Good evening. I come to you tonight to lay out the scene of a major struggle that will take place over the next days and weeks. It is not a battle I would choose, but we are not always given the field of our choice.
I have always preferred the path of cooperation and compromise with my political opponents, assuming that, while we have different views and priorities, we all want the country to succeed more than we want partisan advantage. Yet over the first years of my presidency I have been saddened by the Republican leadership, time after time, putting partisan gamesmanship ahead of reasonable compromise.
In the debate over the stimulus bill, when we were passing the biggest tax middle class tax cut in history, we also included many other tax cuts supported by Republicans in past years, even though we doubted their utility. We held hearings with them, met with them, and included many of their other ideas as well. The result was a united Republican opposition to the program.
In the debate over affordable health care, we included many proposals that had been core to Republican attempts to address the problem. The result was a united opposition, including many scandalous lies about their own proposals.
In the debate over energy and global climate change, they scuttled the entire process because we included a so-called "Cap and Trade" provision taken directly from John McCain's 2008 own campaign platform.
Now has come the elections of 2010, in which voters said loudly and clearly that they want progress in Washington. They do not want gridlock; they do not want partisan battles. They want their real problems addressed -- worries about their jobs, their futures, and the futures of their children and grandchildren. They want an end to bickering, and they want results.
Yet, today we find ourselves still stuck in the partisan muck. In 2001, the Republican Congress voted to cut taxes, including a huge tax cut for the wealthiest Americans. They made those cuts expire in 2010 hoping that the tax cuts would be so successful at job creation and growth that they would be made permanent.
Instead, we had the worst 8 years of job growth on record in our nation's history. We had weak economic growth that shifted vast wealth from the middle class to the richest few.
Yet despite the message of the most recent election -- that partisan battles should give way to real cures -- the Republican leadership is again waging a "my way or the highway" battle, this time over those same failed tax cuts for the richest among us. The hand of compromise was pushed away, this time less than 24 hours of seeming to agree that the time for compromise had come.
So we come to this time, and this place, to mark how we will proceed. All of us agree that we must continue the tax cuts for the middle class in this time of economic weakness, but the Republicans also demand even larger tax cuts for the richest. And for these cuts they will block all tax cuts -- the tax cuts that affect hard working Americans across the board.
They want to add $700 billion dollars to the deficit over ten years, and more on into the future, and they won't pay for a dime of it, putting all of it on the credit card for our children to pay off. Let me show you what this means in real terms. The price to extend unemployment benefits is [place hand 1 inch above desk] $33 billion dollars. This keeps a roof over the head and food on the table for millions of Americans who have been laid off and can’t find work because the jobs aren't there yet. The Republicans say this is too expensive, even though it also stimulates jobs and growth. The price of giving additional tax breaks to the top is [place hand 20 inches above desk] is $700 billion dollars. They will tell you we can't afford this [look at lower hand] but we can easily afford that [look at upper hand]. And remember [look at upper hand] these upper-class tax cuts have proven useless in more than eight years of trying. [lower hands]
And further, they insist on stopping all other work while a few leaders negotiate on this subject. While unemployment insurance runs out for millions who are laid off and can't find work and the country yearns for progress, the rest of the Congress should sit idle, twiddling its collective thumbs, doing nothing to address our country's other ills. They will even stop money for armor and supplies for our troops in the field of battle in order to get their way.
They have rejected all offers of compromise. They are holding America, its security, and its needs hostage to benefits for their wealthiest donors and friends.
As hard as I have tried to work with them, I cannot allow these scorched earth tactics to succeed. The one hard rule of a hostage situation is that you cannot allow the hostage taker to get away with it, or they will do it again and again.
I will compromise in good faith on tax policy, including how to handle taxes for the richest. I will compromise on where to spend money and where to cut it. But compromise is a two way street, and they must compromise with us. They cannot only brandish demands and hold hostages. And we most certainly cannot allow them to do it in for things that harm the country as a whole to benefit a handful of the already privileged.
As much as it pains me to do this, I say to my friends in the Republican leadership: You may filibuster tax cuts for working Americans to death and take the responsibility for it, but I will not give $700 billion dollars of our children's money away for no benefit to the rest of the country. And I still stand ready at all times and at any place to forge working plans that include Republican ideas as well as Democratic ones for the benefit of our great nation.
We are persevering now through difficult times in this country, and we need the strength and insights of everyone to pull through. In such times before, we have had that and more. Today I call on my fellow citizens -- men and women of good faith and all political stripes -- to call on their representatives to work together, to forge good policy from all good ideas. If we put our faith in our nation and our future together, we cannot fail to overcome our trials.
Thank you for listening. God bless you, and God bless the United States of America and its citizens, each and every one.