Subject: FW: Remarks by the Vice President at a Campaign Event, Oshkosh WI
From: "Chung, Kathy" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>, <[email-masked]>, <[email-masked]>, <[email-masked]>, <[email-masked]>, <[email-masked]>, <[email-masked]>, <[email-masked]>, <[email-masked]>, <[email-masked]>, <[email-masked]>, <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2012 19:29:18 +0000

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Vice President
For Immediate Release                                       October 26, 2012

REMARKS OF VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN
AT A CAMPAIGN EVENT

University of Wisconsin Oshkosh
Oshkosh, Wisconsin

11:14 A.M. CDT

     THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Hello, Oshkosh.  It's great to be with you.

     AUDIENCE:  Four more years!  Four more years!  Four more years!

     THE VICE PRESIDENT:  All we have to do is play like the Titans and this is going to be easy.  (Applause.)  Seven and O, that's not bad, man.  Seven and O.  Wow, I tell you what, ladies and gentlemen, Vice Chancellor, thank you for the hospitality.  And I understand State Senator Jessica King is here.  (Applause.)  Jessica.  And Representative Hintz is there, as well.  (Applause.)  Thank you both for being here.

     Now, as you can tell I'm a very old guy.  (Laughter.)  I got elected to the Senate when I was 29 years old, and I've served with an awful lot of men, but there's not -- and women.  I've never served with anybody who is brighter, more decent and straightforward and more upstanding that Herb Kohl.  Where is Herb Kohl?  (Applause.)  As my mother would say, that is a gentleman.  That is a gentleman.  (Applause.)

Herb, thank you for being here, man.  You're a great friend.  I've served with Kohl -- with Herb Kohl on the Judiciary Committee for years, and his sense of justice is sort of unerring.  Literally, there are so many senators not a joke when uncertain about a difficult vote will go and just talk to Herb.  And I really mean it.  I really mean it -- just talk to him because of just his simple decency.  But the thing you got to learn about Herb, too, he's also -- he's smarter than you.  (Laughter.)  And you learn that early on.

     Before I begin I want to make what we call a public service announcement:  Early voting is available between now and November the 2nd.  (Applause.)  And every town has an early vote location.  You can even register and vote at your early vote location at the same time.  And if you live here in Oshkosh you can vote right after we wrap up here.  Volunteers are going to be available to drive you the convention center to do it if you don't have a ride.  (Applause.)

     Well, folks, the President has now had his third debate with Governor Romney, and I had my one debate with Congressman Ryan.  (Applause.)  I like to debate.  (Laughter.)

     As the President pointed out, these debates have exposed that Governor Romney and Congressman Ryan have a very different foreign policy than we do.  It's sort of right out of the Cold War, right out of the '80s, the Soviet Union.  And these are the same guys -- the Governor actually said that he would have not supported the new arms control agreement with Russia, when every single former Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, National Security Advisor in the Republican Party helped push it through.

     I don't know -- and a social policy.  I guess they got caught up in "Mad Men."  I don't know.  (Laughter.)  Because it's right out of the '50s.  And their economic policy, I hadn't heard it before, but the President characterized it as being right out of the '20s.  (Laughter.)  But I tell you what, it is different.  It's fundamentally different than ours.  It's based on a fundamentally different premise and a profoundly different set of values.

     And I think the American people, it's becoming clear to them how -- what a stark choice this election is.  That's why you saw in that last debate with Governor Romney -- and I mean this sincerely -- he was attempting to rewrite recent history.  I didn't know whether he was there to endorse Barack or to debate him.  (Laughter and applause.)

     Any of you guys see that Jon Stewart show where he had the two of them -- I mean it was like Governor Romney was finishing the President's sentences for him.  (Laughter.)  But really and truly, it was pretty astounding, pretty astounding after saying, ending the war in Iraq was a terrible mistake, I said, God, they were all for it.  And now ending the war in Afghanistan, they're right with us, man.  So that's good.  But my Grandfather Finnegan used to say, Joey, beware of the converted.  (Laughter.)  I don't know.  (Laughter.)

     But the Governor can't run from a record, and he can't run from his policies.  Look, you can't run from the truth.  Eventually it catches you.  And here's the truth about Governor Romney and Congressman Ryan on women's rights, they've made it very clear -- very clear from the outset, they do not think a woman has a right to control her own body.  That's a public policy issue as far as they're concerned.

     AUDIENCE:  Booo!

     THE VICE PRESIDENT:  No, no.  As the President says, I don't need your boos, but I do need your votes.  (Applause.)

     And look, but very seriously, let's take a few examples.  On women's health issues, it's not just about the issue of whether a woman controls her own body; it's whether she has access to health insurance in a fair and equitable way.  Right now -- (applause) -- right now, some of the women here can tell you that they pay twice as much -- 50 percent more for their health insurance for the same insurance a man gets.  They're able to -- that's able to be done up to now.

     And that if you are literally, if you're pregnant, go to get insurance, pregnancy is a preexisting condition.  It sounds like a joke, but it literally is true.  So we changed that all in the Affordable Care Act.  (Applause.)  They want to repeal that.  They want to repeal that.  And look, folks, because time doesn't permit, I'm not even going to get a chance to talk to you about this, but I just want you to imagine:  What do you think the Supreme Court will look like after four years of Governor Romney?

     AUDIENCE:  Booo!

     THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Ladies and gentlemen, look, Governor Romney, he was asked a direct question at the debate.  He was asked a direct question and he said, do you believe women should get equal pay for equal work, and what did he do?  He talked -- started talking about binders.  (Laughter.)  I mean, really, he talked about binders -- binders.  He found out through those binders that there's a lot of qualified women out there.  (Laughter.)  Eureka!  Wow!  (Applause.)  All he had to do was knock on the door of my house and meet my wife and daughter.  He didn't have to go very far.  (Applause.)

Look, and here's the thing, guys.  This is funny if it wasn't so serious -- he never answered the question.  He never answered the question.  But that shouldn't surprise you.  This is a guy whose chief political guy said, no, Romney did not support passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Act.  Congressman Ryan voted against passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Act.

Look, folks, there's something you should be absolutely clear about with us, that Barack and I -- my daughter, Barack's daughters, my four granddaughters, they're entitled to every single opportunity my sons are -- every single opportunity my grandson is.  (Applause.)  Every one.

My son Hunter is with me today and he is the father of my -- three of my four granddaughters.  This isn't a negotiable issue with us.  It's not just a position.  It's not just their position on women they're running away from now, all of a sudden.

Now they're even abandoning the central agenda of the new Republican Party, the thing they've been running on.  And to his credit, and I mean this sincerely, both of these guys are decent men.  They're good fathers.  They're good husbands.  They have just fundamentally different views.  And Congressman Ryan has been a leader in the House.  That's why he was picked, because of his views on budget issues and his views on fiscal issues.  Well, they've already passed the Ryan budget, the Romney-Ryan budget in the House.  We don't have to wonder what it looks like.  It already has been passed -- stopped in the Senate, but passed.

But all of a sudden it's like it never existed.  All of a sudden, Governor Romney no longer has a $5 trillion tax cut, the thing you heard all about.  That must have come as a shock to his Republican colleagues he debated all this time.  He doesn't have that.  He says there is no such thing.  He says, no, it's all content neutral.  When you ask him, okay, how are you going to do that, he says, well, we're going to eliminate those tax exemptions for the very wealthy guys out there.  And then when I asked Congressman Ryan name me one, he couldn't name one.  He said, the math is too complicated to explain in this short amount of time.  (Laughter.)

Hey, man, I got a law degree.  I can get it.  You know what I mean?  I mean, I got it.  (Applause.)  Too complicated?  When Governor Romney was asked, Governor Romney could not name one.  There's only one they did name they wouldn't eliminate.  That's the one that allows Governor Romney to pay 14 percent on $20 million in income.  So the President has a new name for this.  You remember what it is?

AUDIENCE:  Romnesia!

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  He calls it Romnesia.  Man, I tell you, Romnesia.  And, by the way, it is contagious.  Poor Paul caught it.  (Laughter.)  The guy who is known for saying exactly what he means -- standing up there, being principled about this thing.  All of a sudden, he doesn't have a budget he had before.  He doesn't actually -- the new definition, the Ryan-Romney budget -- Romney-Ryan budget now does not eviscerate Medicare, does not cut education.  It does not cut.  He says, no, no, only in Washington when they say cut.  He said it just slows the growth.  (Laughter.)  Well, let me tell you whose growth it slows -- yours.

All you students, how many of you have a Pell grant?  (Applause.)  That's one of the things we're proud of.  Guess what, if they win, your growth is going to be slowed, the growth in you being able to get your education.  They're going to cut 1,000 bucks apiece across the board, 9 million students.  How many of you parents have had to use or had the opportunity to use a tuition tax credit of $2,500 to help you keep your kid in school?  Millions.  (Applause.)

Well, guess what, it's going to slow your growth.  It's going to slow your growth.  Work-study programs, they're all gone.  They've literally -- they've already voted on it, guys.  I'm not making this stuff up.  This has already been voted on and they put their stamp on it and said, no, we can't afford those things.  And Governor Romney said had he been President when that budget passed, he would have signed it into law.  Congressman Ryan is saying, well, he doesn't affect education, Medicare, environmental protection.

Look, folks, that's like Romney telling a guy in an unemployment line, I didn't off-shore your job, I outsourced it or I didn't outsource it, I off-shored it.  Ladies and gentlemen, these guys are -- I hardly recognize them.  Whichever one it is, whether you're -- outsourced your job or off-shored your job, you don't have a job.  And at Bain Capital -- it wasn't me, it was The Washington Post that said he was a pioneer in outsourcing American jobs.

He's not only good at outsourcing American jobs when he was doing it to make money for his investors, which is legitimate.  He outsourced his own money to Switzerland and to offshore banks.  He outsourced -- and now he has somehow -- he says the first thing he's going to do, if you heard at his convention, he said, the first thing I'm going to do when I'm elected, I'm going to take a jobs tour.  Well, he's going to have to make a foreign trip, because that's where he's created all the jobs.  (Laughter and applause.)

And now he's got a new idea for corporate taxes.  He calls it a -- it's called a territorial tax.  A lot of other countries have it.  It means you find a country that can manufacture your product at the cheapest rate, charge you the lowest taxes for the profits you make.  You go there and then you don't have to pay any taxes ever in the United States of America.  That will create, experts point out, 800,000 jobs -- all of them abroad -- I'm not making this up, all of them abroad.  Why would you build a factory in the United States if you can build a factory abroad and all the money you make you never have to pay American taxes?  Where if you build a factory here and you have to pay a fair share, why would you do that?  Or better stated, why would a President want to set that system up to encourage you to do that?

Look, folks, I know this is funny, but it's deadly earnest when we talk about how these guys change so quickly.  Because folks in Wisconsin and Michigan, Ohio, my home state of Delaware who saw their jobs go overseas when Bain Capital was moving them -- lower wages, fewer environmental protections.  People say I'm being unfair to Romney, that when he was at Bain Capital that was his job.  Well, okay, it was his job.  But when he became governor of Massachusetts, nothing changed.  It was demonstrated it was not just his job, it's his philosophy.

Now I'm not making this up.  As Governor of Massachusetts, here's what he did.  His administration signed a contract for $160,000 a month from the taxpayers in Massachusetts to take a call service that existed in the state capital where people who had wondered whether or not they could get help with their Medicare or help with their unemployment or help with any of their benefits would pick up the phone and call to ask for information.  He signed a contract to send all that service overseas.

And so when you picked up the phone, you got a voice in another country answering the phone.  The state legislature came along and vetoed what he did -- I mean, excuse me, and passed a law saying he couldn't do that.  And he vetoed the law.  So the irony of all ironies, the poor son of a gun -- the woman, single mom calling to see when she just lost her job because it had been off-shored calls and gets a voice from another country could not help but think, if I had that job, I wouldn't have to be making this call.  (Applause.)

Ladies and gentlemen, Governor Romney has shown he's very, very good at sending jobs away from America, and Governor Romney is very, very bad at bringing jobs back to America.  Yet, if you turn on your television and you see all these ads every day how he's going to get tough on China.  This is the guy who's running all those ads.  Well, I've got one word for all of those claims.  You may have learned it recently -- malarkey.  It's a bunch of malarkey, as we Irish say.  (Applause.)

     As the President said the day after the second debate, Romney's plans are awful sketchy.  I hate correcting the President, but they're not sketchy, they're Etch-a-sketchy.  (Applause.)  He's out there shaking that pad in a way.  But you can't erase what you've already done.  They voted to extend tax cuts for the very wealthy, giving a $500 trillion [sic] tax cut to 120,000 families.  I want you to know what that means.  You extend the tax cut, $500 billion goes to 120,000 families.  They've already voted to make Medicare a voucher program, which will cost seniors tens of thousands of dollars out of pocket for the same benefits they get now.  They've already voted to cut $800 billion, kicking 19 million people off of Medicaid, people who have no place to go.  They've already voted to kick 200,000 kids off of early education, all in the service of these outrageous tax cuts.

     I come from the wealthy little state of Delaware.  Let me tell you something, wealthy people are just as patriotic as poor people.  They're not asking for this tax cut.  People making an average of $8 million a year don't need another $500 billion tax cut.  They're not even asking for it.  (Applause.)

     And on top of that -- on top of that, this new $5 trillion tax cut that's -- that will add a $250,000-a-year tax cut to the top 1 percent.  Ladies and gentlemen, every outside group that's looked at this policy, every one of them from the Tax Policy Council [sic] on, has pointed out the only way it can be done is raise taxes on the middle class.

     The Tax Policy Council [sic] says -- this is true, it will require any middle-class person with a child to pay $2,000 a year more.  And why?  Why?  Ladies and gentlemen, there so much more -- them wanting to stay in Iraq, not being sure about ending the war in Afghanistan, against the recently signed arms control agreement.

     Look, instead of these guys signing a pledge to a guy named Grover Norquist not to cut taxes for the --

     AUDIENCE:  Booo!

     THE VICE PRESIDENT:  -- to cut taxes for the wealthy, it's about time they start signing the pledge for the middle-class people of this country.  (Applause.)  Sign it.  Say we're going to level the playing field.  We're going to give people a fair shot again.  Because that's exactly what we're going to do.  You can see it in all the plan we've laid out.

     We believe for America to succeed, the middle class has to be rebuilt and grow.  It's the only way working-class people have a way up.  And by the way, when the middle class does well, the wealthy do very well, thank you.  (Applause.)

     And the middle class is built on one overarching foundation:  education.  (Applause.)  And that's why we focused on education.  For them, it's an after-thought.  That's why we're going to maintain the tuition college tax credits, the Pell grants, expand work study programs.  And that's why we're going to find a hundred thousand new math and science teachers to keep us the best educated country in the world.  (Applause.)

     And being middle class is not just about a job.  It's not just any job.  My dad used to have an expression.  He said, Joey, a job is about a lot more than a paycheck.  It's about your dignity.  It's about respect.  It's about a fair wage.  That's why we're going to continue to build on what we've started.  We've already created since we came in 500,00 new manufacturing jobs, more growth in manufacturing than any time since the 1990s.  We're going to help business create another 2 million manufacturing jobs, double their exports, train 2 million workers for skills that already exist over the next three years -- for jobs that already exist over the next three years by tying them up with our community colleges so people come out with a specific skill whether it's at Dow Kokam or the other places around the country where they're lacking skilled workforce.

     Ladies and gentlemen, businesses -- businesses are anxious.  The thing you ask them what they want the most, they don't talk about taxes first.  They talk about an educated public.

     Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to change the tax code to reward companies that invest in America, not those that go overseas.  (Applause.)

     Third, on energy, we've already reduced imports to the lowest level in 20 years.  We're going to cut it in half by 2020 and by using American-made energy -- oil, clean coal, natural gas and what these guys don't seem to understand sustainable energy, sustainable energy like you have right here at this school, renewable resources -- wind, solar, biofuels, conservation.  (Applause.)  By doubling the fuel efficiency on automobiles, which we've already passed, we will save $1.7 trillion at the pump and $12 billion of gas -- billion oils of oil over the next 10 years.

     Ladies and gentlemen, we're also going to make sure the middle class deserves a fair and equitable tax system.  That's why we cut taxes to -- $3,600 in the first four years for the middle class, and we're going to -- we've cut taxes for businesses 16 times.  And by the way, we're going to make permanent the middle-class tax cut that's saving 98 percent of the American people and 97 percent of the businesses thousands of dollars a year.  (Applause.)

     But I got a little -- a dirty little secret they don't want to tell you, guys, the tax cuts for the middle class and the tax cuts for the wealthy are all due to expire January 1st.  We've already -- and the Senate passed continuation to making permanent the middle-class tax cut.  But under the leadership of Congressman Ryan and the Budget Committee and nationally, Governor Romney, these guys will not let that permanent tax cut go forward.  They say we will not allow the middle-class tax cut unless you continue the tax cut for those 120,000 families making 8 million bucks a year to get another -- no, this is real.  This is real.  Fancy word in Washington, we want to "sever" the two; two separate votes.  You may have heard me say in the debate to the Congressman, Congressman, just let us vote, let the Congress vote -- Democrats and Republicans -- let them vote on continuing the middle-class tax cut for 98 percent of the American people, and let them vote on the tax cut for the 2 percent.  They won't let it happen because they know overwhelmingly Democrats and Republicans will do what's right.  This what you call -- this is holding hostage -- holding hostage to the middle class like they've done.

     Ladies and gentlemen, with regard to the deficit that we inherited, I might point out, I love how they put that deficit clock up there, and they count it and how terrible it is, and how it's mortgaging our children.  I notice that Congressman Ryan put -- voted when he was in the Congress to put two wars on a credit card, not pay a penny while I was introducing legislation to pay for them.  I notice they put a prescription drug plan on, which I did not support because it wasn't paid for, on a credit card without paying for it, a trillion-dollar tax cut over 10 years for the top 2 percent on a credit card he didn't pay for.  His votes and the support of Romney, they doubled the national debt from the time Bill Clinton left office till the time we took office.

     And on the first day the President came in -- I'll be precise, I think it was the sixth or seventh day, he was sitting behind the magnificent desk, the Resolute, in his office.  I was in the office with him, and he was told by the national economic team that he has just inherited a $1 trillion debt for that year.  Nothing he could do about it because the budget was passed back in October.  Ladies and gentlemen, these guys weep now about how they bleed for what they've done to their children.

     Well, they've changed their tactic.  Now, instead of adding the bill for these -- continuation of the same policies to our kids, they're making the middle class pay for it.  That's how they propose to do it.

     Ladies and gentlemen, we've already cut without even their help, we've already cut a trillion dollars in spending over the next 10 years -- programs that were useful but not necessary.  We've already laid out how we cut $4 trillion from the national debt over the next four years.

     If you notice what Governor Romney said when he was asked by the moderator in the debate, he said, Governor, if it would cut the national debt, would you support any program that would require any new revenue for the wealthy?  And his answer was no.  There's not a single, solitary critical plan out there ever that I've seen that doesn't say to deal with this national debt you got to cut spending and cut some of these outrageous tax cuts for the very wealthy.  They wouldn't do a single thing -- not one thing.

     Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to do this.  We can do this.  We can cut this deficit another $3 trillion.  All you have to do is just not extend the tax cut for the top 1 percent.  That's $1 trillion right there.   That's $1 trillion.  (Applause.)

     And, folks, the other way we're going to deal with this debt is just as we committed and did end the war in Iraq -- (applause) -- we will end the war in Afghanistan.  (Applause.)

     And instead of spending another $800 billion over the next 10 years, we will use that money to pay down the debt and come home and rebuild Wisconsin, rebuild America, rebuild this country, put millions of people back to work -- roads and bridges and ports and -- (applause).

     Ladies and gentlemen, and there's so much more we could do to help people -- give them relief on housing.  Millions of people woke up one day, particularly retirees about to retire, and found that the very equity in their home they relied upon to retire was evaporated.  They didn't ever miss a mortgage payment.  They didn't do a single thing wrong, and, bam.  Many people did what I did, to send my kids to school, to college, I borrowed against my home through the equity in my home.  It evaporated.

     Ladies and gentlemen, there are 14 million people in America -- 200,000 of them right here in the state of Wisconsin -- who have never missed a mortgage payment, who are paying at 6.5, 7 percent.  If they're able to pay at 3.75, which they could refinance their mortgages now, they could save themselves a minimum of $3,000 a year.  Where I come from, that's real money.  That allows you to go out and pay your automobile insurance.  That allows you to go out and take care of problems.  That allows you to -- put in a new heater.  That allows you to fix things you need fixed.  That's real money, and it won't cost the taxpayer a penny.  But they will not support it because they say it's unfair to the banks.

     Ladies and gentlemen, I have had it up to here with all of this.  Look, folks, we're going to get this done.  With Romney and Ryan, the plan is the same old thing.  Romney says one of the first things he'll do is go back out and shred the regulations on Wall Street and let the banks write their own rules again, the so-called Dodd-Frank.  There's over $2 trillion in new tax cuts for the wealthy in his plan.  Folks, we've seen this movie before.  We know how it ends.  It ends in 9 million lost jobs.  It ends in $16 trillion in lost equity in the homes of middle-class people.  It ends in seeing pension plans and [401(k)s] evaporate.

     And you say to yourself, how could they do this again?  They're not bad guys, but I tell you what the deal is, though.  They have a very different view of the American people, and I'll end with this, than we do.

     Governor Romney meant what he said when he said, 47 percent of the American people are unwilling to take personal responsibility.  That's what offended me the most was "unwilling to take personal responsibility" because what he was talking about were my parents.  He was talking about the neighborhoods I grew up in Scranton and Claymont and Mayfield and Oshkosh.  I didn't grow up.  (Laughter.)  But a lot of neighborhoods.

     Folks, it's important to understand who these people are.  This 47 percent of the people, over 80 percent of them were people who pay -- work, have a job, pay their payroll taxes, pay their state taxes, pay their -- probably pay an effectively higher tax rate than Romney pays on 20 bucks.  These are people who are seniors, seniors who've worked their whole life, earned their Social Security, and because now it's all that they have, they don't have to pay any taxes on that Social Security, nor should they have to pay any taxes on their Social Security.  (Applause.)

     The remainder of this 47 percent of the people are 68,000 warriors who, as I speak, are risking their lives in those god-awful mountains of Afghanistan and the sands out there that I've been to 20 times, Iraq and Afghanistan.  These guys are amazing.  (Applause.)  They're getting paid -- they're getting paid, but they're not paying any federal tax, nor should they pay any federal tax.  (Applause.)

     How many of you -- how many of you know someone who has been to Iraq or Afghanistan?  (Applause.)  We owe these people.  We owe them.  Every single morning, I ask for a card because my staff contacts the Pentagon, every morning, because I want to know exactly -- exactly how many dead, exactly how many wounded because every one of those lives is precious.  Every one of those lives fundamentally affects a network of people, a family back home -- every one.  In the last two days the number has gone up twice.  As of this morning 5,000 -- excuse me -- 6,502 Fallen Angels.  When you're in the theater, they're referred to as angels -- Fallen Angels.

     I'll never forget my first time in Iraq -- no, this was my fourth time of the many I've been -- hearing either a major or a colonel saying, Mr. Vice President -- excuse me, Senator, permission to board a Fallen Angel.  I was on a C-17 coming out of Baghdad and on came a flag-draped coffin strapped to the floor.  And all, all of us could think of was the family waiting for that angel, back home, actually in my home state of Delaware where every single body goes, to Dover Air Force Base.  And it turned that plan into a cathedral.  Ladies and gentlemen, there have been 50,054 wounded; 17,000 of them with multiple wounds that will require significant medical health care the rest of their lives, many of them multiple amputees.

     Folks, we owe these families such an overwhelming debt.  We only have one truly sacred obligation in this country.  We have a lot of obligations.  And when I used to say this years ago, I'd get in trouble, but no one challenges it now:  The only truly sacred obligation we have -- we have obligations to the children, the elderly, the poor, the disadvantaged, the only truly sacred one we have is to equip those who we send to war, and care for those who come home from war.

     And, ladies and gentlemen, they deserve so much.  And the American people are so much better, are so much stronger, take so much more responsibility than these guys give them credit for.  These women and men, over 2,800,000 of them since 9/11, they're the spine, they're the sinew, they're the bone of this country.  They represent all our families.

     And to hear 47 percent of the American people talked about -- and I'm not saying they were talking about veterans.  They don't even know that veterans are part of this.

     AUDIENCE:  They don't care --

     THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Well, I don't know that they don't care.  I just don't think that they understand.  I've never seen two candidates for high public office who were more negative about the state of America, who were more negative about the future prospects of America, who are so, so out of touch with how many people every day get up and put one foot in front of the other and struggle and take responsibility for their lives.

     In the book that the Congressman wrote with two of his friends, he talks about the culture of dependency.  I don't know -- Romney talks about victims.  I don't know where the hell they live.  No, no, no, I really don't.  I don't recognize -- I really don't -- there's some -- they're not bad -- I don't recognize the country they're talking about.  I'm here to tell you America is better positioned than any nation in the world to lead the 21st century.   (Applause.)  They say we're in decline -- 5.2 million jobs, instead of losing 800,000 jobs a month; and they say we're in decline.  They're only answer is we're in decline.

     Ladies and gentlemen, they go on and say, 167,000 new jobs a month -- not enough -- but a lot.  They say that represents decline.  When the unemployment rate dropped to its lowest point since we took office from 8.2 to 6.7 percent here in Winnebago County, what did they say?  Not unemployment is declining, they said, America is in decline.

     All their talk about energy independence, imposing less oil -- importing less oil in 20 years, we pointed out, and they say, well, not because of you.  America is still in decline.  Exports up 41 percent since this year with us, and they say, no, America is in decline.

     When it was announced that housing starts a couple months ago -- excuse me, a couple weeks ago were higher than they've been any time since July of 2008, they didn't know what to say, so they said, America is still in decline.

     Look, according to a national survey, for the first time in more than five years, more Americans are feeling better off than they feel worse off than they did four years ago.  Ladies and gentlemen, a confidence gap -- the confidence gap is beginning to be eliminated.  But Romney and Ryan, instead of recognizing how much work the American people have done with their grit, their determination, it's always, America is in decline.

     Well, I got news for them.  Romney and Ryan, America is not in decline.  You're in denial.  You're in denial.  (Applause.)

     Look, folks, you folks in Wisconsin know it, there is no quit in the American people.  There is no quit in the American people.  (Applause.)

     The American people are bringing their country back, and the American people are not ready to go back.  Go back where they came from.  And the American people only know one way, forward.  That's the only way the American people know.  (Applause.)

     And I got news for these guys:  Gentlemen, it's never, ever, ever been a good bet to bet against the American people.  (Applause.)

     Folks, we need you.  Together, we can win Wisconsin, and we win Wisconsin, we win this election.  (Applause.)

     God bless you all and may God protect our troops.  Thank you all so very much.   (Applause.)

                                                END                          11:50 a.m. CDT