Collective Conscious

Looks like Obama starts with the good news:

With more research and incen­tives, we can break our depen­dence on oil with bio­fu­els, and become the first coun­try to have 1 mil­lion elec­tric vehi­cles on the road by 2015.

I’m ask­ing Con­gress to elim­i­nate the bil­lions in tax­payer dol­lars we cur­rently give to oil companies.

[A] new goal: by 2035, 80% of America’s elec­tric­ity will come from clean energy sources.

I ask Con­gress to go fur­ther, and make per­ma­nent our tuition tax credit — worth $10,000 for four years of college.

Within 25 years, our goal is to give 80% of Amer­i­cans access to high-​​speed rail, which could allow you go places in half the time it takes to travel by car.

Within the next five years, we will make it pos­si­ble for busi­ness to deploy the next gen­er­a­tion of high-​​speed wire­less cov­er­age to 98% of all Americans.

Get rid of the loop­holes. Level the play­ing field. And use the sav­ings to lower the cor­po­rate tax rate for the first time in 25 years — with­out adding to our deficit.

Buries the ugly some­where in the middle:

So tonight, I am propos­ing that start­ing this year, we freeze annual domes­tic spend­ing for the next five years.

And gets right on again with the good stuff:

The Sec­re­tary of Defense has also agreed to cut tens of bil­lions of dol­lars in spend­ing that he and his gen­er­als believe our mil­i­tary can do without.

We should also find a bipar­ti­san solu­tion to strengthen Social Secu­rity for future gen­er­a­tions. And we must do it with­out putting at risk cur­rent retirees, the most vul­ner­a­ble, or peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties; with­out slash­ing ben­e­fits for future gen­er­a­tions; and with­out sub­ject­ing Amer­i­cans’ guar­an­teed retire­ment income to the whims of the stock market.

And if we truly care about our deficit, we sim­ply can­not afford a per­ma­nent exten­sion of the tax cuts for the wealth­i­est 2% of Americans.

[M]y admin­is­tra­tion will develop a pro­posal to merge, con­sol­i­date, and reor­ga­nize the fed­eral gov­ern­ment in a way that best serves the goal of a more com­pet­i­tive America.

I’m quite excited to see the reform pro­posal — this is surely Obama’s oppor­tu­nity to leave his mark on the fed­eral gov­ern­ment in the same way that the Bush Admin­is­tra­tion left theirs in the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­rity. How­ever, the domes­tic bud­get cuts are cer­tainly not the best plan going for­ward, unless the biggest chunk is the end of Bush tax cuts and oil sub­si­dies. We’ll see soon.

Full speech text (via The Atlantic):

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice Pres­i­dent, Mem­bers of Con­gress, dis­tin­guished guests, and fel­low Americans:

Tonight I want to begin by con­grat­u­lat­ing the men and women of the 112^th Con­gress, as well as your new Speaker, John Boehner. And as we mark this occa­sion, we are also mind­ful of the empty chair in this Cham­ber, and pray for the health of our col­league — and our friend — Gabby Giffords.

It’s no secret that those of us here tonight have had our dif­fer­ences over the last two years. The debates have been con­tentious; we have fought fiercely for our beliefs. And that’s a good thing. That’s what a robust democ­racy demands. That’s what helps set us apart as a nation.

But there’s a rea­son the tragedy in Tuc­son gave us pause. Amid all the noise and pas­sions and ran­cor of our pub­lic debate, Tuc­son reminded us that no mat­ter who we are or where we come from, each of us is a part of some­thing greater — some­thing more con­se­quen­tial than party or polit­i­cal preference.

We are part of the Amer­i­can fam­ily. We believe that in a coun­try where every race and faith and point of view can be found, we are still bound together as one peo­ple; that we share com­mon hopes and a com­mon creed; that the dreams of a lit­tle girl in Tuc­son are not so dif­fer­ent than those of our own chil­dren, and that they all deserve the chance to be fulfilled.

That, too, is what sets us apart as a nation.

Now, by itself, this sim­ple recog­ni­tion won’t usher in a new era of coop­er­a­tion. What comes of this moment is up to us. What comes of this moment will be deter­mined not by whether we can sit together tonight, but whether we can work together tomorrow.

I believe we can. I believe we must. That’s what the peo­ple who sent us here expect of us. With their votes, they’ve deter­mined that gov­ern­ing will now be a shared respon­si­bil­ity between par­ties. New laws will only pass with sup­port from Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans. We will move for­ward together, or not at all — for the chal­lenges we face are big­ger than party, and big­ger than politics.

At stake right now is not who wins the next elec­tion — after all, we just had an elec­tion. At stake is whether new jobs and indus­tries take root in this coun­try, or some­where else. It’s whether the hard work and indus­try of our peo­ple is rewarded. It’s whether we sus­tain the lead­er­ship that has made Amer­ica not just a place on a map, but a light to the world.

We are poised for progress. Two years after the worst reces­sion most of us have ever known, the stock mar­ket has come roar­ing back. Cor­po­rate prof­its are up. The econ­omy is grow­ing again.

But we have never mea­sured progress by these yard­sticks alone. We mea­sure progress by the suc­cess of our peo­ple. By the jobs they can find and the qual­ity of life those jobs offer. By the prospects of a small busi­ness owner who dreams of turn­ing a good idea into a thriv­ing enter­prise. By the oppor­tu­ni­ties for a bet­ter life that we pass on to our children.

That’s the project the Amer­i­can peo­ple want us to work on. Together.

We did that in Decem­ber. Thanks to the tax cuts we passed, Amer­i­cans’ pay­checks are a lit­tle big­ger today. Every busi­ness can write off the full cost of the new invest­ments they make this year. These steps, taken by Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans, will grow the econ­omy and add to the more than one mil­lion pri­vate sec­tor jobs cre­ated last year.

But we have more work to do. The steps we’ve taken over the last two years may have bro­ken the back of this reces­sion — but to win the future, we’ll need to take on chal­lenges that have been decades in the making.

Many peo­ple watch­ing tonight can prob­a­bly remem­ber a time when find­ing a good job meant show­ing up at a nearby fac­tory or a busi­ness down­town. You didn’t always need a degree, and your com­pe­ti­tion was pretty much lim­ited to your neigh­bors. If you worked hard, chances are you’d have a job for life, with a decent pay­check, good ben­e­fits, and the occa­sional pro­mo­tion. Maybe you’d even have the pride of see­ing your kids work at the same company.

That world has changed. And for many, the change has been painful. I’ve seen it in the shut­tered win­dows of once boom­ing fac­to­ries, and the vacant store­fronts of once busy Main Streets. I’ve heard it in the frus­tra­tions of Amer­i­cans who’ve seen their pay­checks dwin­dle or their jobs dis­ap­pear — proud men and women who feel like the rules have been changed in the mid­dle of the game.

They’re right. The rules have changed. In a sin­gle gen­er­a­tion, rev­o­lu­tions in tech­nol­ogy have trans­formed the way we live, work and do busi­ness. Steel mills that once needed 1,000 work­ers can now do the same work with 100. Today, just about any com­pany can set up shop, hire work­ers, and sell their prod­ucts wher­ever there’s an inter­net connection.

Mean­while, nations like China and India real­ized that with some changes of their own, they could com­pete in this new world. And so they started edu­cat­ing their chil­dren ear­lier and longer, with greater empha­sis on math and sci­ence. They’re invest­ing in research and new tech­nolo­gies. Just recently, China became home to the world’s largest pri­vate solar research facil­ity, and the world’s fastest computer.

So yes, the world has changed. The com­pe­ti­tion for jobs is real. But this shouldn’t dis­cour­age us. It should chal­lenge us. Remem­ber — for all the hits we’ve taken these last few years, for all the naysay­ers pre­dict­ing our decline, Amer­ica still has the largest, most pros­per­ous econ­omy in the world. No work­ers are more pro­duc­tive than ours. No coun­try has more suc­cess­ful com­pa­nies, or grants more patents to inven­tors and entre­pre­neurs. We are home to the world’s best col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties, where more stu­dents come to study than any other place on Earth.

What’s more, we are the first nation to be founded for the sake of an idea — the idea that each of us deserves the chance to shape our own des­tiny. That is why cen­turies of pio­neers and immi­grants have risked every­thing to come here. It’s why our stu­dents don’t just mem­o­rize equa­tions, but answer ques­tions like “What do you think of that idea? What would you change about the world? What do you want to be when you grow up?”

The future is ours to win. But to get there, we can’t just stand still. As Robert Kennedy told us, “The future is not a gift. It is an achieve­ment.” Sus­tain­ing the Amer­i­can Dream has never been about stand­ing pat. It has required each gen­er­a­tion to sac­ri­fice, and strug­gle, and meet the demands of a new age.

Now it’s our turn. We know what it takes to com­pete for the jobs and indus­tries of our time. We need to out-​​innovate, out-​​educate, and out-​​build the rest of the world. We have to make Amer­ica the best place on Earth to do busi­ness. We need to take respon­si­bil­ity for our deficit, and reform our gov­ern­ment. That’s how our peo­ple will pros­per. That’s how we’ll win the future. And tonight, I’d like to talk about how we get there.

The first step in win­ning the future is encour­ag­ing Amer­i­can innovation.

None of us can pre­dict with cer­tainty what the next big indus­try will be, or where the new jobs will come from. Thirty years ago, we couldn’t know that some­thing called the Inter­net would lead to an eco­nomic rev­o­lu­tion. What we can do — what Amer­ica does bet­ter than any­one — is spark the cre­ativ­ity and imag­i­na­tion of our peo­ple. We are the nation that put cars in dri­ve­ways and com­put­ers in offices; the nation of Edi­son and the Wright broth­ers; of Google and Face­book. In Amer­ica, inno­va­tion doesn’t just change our lives. It’s how we make a living.

Our free enter­prise sys­tem is what dri­ves inno­va­tion. But because it’s not always prof­itable for com­pa­nies to invest in basic research, through­out his­tory our gov­ern­ment has pro­vided cutting-​​edge sci­en­tists and inven­tors with the sup­port that they need. That’s what planted the seeds for the Inter­net. That’s what helped make pos­si­ble things like com­puter chips and GPS.

Just think of all the good jobs — from man­u­fac­tur­ing to retail — that have come from those breakthroughs.

Half a cen­tury ago, when the Sovi­ets beat us into space with the launch of a satel­lite called Sput­nik¸ we had no idea how we’d beat them to the moon. The sci­ence wasn’t there yet. NASA didn’t even exist. But after invest­ing in bet­ter research and edu­ca­tion, we didn’t just sur­pass the Sovi­ets; we unleashed a wave of inno­va­tion that cre­ated new indus­tries and mil­lions of new jobs.

This is our generation’s Sput­nik moment. Two years ago, I said that we needed to reach a level of research and devel­op­ment we haven’t seen since the height of the Space Race. In a few weeks, I will be send­ing a bud­get to Con­gress that helps us meet that goal. We’ll invest in bio­med­ical research, infor­ma­tion tech­nol­ogy, and espe­cially clean energy tech­nol­ogy — an invest­ment that will strengthen our secu­rity, pro­tect our planet, and cre­ate count­less new jobs for our people.

Already, we are see­ing the promise of renew­able energy. Robert and Gary Allen are broth­ers who run a small Michi­gan roof­ing com­pany. After Sep­tem­ber 11^th, they vol­un­teered their best roofers to help repair the Pen­ta­gon. But half of their fac­tory went unused, and the reces­sion hit them hard.

Today, with the help of a gov­ern­ment loan, that empty space is being used to man­u­fac­ture solar shin­gles that are being sold all across the coun­try. In Robert’s words, “We rein­vented ourselves.”

That’s what Amer­i­cans have done for over two hun­dred years: rein­vented our­selves. And to spur on more suc­cess sto­ries like the Allen Broth­ers, we’ve begun to rein­vent our energy pol­icy. We’re not just hand­ing out money. We’re issu­ing a chal­lenge. We’re telling America’s sci­en­tists and engi­neers that if they assem­ble teams of the best minds in their fields, and focus on the hard­est prob­lems in clean energy, we’ll fund the Apollo Projects of our time.

At the Cal­i­for­nia Insti­tute of Tech­nol­ogy, they’re devel­op­ing a way to turn sun­light and water into fuel for our cars. At Oak Ridge National Lab­o­ra­tory, they’re using super­com­put­ers to get a lot more power out of our nuclear facil­i­ties. With more research and incen­tives, we can break our depen­dence on oil with bio­fu­els, and become the first coun­try to have 1 mil­lion elec­tric vehi­cles on the road by 2015.

We need to get behind this inno­va­tion. And to help pay for it, I’m ask­ing Con­gress to elim­i­nate the bil­lions in tax­payer dol­lars we cur­rently give to oil com­pa­nies. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but they’re doing just fine on their own. So instead of sub­si­diz­ing yesterday’s energy, let’s invest in tomorrow’s.

Now, clean energy break­throughs will only trans­late into clean energy jobs if busi­nesses know there will be a mar­ket for what they’re sell­ing. So tonight, I chal­lenge you to join me in set­ting a new goal: by 2035, 80% of America’s elec­tric­ity will come from clean energy sources. Some folks want wind and solar. Oth­ers want nuclear, clean coal, and nat­ural gas. To meet this goal, we will need them all — and I urge Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans to work together to make it happen.

Main­tain­ing our lead­er­ship in research and tech­nol­ogy is cru­cial to America’s suc­cess. But if we want to win the future — if we want inno­va­tion to pro­duce jobs in Amer­ica and not over­seas — then we also have to win the race to edu­cate our kids.

Think about it. Over the next ten years, nearly half of all new jobs will require edu­ca­tion that goes beyond a high school degree. And yet, as many as a quar­ter of our stu­dents aren’t even fin­ish­ing high school. The qual­ity of our math and sci­ence edu­ca­tion lags behind many other nations. Amer­ica has fallen to 9^th in the pro­por­tion of young peo­ple with a col­lege degree. And so the ques­tion is whether all of us — as cit­i­zens, and as par­ents — are will­ing to do what’s nec­es­sary to give every child a chance to succeed.

That respon­si­bil­ity begins not in our class­rooms, but in our homes and com­mu­ni­ties. It’s fam­ily that first instills the love of learn­ing in a child. Only par­ents can make sure the TV is turned off and home­work gets done. We need to teach our kids that it’s not just the win­ner of the Super Bowl who deserves to be cel­e­brated, but the win­ner of the sci­ence fair; that suc­cess is not a func­tion of fame or PR, but of hard work and discipline.

Our schools share this respon­si­bil­ity. When a child walks into a class­room, it should be a place of high expec­ta­tions and high per­for­mance. But too many schools don’t meet this test. That’s why instead of just pour­ing money into a sys­tem that’s not work­ing, we launched a com­pe­ti­tion called Race to the Top. To all fifty states, we said, “If you show us the most inno­v­a­tive plans to improve teacher qual­ity and stu­dent achieve­ment, we’ll show you the money.”

Race to the Top is the most mean­ing­ful reform of our pub­lic schools in a gen­er­a­tion. For less than one per­cent of what we spend on edu­ca­tion each year, it has led over 40 states to raise their stan­dards for teach­ing and learn­ing. These stan­dards were devel­oped, not by Wash­ing­ton, but by Repub­li­can and Demo­c­ra­tic gov­er­nors through­out the coun­try. And Race to the Top should be the approach we fol­low this year as we replace No Child Left Behind with a law that is more flex­i­ble and focused on what’s best for our kids.

You see, we know what’s pos­si­ble for our chil­dren when reform isn’t just a top-​​down man­date, but the work of local teach­ers and prin­ci­pals; school boards and communities.

Take a school like Bruce Ran­dolph in Den­ver. Three years ago, it was rated one of the worst schools in Col­orado; located on turf between two rival gangs. But last May, 97% of the seniors received their diploma. Most will be the first in their fam­ily to go to col­lege. And after the first year of the school’s trans­for­ma­tion, the prin­ci­pal who made it pos­si­ble wiped away tears when a stu­dent said “Thank you, Mrs. Waters, for show­ing… that we are smart and we can make it.”

Let’s also remem­ber that after par­ents, the biggest impact on a child’s suc­cess comes from the man or woman at the front of the class­room. In South Korea, teach­ers are known as “nation builders.” Here in Amer­ica, it’s time we treated the peo­ple who edu­cate our chil­dren with the same level of respect. We want to reward good teach­ers and stop mak­ing excuses for bad ones. And over the next ten years, with so many Baby Boomers retir­ing from our class­rooms, we want to pre­pare 100,000 new teach­ers in the fields of sci­ence, tech­nol­ogy, engi­neer­ing, and math.

In fact, to every young per­son lis­ten­ing tonight who’s con­tem­plat­ing their career choice: If you want to make a dif­fer­ence in the life of our nation; if you want to make a dif­fer­ence in the life of a child — become a teacher. Your coun­try needs you.

Of course, the edu­ca­tion race doesn’t end with a high school diploma. To com­pete, higher edu­ca­tion must be within reach of every Amer­i­can. That’s why we’ve ended the unwar­ranted tax­payer sub­si­dies that went to banks, and used the sav­ings to make col­lege afford­able for mil­lions of stu­dents. And this year, I ask Con­gress to go fur­ther, and make per­ma­nent our tuition tax credit — worth $10,000 for four years of college.

Because peo­ple need to be able to train for new jobs and careers in today’s fast-​​changing econ­omy, we are also revi­tal­iz­ing America’s com­mu­nity col­leges. Last month, I saw the promise of these schools at Forsyth Tech in North Car­olina. Many of the stu­dents there used to work in the sur­round­ing fac­to­ries that have since left town. One mother of two, a woman named Kathy Proc­tor, had worked in the fur­ni­ture indus­try since she was 18 years old. And she told me she’s earn­ing her degree in biotech­nol­ogy now, at 55 years old, not just because the fur­ni­ture jobs are gone, but because she wants to inspire her chil­dren to pur­sue their dreams too. As Kathy said, “I hope it tells them to never give up.”

If we take these steps — if we raise expec­ta­tions for every child, and give them the best pos­si­ble chance at an edu­ca­tion, from the day they’re born until the last job they take — we will reach the goal I set two years ago: by the end of the decade, Amer­ica will once again have the high­est pro­por­tion of col­lege grad­u­ates in the world.

One last point about edu­ca­tion. Today, there are hun­dreds of thou­sands of stu­dents excelling in our schools who are not Amer­i­can cit­i­zens. Some are the chil­dren of undoc­u­mented work­ers, who had noth­ing to do with the actions of their par­ents. They grew up as Amer­i­cans and pledge alle­giance to our flag, and yet live every day with the threat of depor­ta­tion. Oth­ers come here from abroad to study in our col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties. But as soon as they obtain advanced degrees, we send them back home to com­pete against us. It makes no sense.

Now, I strongly believe that we should take on, once and for all, the issue of ille­gal immi­gra­tion. I am pre­pared to work with Repub­li­cans and Democ­rats to pro­tect our bor­ders, enforce our laws and address the mil­lions of undoc­u­mented work­ers who are now liv­ing in the shad­ows. I know that debate will be dif­fi­cult and take time. But tonight, let’s agree to make that effort. And let’s stop expelling tal­ented, respon­si­ble young peo­ple who can staff our research labs, start new busi­nesses, and fur­ther enrich this nation.

The third step in win­ning the future is rebuild­ing Amer­ica. To attract new busi­nesses to our shores, we need the fastest, most reli­able ways to move peo­ple, goods, and infor­ma­tion — from high-​​speed rail to high-​​speed internet.

Our infra­struc­ture used to be the best — but our lead has slipped. South Korean homes now have greater inter­net access than we do. Coun­tries in Europe and Rus­sia invest more in their roads and rail­ways than we do. China is build­ing faster trains and newer air­ports. Mean­while, when our own engi­neers graded our nation’s infra­struc­ture, they gave us a “D.”

We have to do bet­ter. Amer­ica is the nation that built the transcon­ti­nen­tal rail­road, brought elec­tric­ity to rural com­mu­ni­ties, and con­structed the inter­state high­way sys­tem. The jobs cre­ated by these projects didn’t just come from lay­ing down tracks or pave­ment. They came from busi­nesses that opened near a town’s new train sta­tion or the new off-​​ramp.

Over the last two years, we have begun rebuild­ing for the 21^st cen­tury, a project that has meant thou­sands of good jobs for the hard-​​hit con­struc­tion indus­try. Tonight, I’m propos­ing that we redou­ble these efforts.

We will put more Amer­i­cans to work repair­ing crum­bling roads and bridges. We will make sure this is fully paid for, attract pri­vate invest­ment, and pick projects based on what’s best for the econ­omy, not politicians.

Within 25 years, our goal is to give 80% of Amer­i­cans access to high-​​speed rail, which could allow you go places in half the time it takes to travel by car. For some trips, it will be faster than fly­ing — with­out the pat-​​down. As we speak, routes in Cal­i­for­nia and the Mid­west are already underway.

Within the next five years, we will make it pos­si­ble for busi­ness to deploy the next gen­er­a­tion of high-​​speed wire­less cov­er­age to 98% of all Amer­i­cans. This isn’t just about a faster inter­net and fewer dropped calls. It’s about con­nect­ing every part of Amer­ica to the dig­i­tal age. It’s about a rural com­mu­nity in Iowa or Alabama where farm­ers and small busi­ness own­ers will be able to sell their prod­ucts all over the world. It’s about a fire­fighter who can down­load the design of a burn­ing build­ing onto a hand­held device; a stu­dent who can take classes with a dig­i­tal text­book; or a patient who can have face-​​to-​​face video chats with her doctor.

All these invest­ments — in inno­va­tion, edu­ca­tion, and infra­struc­ture — will make Amer­ica a bet­ter place to do busi­ness and cre­ate jobs. But to help our com­pa­nies com­pete, we also have to knock down bar­ri­ers that stand in the way of their success.

Over the years, a parade of lob­by­ists has rigged the tax code to ben­e­fit par­tic­u­lar com­pa­nies and indus­tries. Those with accoun­tants or lawyers to work the sys­tem can end up pay­ing no taxes at all. But all the rest are hit with one of the high­est cor­po­rate tax rates in the world. It makes no sense, and it has to change.

So tonight, I’m ask­ing Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans to sim­plify the sys­tem. Get rid of the loop­holes. Level the play­ing field. And use the sav­ings to lower the cor­po­rate tax rate for the first time in 25 years — with­out adding to our deficit.

To help busi­nesses sell more prod­ucts abroad, we set a goal of dou­bling our exports by 2014 — because the more we export, the more jobs we cre­ate at home. Already, our exports are up. Recently, we signed agree­ments with India and China that will sup­port more than 250,000 jobs in the United States. And last month, we final­ized a trade agree­ment with South Korea that will sup­port at least 70,000 Amer­i­can jobs. This agree­ment has unprece­dented sup­port from busi­ness and labor; Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans, and I ask this Con­gress to pass it as soon as possible.

Before I took office, I made it clear that we would enforce our trade agree­ments, and that I would only sign deals that keep faith with Amer­i­can work­ers, and pro­mote Amer­i­can jobs. That’s what we did with Korea, and that’s what I intend to do as we pur­sue agree­ments with Panama and Colom­bia, and con­tinue our Asia Pacific and global trade talks.

To reduce bar­ri­ers to growth and invest­ment, I’ve ordered a review of gov­ern­ment reg­u­la­tions. When we find rules that put an unnec­es­sary bur­den on busi­nesses, we will fix them. But I will not hes­i­tate to cre­ate or enforce com­mon­sense safe­guards to pro­tect the Amer­i­can peo­ple. That’s what we’ve done in this coun­try for more than a cen­tury. It’s why our food is safe to eat, our water is safe to drink, and our air is safe to breathe. It’s why we have speed lim­its and child labor laws. It’s why last year, we put in place con­sumer pro­tec­tions against hid­den fees and penal­ties by credit card com­pa­nies, and new rules to pre­vent another finan­cial cri­sis. And it’s why we passed reform that finally pre­vents the health insur­ance indus­try from exploit­ing patients.

Now, I’ve heard rumors that a few of you have some con­cerns about the new health care law. So let me be the first to say that any­thing can be improved. If you have ideas about how to improve this law by mak­ing care bet­ter or more afford­able, I am eager to work with you. We can start right now by cor­rect­ing a flaw in the leg­is­la­tion that has placed an unnec­es­sary book­keep­ing bur­den on small businesses.

What I’m not will­ing to do is go back to the days when insur­ance com­pa­nies could deny some­one cov­er­age because of a pre-​​existing con­di­tion. I’m not will­ing to tell James Howard, a brain can­cer patient from Texas, that his treat­ment might not be cov­ered. I’m not will­ing to tell Jim Houser, a small busi­ness owner from Ore­gon, that he has to go back to pay­ing $5,000 more to cover his employ­ees. As we speak, this law is mak­ing pre­scrip­tion drugs cheaper for seniors and giv­ing unin­sured stu­dents a chance to stay on their par­ents’ cov­er­age. So instead of re-​​fighting the bat­tles of the last two years, let’s fix what needs fix­ing and move forward.

Now, the final step — a crit­i­cal step — in win­ning the future is to make sure we aren’t buried under a moun­tain of debt.

We are liv­ing with a legacy of deficit-​​spending that began almost a decade ago. And in the wake of the finan­cial cri­sis, some of that was nec­es­sary to keep credit flow­ing, save jobs, and put money in people’s pockets.

But now that the worst of the reces­sion is over, we have to con­front the fact that our gov­ern­ment spends more than it takes in. That is not sus­tain­able. Every day, fam­i­lies sac­ri­fice to live within their means. They deserve a gov­ern­ment that does the same.

So tonight, I am propos­ing that start­ing this year, we freeze annual domes­tic spend­ing for the next five years. This would reduce the deficit by more than $400 bil­lion over the next decade, and will bring dis­cre­tionary spend­ing to the low­est share of our econ­omy since Dwight Eisen­hower was president.

This freeze will require painful cuts. Already, we have frozen the salaries of hard­work­ing fed­eral employ­ees for the next two years. I’ve pro­posed cuts to things I care deeply about, like com­mu­nity action pro­grams. The Sec­re­tary of Defense has also agreed to cut tens of bil­lions of dol­lars in spend­ing that he and his gen­er­als believe our mil­i­tary can do without.

I rec­og­nize that some in this Cham­ber have already pro­posed deeper cuts, and I’m will­ing to elim­i­nate what­ever we can hon­estly afford to do with­out. But let’s make sure that we’re not doing it on the backs of our most vul­ner­a­ble cit­i­zens. And let’s make sure what we’re cut­ting is really excess weight. Cut­ting the deficit by gut­ting our invest­ments in inno­va­tion and edu­ca­tion is like light­en­ing an over­loaded air­plane by remov­ing its engine. It may feel like you’re fly­ing high at first, but it won’t take long before you’ll feel the impact.

Now, most of the cuts and sav­ings I’ve pro­posed only address annual domes­tic spend­ing, which rep­re­sents a lit­tle more than 12% of our bud­get. To make fur­ther progress, we have to stop pre­tend­ing that cut­ting this kind of spend­ing alone will be enough. It won’t.

The bipar­ti­san Fis­cal Com­mis­sion I cre­ated last year made this crys­tal clear. I don’t agree with all their pro­pos­als, but they made impor­tant progress. And their con­clu­sion is that the only way to tackle our deficit is to cut exces­sive spend­ing wher­ever we find it — in domes­tic spend­ing, defense spend­ing, health care spend­ing, and spend­ing through tax breaks and loopholes.

This means fur­ther reduc­ing health care costs, includ­ing pro­grams like Medicare and Med­ic­aid, which are the sin­gle biggest con­trib­u­tor to our long-​​term deficit. Health insur­ance reform will slow these ris­ing costs, which is part of why non­par­ti­san econ­o­mists have said that repeal­ing the health care law would add a quar­ter of a tril­lion dol­lars to our deficit. Still, I’m will­ing to look at other ideas to bring down costs, includ­ing one that Repub­li­cans sug­gested last year: med­ical mal­prac­tice reform to rein in friv­o­lous lawsuits.

To put us on solid ground, we should also find a bipar­ti­san solu­tion to strengthen Social Secu­rity for future gen­er­a­tions. And we must do it with­out putting at risk cur­rent retirees, the most vul­ner­a­ble, or peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties; with­out slash­ing ben­e­fits for future gen­er­a­tions; and with­out sub­ject­ing Amer­i­cans’ guar­an­teed retire­ment income to the whims of the stock market.

And if we truly care about our deficit, we sim­ply can­not afford a per­ma­nent exten­sion of the tax cuts for the wealth­i­est 2% of Amer­i­cans. Before we take money away from our schools, or schol­ar­ships away from our stu­dents, we should ask mil­lion­aires to give up their tax break.

It’s not a mat­ter of pun­ish­ing their suc­cess. It’s about pro­mot­ing America’s success.

In fact, the best thing we could do on taxes for all Amer­i­cans is to sim­plify the indi­vid­ual tax code. This will be a tough job, but mem­bers of both par­ties have expressed inter­est in doing this, and I am pre­pared to join them.

So now is the time to act. Now is the time for both sides and both houses of Con­gress — Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans — to forge a prin­ci­pled com­pro­mise that gets the job done. If we make the hard choices now to rein in our deficits, we can make the invest­ments we need to win the future.

Let me take this one step fur­ther. We shouldn’t just give our peo­ple a gov­ern­ment that’s more afford­able. We should give them a gov­ern­ment that’s more com­pe­tent and effi­cient. We can­not win the future with a gov­ern­ment of the past.

We live and do busi­ness in the infor­ma­tion age, but the last major reor­ga­ni­za­tion of the gov­ern­ment hap­pened in the age of black and white TV. There are twelve dif­fer­ent agen­cies that deal with exports. There are at least five dif­fer­ent enti­ties that deal with hous­ing pol­icy. Then there’s my favorite exam­ple: the Inte­rior Depart­ment is in charge of salmon while they’re in fresh water, but the Com­merce Depart­ment han­dles them in when they’re in salt­wa­ter. And I hear it gets even more com­pli­cated once they’re smoked.

Now, we have made great strides over the last two years in using tech­nol­ogy and get­ting rid of waste. Vet­er­ans can now down­load their elec­tronic med­ical records with a click of the mouse. We’re sell­ing acres of fed­eral office space that hasn’t been used in years, and we will cut through red tape to get rid of more. But we need to think big­ger. In the com­ing months, my admin­is­tra­tion will develop a pro­posal to merge, con­sol­i­date, and reor­ga­nize the fed­eral gov­ern­ment in a way that best serves the goal of a more com­pet­i­tive Amer­ica. I will sub­mit that pro­posal to Con­gress for a vote — and we will push to get it passed.

In the com­ing year, we will also work to rebuild people’s faith in the insti­tu­tion of gov­ern­ment. Because you deserve to know exactly how and where your tax dol­lars are being spent, you will be able to go to a web­site and get that infor­ma­tion for the very first time in his­tory. Because you deserve to know when your elected offi­cials are meet­ing with lob­by­ists, I ask Con­gress to do what the White House has already done: put that infor­ma­tion online. And because the Amer­i­can peo­ple deserve to know that spe­cial inter­ests aren’t lard­ing up leg­is­la­tion with pet projects, both par­ties in Con­gress should know this: if a bill comes to my desk with ear­marks inside, I will veto it.

A 21^st cen­tury gov­ern­ment that’s open and com­pe­tent. A gov­ern­ment that lives within its means. An econ­omy that’s dri­ven by new skills and ideas. Our suc­cess in this new and chang­ing world will require reform, respon­si­bil­ity, and inno­va­tion. It will also require us to approach that world with a new level of engage­ment in our for­eign affairs.

Just as jobs and busi­nesses can now race across bor­ders, so can new threats and new chal­lenges. No sin­gle wall sep­a­rates East and West; no one rival super­power is aligned against us.

And so we must defeat deter­mined ene­mies wher­ever they are, and build coali­tions that cut across lines of region and race and reli­gion. America’s moral exam­ple must always shine for all who yearn for free­dom, jus­tice, and dig­nity. And because we have begun this work, tonight we can say that Amer­i­can lead­er­ship has been renewed and America’s stand­ing has been restored.

Look to Iraq, where nearly 100,000 of our brave men and women have left with their heads held high; where Amer­i­can com­bat patrols have ended; vio­lence has come down; and a new gov­ern­ment has been formed. This year, our civil­ians will forge a last­ing part­ner­ship with the Iraqi peo­ple, while we fin­ish the job of bring­ing our troops out of Iraq. America’s com­mit­ment has been kept; the Iraq War is com­ing to an end.

Of course, as we speak, al Qaeda and their affil­i­ates con­tinue to plan attacks against us. Thanks to our intel­li­gence and law enforce­ment pro­fes­sion­als, we are dis­rupt­ing plots and secur­ing our cities and skies. And as extrem­ists try to inspire acts of vio­lence within our bor­ders, we are respond­ing with the strength of our com­mu­ni­ties, with respect for the rule of law, and with the con­vic­tion that Amer­i­can Mus­lims are a part of our Amer­i­can family.

We have also taken the fight to al Qaeda and their allies abroad. In Afghanistan, our troops have taken Tal­iban strong­holds and trained Afghan Secu­rity Forces. Our pur­pose is clear — by pre­vent­ing the Tal­iban from reestab­lish­ing a stran­gle­hold over the Afghan peo­ple, we will deny al Qaeda the safe-​​haven that served as a launch­ing pad for ⁹⁄₁₁.

Thanks to our heroic troops and civil­ians, fewer Afghans are under the con­trol of the insur­gency. There will be tough fight­ing ahead, and the Afghan gov­ern­ment will need to deliver bet­ter gov­er­nance. But we are strength­en­ing the capac­ity of the Afghan peo­ple and build­ing an endur­ing part­ner­ship with them. This year, we will work with nearly 50 coun­tries to begin a tran­si­tion to an Afghan lead. And this July, we will begin to bring our troops home.

In Pak­istan, al Qaeda’s lead­er­ship is under more pres­sure than at any point since 2001. Their lead­ers and oper­a­tives are being removed from the bat­tle­field. Their safe-​​havens are shrink­ing. And we have sent a mes­sage from the Afghan bor­der to the Ara­bian Penin­sula to all parts of the globe: we will not relent, we will not waver, and we will defeat you.

Amer­i­can lead­er­ship can also be seen in the effort to secure the worst weapons of war. Because Repub­li­cans and Democ­rats approved the New START Treaty, far fewer nuclear weapons and launch­ers will be deployed. Because we ral­lied the world, nuclear mate­ri­als are being locked down on every con­ti­nent so they never fall into the hands of terrorists.

Because of a diplo­matic effort to insist that Iran meet its oblig­a­tions, the Iran­ian gov­ern­ment now faces tougher and tighter sanc­tions than ever before. And on the Korean penin­sula, we stand with our ally South Korea, and insist that North Korea keeps its com­mit­ment to aban­don nuclear weapons.

This is just a part of how we are shap­ing a world that favors peace and pros­per­ity. With our Euro­pean allies, we revi­tal­ized NATO, and increased our coop­er­a­tion on every­thing from counter-​​terrorism to mis­sile defense. We have reset our rela­tion­ship with Rus­sia, strength­ened Asian alliances, and built new part­ner­ships with nations like India. This March, I will travel to Brazil, Chile, and El Sal­vador to forge new alliances for progress in the Amer­i­cas. Around the globe, we are stand­ing with those who take respon­si­bil­ity — help­ing farm­ers grow more food; sup­port­ing doc­tors who care for the sick; and com­bat­ing the cor­rup­tion that can rot a soci­ety and rob peo­ple of opportunity.

Recent events have shown us that what sets us apart must not just be our power — it must be the pur­pose behind it. In South Sudan — with our assis­tance — the peo­ple were finally able to vote for inde­pen­dence after years of war. Thou­sands lined up before dawn. Peo­ple danced in the streets. One man who lost four of his broth­ers at war summed up the scene around him: “This was a bat­tle­field for most of my life. Now we want to be free.”

We saw that same desire to be free in Tunisia, where the will of the peo­ple proved more pow­er­ful than the writ of a dic­ta­tor. And tonight, let us be clear: the United States of Amer­ica stands with the peo­ple of Tunisia, and sup­ports the demo­c­ra­tic aspi­ra­tions of all people.

We must never for­get that the things we’ve strug­gled for, and fought for, live in the hearts of peo­ple every­where. And we must always remem­ber that the Amer­i­cans who have borne the great­est bur­den in this strug­gle are the men and women who serve our country.

Tonight, let us speak with one voice in reaf­firm­ing that our nation is united in sup­port of our troops and their fam­i­lies. Let us serve them as well as they have served us — by giv­ing them the equip­ment they need; by pro­vid­ing them with the care and ben­e­fits they have earned; and by enlist­ing our vet­er­ans in the great task of build­ing our own nation.

Our troops come from every cor­ner of this coun­try — they are black, white, Latino, Asian and Native Amer­i­can. They are Chris­t­ian and Hindu, Jew­ish and Mus­lim. And, yes, we know that some of them are gay. Start­ing this year, no Amer­i­can will be for­bid­den from serv­ing the coun­try they love because of who they love. And with that change, I call on all of our col­lege cam­puses to open their doors to our mil­i­tary recruiters and the ROTC. It is time to leave behind the divi­sive bat­tles of the past. It is time to move for­ward as one nation.

We should have no illu­sions about the work ahead of us. Reform­ing our schools; chang­ing the way we use energy; reduc­ing our deficit — none of this is easy. All of it will take time. And it will be harder because we will argue about every­thing. The cost. The details. The let­ter of every law.

Of course, some coun­tries don’t have this prob­lem. If the cen­tral gov­ern­ment wants a rail­road, they get a rail­road — no mat­ter how many homes are bull­dozed. If they don’t want a bad story in the news­pa­per, it doesn’t get written.

And yet, as con­tentious and frus­trat­ing and messy as our democ­racy can some­times be, I know there isn’t a per­son here who would trade places with any other nation on Earth.

We may have dif­fer­ences in pol­icy, but we all believe in the rights enshrined in our Con­sti­tu­tion. We may have dif­fer­ent opin­ions, but we believe in the same promise that says this is a place where you can make it if you try. We may have dif­fer­ent back­grounds, but we believe in the same dream that says this is a coun­try where anything’s pos­si­ble. No mat­ter who you are. No mat­ter where you come from.

That dream is why I can stand here before you tonight. That dream is why a work­ing class kid from Scran­ton can stand behind me. That dream is why some­one who began by sweep­ing the floors of his father’s Cincin­nati bar can pre­side as Speaker of the House in the great­est nation on Earth.

That dream — that Amer­i­can Dream — is what drove the Allen Broth­ers to rein­vent their roof­ing com­pany for a new era. It’s what drove those stu­dents at Forsyth Tech to learn a new skill and work towards the future. And that dream is the story of a small busi­ness owner named Bran­don Fisher.

Bran­don started a com­pany in Berlin, Penn­syl­va­nia that spe­cial­izes in a new kind of drilling tech­nol­ogy. One day last sum­mer, he saw the news that halfway across the world, 33 men were trapped in a Chilean mine, and no one knew how to save them.

But Bran­don thought his com­pany could help. And so he designed a res­cue that would come to be known as Plan B. His employ­ees worked around the clock to man­u­fac­ture the nec­es­sary drilling equip­ment. And Bran­don left for Chile.

Along with oth­ers, he began drilling a 2,000 foot hole into the ground, work­ing three or four days at a time with no sleep. Thirty-​​seven days later, Plan B suc­ceeded, and the min­ers were res­cued. But because he didn’t want all of the atten­tion, Bran­don wasn’t there when the min­ers emerged. He had already gone home, back to work on his next project.

Later, one of his employ­ees said of the res­cue, “We proved that Cen­ter Rock is a lit­tle com­pany, but we do big things.”

We do big things.

From the ear­li­est days of our found­ing, Amer­ica has been the story of ordi­nary peo­ple who dare to dream. That’s how we win the future.

We are a nation that says, “I might not have a lot of money, but I have this great idea for a new com­pany. I might not come from a fam­ily of col­lege grad­u­ates, but I will be the first to get my degree. I might not know those peo­ple in trou­ble, but I think I can help them, and I need to try. I’m not sure how we’ll reach that bet­ter place beyond the hori­zon, but I know we’ll get there. I know we will.”

We do big things.

The idea of Amer­ica endures. Our des­tiny remains our choice. And tonight, more than two cen­turies later, it is because of our peo­ple that our future is hope­ful, our jour­ney goes for­ward, and the state of our union is strong.

Thank you, God Bless You, and may God Bless the United States of America.