As an economic historian, I appreciate what manufacturing has contributed to the United States. It was the engine of growth that allowed us to win two world wars and provided millions of families with a ticket to the middle class. But public policy needs to go beyond sentiment and history.
This country of ours, this system of ours, the rule of law, the opportunity to get an education and go as far as your hard work and ambition will take you, and we created the biggest engine of economic growth in the world, the American middle class.
We need a positive economic agenda that invests in the innovation and growth that will create jobs for middle class families and ensure that America remains the world leader.
It is our generation's task, then, to reignite the true engine of America's economic growth - a rising, thriving middle class.
Between France and Senegal there's a history. There's a language that we both speak. There's a culture that we share and to which both of our peoples have contributed. But beyond our history, beyond our language, beyond the links that have united us for so long, what unites us today is the future.
Working together, we will continue to lay the foundation for a new generation of inclusive economic growth, expand economic opportunity for middle-class families, and ensure that innovative businesses have the support they need to thrive and grow in the years to come.
The United States has written the white history of the United States. It now needs to write the black, Latino, Indian, Asian and Caribbean history of the United States.
My plan is based on growing the economy, giving middle-class families many more opportunities. I want us to have the biggest jobs program since World War II, jobs in infrastructure and advanced manufacturing.
A stronger middle class is not the consequence of economic growth. A stronger middle class is the cause of economic growth.
As economic globalization gathers momentum, China and the United States have become highly interdependent economically. Such economic relations would not enjoy sustained, rapid growth if they were not based on mutual benefit or if they failed to deliver great benefits to the United States.
The United States has got to join the rest of the industrialized world in making sure that working families of the middle class have benefits that they absolutely need. We are the only major country on Earth that does not guarantee health care to all people as a right. We are the only major country on Earth that does not provide paid family and medical leave. There are many countries around the world which make sure that public colleges and universities are tuition-free. In our country, it's becoming increasingly difficult to afford to go to college.
While the foreign policy elite in Washington focuses on the 8,000 deaths in a conflict in Syria – half a world away from the United States – more than 47,000 people have died in drug-related violence since 2006 in Mexico. A deeply troubled state as well as a demographic and economic giant on the United States’ southern border, Mexico will affect America’s destiny in coming decades more than any state or combination of states in the Middle East.
The people of the United Kingdom have spoken, and we respect their decision. The special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom is enduring, and the United Kingdom's membership in Nato remains a vital cornerstone of US foreign, security and economic policy.
I think what is true is that there's been an underlying division in the United States. Some of it has to do with the fact that economic growth and recovery tends to be stronger in the cities and in urban areas. In some rural areas, particularly those that were reliant on manufacturing, there has been weaker growth, stagnation, people feeling as if their children won't do as well as they will.
We are the United States of America. And it's our job to rein in the excesses of capitalism so that it doesn't run amok and doesn't cause the kind of inequities we're seeing in our economic system. But we would be making a grave mistake to turn our backs on what built the greatest middle class in the history.
There is a perception across the Middle East that America is weakened. I believe the perception is wrong. The United States remains the world's mightiest military, economic and diplomatic power by far, with reach and abilities beyond rival.
Today's tax cuts provide yet another illustration of the Republicans' fiscally irresponsible economic policies that ignore the needs of America's middle class, students, and working families.