now govern together. That much can change in 40 years. Just think what’s going to change in the next 40 years of your life. (Applause.)

This is a good country. This is a decent and noble country. Your generation will take on the task entrusted to each generation, to give meaning to the central words -– the central challenge -– of our Constitution: “to form a more perfect union.” Because that’s what our country’s journey is all about. That’s what your journey is all about: to form a more perfect union.

And you start this journey better equipped than any graduation class that has come before you. You have the power to create more than the perfect union, and that power resides in you. Not in a laboratory. Not in a computer. But inside you. Don’t forget it. Remember what you learned here about decency, tolerance, reaching out, embracing differences. And if you do, my country, our country, will continue to be the greatest country in the history of mankind.

Congratulations, Cypress Bay [High School] Class of 2012. (Applause.)

END
5:38 P.M. EDT