you know, the middle class is not a number. it's a value set. it means being able to own your home; raise your children in a safe neighborhood; send them to a good school where if they do well they can qualify to go to college and if they get accepted you'd be able to find a way to be able to send them to college. and in the meantime, if your parents need help, being able to take care of them, and hope to put aside enough money so that your children will not have to take care of you.
that's the american dream. that's what this country was built on. and that's what we'redetermined8 to restore.
in order to do that, it's time to have a fair tax structure, one that values paychecks as much as unearned income and inherited wealth, to take some of the burden off of the middle class. it's time to close tax loopholes so we can reduce the deficit9, and invest in rebuilding america - our bridges, our ports, our highways, rails, providing good jobs.
with corporate10 profits at near record highs, we should encourage corporations to invest more in research and development and the salaries of their employees. it's time for us to invest in educational opportunity to guarantee that we have the most highly skilledworkforce11 in the world, for 6 out of every 10 jobs in the near term is going to require some education beyond high school. folks, it's long past due to increase the minimum wage that will lift millions of hardworking families out of poverty target poverty and in the process produce a ripple12 effect that boosts wages for the middle class and spurs economic growth for the united states of america. economists13 acknowledge that if we do these and other things, wages will go up and we'll increase the gross domestic product of the united states.
my fellow americans, we know how to do this. we've done it before. it's the way we used to do business and we can do it that way again. all the middle class in this country want is a chance. no guarantee, just a chance.
americans want to work. and when given a fair shot, the american worker has never, ever, ever, let his country down. folks, it's never a good bet to bet against the american people.
thanks for listening.
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