August 8, 2016

In Kissimmee, Clinton Contrasts Her Plans for Jobs and the Economy with Trump's

At a rally in Kissimmee on Monday, Hillary Clinton continued her jobs tour, discussing her “100-Day Jobs Plan," the largest investment in American jobs since World War II. Clinton’s plan will boost small businesses, while also helping more women, young people and people of color become entrepreneurs.

Clinton contrasted her plans with those of Donald Trump, whose economic plan, according to John McCain’s former economic advisor, would cost the economy nearly 3.5 million jobs, including 200,000 Florida jobs, and whose team of advisors includes three Wall Street money managers, an oil baron, and a former chief economist from one of the big banks at the heart of the financial crisis. Clinton said, "He’s given out these kinds of plans or policies that don’t really deserve that name.  Basically, it’s cut taxes on the wealthy, get out of the way and let the wealthy do whatever they want.  I have a very different approach.  I intend to make the wealthy pay their fair share to build this economy. "

Clinton's remarks, as transcribed, are below:

“Hello!  Thank you!  I am so excited to be here in Central Florida with my friend, Senator Bill Nelson.  And it’s so exciting to have this chance to talk with all of you. I just appreciate everything Bill said and everything he’s done.  He is working so hard for this state.  And I know that you’re going to return him to the Senate when he runs next time.

I also want to recognize the county commissioner from this county, Viviana Janer.  Thank you so much. And a woman who ran for president some decades ago when it was really, really, really hard, as opposed to just really, really hard, former Congresswoman Pat Schroeder is here. 

Bill and I were in Orlando about two weeks ago, and we had a chance to sit down with Mayor Dyer, other elected officials, members of the clergy, of the brave police officers who rushed into the Pulse nightclub massacre to save lives.  Met with some of the surgeons who were there in the hospital to receive the wounded.  And I just have to tell you how grateful I am for the leadership and the people of Orlando and Central Florida for your love and compassion.  And I know how many people, loved ones and friends, are still grieving.  And I want them to know that we will be with you.  We will be with you as you rebuild your lives, as you rebuild hope for the future, because we can’t ever let that kind of hatred and violence break the spirit, break the soul, of any place in America. 

This election really does.  Thank you.  Thank you all.  This election really does come down to what kind of people we are in our country, what kind of values we really cherish.  And I am proud to be on the side of those who want to build a positive, optimistic future, who want to get the economy working for everybody, not just those on the top.

So we’re going to fight for these next 90 days because the election is three months from today. And I know we’ve got work to do.  We’ve got to make sure everybody understands what the stakes are.  We can’t take any of that for granted.  And that means we’ve got to draw a very clear picture of what I will do as your president compared to what Donald Trump and those who support him will do. 

And one of the biggest differences is about the economy.  I believe that we can create more good jobs with rising incomes, and I intend to work with the Republicans as well as the Democrats in Washington to create more jobs for people willing to work hard than we’ve had since World War II. Now, people say to me, ‘Well, how are you going to do that?’ Well, I have this old-fashioned idea that we’re going to do it by winning the election, number one, and literally on the first day, getting to work.  We are going to invest in infrastructure jobs because we have so much work that needs to be done in America. 

Our roads, our bridges, our tunnels, our ports, our airports, our water systems, our sewer systems, they are in desperate need of being either repaired and maintained or built.  Those are millions of jobs, good, middle class jobs.  And I am sick and tired of people who watch roads get potholed, who watch water systems poison children, who don’t stand up and say, we’re going to put America to work building the infrastructure we need for the 21st century. 

Every other generation of Americans have done that.  We’re living off of their hard work and their investment.  President Dwight Eisenhower championed and built the interstate highway system, and that highway system connected up the entire country.  And so that’s exactly what we’re going to do.  With your help, we’re going to rebuild America.

Here’s what else we’re going to do.  Here’s what else we’re going to do. And you know what?  I’ll tell you this – I want to be the president for everybody, Democrats, Republicans, independents, everybody. And you know what else we’re going to do?  We’re going to invest in advanced manufacturing.  We’re going to invest in clean, renewable energy. Now, of all the places in America that should be investing in clean, renewable energy, Florida should be at the top of the list.  Right?  Well, I’m sorry to tell you, that’s not happening.  And the reason is, you have a governor who actually, actually – he directed your state government and everybody who works in it never to say or write the words ‘climate change.’ Now, he’s also the head of the biggest PAC supporting Donald Trump, who thinks climate change is a hoax.  So I guess they kind of go together.

But here’s what you’re missing.  We just came from St. Petersburg.  The mayor there told me that with all the rains, they need to invest in some more sewer systems.  I’ve been in Miami; the mayor there told me they’re having noonday flooding in Miami.  Climate change is real, whether your governor and Donald Trump want to admit it or not. But here’s the bigger problem.  They are turning their backs on millions of new good jobs – hundreds and thousands and millions of jobs.  Other states are investing in wind, investing in solar, investing in geothermal, and other renewable energy.  So here’s what I’m going to do.  We are going to have a commitment to create more clean, renewable energy jobs, and we’re going to work to get those jobs in places like Florida, which could be an international leader with clean energy.

And you know what else?  We are going to build a modern electric grid that can actually take and distribute clean energy, and we’re going to finish the job of connecting up the entire country to high-speed broadband internet access.  Everywhere I go in America, I meet so many people who are left out of the digital world.  They don’t have high-speed internet in their jobs or in their homes.  And I was recently talking to a bunch of teachers – I love teachers. And I want to be a strong partner for our teachers, and the teachers were telling me – they said they had just completed a national survey; 70 percent of our teachers give their students homework which requires them using the internet.  I think that’s good, because we want our kids to know how to do it, right?  But here’s the problem: 5 million kids in America don’t have access to an internet when they go home at night.  So what’s going to happen?  They’re going to fall behind.  That’s not fair.

So we’re going to put people to work making sure we have broadband, high-speed, affordable internet connectivity everywhere in our country. And then I want to do everything I can to promote and support small businesses.  I just came from a visit – a visit to a great brewery called The 3 Daughters Brewery in St. Pete.  It’s like every small business – the husband and wife, Mike and Leigh, they decided they were going to take a risk, they were going to start this business.  And they did.  And I take that personally because my dad was a small businessman – really small.  He worked really hard.  He printed drapery fabrics, and it was hard work.  But he made a good living.  I mean, we weren’t wealthy, but we were solid middle class.  And he sent me to college, we did everything we could to have a good life.  And I give my dad credit, because he got up and went to work every day.

But here’s the rub.  My father, who stood over that long – those long tables in his print plant, printing the fabric for draperies, he would finish those jobs, he would load the fabric into the car, he would take them to the people who’d ordered them.  And he would deliver them, and then he would be paid.  That’s how it works, right?  You do the job, you get paid.

But that’s not the way it works with Donald Trump. Donald Trump has consistently refused to pay working people and small businesses.  I tell you, it really upsets me, because I think about my dad.  I’ve been meeting people, I’ve been meeting small businesses who were shocked.  They did what they were contracted to do and then Trump basically said, ‘I’m not paying you.’  And sometimes he would offer 50 cents or 30 cents on the dollar.  But I got to thinking about my dad – what would we have done?  I’ve met businesses that had to go bankrupt because Donald Trump would not pay his bills.

So I believe in small business; I want to be a small business president; I want to do everything I can to help you start small businesses and grow small businesses. And in order to do that, we’ve got to work together to make sure small businesses have a chance to cut through the red tape, they get the help that they need, but two thirds of the new jobs are going to be started by small businesses.

So rather than putting people out of business, would you rather have a president who says, ‘You’re fired,’ or ‘You’re hired?’ I’m hoping you’re going to hear a lot of the ‘You’re hired’ when I’m president, because that’s what I want us to do together.

I also believe that we’ve got to do a better job to make sure that every young person is prepared to be able to get the jobs of the future. And that starts with early childhood education; it continues on through school.  But here’s something that I want you to understand from me.  I want to make college affordable – four-year college affordable – and help people with student debt pay down their student debt and get rid of it. But that’s not all I want to do.  You know why?  Because our best estimates are that by 2020, which is not very far away, more than half the jobs in America will not require a college degree.  But they will require certain skills.  So let’s make community college free, let’s get technical education back into high school, let’s do more with apprenticeships and training programs. 

We were – Tim Kaine and I – I just got to tell you, I’m so, so proud of Tim Kaine, my vice presidential running mate, and – and he and I had a chance to visit some businesses in Pennsylvania and Ohio.  One of the places we went to in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, the Johnston Wire Technologies company, they train the people to do the jobs, and then they are on average getting paid $70,000 a year.  It’s skilled labor.  And we’re going to need more people with those skills, I’m going to work with unions and businesses, we’re going to have the kind of support we need for more people to get prepared for the jobs of the future.

So you see, I’m pretty excited about what we’re going to do. I am.  I am confident, I am optimistic, I’m enthusiastic about our first 100 days plan.  But then I got to tell you, we have to contrast it with what we are hearing from Donald Trump, and – I know today he gave a speech in Detroit trying to change the subject, and he talked about what his economic plans were.  But I’ll tell you, there wasn’t a lot in it for most Americans.  He’s got – he announced a few days ago that he’s got a dozen economic advisors.  Let’s see, he’s got three Wall Street money managers, an oil baron, a former chief economist at one of the big banks at the heart of the financial crisis, he’s got six men named Steve – and they all care about the same things he does, about how to avoid paying their fair share.

And he’s given out – he’s given out these kinds of plans or policies that don’t really deserve that name.  Basically, it’s cut taxes on the wealthy, get out of the way and let the wealthy do whatever they want.  I have a very different approach.  I intend to make the wealthy pay their fair share to build this economy.  He wants to roll back regulations on Wall Street; I want to tighten them and make them cover more people so that we don’t ever end up in the ditch we were in with the Great Recession. He hasn’t offered any plans about infrastructure except building a wall and making Mexico pay for it; that’s it.

And so everybody who’s independent – I don’t care whether they’re Republican, Democrat, independent – anybody who just looks at his plans has concluded that it’s not going to work.  And one particular economist who looked at his plans, somebody who advised John McCain back in 2008, so you know that, no, he’s not a Democrat.  He's an independent economic analyst, and he basically said if Trump were able to implement what he's proposing, heaven forbid, it would cost 3.5 million jobs.  He would actually reduce jobs.  And then to be fair, he looked at what I'm proposing, and he said what I'm proposing would create at least 10 million new jobs in the first four years.

Now, if you just take Florida as an example, if you look at his numbers, here in Florida you would gain 650,000 jobs from what I'm proposing.  Under Trump, you would lose 200,000 jobs.  So I think – I think as people really consider their choice in the next three months, it’s pretty clear which of us is actually going to help grow the economy, create more opportunity, get incomes rising, and who is not.

Now, I want to say a special word.  I want to say a special word about Puerto Rico. As some of you know, I was a senator from New York for eight years, and I paid a lot of attention to Puerto Rico.  We had a big Puerto Rican population in New York, just like you do here in central Florida.  And it's really important to me that we do what we can to help the people of Puerto Rico get the kind of support that they deserve to have, because let's remember a couple of things.  Puerto Ricans are American citizens, right?  Puerto Rican men and women have served at a disproportionately high level in the United States military over the years. 

If you live in Puerto Rico, you can't vote for your president and commander-in-chief, right?  But as an American citizen, if you move to Florida or New York, you can vote for the president and commander-in-chief.  So I want to do everything I can to get Puerto Rico back on a path of prosperity, to help the people in Puerto Rico, and to do everything I can to make sure that they are not left out and left behind.  Because they are part of our family.  And I'm going to do what I can to make sure that they get the help that they need.

Now, I think it's important, as you look at all of these issues facing us here at home and around the world, to really ask yourselves, what do you want in the next president and commander-in-chief?  What kind of experience, what kind of vision do you want?  And I think it's fair to ask, as Senator Nelson was, you know, the choice here is not just between two people.  You know, that's obvious.  My name will be on the ballot, his name will be on the ballot.  It's much bigger than that.  It's a choice between two different views of who we are as Americans, and the vision we have for our future.

I told you, I am confident and optimistic.  You could see the difference in the two conventions.  You could see the Republican convention in Cleveland – which was filled with so much negativity and pessimism, I didn't know what country they were talking about.  Do we have problems?  Yeah, we do have problems.  Do we have challenges?  Yes, we do have challenges.  Are we up to them?  I think so.  I believe we are.  It doesn't only take leadership.  It also takes citizenship.  We all have to pull together.  That's why I believe we are stronger together in meeting the challenges of the future.

So I can't do this alone, unlike Donald Trump, who in his acceptance speech said, I alone can fix it.  That's not what I believe.  I believe I will do my very best, but I want all of you to be part of making this country everything it should be.  I want small businesses to get started and growing.  I want workers to get the fair pay and benefits you deserve to have. I want young children to have the best chance to go as far as their hard work and talent will take them.  That's the America that I know, and that I see, and that we're going to make sure will is there for everyone.

So here's what I need.  I need your help, and I'm not – you know, I'm not beating around the bush.  I need your help.  I need you. I need you to be sure that we get everybody registered to vote who is eligible to vote.  I invite you to be part of this campaign.  Do we have some clipboards around here?  Yes, there's a clipboard.  If you aren't registered and you're eligible, see the persons with the clipboards here.  We want you to be registered, and then we want you to be part of this campaign.  If you can give us time to knock on doors, to call people, we need you.  If you're interested, text ‘JOIN,’ J-O-I-N, 47246, or go to our website, HillaryClinton.com, because we are going to work to produce the biggest possible vote, because we want everybody to understand we have an agenda that we're going to get working on the very first day that includes new jobs and infrastructure, comprehensive immigration reform, with a path to citizenship.

We're going to keep our country safe.  And, yes, we're going to go after the gun lobby and try to get common sense gun safety measures. Now, as I said in my convention speech, because I know there are a lot of hunters, there are a lot of collectors, I understand that.  I come from a family that had guns.  I understand that.  So here's what I want you to know.  We are not going to repeal the Second Amendment.  We are not going to take anybody's gun away.  We are going to try to prevent somebody who shouldn't have a gun from shooting you or somebody that you care about.

So, my friends, we've got three months.  Let's do everything we can to win this election, and then to be in a position to work together to create the kind of change that will lift people up, not push them down, that will make sure that the economy works for everybody, that we are safe, and that we are unified.  If you're with me, please, let's go out, work hard, let’s win.  And then let's build the future that we want for our kids and ourselves.  Thank you and God bless you.” 


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