President Obama gave a speech on Monday involving, among other things, a new tax hike on the wealthiest earners. Humbly submitted for your approval is a draft of the speech he should have given.
“My fellow Americans, I stand here today prepared to make a case for my plan to massively reduce our public debt. I stand here, surrounded as always by the haze of the never-ending 24 hour news cycle, knowing that many have already begun to whisper about the details of my plan. I stand here knowing full well that many Republicans, conservative bloggers and think tanks have already denounced whatever I’m about to say.
But I stand here undeterred, because you, the American people, deserve better than my hesitance or my complacency. You deserve more than speculation and rumor and half-baked conspiracy theories. You deserve boldness.
I stand here today prepared to save our nation billions of dollars by asking the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share.
Naysayers would have you believe that the wealthiest one percent of Americans are the job creators and fuel of the economy, and that new taxes will choke the life out of them.
Over the last 50 years, income taxes on the wealthiest earners have steadily decreased, while their salaries steadily increased. All the while, taxes for the middle class have increased exponentially to bear the burden wealthy men and their powerful interests want to escape.
The most powerful companies in this country aren’t paying their dues, while small businesses continue to be slapped with payroll taxes and inflation.
My proposed tax increase on millionaires isn’t going to restrict job growth or punish job creation. This increase is going to ask companies like General Electric, who make billions, to pay more than the farmer and the schoolteacher.
This new tax is going to affect less than one half of one percent of all Americans, and is going to ensure the millionaire that owns (local baseball team) doesn’t pay a smaller income tax rate than the janitor who sweeps the dugouts.
When companies like General Motors, Coca-Cola and Nike send millions of jobs overseas to violate fair labor laws and exploit cheap workers, they aren’t creating jobs or strengthening our economy.
No, they are making money, because that is what corporations are made to do. It is their relentless profit motive that keeps money in the market, and it is our relentless pursuit of expansion and opportunity that ensures their success won’t come at our failures.
Taxes are not a punishment. They are an investment in America. While our private property and interests are our own, we recognized long ago that we would share certain things. We knew we would have to invest in each other and in the common good, or we would all perish.
We do this so we can have roads and a military. We do it to pay for our seniors and our most in-need, because we know that when we all do better, we all do better.
In 1940, America’s military was ranked 12th in the world. Franklin D. Roosevelt told a joint session of Congress that America would build 50,000 planes a year for the war in Europe. They said no such armada would be summoned, and that American manufacturing couldn’t conquer such an impossible dream.
They were right, because by 1944, we weren’t building 50,000 planes a year. We were building 100,000 planes, and we laid waste to the German war machine with a bombing campaign the likes of which the world had never seen.
We don’t crumble when we meet challenges and we don’t shy away from the tough calls. That is why I’m making this plain statement as president: No spending cuts without tax increases on the wealthy.
Let those that received the most from the American dream give their common due so that someone else might realize their own. We have to invest in America, because we know America is winning stock.
We have to invest in ourselves, because we know we only have room to grow. This is the time to invest in America. Our teachers are already doing it, and our construction workers and farmers and pastors. Our pilots and our police officers, our military and our middle class, have all invested in America. I think it’s time that our millionaires and our big businesses started investing in the American people.
I think it’s time they stop investing in smaller costs and greater profits. They have to stop investing in foreign interests and brutal trade practices. I think it’s time they stop betting on us to lose.
I think it’s time they stopped investing so much time in capturing the attention of politicians and a little more time investing in the security and prosperity of the United States.
Call your congressmen and senator and tell them you won’t stand by while the richest take jobs and opportunities from the poorest. Tell them you want them to invest in America.
Then tell them that you vote.
God bless you all, and God bless the United States of America.”
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