By The Associated
Press
Published: August 30,
2012
A transcript of Rep.
Paul Ryan's remarks Wednesday night at the Republican National Convention, as
provided by the Republican Party:
Mr. Chairman, delegates,
and fellow citizens: I am honored by the support of this convention for vice
president of the United States.
I accept the duty to
help lead our nation out of a jobs crisis and back to prosperity— and I know we
can do this.
I accept the calling
of my generation to give our children the America that was given to us, with
opportunity for the young and security for the old - and I know that we are
ready.
Our nominee is sure
ready. His whole life has prepared him for this moment— to meet serious challenges
in a serious way, without excuses and idle words. After four years of getting
the run-around, America needs a turnaround, and the man for the job is Governor
Mitt Romney.
I'm the newcomer to
the campaign, so let me share a first impression. I have never seen opponents
so silent about their record, and so desperate to keep their power.
They've run out of
ideas. Their moment came and went. Fear and division are all they've got left.
With all their attack
ads, the president is just throwing away money— and he's pretty experienced at
that. You see, some people can't be dragged down by the usual cheap tactics,
because their ability, character, and plain decency are so obvious— and ladies
and gentlemen, that is Mitt Romney.
For my part, your
nomination is an unexpected turn. It certainly came as news to my family, and
I'd like you to meet them: My wife Janna, our daughter Liza, and our boys
Charlie and Sam.
The kids are happy to
see their grandma, who lives in Florida. There she is— my Mom, Betty.
My dad, a small-town
lawyer, was also named Paul. Until we lost him when I was 16, he was a gentle
presence in my life. I like to think he'd be proud of me and my sister and
brothers, because I'm sure proud of him and of where I come from, Janesville,
Wisconsin.
I live on the same
block where I grew up. We belong to the same parish where I was baptized.
Janesville is that kind of place.
The people of
Wisconsin have been good to me. I've tried to live up to their trust. And now I
ask those hardworking men and women, and millions like them across America, to
join our cause and get this country working again.
When Governor Romney
asked me to join the ticket, I said, "Let's get this done"— and that
is exactly, what we're going to do.
President Barack Obama
came to office during an economic crisis, as he has reminded us a time or two.
Those were very tough days, and any fair measure of his record has to take that
into account. My home state voted for President Obama. When he talked about
change, many people liked the sound of it, especially in Janesville, where we
were about to lose a major factory.
A lot of guys I went
to high school with worked at that GM plant. Right there at that plant,
candidate Obama said: "I believe that if our government is there to support
you. this plant will be here for another hundred years." That's what he
said in 2008.
Well, as it turned
out, that plant didn't last another year. It is locked up and empty to this
day. And that's how it is in so many towns today, where the recovery that was
promised is nowhere in sight.
Right now, 23 million
men and women are struggling to find work. Twenty-three million people,
unemployed or underemployed. Nearly one in six Americans is living in poverty.
Millions of young Americans have graduated from college during the Obama
presidency, ready to use their gifts and get moving in life. Half of them can't
find the work they studied for, or any work at all.
So here's the
question: Without a change in leadership, why would the next four years be any
different from the last four years?
The first troubling
sign came with the stimulus. It was President Obama's first and best shot at
fixing the economy, at a time when he got everything he wanted under one-party
rule. It cost $831 billion— the largest one-time expenditure ever by our
federal government.
It went to companies
like Solyndra, with their gold-plated connections, subsidized jobs, and
make-believe markets. The stimulus was a case of political patronage, corporate
welfare, and cronyism at their worst. You, the working men and women of this
country, were cut out of the deal.
What did the taxpayers
get out of the Obama stimulus? More debt. That money wasn't just spent and
wasted— it was borrowed, spent, and wasted.
Maybe the greatest
waste of all was time. Here we were, faced with a massive job crisis - so deep
that if everyone out of work stood in single file, that unemployment line would
stretch the length of the entire American continent. You would think that any
president, whatever his party, would make job creation, and nothing else, his
first order of economic business.
But this president
didn't do that. Instead, we got a long, divisive, all-or-nothing attempt to put
the federal government in charge of health care.
Obamacare comes to
more than two thousand pages of rules, mandates, taxes, fees, and fines that
have no place in a free country.
The president has
declared that the debate over government-controlled health care is over. That
will come as news to the millions of Americans who will elect Mitt Romney so we
can repeal Obamacare.
And the biggest,
coldest power play of all in Obamacare came at the expense of the elderly.
You see, even with all
the hidden taxes to pay for the health care takeover, even with new taxes on
nearly a million small businesses, the planners in Washington still didn't have
enough money. They needed more. They needed hundreds of billions more. So, they
just took it all away from Medicare. Seven hundred and sixteen billion dollars,
funneled out of Medicare by President Obama. An obligation we have to our
parents and grandparents is being sacrificed, all to pay for a new entitlement
we didn't even ask for. The greatest threat to Medicare is Obamacare, and we're
going to stop it.
In Congress, when they
take out the heavy books and wall charts about Medicare, my thoughts go back to
a house on Garfield Street in Janesville. My wonderful grandma, Janet, had
Alzheimer's and moved in with Mom and me. Though she felt lost at times, we did
all the little things that made her feel loved.
We had help from
Medicare, and it was there, just like it's there for my mom today. Medicare is
a promise, and we will honor it. A Romney-Ryan administration will protect and
strengthen Medicare, for my mom's generation, for my generation, and for my
kids and yours.
So our opponents can
consider themselves on notice. In this election, on this issue, the usual
posturing on the left isn't going to work. Mitt Romney and I know the
difference between protecting a program, and raiding it. Ladies and gentlemen,
our nation needs this debate. We want this debate. We will win this debate.
Obamacare, as much as
anything else, explains why a presidency that began with such anticipation now
comes to such a disappointing close.
It began with a
financial crisis; it ends with a job crisis.
It began with a
housing crisis they alone didn't cause; it ends with a housing crisis they
didn't correct.
It began with a
perfect Triple-A credit rating for the United States; it ends with a downgraded
America.
It all started off
with stirring speeches, Greek columns, the thrill of something new. Now all
that's left is a presidency adrift, surviving on slogans that already seem
tired, grasping at a moment that has already passed, like a ship trying to sail
on yesterday's wind.
President Obama was
asked not long ago to reflect on any mistakes he might have made. He said,
well, "I haven't communicated enough." He said his job is to
"tell a story to the American people"— as if that's the whole problem
here? He needs to talk more, and we need to be better listeners?
Ladies and gentlemen,
these past four years we have suffered no shortage of words in the White House.
What's missing is leadership in the White House. And the story that Barack
Obama does tell, forever shifting blame to the last administration, is getting
old. The man assumed office almost four years ago— isn't it about time he
assumed responsibility?
In this generation, a
defining responsibility of government is to steer our nation clear of a debt
crisis while there is still time. Back in 2008, candidate Obama called a $10
trillion national debt "unpatriotic"— serious talk from what looked to
be a serious reformer.
Yet by his own
decisions, President Obama has added more debt than any other president before
him, and more than all the troubled governments of Europe combined. One
president, one term, $5 trillion in new debt.
He created a
bipartisan debt commission. They came back with an urgent report. He thanked
them, sent them on their way, and then did exactly nothing.
Republicans stepped up
with good-faith reforms and solutions equal to the problems. How did the
president respond? By doing nothing— nothing except to dodge and demagogue the
issue.
So here we are, $16
trillion in debt and still he does nothing. In Europe, massive debts have put
entire governments at risk of collapse, and still he does nothing. And all we
have heard from this president and his team are attacks on anyone who dares to
point out the obvious.
They have no answer to
this simple reality: We need to stop spending money we don't have.
My dad used to say to
me: "Son. You have a choice: You can be part of the problem, or you can be
part of the solution." The present administration has made its choices.
And Mitt Romney and I have made ours: Before the math and the momentum
overwhelm us all, we are going to solve this nation's economic problems.
And I'm going to level
with you: We don't have that much time. But if we are serious, and smart, and
we lead, we can do this.
After four years of
government trying to divide up the wealth, we will get America creating wealth
again. With tax fairness and regulatory reform, we'll put government back on
the side of the men and women who create jobs, and the men and women who need
jobs.
My mom started a small
business, and I've seen what it takes. Mom was 50 when my dad died. She got on
a bus every weekday for years, and rode 40 miles each morning to Madison. She
earned a new degree and learned new skills to start her small business. It
wasn't just a new livelihood. It was a new life. And it transformed my mom from
a widow in grief to a small businesswoman whose happiness wasn't just in the past.
Her work gave her hope. It made our family proud. And to this day, my mom is my
role model.
Behind every small
business, there's a story worth knowing. All the corner shops in our towns and
cities, the restaurants, cleaners, gyms, hair salons, hardware stores— these
didn't come out of nowhere. A lot of heart goes into each one. And if small
businesspeople say they made it on their own, all they are saying is that
nobody else worked seven days a week in their place. Nobody showed up in their
place to open the door at five in the morning. Nobody did their thinking, and
worrying, and sweating for them. After all that work, and in a bad economy, it
sure doesn't help to hear from their president that government gets the credit.
What they deserve to hear is the truth: Yes, you did build that.
We have a plan for a
stronger middle class, with the goal of generating 12 million new jobs over the
next four years.
In a clean break from
the Obama years, and frankly from the years before this president, we will keep
federal spending at 20 percent of GDP, or less. That is enough. The choice is
whether to put hard limits on economic growth, or hard limits on the size of
government, and we choose to limit government.
I learned a good deal
about economics, and about America, from the author of the Reagan tax reforms—
the great Jack Kemp. What gave Jack that incredible enthusiasm was his belief
in the possibilities of free people, in the power of free enterprise and strong
communities to overcome poverty and despair. We need that same optimism right
now.
And in our dealings
with other nations, a Romney-Ryan administration will speak with confidence and
clarity. Wherever men and women rise up for their own freedom, they will know
that the American president is on their side. Instead of managing American
decline, leaving allies to doubt us and adversaries to test us, we will act in
the conviction that the United States is still the greatest force for peace and
liberty that this world has ever known.
President Obama is the
kind of politician who puts promises on the record, and then calls that the
record. But we are four years into this presidency. The issue is not the
economy as Barack Obama inherited it, not the economy as he envisions it, but
this economy as we are living it.
College graduates
should not have to live out their 20s in their childhood bedrooms, staring up
at fading Obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with
life. Everyone who feels stuck in the Obama economy is right to focus on the
here and now. And I hope you understand this too, if you're feeling left out or
passed by: You have not failed, your leaders have failed you.
None of us have to
settle for the best this administration offers— a dull, adventureless journey
from one entitlement to the next, a government-planned life, a country where
everything is free but us.
Listen to the way
we're spoken to already, as if everyone is stuck in some class or station in
life, victims of circumstances beyond our control, with government there to
help us cope with our fate.
It's the exact
opposite of everything I learned growing up in Wisconsin, or at college in
Ohio. When I was waiting tables, washing dishes, or mowing lawns for money, I
never thought of myself as stuck in some station in life. I was on my own path,
my own journey, an American journey where I could think for myself, decide for
myself, define happiness for myself. That's what we do in this country. That's
the American Dream. That's freedom, and I'll take it any day over the
supervision and sanctimony of the central planners.
By themselves, the
failures of one administration are not a mandate for a new administration. A
challenger must stand on his own merits. He must be ready and worthy to serve
in the office of president.
We're a full
generation apart, Governor Romney and I. And, in some ways, we're a little
different. There are the songs on his iPod, which I've heard on the campaign
bus and on many hotel elevators. He actually urged me to play some of these
songs at campaign rallies. I said, I hope it's not a deal-breaker Mitt, but my
playlist starts with AC/DC, and ends with Zeppelin.
A generation apart.
That makes us different, but not in any of the things that matter. Mitt Romney
and I both grew up in the heartland, and we know what places like Wisconsin and
Michigan look like when times are good, when people are working, when families
are doing more than just getting by. And we both know it can be that way again.
We've had very
different careers— mine mainly in public service, his mostly in the private
sector. He helped start businesses and turn around failing ones. By the way,
being successful in business— that's a good thing.
Mitt has not only
succeeded, but succeeded where others could not. He turned around the Olympics
at a time when a great institution was collapsing under the weight of bad
management, overspending, and corruption— sounds familiar, doesn't it?
He was the Republican
governor of a state where almost nine in 10 legislators are Democrats, and yet
he balanced the budget without raising taxes. Unemployment went down, household
incomes went up, and Massachusetts, under Mitt Romney, saw its credit rating
upgraded.
Mitt and I also go to
different churches. But in any church, the best kind of preaching is done by
example. And I've been watching that example. The man who will accept your
nomination tomorrow is prayerful and faithful and honorable. Not only a
defender of marriage, he offers an example of marriage at its best. Not only a fine
businessman, he's a fine man, worthy of leading this optimistic and
good-hearted country.
Our different faiths
come together in the same moral creed. We believe that in every life there is
goodness; for every person, there is hope. Each one of us was made for a
reason, bearing the image and likeness of the Lord of Life.
We have
responsibilities, one to another— we do not each face the world alone. And the
greatest of all responsibilities, is that of the strong to protect the weak.
The truest measure of any society is how it treats those who cannot defend or
care for themselves.
Each of these great
moral ideas is essential to democratic government— to the rule of law, to life
in a humane and decent society. They are the moral creed of our country, as
powerful in our time, as on the day of America's founding. They are self-evident
and unchanging, and sometimes, even presidents need reminding, that our rights
come from nature and God, not from government.
The founding
generation secured those rights for us, and in every generation since, the best
among us have defended our freedoms. They are protecting us right now. We honor
them and all our veterans, and we thank them.
The right that makes
all the difference now, is the right to choose our own leaders. And you are
entitled to the clearest possible choice, because the time for choosing is
drawing near. So here is our pledge.
We will not duck the
tough issues, we will lead.
We will not spend four
years blaming others, we will take responsibility.
We will not try to
replace our founding principles, we will reapply our founding principles.
The work ahead will be
hard. These times demand the best of us— all of us, but we can do this.
Together, we can do this.
We can get this
country working again. We can get this economy growing again. We can make the
safety net safe again. We can do this.
Whatever your
political party, let's come together for the sake of our country. Join Mitt
Romney and me. Let's give this effort everything we have. Let's see this
through all the way. Let's get this done.
Thank you, and God
bless.
