Obama's Speech on Economic Policy

Full text here.

My vision involves both a short-term plan to help working families who are struggling to keep up and a long-term agenda to make America competitive in a global economy.

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In January, well before the administration seemed to discover ordinary Americans were struggling, I called for a fiscal stimulus plan to get checks in the hands of hard-working families and seniors. Congress passed such a plan and the first checks are now arriving. But since then hundreds of thousands more people have lost their jobs, and so we must do more.

That’s why I’ve called for another round of fiscal stimulus, an immediate $50 billion to help those who’ve been hit hardest by this economic downturn – Americans who have lost their jobs, their homes, and are facing rising costs and cutbacks in state and local services like education and healthcare.

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I’ve called for the immediate creation of a $10 billion Foreclosure Prevention Fund to provide direct relief to victims of the housing crisis. We’ll also help those who are facing foreclosure refinance their mortgages so they can stay in their homes at rates they can afford. I’ll provide struggling homeowners relief by offering a tax credit to low- and middle-income Americans that would cover ten percent of their mortgage interest payment every year.

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We will give every American the chance to get the same kind of health care that Members of Congress give themselves. We’ll bring down premiums by $2500 for the typical family, and we’ll prevent insurance companies from discriminating against those who need care most. And we won’t just lower costs for families, we’ll lower costs for the entire country by making our health care system more efficient through better technology and more emphasis on prevention. That’s the choice in this election, and that’s the change I’ll bring as President.

Just as we need to reform our health care system, we also have to reform a tax code that rewards wealth over work – a 10,000-page monstrosity that high-priced lobbyists have rigged with page after page of special interest loopholes and tax shelters; a tax code that continues George Bush’s billion-dollar giveaways to big corporations and wealthy CEOs; a tax code that has plunged this country deeper and deeper into debt.

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I’ll take a different approach. I will reform our tax code so that it’s simple, fair, and advances opportunity instead of distorting the market by advancing the agenda of some lobbyist or oil company.

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Now, contrary to what John McCain may say, every single proposal that I’ve made in this campaign is paid for – because I believe in pay-as-you-go.

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At the beginning of our marriage, Michelle and I were spending so much of our income just to pay off our college loans. And that was decades ago. The cost of a college education has exploded since then, pricing hundreds of thousands of young Americans out of their dream every year, or forcing them to begin their careers in unconscionable debt. So I’ll offer this promise to every student as President – your country will offer you $4,000 a year of tuition if you offer your country community or national service when you graduate. If you invest in America, America will invest in you.