August 10, 2016

In Des Moines, Clinton Vows to Help Small Businesses Create Jobs and Hits Trump for Stiffing Them

At a rally in Des Moines on Wednesday, Hillary Clinton laid out her plans to support small businesses through her 100-Day Jobs Plan, the largest investment in good-paying jobs since World War II. Clinton also contrasted her economic plans with those of Donald Trump: Iowans could gain 101,000 jobs under Clinton’s plans and could lose more than 33,000 jobs under Trump’s – a difference of 134,000 Iowa jobs, according to calculations based on two independent analyses by a former economic advisor to John McCain.  Clinton argued that Trump’s record in business and volatile behavior also make him unfit to be president and Commander in Chief. Pointing to his history of making many of his products abroad, and  stiffing countless small businesses who did work for him, Clinton added, “I believe in small business; that’s why I want to be a small-business president. And that’s a big contrast with Donald Trump who has spent his career stiffing small businesses, refusing to pay the bills [...] Honestly, that is not how we do business in America.”

Clinton's remarks, as transcribed are below:

“Hello! Wow. I am so happy to be back here and to have this chance to talk with all of you and to be introduced by two of the people that I admire most, people who have really made a difference in the lives of so many.  I know everybody in Iowa understands that Tom and Ruth Harkin are as good as you can get.  There isn’t anybody better. And I loved serving with Tom.  I have to confess that I miss the idea that he’ll be in the Senate.  But you got to hear from Patty Judge, and she would be a great senator for Iowa.

I want to thank all the elected officials and party officials who are here. I’ve been in Lincoln High School before and I’m glad to be back. How many of you saw the Democratic convention?  I’ll tell you, I had just the greatest sense of joy and pride as Democrats took that stage, and not just elected officials and people running for office, but so many Americans who talked about their lives and what they had gone through and what they had accomplished.  It was positive.  It was optimistic.  It presented a stark contrast to what we had seen the week before at the Republican convention. And that’s why in this campaign, I’m crossing the country to talk about what we can do to improve the lives of the vast majority of Americans, to create more opportunities for more people to live up to their own potential and to pursue the American dream. And I can’t think of a better place to talk about that than right here in Iowa because if you build it, they will come.

After the convention, my running mate and I, Tim Kaine, got on a bus. We went through Pennsylvania and Ohio, stopping at factories and businesses, talking to groups, listening – doing a lot of listening – about what we need to do together.  And that’s why I’ve rolled out specific plans about how to create more jobs to get incomes rising.  In the first hundred days of my administration, we will make the biggest investment in new jobs, good-paying jobs, since World War II.  Now, how are we going to do that?  Well, we’re going to invest in infrastructure – our roads, our bridges, our tunnels, our ports, our airports. These are good jobs and a lot of them are good union jobs with good pay and good benefits for families.

You see, I have this old-fashioned idea that the middle class of America is what makes America’s economy work.  And what we’ve been seeing in recent years is a deliberate effort to undermine the middle class. Some of it because of what’s called trickle-down economics. Cut taxes for the wealthy, get out of the way of corporations, and that didn’t work out so well, did it?  Some of it is because the incredible efforts to undermine the right to organize and bargain collectively.  The American labor movement helped to create the American middle class.

So in addition to infrastructure that you can see, we are going to do water systems. We’re going to do sewer systems. We are also going to build a modern electric grid to take the clean renewable energy that is produced in places like Iowa and make sure it can be distributed where it can used.

You know, I am someone who believes that if we do infrastructure, and we do clean renewable energy  jobs, we are going to be on the way to a 21st century economy that will work for everybody, not just those at the top.  And how do I know this?  Well, because in the past we’ve done infrastructure, haven’t we?  In fact, we are living off the infrastructure built by our parents and our grandparents, in some cases our great-grandparents.  And a lot of it is overdue – overdue for maintenance, overdue for upgrades, so this will be good for the economy as well as for individual workers and businesses.

And how do I know about clean renewable energy?  Partly because I spent a lot of time in Iowa last year.  Anybody who says to me, 'Well, you know, we can’t really transition to clean renewable energy,' I ask them, 'Have you been to Iowa lately?' You already get a third of your electricity from wind, and there is going to be a lot of people who will be helped by the kind of work we are going to do to make sure that clean renewable energy is available around the country.  And people who understand that know we can be the clean energy superpower of the 21st century.

And some people get a little carried away.  Have you noticed that?  But I get carried away thinking about all the jobs we are going to create. And all the families that are going to have a better chance for the future.  I also get carried away by thinking about advanced manufacturing, because what happened in Iowa was not just putting up the turbines; you all figured out that you could actually put them together in Iowa and employ people who are doing that work, and then train people in apprenticeship programs at community colleges to make sure you can maintain those turbines.  So the last time I checked, there are about 10,000 Iowans working in clean renewable energy.

The other thing we are going to do is help small businesses.  I just came from visiting a great T-shirt company – Raygun, right?  You’ve been there?  Raygun?  Met a young man from Iowa who started that company, employs about 50 people right here in Des Moines, has stores all across Iowa.  I see another small businessman that I have gotten to know who has got his own bowling alley.  Thank you so much.

But here’s what we’ve got to do.  We’ve got to make sure that small businesses, particularly those started by young people, get the credit they need.  And if they’ve got student debt, I want to put a three-year moratorium on their student debt payments, so they can start their business and see whether they can be successful.

My dad was a small businessman, and I was really excited to see them making T-shirts on silkscreens because that’s what my dad did on a bigger scale when he had a little print plant that printed drapery fabrics using silkscreens.  I used to help him from time to time.  And I believe in small business; that’s why I want to be a small-business president.  And that’s a big contrast with Donald Trump who has spent his career stiffing small businesses, refusing to pay the bills.  I don’t know what would have happened in my family if after my dad had worked so hard he showed up with the fabrics that he had printed for the drapes and they had said, 'Sorry, we’re not paying you.'  Honestly, that is not how we do business in America.

And so we’re going to stand up for small business and help create more of them to create more good jobs here in Iowa and across America.  We are also going to make the economy fairer.  How are we going to do that?  We’re going to raise the national minimum wage so it’s no longer a starvation wage.  We are also going to do what Tom Harkin has stood for his entire life – we’re going to make sure people with disabilities have jobs and opportunities in this economy.   And we’re going to make sure that women finally get equal pay for the work we do.

So yeah, I’ve been laying out plans ever since I showed up here in Iowa back in April of 2015, and I am thrilled to be the Democratic nominee to be able to campaign on those plans and take them to Washington.  Now, I’ve got to tell you, if you’ll look at the plans I’ve laid out – a lot of independent analysts have done that – here’s what they conclude.  Under my plans, we’ll create about 10.4 million new jobs in America.    Under Donald Trump’s so-called plans, we will lose about 3.5 million jobs.

Now, let me translate that into Iowa because if you divide the country by population, here in Iowa you could gain 101,000 jobs under my plans, and lose more than 33,000 jobs under Donald Trump’s plans. So I’ve got to tell you what I believe, which is that if we want to get the economy working for everybody, then we need a campaign that lays out the agendas so people can vote for it, so that when I’m elected, I can tell the Congress, this is what the people of America voted for us to do.

I get pretty excited and pretty carried away – enthusiastic – about what we can do, because we’ve done it before.  I couldn’t believe all that negative, pessimistic talk coming out of the Republican convention.  I didn’t know what country they were talking about.  Of course we have challenges, yes.  We have problems, of course we do, but there is nothing America can’t do if we decide to set some goals and pursue them, because you know what?  We are stronger together.  

And let me say something about what I think is a critical difference between my opponent and myself. Words matter, my friends. And if you are running to be President, or you are President of the United States, words can have tremendous consequences. Yesterday we witnessed the latest in a long line of casual comments from Donald Trump that cross the line – his casual cruelty to a gold-star family, his casual suggestion that more countries should have nuclear weapons, and now his casual inciting of violence.  Every single one of these incidents shows us that Donald Trump simply does not have the temperament to be President and Commander-in-Chief of the United States.  

So the stakes have never been higher. I am humbled and moved by the Republicans who are willing to stand up and say that Donald Trump doesn’t represent their values, not only as Republicans, but as Americans. I have to tell you, I feel that same sense of responsibility. We may not agree on everything, but this is not a normal election, and I will work hard for the next three months to earn the support of anyone willing to put our country first.  As a young man said to me in Florida the other day, friends don’t let friends vote for Trump.  

I also think Trump’s belief that he alone can fix America’s problems is so contrary to who we are as a nation.  Our founders set up our country so that we had three branches of government that had to work together.  We had the federal government, state, and local governments that had to work together, and that’s what we’ve done so successfully, and along comes Trump and basically says, I can do this alone.  Well what about the troops on the frontlines who rely on each other and support each other?  What about our law enforcement officer who rely on each other and support each other?  What about our teachers and our educators who rely on each other and support each other?  What about our doctors and our nurses who rely on each other and support each other?    We know that we’re stronger together because we’ve seen what happens when we work together, and that is exactly what we’re going to do to build on the progress that we’ve made, so set those goals and go after them together.

But I can’t do this without your help.  I hope you will join this campaign, please.    Join us – join us by texting join, J-O-I-N, to 47246 or go to HillaryClinton.com.  We are organizing across Iowa. We’re going to be helping people vote early so that they can make sure that their vote will count. We’re going to be reaching into every part of this state, and we’re going to be talking and listening as we did way back in April to learn what’s on the minds of Iowans, and to figure out what you need from the next president.

Now, I know that any election is hard. It’s filled with unpredictable twists and turns, but I want you to imagine what you will feel like the day after that election if we have not come together to chart a course of confidence and optimism that will really get our economy working for everyone, keep us safe and maintain American leadership around the world, and unify our country. That is what I will spend every single day working to achieve, and with your help, Iowa, we will win Iowa, we will win the election, and then we will work together for the future we are seeking. Thank you and God bless you!”


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For Immediate Release, August 10, 2016