Transcript (starts at 04:24):
When I arrived in Washington about 20 months ago … our hope was that we could pull together, Democrats and Republicans and independents, to confront the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. What we hoped was that we could get beyond some of the old political divides — red states, blue states — that had prevented us from making progress for so long. And we came into this with that spirit because we understood that we’re proud to be Democrats, but we’re prouder to be Americans. (Applause.)
And instead, what we confronted when we arrived was just politics, pure and simple; an opposition party that was still stuck in the same failed policies of the past — whose leaders in Congress were determined from the start to just let us deal with the mess that they had done so much to create.
Their calculation was simple and cynical. They knew that it was going to take a long time to solve the economic challenges we were facing. It was the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. They understood that because it was going to take a long time people would be frustrated. They’d feel anxious. They’d be fearful. And so what the other side calculated was, you know, if we just sit on the sidelines, we let Obama and the Democrats in Congress deal with everything, then we can do well in the polls. That was their theory.
And that’s what they did for the last 20 months. They’ve said no to just about every idea I’ve proposed, every policy I’ve proposed — even ideas they’ve traditionally agreed with. (Laughter.) I’m not exaggerating. I mean, we had situations where they would sponsor bills; I’d say okay; and then they’d say, oh, well, if you’re okay with it we must be against it. (Laughter.) Happened a bunch of times. (Applause.) That’s true.
And because they understood that folks were going to be anxious and fearful they’ve been tapping into that fear. And now the pundits are saying that the base of the Republican Party is mobilized and energized and excited, and that all of us who worked so hard in 2008, well, maybe we’re not as energized, maybe we’re not as engaged.
AUDIENCE: Noooo!
THE PRESIDENT: That’s what they’re saying. I’m just the messenger here. (Laughter.) They say that there is an “enthusiasm gap,” and that the same Republicans and the same policies that left our economy in a shambles and the middle class struggling year after year — that those folks might all ride back into power. That’s the conventional wisdom in Washington.
AUDIENCE: Booo!
THE PRESIDENT: We cannot let that happen. We cannot sit this out. We can’t let this country fall backwards. The stakes are too high. We have to move this country forward for you and your future. (Applause.) So there better not be an enthusiasm gap, people. Not now. (Applause.) Not this time.
The other side would like you to believe that this election is a referendum on me, or on the economy — on anything but them. They are counting on amnesia. (Laughter.) They’re counting that folks don’t remember them. But make no mistake. This election is a choice. And the choice could not be clearer. For the last decade, the Republicans in Washington subscribed to a very simple philosophy: You cut taxes, mostly for millionaires and billionaires. You cut regulations for special interests — whether it’s oil companies or banks or insurance companies. You cut back on investments in education and clean energy, and research and technology. And basically, the idea was that if you had blind faith in the market, if you let corporations play by their own rules, if you let everybody else fend for themselves, including young people, including the next generation, then somehow America would grow and prosper. That was the theory.
Now, look, here’s what we know. The philosophy failed. We tested it. We tried it. We tried it for eight years; it didn’t work. (Applause.) When they were in charge, job growth was slower than it’s been in any decade since World War II. Between 2001 and 2009, middle-class incomes fell by 5 percent. This is when they were in charge. The cost of everything from health care to college tuition just kept on going up. A free-for-all on Wall Street led to the very crisis we’re still digging out of today. And by the way, we went from record surpluses to record deficits.
These are the folks who say that they care about wasteful spending. They took us from a surplus when a Democrat was in charge to big deficits when they were in charge. That’s the truth. Those are the facts.
