ally a big round of applause. they are just wonderful people. i'm so glad i had a chance to meet them. they're debating what to name their son. so if you have some suggestions -- i asked them what about barack? that was not even on the list. but they are wonderful people and they've got incredibly cute guy named cooper and so i really thank them for their hospitality and we appreciate them so much and jason is starting as a high school principal so wish him good luck. he's going to do a great job. i want to acknowledge star rich. stars of itch. i call him mick.

and he is the president of kirkwood and our host today. thank you so much. i want to acknowledge our outstanding emcee, peggy wentworth. great friend. great friend of mine. and one of my dearest friends here in iowa, your outstanding attorney general, tom miller is in the house. now if you guys have a seat, feel free to take a seat, that way if it gets a little warm i don't want anybody getting overheated. you guys are kind of out of luck. so make sure you're hydrated and abraham lincoln is in the house.

>> my homeboy from illinois and an outstanding republican endorsee. there you go. now unless you've managed to hide your television somewhere for the last year, you may be aware that it is now campaign season and here in iowa it seems like it's always campaign season. you guys can't get away from it, and i know that it is not always pretty to watch. there is more money flooding the system than ever before, there's more negative ads and more cynici cynicism. most of what you hear on the news is who's up and who's down

in the polls instead of how any of this relates to your lives and the country that you live. so i know that sometimes it can be tempting to lose interest and to lose heart and to get a little cynical, and frankly, that's what a lot of people are betting that you do, but i'm betting that you won't. i'm betting that you are going to be as fired up as you were in 2008 because you understand the stakes for america. most of you are here because you know that even though sometimes our politics seems really small and petty, the stakes in this election could not be bigger. what's at stake is bigger than two candidates. it's bigger than two political parties.

what's at stake are two very different visions for our country, and cedar rapids, the choice that we make will help determine our direction for years to come. that choice is going to be up to you. >> obama! >> that's a good choice. now this will be my last political campaign, no matter what. i've got nothing else to run for. but it's got -- and because of that and you start feeling nostalgic, and you start thinking about some of your first campaigns. i think about all of the places i used to travel in illinois, and the first race i ran as a state senator and michelle and i had to, like, xerox or go to kinkos and copy our flyers.

we didn't have a tv budget back then, and we rode around in my car, and i filled it up with my gas, and i'm the one who got lost if i took a wrong turn and what's amazing, though, when i think about it is how many people you meet from every walk of life all across illinois in big cities, small towns, upstate, downstate, quads, you name it and you always hear similar stories from people about the parents, their grandparents and struggles they've gone through and how they've been able to find a job who paid a living wage and look after their families and the kids have done better than they did and those stories would resonate with me and michelle because that was our story. that was our lives and when i came to iowa for the

presidential campaign. first stop, cedar rapids. first stop. [ applause ] first stop. cedar -- i love you back, and the first stop was cedar rapids and we went on to waterloo, and, you know, that was the first time i had campaigned as president, and i was kind of nervous. we had this huge town hall and i don't remember what i said. most of the time i was worried about screwing up, but the same thing that i saw in illinois i was seeing in iowa. you know, this was a state that gave me a chance when nobody else would and no matter -- [ applause ] no matter what the national media was saying and no matter

how far down we were in the polls michelle and i would come here and feel hopeful because we'd had that same conversation that i had as my first race as u.s. senator and going to state fairs and stopping in towns and visiting vfw halls and diners and visiting people whose lives on the surface might have looked different than mine, but when you heard their stories they were a common story. i thought my grandparents whose service in world war ii was rewarded when my grandfather came back from the war and my grandmother was on the assembly line and they were able to go to college and buy their first house with an fh alone. i had a single mom who with the help of my grand patient, was

able to send my sister and me to great schools even though she didn't make a lot of money and she was struggling to put herself through school and working at the same time and michelle would think about her father who worked as a stationary engineer at the water filtration camp, blue collar job all his life and her mom who was a stay-at-home mom and worked as a secretary for most of her life and we thought about how far we had come and the fact that our lives were a testament to that fundamental american i.d. that no matter who you are, no matter what you looked like and no matter where you come from, america is a place where you can make it if you tried. america was a place where you could make it if you tried.

and that same story, my family's story, michelle's family's story, i heard it from you guys. it was your story, and we understood and we'd sit and talk and we'd agree that, you know, america has never been a country of people looking for handouts. we're a nation of workers and dreamers and doers. and we understand that we've got to work for everything that we've got, and all we ask for is that hard work pays off. that responsibility is rewarded. so that if you put in enough effort, if you're willing to put in some sweat, tears and overcome some difficulties in your life then you can find a job that pays the bills and afford a home that you can call your own and count on health care when you get sick and put a

a -- put away enough to retire on. let me take a vacation once in a while. i was telling folks in ohio, i remember my favorite vacation when i was 11 years old, traveling country with my grandmother and my mom and my sister and once in a while we'd rent a car, but a bunch of times we'd just take greyhound busses, and sometimes we'd take the train and stay at howard johnsons and, you know, as long as there was a little puddle of a pool i'd be happy, and you'd go to the ice machine and the vending machine and buy a soda and get the ice and you were really excited about it, and what was important was just the time that you had to spend with your family. it wasn't anything fancy , but you understood you spent time

with your family, they were cared for and you had a sense of security. you could provide for your children an education that would allow them to do even better than you do. that was the basic bargain that built america's middle class. the largest middle class on earth. that's what built our prosperity, the greatest economy the world's ever known. and so those shared memories, those shared stories, that was the basis of our campaign when i ran for president. that's what i talked about the first time i came to cedar rapids, because we came together as democrats and independents and republicans because for too long that basic bargain, that vision of what it means to make it in america had been slipping away for too many folks. people were working harder for less. it's more difficult to save, more difficult to retire, the cost of health care and college was going through the roof, and

we understood that turning that around was not going to be easy. we knew it would take more than one year or one term or maybe even one president. what we didn't know was that we were about to get hit with the worst economic crisis in our lifetimes and that crisis has put us through some really tough times. here in iowa and all across the country. they've robbed millions of fellow americans of their jobs, their homes and savings and it made the american dream seem further out of reach for too many hard-working people, but the basic idea of why i ran in 2008, the reason you are here today is because that crisis did not change who we are. it did not change our character. it did not change our values. we still know what makes us great. we still know that what makes us great is the fact that if you work hard in this country, you can still make it.

that vision we still believe in. the vision of a strong middle class is what we're fighting for. our mission right now is not just to recover from a recession. it's to reclaim the basic security that so many americans have lost. our goal is to put people back to work, but it's also to build an economy where that work pace pays off, whether they're starting a business or they're punk a clock can have confidence that if you work hard you can get ahead. that is what this campaign is about, iowa. that's what i've been fighting for for the last three and a half years and that's why i'm running for a second term as president of the united states!

[ applause ] >> you know what's holding us back from meeting this challenge is not a lack of ideas or a lack of solutions. what's holding us back from making even more progress than we've made is a stalemate in washington between two fundamentally different views about which path we should take as a country, and this election is about breaking that stalemate. this election -- this election

will determine our economic future for the next generation and frankly, the choice could not be clear. my opponent, his allies in congress, they sincerely believe the prosperity comes from the top down. they believe that if we spend trillions and billions of dollars more, mostly for the wealthy, it will create more job, even if we have to pay for it by gutting education or shopping community colleges or pell grants and cutting back on training and raising middle class taxes. they believe that if we roll back regulations if we put a place on banks and insurance companies and oil companies all meant to protect our people and our economy that somehow everybody will be better off. and i think they're wrong. i think they're wrong.

>> and listen, it's not just my opinion. we tried it their way through most of the last decade, and it didn't work. you know, we fought two wars on a credit card. still paying for trillions of dollars in tax cuts that didn't lead to more jobs or better wages for the middle class, and the lack of rules on wall street is what alolowed people to take short cuts and caused this whole mess in the first place so we tried what they're selling and it didn't work and somehow they think you don't remember. but you remember and we don't need more topdown economics. what we need is somebody that's

going to fight every single day to grow the middle class because that's how our economy grows from the middle out, from the bottom up, where everybody's got a shot. that's how the economy grows. so i was over at jason and allen's, wonderful story. really nice family. jason's the new principal over at new central city high. ally is an account manager, and they have a very cute 4-year-old, cooper and then the yet to be named other cute one. they met at a convenience store where they worked while they were in school. apparently, ally was jason's boss, and she is still his boss.

that does not change that's how it works. so we were -- we were talking about something that nobody looks forward to and that's paying taxes. you know, everybody understands, and it's something you have to do. you don't love doing, but we were talking about how over the last four years because the policies my administration put in place we've been able to offer the mclaugh lan's about $40 million in tax relief and. and they said that's made a real difference in their lives and it helps to get day care for cooper and i was seeing the house they're in now is roughly the size that michelle and i lived in for roughly the first 13

years we were mared and it was a little co-op and when they were talking about the bills. i remember going through them. you have the mortgage, the student loans. you have the electricity bill, car note, gas bill, day care, everything they were talking about was familiar because michelle and i went through it and that $4900 helped. it made a difference. now we've got a choice to make because on january 1st taxes are scheduled to go up on everybody in america. that's what the law says right now. if we don't do anything. if congress doesn't do anything, taxes will go up at the end of this year. yesterday i called on congress to stop any tax hikes for the 98% of americans who are just like the mclachlans. just like you.

because if congress doesn't act then that tax hike could cost up to $2200 for a family of four. that wouldn't just be a big financial hit for jason and ally because as they pointed out and this is what i love about america and what i love about them. they said, you know, as tight as things may be for us we're a lot better off than a lot of folks we know. so imagine if it's tough for them what it's going to be for somebody else. >> like your mom. >> like your mom. it would be not only a huge blow to those families. it would be a big blow to our entire economy, at a time when we need all of the help we can get. now, i believe that we should make sure the taxes on the 98% of americans don't go up, and then we should let the tax cuts expire for folks like me, for the top 2% of americans.

so anybody making over $250,000 a year, including me, we would go back to the tax rates we were paying under bill clinton, which by the way, was a time when our economy created 23 million new jobs, the biggest budget surplus in history and created plenty of millionair millionaires, to boot. and by the way, the reason i say that is not because i just love to pay taxes. it's because i know i can afford it, and to give me another tax break and to give warren buffett another tax break or to give mitt romney another tax break that would cost -- that would cost about $1 trillion and we

can't afford it, not at a time when we're trying to bring down the deficit and not at a time when we're trying to reduce our debt. so this has nothing to do with me wanting to punish success. we love folks getting rich. i hope malia and sasha go out there and if that's what they want to do, that's great, but i do want to make sure that everybody else gets that chance as well, and for us to give a trillion dollars worth of tax breaks to folks who don't need it, to folks who don't need it and aren't even asking for it, that doesn't make sense. now the republicans in congress and mr. romney disagree with me, and that's what democracy is all about. they want more tax cuts for the wealthiest americans on top of the existing bush tax cuts, they want to give $5 trillion more on

tax cuts and that fight is a big part of what this election is about. we'll have that debate here in iowa and across the country, but in the meantime, doesn't it make sense for us to agree to keep taxes low for 98% of americans who are working hard and can't afford a tax hike right now. i mean, think about it, i want to hold taxes steady for 98% of americans. republicans say they want to do the same thing. we disagree on the other 2%. what do you usually do if you agree on 98% and disagree on 2%? why don't you compromise to help the middle class? go ahead and do the 98% and we can keep arguing about the 2%. let's agree when we can agree!

and let's not hold the vast majority of americans hostage while we debate the merits of another tax cut for another 2%. in other words, let's stand up for families like yours that are working hard every day. give you some certainty so you can start planning, so you have an idea of what's coming next year and that's what this election's about. ultimately, cedar rapids, that's why i'm running for second term as president because i believe we can make progress right now that helps you and your families. that's what i'm going to be fighting for. [ applause ]

>> four more years! four more years! four more years! >> this tax issue and it's part of a broader debate we'll have about how we rebuild the economy in terms of the middle class and everybody that's trying to get into the middle class. when the american auto industry was on the brink of collapse and more than one million jobs were on the line, governor romney said we should let detroit go bankrupt. i refused to turn my back on a great american industry and great american workers. i bet on american workers. i bet on american manufacturing, and three years later the american auto industry has come roaring back. that's what this election's

about. because what's happening in the auto ibdz stree can happen in other industries and i'm ready to make sure it does. i want high-tech manufacturing to take root in places like cedar rapids and newton and des moines. i want goods stamped with made in america selling all around the world. i want to stop giving tax breaks to companies that ship jobs and factories overseas and serve reward and companies that create jobs right here in the united states of america.

governor romney has experienced owning companies that are called pioneers in the business of outsourcing. my experience has been working with outstanding members of labor and great managers to save the american auto industry and as long as i'm president i will keep fighting to make sure jobs are located here in the united states of america. >> we can't stop there. i'm ready to make sure that america once again leads the world in educating our kids and training our workers. our tuition tax credit has saved millions of families thousands of dollars. i want to extend it. we just won the fight we were having with congress to stop the federal student loan rate from doubling for more than 7 million students.

we got that done, now i want to work with presidents and officials at universities and community colleges to bring the cost of tuition once and for all. i want to help our schools higher and reward the best teachers especially in math and science. i want to get 2 million more americans the chance to attend great community colleges like kirkwood and help them learn the skills the businesses are hiring for right now because higher education is not a luxury in the 21st century. it is a necessity, and i want everybody to be able to afford it. that's what this election's about. [ applause ]

my administration's helped more than a million responsible homeowners refinance their mortgages and i want to give them a chance to refinance and save $3,000 a year. my opponent's plan is to let the housing market hit bottom. that's not a solution. that's part of the problem. that's a choice in this election. i'm running because i believe that nobody in america should go broke just because they get sick. our health care law was the right thing to do. it was the right thing to do. and you know what? i will work with everybody to improve the health care law where we can. this law is here to stay and it will help the vast majority of americans feel greater