August 8, 2016

In St. Petersburg, Hillary Clinton Vows to Build An Economy That Works for Everyone and Hits Trump's Economic Plans

At a rally in St. Petersburg on Monday, Hillary Clinton continued her Florida Jobs Tour and again highlighted her “100-Day Jobs Plan,” the largest investment in American jobs since World War II. Clinton pledged to invest in small businesses and create jobs in manufacturing, clean energy, technology and innovation, and infrastructure in order to build an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top.

Clinton also contrasted her plans with those of Donald Trump, whose tax plan would add $30 trillion to the national debt. An independent expert who once advised John McCain said our economy would lose nearly 3.5 million jobs if Trump’s economic plans were implemented. Clinton added, “No matter how many times they say he’s going to ‘pivot’ and become more responsible, the truth is, there is no other Donald Trump – this is it.  He’s still the same Trump who made his shirts and ties overseas instead of in America… who stiffs small businesses just because he can…who leaves working people holding the bag while he walks away with a profit.”

Clinton's remarks, as transcribed, are below:

“Thank you! And from Tampa, I want to thank Mayor Bob Buckhorn. I want to thank your former Governor and the next Congressman, Charlie Crist! And to everyone who was on the program earlier, thank you, thank you so much. I know that it was raining pretty hard outside. And a lot of you because of all the security requirements have been here for a long time, so you’re dry. That’s one of the benefits, I guess. And I'm just so happy to have this chance to talk with you, to be back in Florida to talk about our plans to make the economy work for everyone, not just those at the top. And tomorrow, I will be visiting health professionals on the frontlines down in Miami, who are confronting the Zika challenge, because Washington cannot keep ignoring the needs of the families of Florida.

Now, I have been pretty clear in the last months that I want to be the person who helps to create new jobs with rising incomes, and in the first 100 days, I will work with both parties to pass the biggest investment in new jobs since World War II.  Jobs in manufacturing and clean energy, technology and innovation, jobs in infrastructure. I was talking with Mayor Kriseman, and I said, ‘Do you have any problems with this rain, and he goes, ‘Yeah, I mean there's been so much rain that we've got some infrastructure challenges.’

I hear this all over the country. Our roads, our bridges, our tunnels, our ports, our airports, our water systems, our sewage systems: we’ve got to put people to work fixing all of that, because that’s going to make a big difference. And I also want to put people to work for a new modern electric grid that can actually take and distribute clean renewable energy.

And I just have to tell you, I go to, as you might guess, a lot of states, and it’s one of the best parts of running for office, particularly for President, because you get to travel around, you get to meet people, and I'm thrilled at what a lot of states are doing to invest in clean energy. You know, you’ve got a state like Iowa that gets a third of its electricity now from wind. And you’ve got states like New Jersey and Massachusetts that are really investing in solar energy.

And then you’ve got Florida. And you have a governor who actually put out an edict–I mean, this is hard to believe. A governor who put out an edict directing state employees never to say or write the words climate change.

Now, that sounds absurd, which of course it is, but it’s also missing a great economic opportunity. Florida could be the center of solar energy in the entire country. And when you have a lot of rainfall you’ve got noonday flooding and the sun is out in Miami, you’ve got wells in central Florida that are being ruined because seawater is rising–you’ve got a lot of challenges that are going to keep getting worse unless we work together to address them.

And that's exactly what I will do as President, and work with members of the leadership in Florida who know it’s not only the right thing to do, but we can create a lot of new jobs.

Now it doesn’t surprise me that someone who won’t let anybody in the state government mention the words climate change happens to head up Donald Trump’s biggest PAC. I mean, that seems awfully appropriate, doesn’t it? So we’ve got to stand against the deniers. We’ve got to say, ‘Hey, there’s not a problem we can’t solve in America when we put our minds to it.’

And I am particularly focused on small business. My dad was a small businessman in Chicago. A really, really small business. As I came in, I actually saw a gentleman who used to teach at my high school. So I know that there’s a lot of connection between people who are teachers and educators, and I love teachers. And so, I thank you for that. But my dad had a small business, and it gave us a good, solid, middle class lifestyle.

Nothing fancy, but really solid, which is what I want for everybody to be able to have again in America. And so, my dad, he ran a printing plant. He printed fabrics so they could become draperies, and he had a pretty – it was a small plant, it was kind of a low ceilinged, long room, dark, there was no windows in it, it just was a place where he had a big long table, two of them. And you laid the fabric out, you took the silk screens, you put them down. You put the paint in, you did the squeegee, and you went all the way down sometimes, I helped him.

And then he would finish, and he would load up the fabric in his car, and he would deliver it after spending hours doing the work that he had been contracted to do. And he would get paid. Contrast that with Donald Trump and how he treats small businesses. It’s really outrageous to me that someone who claims to be so successful has done it by stiffing hard working Americans: painters, and plumbers, and glass installers, and marble installers, and architects, and even people who make drapery fabrics for his resort, his casino, in Las Vegas.

Hundreds and hundreds of people, so that he could avoid paying his fair bills. That is not how we do business in America. If you do your job, you’re supposed to be paid for the job that you do.

And I was just before coming here at Three Daughters Brewing, right here in St.
Petersburg. I was so impressed at the couple that started this business, like everybody I’ve ever met who started a small business. They took a big risk. They had jobs, but they wanted to do something on their own. So they decided to start a brewery.

And now they employ 52 people, 18 of them full time. They’re starting to export their product. And I asked them, ‘What do you need from a President?’ And they said, ‘Look, we need more help.’ They were really complimentary of the Small Business Administration, but they said, ‘They can't help enough people, they've helped us twice, can you expand the mandate so that more small businesses get that kind of help?’ They said that they actually were able to source those great, big, aluminum steel brewhouses that they brew beer in.

Their first one that they bought they bought from China, and then they said they wanted to look around and see if they could buy them from the United States. They found a company that made them four blocks away. So now all of their equipment is made here in Florida.

And they basically said to me, ‘What can you do to cut the red tape and streamline a lot of the process that we have to go through?’ And I said, ‘Well, I'm going to work on that because in America, if you can dream it, you ought to be able to build it.’

Most of the jobs of the future are going to come from small businesses. So I’m going to work hard to help more people start businesses, and I've got an idea for young people, because I meet young people all the time who say they want to start a small business, but they can’t get credit because they have student loans. I’m going to make it possible for you not only to – everyone with student loans – to pay them down with a lower interest rate, and end the payment after 10 years. But if you want to start a business, we’re going to put a moratorium on your student
loan payment so you can actually borrow money to get the business started.

You can tell, I’m pretty excited about what we can do to start new businesses and create more jobs. I think America’s best years are ahead of us. I have no doubt about that. But I can’t do any of this without your help, and there is, as Bill Nelson said, a really big difference between me and Donald Trump. I have pointed out what my plans are, what I think will help more people, and how we will pay for them.

Well, so today in Detroit, he’s got, I don’t know, a dozen or so economic advisors he just named, hedge fund guys, billionaire guys, six guys named Steve apparently. And so they wrote him a speech and he delivered it in Detroit. Now, they tried to make his old, tired ideas sound new. But, here's what we all know, because we heard it again.

His tax plans will give super big tax breaks to large corporations and the really wealthy, just like him and the guys who wrote the speech, right? He wants to roll back regulations on Wall Street. He wants to eliminate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has saved billions of dollars for Americans. He wants to basically just repackage trickle-down economics.

Now, you know that old saying, ‘fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me?’ Trickle down economics does not help our economy grow. It does not help the vast majority of Americans, but it does really well for people already at the top.

Well we’re going to turn that upside down. We’re going to make the wealthy pay their fair share in taxes for a change. And I have said throughout this campaign, I am not going to raise taxes on the middle class, but with your help, we are going to raise it on the wealthy, because that’s where the money is. You know that old movie, ‘Follow the Money’ – well, one tenth of one percent has gotten 90 percent of the incomes gains.

Now, here’s the other thing I want you to know, because I want you to tell your friends: don’t let a friend vote Trump.

So here’s the deal. He can’t escape the math. Now you know, math can be kind of inconvenient if it doesn’t add up the way you want it to. And economists left, right, in the middle all say the same thing. That Trump’s policies would throw us into a recession, the last thing we need. He would undermine the growth that we've had since the Great Recession.

One independent expert – actually, the economist who advised John McCain in 2008, so you know, not somebody that has any pre-disposition towards our side. But this economist did a study. He said under Trump’s economic plans, we would lose, in America, 3.5 million jobs. Now, he compared it with what I have proposed, and he said in comparison, my plans would create at least 10 million jobs in the first four years for the economy.

So if we just take Florida and compare it, right here in Florida, Florida would gain 650,000 jobs under my plans, lose more than 200,000 jobs under Donald Trump’s – a difference of 850,000 Florida jobs. Now, I just think we’ve got to look at this in a very clear way.

They are just playing the same old siren song. And why they haven’t learned we are not interested in economic plans that only help the top one percent, it’s time to help everybody else in America get ahead and stay ahead.

So it’s clear, and a lot of journalists have written this, that Trump is scrambling to do damage control. That's why he listed those dozen new economic advisors: three Wall Street money managers, an oil baron, a former chief economist from one of the banks at the heart of the financial crisis – but this is from a guy who has said that he knows more than the generals about ISIS. So he's not only putting our national security at risk. Now he's putting our economy at risk. So, I've got to tell you people, this is going to be a very important next three months.

We’ve got work to do. November 8th. Three months, three months from today. And don’t be fooled, there is no other Donald Trump. What you see is what you get. He is still the same Donald Trump who makes his shirts and his ties overseas instead of in the United States. He is the same Donald Trump who refuses to pay his bills for small businesses and working people. And in fact, he is the same person who can be provoked by a tweet, and who takes apparent pleasure in tormenting protestors at his rallies, a reporter with a tough question, even a crying baby and a Gold Star family.

So just imagine Donald Trump in the Oval Office facing a real crisis.  What happens when someone gets under his skin? I don’t know that the United States can afford that kind of risk. But what we can instead do, is to get the economy working for everybody, not just those at the top. Work with our partners and allies to defend our country, keep us safe, and then unify Americans across all the lines that divide us. I have such confidence and optimism in what we can do together.

And we’re going to have a campaign that is about issues, not insults. A campaign that talks about plans and policies. That tries to bring people together. I want to be the president of everybody, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, all Americans. I love this country.

I love this country. I feel so fortunate that I have had the blessings that America has bestowed on me. My grandfather, my dad's father was a young immigrant, worked in a factory, but you know what was interesting I learned? The factory he worked in was called the Scranton Lace Mills in Scranton, Pennsylvania. All those years ago. It was a factory that actually shared profits with workers. That's back when people that owned it ran factories invested in their workers and their communities. So I'm going to do everything I can to get companies that make profits to share those profits with their workers, just like the company my grandfather worked for.

And we are going to focus on giving everybody a world-class education no matter what zip code you live in, and that starts with early childhood education so more little kids get off to a good start. When I was over at 3 Daughters, I happened to run into people working for a program called HIPPY, the Home Instruction Program for Preschool Youngsters right here in Pinellas County. I got to take a picture with them, I brought that program to Arkansas, it's now been all over the country.

You work with the parents, maybe the mother or the grandmother, to help kids get ready for school, it makes a big difference. And I want universal Pre-K, so that every kid can be prepared to go to school, and then when we’re looking at elementary and secondary school, I think it’s time we invested in computer science and teachers who can teach computer science in every single school in America.

And we’re going to make college affordable, as well as helping to pay down debt, but you know, I don’t think the only path to a really good job and a good life in America should be a four-year college degree. That’s why I want to bring technical education back into the high schools and the community colleges, apprenticeship programs that we support.

Do you know that more than half of the jobs that are going to be open in America in 2020 do not require a four-year college education? But we’re not training enough young people to take those jobs. I was in a factory in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, on our bus trip that Tim Kaine and I took after the convention. And I appreciate all of the nice words Bill Nelson had about Tim Kaine, he is going to be a great Vice President. So Tim and I were in a place called Johnstown Wire Technologies where they make all kinds of cables and things. And they employ folks who they help to train and most of them – a lot of them veterans – most of them don’t have four years degrees. They are making $70,000 plus because they are doing work that is competitive, that can be sold around America and around the world.

So I want more people to feel really good about being in jobs that can give them a good living if we give you the training and the support and get more businesses and labor unions to do these kinds of apprenticeship programs.

So I am excited about what we’re going to do together, but I need your help. We are very proud of our campaign, we have more than 2 million people who’ve donated, 6.2 million donations. We’ve got people out volunteering, making phone calls, knocking on doors.

We’re building momentum here in Florida and across the country, but I hope you’ll be involved not just here today in the Colosseum, but going for the next three months. To be part of this campaign, text JOIN, J-O-I-N, 47246 or go to the website, hillaryclinton.com, because we want to turn out the biggest vote we possibly can.

I am thrilled to be in this campaign at this moment in our country’s history. I read sometimes, people say, well the conventions were so different. The Republican convention in Cleveland was so pessimistic, so negative, so dark, really filled with fear.

I’ve got to tell you, fear and hate, yes, there was a lot of that. And what we tried to do at our convention was to lift up people who are solving problems, people who get up every day and say, ‘What can I do to get ahead, and help somebody else get ahead?’ I was very proud of that. Because that’s what will bring us to the point where we start growing the economy, get our country back together. Haters don’t build, haters tear down.

And at some point, we have a big decision to make. I understand that there are lots of people in our country, who really are disappointed, fearful, even angry. I get that. That Great Recession was a terrible experience. 9 million Americans lost their jobs.

I bet you all know somebody. 5 million homes were lost. $13 trillion in family wealth wiped out, it was terrible. And I know that people are worried about whether they and their kids can have the kind of future that we expect here in America. I’m here to tell you yes, we can and we will.

And you know why? Because we are stronger together, lifting each other up, having each others’ back, working to create new jobs and opportunities, so let’s go forward here in St. Pete, and let’s win in November, and then let’s go build the future we want! Thank you and God bless you!”


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For Immediate Release, August 8, 2016
Contact: press@hillaryclinton.com