Barack Obama is speaking in Grand Rapids, Michigan now.
Nine straight months of job loss! Yet, just the other week, John McCain said the "fundamentals of the economy are strong." Well, I don’t know what yardstick Senator McCain uses, but where I come from, there’s nothing more fundamental than a job. And when we’re losing jobs month after month after month, when good, hard-working Americans who’ve done everything right watch their dreams slip away, the fundamentals of our economy are not strong, and it’s time we had a President who understands that.
Remarks of Senator Barack Obama—as prepared for delivery, on cnn.com
More, after the fold.
Obama begins by talking about the crisis:
We are in a financial crisis as serious as any we’ve faced since the Great Depression. In recent weeks, we’ve seen our financial landscape shift before our eyes. We’ve seen a growing credit crunch put new pressures on banks, businesses, and families. And on Monday, we saw the single largest decline of the stock market in two decades – a decline that threatens not just the wealth of Wall Street executives, but the life savings, jobs, and economic security of millions of ordinary Americans.
Everywhere you look, the economic news is troubling.
Remarks of Senator Barack Obama—as prepared for delivery, on cnn.com
But this is not news to working people in Michigan. Obama recognizes that regular folks have been hurting a long time.
But for so many of you here in Michigan, it isn’t really news at all.
600,000 jobs have been lost since the year began, including about 30,000 in Michigan. The unemployment rate here in Grand Rapids and other parts of this state is nearly double what it is across this country. And a new jobs report is coming out tomorrow that experts predict will show our ninth straight month of job loss.
snip
But it’s not just jobs. Home values are falling. Wages are flat-lining. And the cost of everything from gas to groceries is going up and up.
Remarks of Senator Barack Obama—as prepared for delivery, on cnn.com
Why are we in this mess? It's the Bush-McCain philosphy. This is key.
This financial crisis is a direct result of the greed and irresponsibility that has dominated Washington and Wall Street for years. It’s the result of speculators who gamed the system, regulators who looked the other way, and lobbyists who bought their way into our government. It’s the result of an economic philosophy that says we should give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else; a philosophy that views even the most common-sense regulations as unwise and unnecessary. Well, this crisis is nothing less than a final verdict on this failed philosophy – and it’s a philosophy I’m running for President to end.
That’s what this election is all about.
Remarks of Senator Barack Obama—as prepared for delivery, on cnn.com
It really is. I understand there are strong opinions about the bailout, but ending the Republican reactionary ideology's hold on Americans is even more important to me. When we ask for fair taxation on the wealthy and corporations in the future, we need only point to when the Government had to save the economy. Markets failed. Their philosphy failed completely. Thatcherism and Reaganism is over.
From the BBC yesterday:
The political philosopher John Gray, who recently retired as a professor at the London School of Economics, wrote in the London paper The Observer: "Here is a historic geopolitical shift, in which the balance of power in the world is being altered irrevocably.
"The era of American global leadership, reaching back to the Second World War, is over... The American free-market creed has self-destructed while countries that retained overall control of markets have been vindicated."
"In a change as far-reaching in its implications as the fall of the Soviet Union, an entire model of government and the economy has collapsed."
bbc.com
Obama sees that the "American free-market creed has self-destructed," and, while perhaps not adopting all of Gray's views, he knows that we need to involve government in the economy. Government IS the SOLUTION, not the problem. It is the only way, along with strong unions and grass and netroots organizations, to provide any countervailing power to Big Capital, to wealth. Without an activist and progressive government, we face superexploitation.
Back to Obama's speech. Obama then ties McCain to the failed Reagan-Bush world view:
Because despite my opponent’s best efforts to make you think otherwise, this is the philosophy he’s embraced during his twenty-six years in Washington. Over the past few days, he’s talked a lot about getting tough on Wall Street, but over the past few decades, he’s fought against the very rules of the road that could’ve stopped this mess. He says he’ll take on corporate lobbyists now, but he put seven of the biggest lobbyists in Washington in charge of his campaign. And if you think those lobbyists are working day and night to elect him just to put themselves out of business, well I’ve got a bridge to sell you up in Alaska.
The truth is, my opponent’s philosophy isn’t just wrong-headed, it reveals how out of touch he really is. How else could he offer $200 billion in tax cuts for big corporations at a time like this? How else could he propose giving the average Fortune 500 CEO a $700,000 tax cut at a time when millions of Americans are struggling to pay their bills? How else could he come up with an economic plan that leaves out more than 100 million middle class families at the very moment they need help most?
Senator McCain just doesn’t get it. Well, Michigan, you and I do get it. That’s why we’re here today.
Remarks of Senator Barack Obama—as prepared for delivery, on cnn.com
And, although the cost of the bailout may mean scaling back some plans, Obama refuses to turn his back on working people. We will rebuild a manufacturing economy, a green economy:
But I reject the idea that you can’t build a strong middle class at a time when our economy is weak. I believe that building a strong middle class is the key to making our economy strong.
And that’s what we’ll do when I’m President of the United States.
To create new jobs, we’ll not only invest in rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, and our outdated electricity grid – we’ll strengthen the auto industry that built the middle class in this country.
snip
And as we fight to reverse the decline in manufacturing over the last eight years, we’ll also bring manufacturing into the 21st century by building an American green energy sector. We’ll invest $150 billion over the next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy – wind power and solar power and the next generation of biofuels; an investment that will lead to new industries and five million new jobs that pay well and can’t ever be outsourced. Because the fight for American manufacturing is the fight for America’s future – and I believe that’s a fight this country will win.
Remarks of Senator Barack Obama—as prepared for delivery, on cnn.com
Obama finishes with a flourish:
Now it falls to us. Together, we cannot fail. And I need you to make it happen. If you want the next four years looking just like the last eight, then I am not your candidate.
But if you want real change – if you want an economy that rewards work, and that works for Main Street and Wall Street; if you want tax relief for the middle class and millions of new jobs; if you want health care you can afford and education that helps your kids compete; then I ask you to knock on some doors, make some calls, talk to your neighbors, and give me your vote on November 4th. And if you do, I promise you – we will win Michigan, we will win this election, and then you and I – together – will change this country and change this world. Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless America.
Remarks of Senator Barack Obama—as prepared for delivery, on cnn.com
This is the progressive moment of the last 40 years. Not since 1968 have we had such a progressive candidate with a chance to win and a crisis that demands real action. Obama is not perfect. No one is. But he offers a chance for a progressive moment, of a New, New Deal, that we have not had for so long. If we elect him and seize that moment, real change is possible.
Update I: H/t to fhamme in the comments and to TPM. The best line:
It's time we had a president who understands what it's like to stand alongside people who have lost their jobs, and walked the picket line with them.
Who understands what it's like to listen to a grown man choke up because he hasn't just lost his job, he's lost his pension, he's lost his healthcare, and he's trying to figure out how he's gonna go home that day and explain to his wife and his kids that they're in trouble and he might not be able to take care of them the way he wants.
There's something wrong about that. There's something un-American about that.
Obama, quoted on TPM
Damn right it's un-American!
Update II: Video of Obama from TPM: