[AUTHENTICITY CERTIFIED: Text version below transcribed directly from audio]
It is wonderful to be here in the Upper Peninsula with so many
Yoopers.
How many of you are Green Bay fans, too? I’ve been seeing too many
Green Bay fans lately.
It is great to be here. It is great to be at Northern Michigan
University. We’ve got some wonderful guests here that I just want to
mention. First of all, somebody who is as good a public servant, not
just good at what he does but good at heart and works tirelessly on
behalf of the entire state, your senior senator, Carl Levin, is here.
Now, his partner in the Senate could not be here because she’s actually
leading a Democratic caucus retreat, but she’s been fighting for
manufacturing, for broadband, for a lot of things that we’re talking
about here today. So I just want to acknowledge Debbie Stabenow, who
deeply cares about the work that you do up here.
I want to thank the great hospitality of Mayor John Kivela, who has been
showing me around town. Thank you so much, Mayor Kivela. The President
of Northern Michigan University, Dr. Les Wong, is here. And all of you
are here. And you guys are pretty special. Absolutely.
Before I begin, I just want to say that we are following today’s events
in Egypt very closely. And we’ll have more to say as this plays out.
But what is absolutely clear is that we are witnessing history unfold.
It’s a moment of transformation that’s taking place because the people
of Egypt are calling for change. And they’ve turned out in
extraordinary numbers representing all ages and all walks of life, but
it’s young people who’ve been at the forefront -- a new generation, your
generation, who want their voices to be heard. And so going forward, we
want those young people and we want all Egyptians to know America will
continue to do everything that we can to support an orderly and genuine
transition to democracy in Egypt.
Now, as we watch what’s taking place, we’re also reminded that we live
in an interconnected world. What happens across the globe has an impact
on each and every one of us. And that’s why I’ve come to Marquette
today -- not only because it’s beautiful, and the people are really nice
-- which is true. But I’ve come here because in the 21st century, it’s
not just the big cities where change is happening. It’s also in towns
like this where the jobs and businesses of tomorrow will take root, and
where young and talented Americans can lead. It’s towns like this where
our economic future will be won.
Now, in the short term, the best thing we can do to speed up economic
growth is to make sure families and businesses have more money to spend,
and that’s exactly what -- got a little applause there. That’s exactly
why we passed those tax cuts in December. That’s what it’s doing.
Because Democrats and Republicans came together, Americans’ paychecks
will be a little bigger this year and businesses will be able to write
off their investments and companies will grow and they’ll add workers.
But we’ve got more to do.
Our measure of success has to be whether every American who wants a job
can find a job; whether this country is still the place where you can
make it if you try. In a world that’s more connected and more
competitive, other nations look at this moment as their moment, their
turn to win the jobs and industries of our time. I see things
differently. I see this as America’s moment to win the future, so that
the 21st century is the American century just like the 20th century was.
Yes we can.
But to do this, we’re going to have to up our game, Marquette. We got
to up our game. To attract the best jobs, the newest industries, we’re
going to have to out-innovate, out-educate, out-build. We’re going to
have to out-hustle the rest of the world. That means investing in
cutting-edge research and technology, like the new advanced battery
manufacturing industry that’s taking root right here in the state of
Michigan. It means investing in the skills and training of our people,
just like it’s taking place at this university. It means investing in
transportation and communications networks that move goods and
information as fast as possible.
And to make room for these investments, we’re going to have to cut
whatever spending we can do without. We’ve got a real issue with debts
and deficit, and so we’ve got to live within our means. And that means
that we’ve got to cut out things that aren’t adding to growth and
opportunity in order to invest in those things that are.
And that’s why I’ve proposed that we freeze annual domestic spending for
the next five years. That will reduce the deficit by more than 400
billion dollars over the next decade. It will bring spending to the
lowest share of our economy since Eisenhower was President. That’s a
long time ago. Even I wasn’t born then.
So government has to do what American families do every day: live within
our means. But even as we do so, we can’t sacrifice our future. I’ll
just give you guys an analogy. If you’re trying to cut back in your
family, you might decide, we’re not going to go out to dinner so often;
maybe we’ll skip the vacation; we’re not going to remodel the kitchen.
But you wouldn’t stop saving for your child’s college education. You
wouldn’t stop saving for your own retirement. If your boiler was broken
or your roof had a leak, you’d still go ahead and make those
investments.
Well, the same is true with our country. We’ve got to cut out the
equivalence of eating out and vacations. I know there may be some
restaurant owners here -- go eat at their restaurants -- but I’m just
making a general point. Even as we cut out the things we can afford to
do without, we got a responsibility to invest in those areas that will
have the biggest impact on our future, and those things are innovation,
education and infrastructure.
And that last area -- infrastructure -- is why I’ve come here today.
Connecting a country of our size has never been easy. Just imagine
what Americans experienced when they fanned out from 13 colonies to
settle a continent. If you wanted to get from one coast to the other,
it would take you months; it would cost you a small fortune. If you
settled in the heartland, you were an island, with no real market to
sell your goods or buy what you needed. You might have to wait until
the traders came by before you stocked up.
So we decided to build a railroad to span a continent -- one that would
blast through mountains of granite and use thousands of miles of steel,
and put to work an army of citizens and immigrants to work. It was an
endeavor that would also require support of our government. It didn’t
just happen on its own. As General William T. Sherman said, “Uncle Sam
is the only giant I know who can grapple the subject.”
So even as President Lincoln tried to hold the North and South together,
he was determined to see this railroad unite East and West. And private
companies joined the charge, racing one another to meet in the middle.
And eventually, a telephone operator -- a telegraph operator sent out a
simple message to the cheers of a waiting nation. The telegraph just
said: “Done.” Done. Now, if he knew that we were still talking about
it today, he might have come up with something more inspiring.
But overnight, the
transcontinental railroad laid the way for a nationwide economy, not a
bunch of local economies, but a nationwide economy. Suddenly, a
cross-country trip was cut from months to days. The cost to move goods
and mail plummeted. Cowboys drove cattle to railcars that whisked them
back East. Entrepreneurs could sell anything, anywhere.
After the railroad was completed, a newspaper proclaimed: “We are the
youngest of peoples. But we are teaching the world to march forward.”
Teaching the world to march forward.
That’s who we are. We are a nation that has always been built to
compete. And that’s why, decades later, FDR set up the Rural
Electrification Administration to help bring power to vast swaths of
America that were still in darkness. Companies said that building lines
to rural areas would be too costly. I mean, big cities already had
electricity. But they said, it’s too costly to go out into remote
areas. It’s too costly to come up into the Upper Peninsula.
So Americans in these towns went without refrigeration or running water.
If you wanted a glimpse of the larger world, your town might run a
movie off a small diesel engine. It might not even last the full film.
Once power lines were laid down, electricity flowed to farms across the
country, transforming millions of lives. There’s a well-known story of
a Texas family returning home the first night their farmhouse was hooked
up, and a woman thought it was on fire. And her daughter said, “No,
Mama, the lights are on.” Think about that. That wasn’t that long ago,
and government was there to help make sure that everybody -- everybody,
not just some -- but everybody -- not just those who folks could make an
immediate profit off of -- but everybody had access to electricity.
So years later, as our nation grew by leaps and bounds, we realized that
a patchwork system of back roads and dirt paths couldn’t handle the
biggest economy in the world. So President Eisenhower helped make it
possible to build an Interstate Highway System, and that, too,
transformed the nation -- as much as the railways had.
And finally, we could ship goods and services to places that the
railroads didn’t reach. It meant that we could live apart from where we
worked. We could travel. We could see America.
Each of these achievements
-- none of them just happened. We chose to do them. We chose to do big
things. And every American benefited -- not just from new conveniences.
Not just from the jobs created by laying down new lines or tracks or
pavement. We benefited enormously from new economic growth -- from the
scores of businesses that opened near each town’s new train station, or
new power line, or new off-ramp.
So this is a new century, and we can’t expect tomorrow’s economy to take
root using yesterday’s infrastructure. We got to think about what’s the
next thing, what’s the next big thing, and make sure that we’re at the
forefront -- just like we were in the last century.
Today, new companies are going to seek out the fastest, most reliable
ways to move people, goods and information, whether they are in Shanghai
or in Chicago. So if we want new jobs and businesses here in America,
we’ve got to have the best transportation system and the best
communication network in the world. It’s like that movie, Field of
Dreams: If
we build it, they will come. But we’ve got to build it.
We’ve got to build it.
Over the last two years, we’ve begun rebuilding for the 21st century.
This is a national project that has meant thousands of jobs for the
hard-hit construction industry. And I’ve now proposed redoubling these
efforts. We want to put more Americans to work repairing crumbling
bridges and roads. Within 25 years, our goal is to have 80 percent of
Americans with access to high-speed rail, which could allow you to go to
places in half the time it takes by car. Within five years, we want to
make it possible for businesses to put high-speed wireless services in
reach of virtually every American.
And that last part, high-speed wireless, is why I chose to come to
Northern Michigan University today. Now let me give you some context.
Today, more than 90 percent of homes in South Korea subscribe to
high-speed broadband. They just have better networks than we do. In
America, the nation that created the Internet -- by the way, because of
government investment; it didn’t just happen by itself magically --
because of government R&D, we created the Internet, but yet only 65
percent of households here in America can say the same. When it comes
to high-speed Internet, the lights are still off in one-third of our
households. One out of every three households in America don’t have
that same access. For millions of Americans, the railway hasn’t showed
up yet.
For our families and our businesses, high-speed wireless service, that’s
the next train station; it’s the next off-ramp. It’s how we’ll spark
new innovation, new investment, new jobs.
And you know this here in Northern Michigan. That’s why I showed up, in
addition to it being pretty and people being nice. For decades now,
this university has given a new laptop to every incoming student. Wi-Fi
stretched across campus. But if you lived off-campus, like most
students and teachers here, you were largely out of luck. Broadband was
often too expensive to afford. And if you lived a bit further out of
town, you were completely out of luck, because broadband providers, they
often won’t build networks where it’s not profitable, just like they
wouldn’t build electrical lines where it wasn’t profitable.
So this university tried something new. You partnered with various
companies to build a high-speed, next-generation wireless network. And
you managed to install it with six people in only four days without
raising tuition. Good job. Good job, Mr. President. By the way, if
you give me the name of these six people -- there’s a whole bunch of
stuff in Washington I’d like to see done in four days with six people.
So today, this is one of America’s most connected universities, and
enrollment is near the highest it’s been in 30 years.
And what’s more -- and this is what makes this special -- you told
nearby towns that if they allowed you to retrofit their towers with new
equipment to expand your network, then their schools, their first
responders, their city governments could use it too. And as a result,
police officers can access crime databases in their cars. And
firefighters can download blueprints on the way to a burning building.
And public works officials can save money by monitoring pumps and
equipment remotely.
And you’ve created new online learning opportunities for K-12 students
as far as 30 miles away, some of whom -- some of whom can’t always make
it to school in a place that averages 200 inches of snow a year. Now,
some of these students don’t appreciate the end of school [snow] days.
I know Malia and Sasha get really excited about school [snow] days. Of
course, in Washington things shut down when there’s an inch of snow. But
this technology is giving them more opportunity. It’s good for their
education, it’s good for our economy. In fact, I just came from a
demonstration of online learning in action. We were with Professor
Lubig and he had plugged in Negaunee High School -- and Powell Township
School in Big Bay. So I felt like the guy in Star Trek. I was being
beamed around -- across the Upper Peninsula here. But it was remarkable
to see the possibilities for these young people who are able to, let’s
say, do a chemistry experiment, and they can compare the results with
kids in Boston.
Or if there’s some learning tool or material they don’t have immediately
accessible in their school, they can connect here to the university, and
they’re able to tap into it.
It’s opening up an entire
world to them. And one of the young people who I was talking to, he
talked about foreign policy and what we were seeing in places like
Egyptian. And he said, what’s amazing especially for us is that now we
have a window to the entire world, and we can start understanding other
cultures and other places in ways that we could never do without this
technology.
For local businesses, broadband access is helping them grow and prosper
and compete in a global economy. In fact, Marquette has been rated one
of the top five “eCities” in Michigan for entrepreneurship. That’s
right.
So here’s a great example, Getz’s Clothiers. The Getzes are here. Where
are the Getzes? They’re around here somewhere. There they are right
there.
This is a third-generation,
family-owned, Marquette institution. They’ve occupied the same downtown
store for more than a century -- but with the help of broadband, they
were recently listed as one of America’s 5,000 fastest-growing
companies. Now how did they pull that off?
Obviously they’ve got great products, great service. But what’s also
true is online sales now make up more than two-thirds of their annual
revenue. Think about that. You got a downtown department store; now
two-thirds of its sales are online. It can process more than 1,000
orders a day, and its workforce has more than doubled. So you’ve got a
local business with a global footprint because of technology.
Now, if you can do this in snowy U.P. -- we can do it all across
America. In fact, many places already are. So in Wagner, South Dakota,
patients can receive high-quality, lifesaving medical care from a Sioux
Falls specialist who can monitor their EKG and listen to their breathing
-- from 100 miles away. In
Ten Sleep, Wyoming -- I love the name
of that town, Ten Sleep -- it’s a town in Wyoming of 300 people. A
fiber-optic network allowed a company to employ several hundred teachers
who teach English to students in Asia over the Internet, 24 hours a day.
You’ve all heard about outsourcing. Well, this is “insourcing” --
where overseas work is done right here in the United States of America.
So we want to multiply these
stories -- we want to multiply your story -- all over the country. We
want to invest in the next generation of high-speed wireless coverage
for 98 percent of Americans.
This isn’t just about faster Internet or being able to find a friend on
Facebook. It’s about connecting every corner of America to the digital
age. It’s about a rural community in Iowa or Alabama where farmers can
monitor weather across the state and market across the globe. It’s
about an entrepreneur on Main Street with a great idea she hopes to sell
to the big city. It’s about every young person who no longer has to
leave his hometown to seek new opportunity -- because opportunity is
right there at his or her fingertips.
So to make this happen, we’re going to invest in research and development of emerging technologies and applications. We’re going to accelerate breakthroughs in health and education and transportation, and deploy a new nationwide, interoperable wireless network for first responders -- making sure they’ve got the funding and the frequencies that they were promised and that they need to keep us safe. It’s important. By selling private companies the rights to these airwaves, we won’t just encourage private investment and expand wireless access; we’re actually going to bring in revenues that lower our deficits.
Now, access to high-speed
Internet by itself won’t make a business more successful, or a student
smarter, or a citizen more informed. That takes hard work. It takes
those late nights. It takes hustle. It takes that quintessentially
American drive to be the best. That’s what’s the most important
ingredient for our success.
But we’ve always believed that we have a responsibility to guarantee all
our people every tool necessary for them to meet their full potential.
So if they’re willing to work hard, they can succeed. And in a
21st-century economy, that has never been more important. Every
American deserves access to the world’s information. Every American
deserves access to the global economy. We have promised this for 15
years. It’s time we delivered on that promise. It’s time we delivered
on that promise.
So connecting our people. Competing with the rest of the world. Living
within our means without sacrificing what’s required to win the future.
We can do all this because we’ve done it before.
In 1960, at the height of his presidential campaign, JFK came to
Michigan. And it was a moment similar to this one. Other nations were
doing their best to try to take our place at the top. And here in
Michigan, he made it clear that if we wanted to keep from being knocked
off our perch, there could only be one goal for the United States. It
could be summed up in one word: “first.” First.
“I do not mean first, but,”
he said. “I don’t mean first, when. I don’t mean first, if. I mean
first -- period.” And “The real question now,” he continued, “The real
question,” he continued, “is whether we’re up to the task -- whether
each and every one of us is willing to face the facts, to bear the
burdens, to provide the risks, and to meet our dangers.” That was 50
years ago. But things haven’t changed in terms of what’s required to
succeed.
And we were up to the task then. I believe we’re up to the task today.
Time and again, whether westward or skyward, with each rail and road
that we’ve laid, in every community, we’ve connected with our own
science and imagination, and we forged anew our faith that we can do
anything. We do big things. That’s who we are. And that’s who we’re
going to have to be again -- a young nation that teaches the world to
march forward.
That’s what you’re doing up here in U.P. That’s what you’re doing here
at Northern Michigan University. That’s what we’re all going to do
together in the months and years to come.
Thank you. God bless you. God bless the United States of America.
Book/CDs by Michael E. Eidenmuller, Published by
McGraw-Hill (2008)
Text & Audio Source: WhiteHouse.gov
Audio Note: AR-XE = American Rhetoric Extreme Enhancement
Copyright Status: Text and Audio = Public domain.