Thank you so much. Everyone, please have a seat. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, and fellow Americans, tonight we meet at an urgent time for our country. We continue to face an economic crisis that has left millions of our neighbors jobless and a political crisis that’s made things worse.

This past week, reporters have been asking, “What will this speech mean for the president? What will it mean for Congress? How will it affect their polls and the next election?”

But the millions of Americans who are watching right now, they don’t care about politics. They have real-life concerns. Many have spent months looking for work. Others are doing their best just to scrape by, giving up nights out with the family to save on gas or make the mortgage, postponing retirement to send a kid to college.

These men and women grew up with faith in an America where hard work and responsibility paid off. They believed in a country where everyone gets a fair shake and does their fair share, where if you stepped up, did your job, and were loyal to your company, that loyalty would be rewarded with a decent salary and good benefits, maybe a raise once in awhile. If you did the right thing, you could make it — anybody could make it in America.

But for decades now, Americans have watched that compact erode. They have seen the decks too often stacked against them. And they know that Washington has not always put their interests first.

The people of this country work hard to meet their responsibilities. The question tonight is whether we’ll meet ours. The question is whether — in the face of an ongoing national crisis — we can stop the political circus and actually do something to help the economy.

The question — the question is whether we can restore some of the fairness and security that has defined this nation since our beginning.

Those of us here tonight can’t solve all our nation’s woes. Ultimately, our recovery will be driven not by Washington, but by our businesses and our workers. But we can help. We can make a difference. There are steps we can take right now to improve people’s lives.

I am sending this Congress a plan that you should pass right away. It’s called the American Jobs Act. There should be nothing controversial about this piece of legislation. Everything in here is the kind of proposal that’s been supported by both Democrats and Republicans, including many who sit here tonight, and everything in this bill will be paid for, everything.

The purpose of the American Jobs Act is simple: to put more people back to work and more money in the pockets of those who are working. It will create more jobs for construction workers, more jobs for teachers, more jobs for veterans, and more jobs for long-term unemployed. It will provide…

It will provide a tax break for companies who hire new workers, and it will cut payroll taxes in half for every working American and every small business.

It will provide a jolt to an economy that has stalled and give companies confidence that, if they invest and if they hire, there will be customers for their products and services. You should pass this jobs plan right away.

Everyone here knows that small businesses are where most new jobs begin. And you know that while corporate profits have come roaring back, smaller companies haven’t. So for everyone who speaks so passionately about making life easier for “job-creators,” this plan’s for you. Pass this jobs bill.

Pass this jobs bill, and starting tomorrow, small businesses will get a tax cut if they hire new workers or if they raise workers’ wages. Pass this jobs bill, and all small-business owners will also see their payroll taxes cut in half next year. If you have 50 employees…

If you have 50 employees making an average salary, that’s an $80,000 tax cut. And all businesses will be able to continue writing off the investments they make in 2012.

It’s not just Democrats who have supported this kind of proposal. Fifty House Republicans have proposed the same payroll tax cut that’s in this plan. You should pass it right away.

Pass this jobs bill, and we can put people to work rebuilding America. Everyone here knows we have badly decaying roads and bridges all over this country. Our highways are clogged with traffic. Our skies are the most congested in the world. It’s an outrage.

Building a world-class transportation system is part of what made us an economic superpower. And now we’re going to sit back and watch China build newer airports and faster railroads, at a time when millions of unemployed construction workers could build them right here in America?

There…

There are private construction companies all across America just waiting to get to work. There’s a bridge that needs repair between Ohio and Kentucky that’s on one of the busiest trucking routes in North America, a public transit project in Houston that will help clear up one of the worst areas of traffic in the country.

And there are schools throughout this country that desperately need renovating. How can we expect our kids to do their best in places that are literally falling apart? This is America. Every child deserves a great school, and we can give it to them, if we act now.

The American Jobs Act will repair and modernize at least 35,000 schools. It will put people to work right now fixing roofs and windows, installing science labs and high-speed Internet in classrooms all across this country. It will rehabilitate homes and businesses in communities hit hardest by foreclosures. It will jump-start thousands of transportation projects all across the country.

And to make sure the money is properly spent, we’re building on reforms we’ve already put in place. No more earmarks. No more boondoggles. No more Bridges to Nowhere. We’re cutting the red tape that prevents some of these projects from getting started as quickly as possible. And we’ll set up an independent fund to attract private dollars and issue loans based on two criteria: how badly a construction project is needed and how much good it will do for the economy.

This idea came from a bill written by a Texas Republican and a Massachusetts Democrat. The idea for a big boost in construction is supported by America’s largest business organization and America’s largest labor organization. It’s the kind of proposal that’s been supported in the past by Democrats and Republicans alike. You should pass it right away.

Pass this jobs bill, and thousands of teachers in every state will go back to work. These are the men and women charged with preparing our children for a world where the competition has never been tougher.

But while they’re adding teachers in places like South Korea, we’re laying them off in droves. It’s unfair to our kids; it undermines their future and ours. And it has to stop. Pass this bill, and put our teachers back in the classroom where they belong.

Pass this jobs bill, and companies will get extra tax credits if they hire America’s veterans. We ask these men and women to leave their careers, leave their families, risk their lives to fight for our country. The last thing they should have to do is fight for a job when they come home.

OBAMA: Pass this bill, and hundreds of thousands of disadvantaged young people will have the hope and the dignity of a summer job next year. And their parents…

… their parents, low-income Americans who desperately want to work, will have more ladders out of poverty.

Pass this jobs bill, and companies will get a $4,000 tax credit if they hire anyone who has spent more than six months looking for a job.

We — we have to do more to help the long-term unemployed in their search for work. This jobs plan builds on a program in Georgia that several Republican leaders have highlighted, where people who collect unemployment insurance participate in temporary work as a way to build their skills while they look for a permanent job.

The plan also extends unemployment insurance for another year.

If the millions of unemployed Americans stopped getting this insurance and stopped using that money for basic necessities, it would be a devastating blow to this economy. Democrats and Republicans in this chamber have supported unemployment insurance plenty of times in the past. And in this time of prolonged hardship, you should pass it again, right away.

Pass this jobs bill, and the typical working family will get a $1,500 tax cut next year, $1,500 that would have been taken out of your pocket will go into your pocket. This expands on the tax cut that Democrats and Republicans already passed for this year.

If we allow that tax cut to expire, if we refuse to act, middle- class families will get hit with a tax increase at the worst possible time. We can’t let that happen.

I know that some of you have sworn oaths to never raise any taxes on anyone for as long as you live. Now is not the time to carve out an exception and raise middle-class taxes, which is why you should pass this bill right away.

This is the American Jobs Act. It will lead to new jobs for construction workers, for teachers, for veterans, for first responders, young people, and the long-term unemployed. It will provide tax credits to companies that hire new workers, tax relief to small-business owners, and tax cuts for the middle-class.

And here’s the other thing I want the American people to know: The American Jobs Act will not add to the deficit. It will be paid for. And here’s how.

The agreement we passed in July will cut government spending by about $1 trillion over the next 10 years. It also charges this Congress to come up with an additional $1.5 trillion in savings by Christmas. Tonight, I’m asking you to increase that amount so that it covers the full cost of the American Jobs Act. And a week from Monday, I’ll be releasing a more ambitious deficit plan, a plan that will not only cover the cost of this jobs bill, but stabilize our debt in the long run.

This approach is basically the one I’ve been advocating for months. In addition to the trillion dollars of spending cuts I’ve already signed into law, it’s a balanced plan that would reduce the deficit by making additional spending cuts, by making modest adjustments to health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid, and by reforming our tax code in a way that asks the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations to pay their fair share.

What’s more, the spending cuts wouldn’t happen so abruptly that they’d be a drag on our economy or prevent us from helping small businesses and middle-class families get back on their feet right away.

Now, I realize there are some in my party who don’t think we should make any changes at all to Medicare and Medicaid, and I understand their concerns. But here’s the truth: Millions of Americans rely on Medicare in their retirement. And millions more will do so in the future. They pay for this benefit during their working years; they earn it.

But with an aging population and rising health care costs, we are spending too fast to sustain the program. And if we don’t gradually reform the system, while protecting current beneficiaries, it won’t be there when future retirees need it. We have to reform Medicare to strengthen it.

I’m also…

I’m also well aware that there are many Republicans who don’t believe we should raise taxes on those who are most fortunate and can best afford it. But here’s what every American knows: While most people in this country struggle to make ends meet, a few of the most affluent citizens and most profitable corporations enjoy tax breaks and loopholes that nobody else gets.

Right now, Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary, an outrage he has asked us to fix. We need a tax code where everyone gets a fair shake and where everybody pays their fair share.

And, by the way, I believe the vast majority of wealthy Americans and CEOs are willing to do just that, if it helps the economy grow and gets our fiscal house in order.

I’ll also offer ideas to reform a corporate tax code that stands as a monument to special interest influence in Washington. By eliminating pages of loopholes and deductions, we can lower one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world.

Our tax code should not give an advantage to companies that can afford the best-connected lobbyists. It should give an advantage to companies that invest and create jobs right here in the United States of America.

So we can reduce this deficit, pay down our debt, and pay for this jobs plan in the process. But in order to do this, we have to decide what our priorities are. We have to ask ourselves, “What’s the best way to grow the economy and create jobs?”

Should we keep tax loopholes for oil companies, or should we use that money to give small-business owners a tax credit when they hire new workers? Because we can’t afford to do both.

Should we keep tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, or should we put teachers back to work so our kids can graduate ready for college and good jobs?

Right now, we can’t afford to do both.

This isn’t political grandstanding. This isn’t class warfare.

This is simple math. These are real choices. These are real choices that we’ve got to make. And I’m pretty sure I know what most Americans would choose. It’s not even close. And it’s time for us to do what’s right for our future.

Now, the American Jobs Act answers the urgent need to create jobs right away. But we can’t stop there. As I’ve argued since I ran for this office, we have to look beyond the immediate crisis and start building an economy that lasts into the future, an economy that creates good, middle-class jobs that pay well and offer security.

We now live in a world where technology has made it possible for companies to take their business anywhere. If we want them to start here and stay here and hire here, we have to be able to out-build, and out-educate, and out-innovate every other country on Earth.

This task, of making America more competitive for the long haul, that’s a job for all of us, for government and for private companies, for states and for local communities, and for every American citizen. All of us will have to up our game. All of us will have to change the way we do business.

My administration can and will take some steps to improve our competitiveness on our own. For example, if you’re a small-business owner who has a contract with the federal government, we’re going to make sure you get paid a lot faster than you do right now.

We’re also planning to cut away the red tape that prevents too many rapidly growing start-up companies from raising capital and going public.

And to help responsible homeowners, we’re going to work with federal housing agencies to help more people refinance their mortgages at interest rates that are now near 4 percent. That’s a step…

I know you guys must be for this, because that’s a step that can put more than $2,000 a year in a family’s pocket and give a lift to an economy still burdened by the drop in housing prices.

So some things we can do on our own. Other steps will require congressional action.

Today, you passed reform that will speed up the outdated patent process so that entrepreneurs can turn a new idea into a new business as quickly as possible. That’s the kind of action we need.

Now it’s time to clear the way for a series of trade agreements that would make it easier for American companies to sell their products in Panama, and Colombia, and South Korea, while also helping the workers whose jobs have been affected by global competition.

If Americans can buy Kias and Hyundais, I want to see folks in South Korea driving Fords and Chevys and Chryslers.

I want to see more products sold around the world stamped with the three proud words, “Made in America.” That’s what we need to get done.

And on all of our efforts to strengthen competitiveness, we need to look for ways to work side by side with America’s businesses. That’s why I’ve brought together a jobs council of leaders from different industries who are developing a wide range of new ideas to help companies grow and create jobs.

Already, we’ve mobilized business leaders to train 10,000 American engineers a year, by providing company internships and training. Other businesses are covering tuition for workers who learn new skills at community colleges.

And we’re going to make sure the next generation of manufacturing takes root not in China or Europe, but right here in the United States of America.

If we provide the right incentives, the right support, and if we make sure our trading partners play by the rules, we can be the ones to build everything from fuel-efficient cars to advanced biofuels to semiconductors that we sell all around the world. That’s how America can be number-one again. And that’s how America will be number-one again.

Now, I realize that some of you have a different theory on how to grow the economy. Some of you sincerely believe that the only solution to our economic challenges is to simply cut most government spending and eliminate most government regulations.

And — well, I agree that we can’t afford wasteful spending, and I’ll work with you, with Congress, to root it out. And I agree that there are some rules and regulations that do put an unnecessary burden on businesses at a time when they can least afford it.

That’s why I ordered a review of all government regulations. So far, we’ve identified over 500 reforms, which will save billions of dollars over the next few years. We should have no more regulation than the health, safety and security of the American people require. Every rule should meet that commonsense test.

But what we can’t do — what I will not do — is let this economic crisis be used as an excuse to wipe out the basic protections that Americans have counted on for decades.

I reject the idea that we need to ask people to choose between their jobs and their safety. I reject the argument that says, for the economy to grow, we have to roll back protections that ban hidden fees by credit card companies, or rules that keep our kids from being exposed to mercury, or laws that prevent the health insurance industry from shortchanging patients.

I reject the idea that we have to strip away collective bargaining rights to compete in a global economy.

We shouldn’t be in a race to the bottom, where we try to offer the cheapest labor and the worst pollution standards. America should be in a race to the top, and I believe we can win that race.

In fact, this larger notion that the only thing we can do to restore prosperity is just dismantle government, refund everybody’s money, and let everyone write their own rules, and tell everyone they’re on their own, that’s not who we are. That’s not the story of America.

Yes, we are rugged individualists. Yes, we are strong and self- reliant. And it has been the drive and initiative of our workers and entrepreneurs that has made this economy the engine and the envy of the world.

But there’s always been another thread running throughout our history, a belief that we’re all connected, and that there are some things we can only do together as a nation.

We all remember Abraham Lincoln as the leader who saved our union, founder of the Republican Party. But in the middle of a Civil War, he was also a leader who looked to the future, a Republican president who mobilized government to build the transcontinental railroad, launch the National Academy of Sciences, set up the first land grant colleges. And leaders of both parties have followed the example he set.

Ask yourselves: Where would we be right now if the people who sat here before us decided not to build our highways, not to build our bridges, our dams, our airports? What would this country be like if we had chosen not to spend money on public high schools, or research universities, or community colleges?

Millions of returning heroes, including my grandfather, had the opportunity to go to school because of the G.I. Bill. Where would we be if they hadn’t had that chance?

How many jobs would it have cost us if past Congresses decided not to support the basic research that led to the Internet and the computer chip? What kind of country would this be if this chamber had voted down Social Security or Medicare just because it violated some rigid idea about what government could or could not do? How many Americans would have suffered as a result?

No single individual built America on their own. We built it together. We have been — and always will be — one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all, a nation with responsibilities to ourselves and with responsibilities to one another.

And, members of Congress, it is time for us to meet our responsibilities.

Every proposal I’ve laid out tonight is the kind that’s been supported by Democrats and Republicans in the past. Every proposal I’ve laid out tonight will be paid for. And every proposal is designed to meet the urgent needs of our people and our communities.

Now, I know there’s been a lot of skepticism about whether the politics of the moment will allow us to pass this jobs plan, or any jobs plan. Already, we’re seeing the same old press releases and tweets flying back and forth. Already, the media has proclaimed that it’s impossible to bridge our differences. And maybe some of you have decided that those differences are so great that we can only resolve them at the ballot box.

But know this: The next election is 14 months away. And the people who sent us here, the people who hired us to work for them, they don’t have the luxury of waiting 14 months.

Some of them are living week to week, paycheck to paycheck, even day to day. They need help, and they need it now.

I don’t pretend that this plan will solve all our problems. It should not be — nor will it be — the last plan of action we propose. What’s guided us from the start of this crisis hasn’t been the search for a silver bullet. It’s been a commitment to stay at it, to be persistent, to keep trying every new idea that works and listen to every good proposal, no matter which party comes up with it.

Regardless of the arguments we’ve had in the past, regardless of the arguments we’ll have in the future, this plan is the right thing to do right now. You should pass it. And I intend to take that message to every corner of this country.

And I ask — I ask every American who agrees to lift your voice, tell the people who are gathered here tonight that you want action now. Tell Washington that doing nothing is not an option. Remind us that, if we act as one nation and one people, we have it within our power to meet this challenge.

President Kennedy once said, “Our problems are manmade; therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants.”

These are difficult years for our country, but we are Americans. We are tougher than the times that we live in, and we are bigger than our politics have been. So let’s meet the moment, let’s get to work, and let’s show the world once again why the United States of America remains the greatest nation on Earth.

Thank you very much. God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.

Labor Day 2010 is not going to be a happy day for the 16 plus million unemployed or underemployed people in the country. There is no job to go to Tuesday morning for millions.

There is a lot of anger and frustration in the country now. Some politicians are exploiting this anger and frustration via making illegal immigration an issue, and fueling fear that our country is in ther grips of a socialist conspiracy that requires toppling Democratic Party control of Congress and ultimately the White House.

But the Republican agenda offers no real solutions to the core problems giving rise to the Great Recession. They just give folks straw men to rant at. The Great Recession has produced the Great Distraction in America. The Tea Party is just one manifestation of this misdirected anger.

One could (and many do) spend a lot of energy berating Republicans for exploiting the anger and frustration for their own political gain and their failure to offer real solutions that will put Americans back to productive work. No one is listening.

However, the Democrats must share the blame for all this anger and frustration.

Why?

Because no one from Obama on down is articulating an alternative path that will put us back to work without piling on even more debt and hidden agenda government regulation.

Keeping the GOP tax breaks for the rich isn’t going to “trickle down” to more jobs.

Passing another “stimulus” package to throw money at state and local governments for public works projects is not going to create a permanent new economy that allows us to make enough money day in and day out to pay our bills and buy homes and cars and all that stuff.

Our current situation is the product of both Republican and Democrat policies.

We’ve got some fundamental questions to ask and be answered to re-direct America onto a path that will create a new permanent economy.

The first and most obvious question is what is that new economy?

Our old paradigms about work are dying. They have been dying for decades as steel mills closed, manufacturing jobs were sent to low wage countries, and American consumers became dependent on “made in China” products to offset our loss of real income.

Corporations and their share holders and debt holders have obviously benefited from the restructuring of the global economy. Why should they care if their profits come from cheap labor in China as long as their bottom lines are intact?

What is fundamentally missing in our country is any sense that if the working people can’t afford to buy anything, the country as a whole is in deep trouble. This is highly evident in the problem facing state and local government budgets that were dependent on sales and property tax revenues. If people aren’t making money, they aren’t able to spend money.

We have a terrific opportunity to create an enormous pool of new and valuable jobs in the country by pursuing energy independence. That is not just expanding renewable energy supplies…while that is really important in the long run…no matter what the environmental whining…we still need a lot of coal, natural gas and oil to keep our lights on and our economy moving. This is not an either/or choice. We must do both.

Tax policies have always been used to manipulate the economy…stimulate investment here, discourage it there.

The issue here is whether or not we gain what we seek by providing tax cuts, tax incentives or whatever to business.

Just handing a lot of rich people a tax break doesn’t directly create jobs.

But there are lots of ways to use tax incentives to create jobs. The government must get a lot more targeted in how they use tax incentives to create jobs. If tax incentives create a flow of money into jobs, it is the employed people paying the taxes that keeps government running.

I once heard a US Treasury Department official explain money. “Money is not destroyed…it just moves around,” he said. “It is the job of government to manage the flow of money.”

We have done a really poor job of managing the flow of money in our country. It concentrated into Wall Street schemes. It flowed overseas. It went everywhere expect in creating employment here in America.

The consumer is the anchor of the American economy, and if the consumer has no money because it flowed elsewhere, then our economy freezes up.

Our credit practices and management has also distorted money flow.

Too many people who should not have gotten into debt did so in the housing bubble. That wrecked a substantial portion of the economy associated with all aspects of home building from real estate sales people to construction workers.

Obviously we are all very debt averse now and for good reason. We assumed we could carry large amounts of personal debt because we had jobs and the income to pay those debts. We mortgaged our futures and got a nasty surprise when our jobs evaporated.

Ironically, while our jobs evaporated, our monthly debt payments did not, and a whole bunch of people got into trouble.

Of course it is our fault we got into debt, mistakenly assuming we’d still have jobs to pay off that debt. If you have been on the receiving end of debt collectors, you know that they have no sympathy whatsoever that it wasn’t your fault that you are unemployed. You will be harassed to your grave by the debt collectors.

And of course if you crashed and burned after losing your job, your credit rating is in the toilet and you couldn’t borrow a penny now to buy a car or a new home. Even if you did finally get a job, you are still a pariah. Millions of families have been effectively removed from the economy because they defaulted their obligations…not by choice…but because the economy shrank and left them stranded. The money flowed somewhere else.

Something that ought to be considered is some sort of amnesty for those people who did get into trouble because their incomes vanished.

Of course the banking industry will object…and even though taxpayers bailed them out, the taxpayer money went to fat bonuses for the bankers. Again, a management issue of money flow. It would seem only fair that if the banks were bailed out, and they wrote off the unpaid debts, the debtors would get some benefit so they could rebuild their lives. Not going to happen when getting into debt and failing is seen in this country as a moral failure.

The core of the solution is getting America back to work with sustainable incomes not subsidized by more taxes. The goal must be to manage the money flow so that companies will hire people and pay them so the workers can again be a positive part of the economy.

How about a direct reduction in corporate income taxes equal to the percentage of a company’s work force that is in the United States. If 100% of their workers were inside the country, no corporate income tax on their US generated income.

Instead of blaming the unemployed and the unions for the situation, corporate America needs to be stimulated into flowing money to more production and more jobs in this country.

Tax incentives  directly tied to job creation is essential.

Interestingly state and local government indulge in incentives for job creation all the time…attracting new industries to their cities and counties. The feds could learn a lot from this and create a national pool of tax incentives.

In Arizona, just as one little example…is the property tax on “personal property”. This is a disincentive tax for job creation. It should be abolished.

Ultimately property taxes as a whole must be reconsidered. Only property taxes for capital improvements approved by 2/3rds of the voters voting in an election or 51% of all registered eligible voters should be allowed. No property taxes for operating budgets of any government should be allowed. Property values have nothing to do with real time economic activity. Just because your neighbor sold their home for $200,000 doesn’t mean you got $200,000 so now your peoperty tax bill should be increased.

While some claim sales taxes are regressive, they do in fact tie to real economic activity. If there is no income, there isn’t any spending and thus no sales taxes. The drastic reduction in sales tax revenues demonstrates the immediate impact of no income no tax revenues.

If government is going to live on sale tax revenues, then they absolutely must pay attention to job creation. A good linkage.

Credit policies need serious attention. I have a friend whose company has $35 million in order to make some water treatment technology…guaranteed sales. But the company cannot find interim credit to fund making the stuff they will sell for the $35 million.

Federal loan guarantees have worked in the past to stimulate lending and thus creation of jobs. Where this derailed was no serious vetting of the lender and business plan.

An egregious example of loan guarantees that fail is student loan guarantees. This has spawned a huge industry in private colleges who charge 2 or 3 times what a junior college charges for classes, the students” get into huge amounts of debt, can’t get jobs, default, and taxpayers eat the bill. A whole new racket has developed in the country with private education funded by federally guaranteed student loans. Again, a money flow management problem…lots of money is flowing in the wrong direction to make private business education a big cash cow without producing employable workers.

Every where we look we can see huge amounts of money being manipulated for the benefit of some special interest without producing any benefit to society.

But we are also now being frustrated by opposition to government management of the economy because (for good reason) no one trusts the government. Actually it isn’t the “government” that is the source of the misdirected money flow…it is the special interests who manipulate the government for their private gain without any regard for the broader societal benefits.

And that is the core problem…we have lost any sense of what ‘societal benefit” means, treating anything that tries to have broader implications as part of the socialist conspiracy.

Yet every decision we make has societal implications…some good, some not.

Rather than just reject considering broad social policies…we should instead ask if whatever is being considered in fact will have the intended benefits to the broader society…like reducing the employment rate permanently.

One thing we can be absolutely certain of is corporate America doesn’t give a rats ass for societal benefit. They will only act in their own narrowly defined zone of interest.

Tax policies and government regulation is the means by which the selfish goals of business are channeled to a degree to generate societal benefits.

Over and over this country had experienced selfish business behavior having broad negative impacts.

But we must develop a new paradigm to reach into the private sector and manage the flow of money to increase societal benefits…especially more employment.

What is lacking is any kind of unifying “vision statement” about what guides that process.

That’s where Democrats fail. They should be the ones espousing a new vision for America that puts people back to work. A new vision that even if business grumbles and whines, they will still be in business and actually growing and prospering as well.

We must have a “win win” approach that gives business the incentive to grow by creating jobs.

The problem with just taxing income is who decides where the money goes. There is a lot of legitimate distrust of government taking tax revenues and wasting it in pet projects for special interest constituencies. Bridges to nowhere. Most of us would rather control the use of our money than handing it over to government to essentially waste.

That’s were the new vision is needed…a yardstick to measure whether tax revenues are spent wisely for the public benefit. And the same yardstick to measure tax incentives. We do not have that yardstick. We have no voice or vision out there that we can rally behind about what is indeed good for us all.

The Republicans have defined what is bad. Government. Immigrants. Obama. Pelosi.

The Republicans offer only the solution of cutting taxes and government. That leaves where the money flows in the hands of a whole lot of folks that will make their bonuses whether the income is generated inside the US, or from Chinese factories.

This Labor Day, as we get calls from a 1-800 number harassing us about our unpaid student loan or credit card bill, wondering where we will be able to earn enough money to ever again own our own home, refusing to go to the doctor about that shortness of breath we are now experiencing because we lost our health insurance, rolling pennies so we can buy enough gas to go to a job interview nest week, we aren’t celebrating very much.

Sure, we will celebrate the fact we’re still alive, celebrate our children and families, burn some meat and drink a few beers, and try not to think about why Tuesday morning isn’t gong to be much better than last Friday morning.

We are all hard working people just wanting somewhere to go Tuesday morning to make enough money to dig out of our financial holes and feel good again. We have enormous untapped talents waiting to be put to good use. We are willing to re-invenmt ourselves to be self-sufficient. But we do not have any leadership pointing the way to that place we can be our very best.

In our anger and frustration we will probably throw a lot of rascals out of office in November. But will that really improve our personal lives? Has tougher immigration laws created more jobs for us in Arizona? Will we see any benefit personally if the GOP tax reductions are continued?

Republicans don’t have a positive agenda here.

But neither do the Democrats.

The Democrats are supposed to be the party of the working folks.  Democrats are supposed to be the party of opporunity. Democrats are supposed to be the party for hope. Got it Democrats?