the regulators said no to the keystone pipeline. bringing in oil from canada. how did we miss that tested? now the president is going to build the bottom half. let's connected to the oil. [applause] let's actually connected to the oil. [applause] most people in this room do not give a thought about something known as dodd-frank. you do not think it affects you all on a direct basis. i am not trying to pretend like i am from louisiana. it does not affect everybody in the room. [laughter] but it does affect everybody in the room. it makes it harder for community banks to make loans and to renegotiate loans.

the big new york banks are getting bigger and the community banks have pulled back. it is the community banks that make loans to small business people. small businesses a couple people out of recession. one of the reasons this recession is been so hard is because community banks about a hard time making loans to these businesses. these regulators, whether it is banking, energy, health care, these folks are making it harder for this economy to get going again. as a result, you have all these people at of work. people who are seeing sliding paychecks. the median income in america has dropped by 10% in the last four

years. people in this country are having a hard time. their incomes are down and the cost of gasoline is up. people are having a hard time. government spending is up. >> [inaudible] >> there is no recession going on in washington, d.c. [laughter] this has to attend. -- to end. there is that story about him hunting for raccoons. i guess he is fighting with a bobcat up in the tree. this pain has to end one way or another.

this overreaching by the government has to end. we have to return to the principles of our nation. [applause] if i am lucky enough to become president -- [applause] thank you. i will get that waiver. i will go to work to get it repealed and replaced with something that does bring down the cost of health care. it allows free-market dynamics to be part of health care. but allows you to be able to pick your own plan. by virtue of doing these things, we will reinstate the type of economic freedom that has made america a powerhouse. i love america of. i love what this nation stands [applause]

it is time to end of this anti economic liberty agenda out of that make us such a great nation. i will have is my inspiration the declaration of independence. and as my blueprint, the constitution of the united [applause] only one more thing i want to say. i need you to get out and vote. you have a contest coming up and i would love to have your help. you have a lot of delegates. i probably will not get all of them, but i want to get as many as i can. they lowered taxes. by the way, home sales are up 50% under this administration.

our policies work. i need your vote, i need your help. together, we will get rid of obamacare. thank you. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> the next, remarks on the second anniversary of the signing of the health care law by president -- vice president biden in florida. then "washington journal." on "newsmakers," the director of the consumer financial bureau that talks about how the new agency is shaking up. sunday at 10:00 a.m. and 6:00

p.m. eastern on c-span. >> on monday, the supreme court starts three days of hearings on the constitution malady of the new health care law. here the oral argument for yourself in its entirety as the court releases audio at around 1:00 p.m. eastern each day with coverage on c-span3 and c-span radio and debt c-span.org. our coverage starts monday morning with "washington journal." then, the oral3 argument on oral. >> joe biden was back on the campaign trail to talk about the benefits of the health care law and the administration's medicare policy. he spoke at a retirement community in coconut creek, florida. debbie wasserman schultz also spoke.

this is 50 minutes. >> good morning, everyone. i am your congressman. it is great to be back. [applause] how is everyone feeling today? are you fired up? is everyone excited that the vice president is here with us today? i want to thank you for joining kirk day. how many of you remember, two years ago today, the president signed into law affordable, accessible, health care for all? how many of you remember? [applause] today is about the history that was made that day. it is also very much about our future. if the other guys get their way, we are headed right back to the failed policies of the past. you have heard them. you have for them on the

campaign trail. it is all the same. what did they say about social security? let it go bankrupt. what did they say about medicare? let it go bankrupt. what do they say about america is a new health-care law? let it go bankrupt. what did they say to florida seniors? let them go bankrupt, too. do you know what is bankrupt? their ideas. it is up to us to protect the change we fought so hard for four years ago. it is up to us to protect the promises that president obama and vice-president biden kept. [applause] if we do not get to work today,

today, and if we do not get fired up, the historic health care law, that will be history. that is what we are here for today. it is my great privilege and my great honor to introduce someone who stands up for our values every day. who worked tirelessly on behalf of floridians. who stands up for all americans, as the leader of the democratic party, my great friend and neighbor, debbie wasserman schulz. >> thank you during much. it is great to be here. wonderful to be home back in broward county. thank you so much. [applause] i am so proud and so privileged to be able to stand in the

chamber of the u.s. house of representatives, fighting side- by-side on behalf of seniors, on behalf of working families and the middle class every single day. this community was so smart and so wise to send him to represent you in the united states capitol. thank you so much. good job. [applause] i am so excited, so thrilled to be able to be home. to talk about the tremendous progress we have made. it has been three years since president obama and vice president biden were elected and handed the largest set of problems at once of any administration in history since fdr. i mean, really. [applause] they set about tackling them one by one. we have gone from bleeding

750,000 jobs a month. three years later, we have had 24 straight months of job growth in the private sector. we have focused on the middle class and working families. [applause] we had a fight her alongside president obama and the vice president of the united states. joe biden and his more than 40 years of public service has given -- i did not mean that as a joke. it is remarkable. from the time he was 29 years old, joe biden has made a commitment to help improve the quality of life of all americans. he has been in their scrapping and scraping and standing up for working families. he is able to partner with this president. through history, vice-president have seen the ups and downs. some of them are fully embraced by the president.

others were swept under the rug or put in the corner. a vice president biden was selected by the president and serves with the president as a full partner and an adviser. he is a friend to all of us here in south florida. it is wonderful to be here with you. [applause] i am so excited, so thrilled that we are here. on the two-year anniversary of the affordable care acting signed into law. that is a big deal. it is very personal for me. a lot of the know that i am a breast cancer survivor. like so many millions of survivors like me. the affordable care act lifted that burden, lifted that angst, so that when it is fully implemented, we will no longer have to worry about being

dropped or denied coverage for pre-existing conditions. [applause] more importantly, for me as a representative of this community, a representative of thousands of senior citizens, a representative who has stood on line behind seniors at the drugstore when the pharmacist brings them their prescriptions and five or six come to the counter and they can only take two or three of them home. they're too expensive. because of the ridiculous gap in coverage in the prescription drug plan. it will finally be closed thanks to the affordable care act. [applause] 3.6 million seniors have already seen a reduction in those prescription drug cost. that is important. it is incredibly important that

we make sure that we continued to transform medicare from a sick care system -- what do so many seniors talk about? how often are you talking about your next doctor's appointment? and that you are not feeling very well. the affordable care act has made it a prevention and wellness program. now you are entitled to a free wellness visit. you can go get a check of this because you want to make sure it to stay well. that is what you should be dealing with health care in this country. thanks to president obama and vice president biden, we have done that. finally. finally. [applause] let me tell you, we have a lot at stake in this election.

the other side, mitt romney, the other candidates, what to reverse all that. they talk about wanting to pull the affordable care act by the roots and fully repeal it. and replace it with nothing. no new ideas. they want to take us back to the time when insurance company bureaucrats would be making decisions about what kind of care you could have. they want to -- they revealed, by reintroducing the ryan budget plan. mitt romney fully embraced this proposal to end medicare as we know it, to turn it into a doctor program. to make sure that safety net was no longer there for you when you turn 65. that is unacceptable.

[applause] that is why i am so proud to stand with the president and vice-president every single day as the chair of the democratic national committee. i can tell you we will never lets you down. ted and i will fight every single day to make sure the safety net for seniors, the medicare program is preserved. we will never again let you go back to the time when seniors could become medically bankrupt, to the time when children have to worry about how they would have to care for their aging parents. that is why we need to make sure we do everything we can for the next 227 days to send barack obama and joe biden back to the white house. [applause]

so now it is my great privilege to really introduce the most important person in the room. i think the vice president will agree with that. because it is not the vice president. [laughter] i want to make sure one of our favorite residents, a passionate advocate for making sure we have medicare preserved as a safety net for our seniors and he was committed to the reelection of the president and vice president of the united states. is my privilege to introduce your neighbor and friend. [applause] >> good afternoon, everyone. it is an honor to be here and to introduce vice-president

biden. my name is harold goldberg. i have served as the volunteer president of this community. as a native of pennsylvania, i think the vice president and i have a lot in common. some other things we have in common are even more important. we share the belief that health care should be right in america. right for all, not just for the wealthy few. we both believed it was wrong that america was the only developed country in the world where you could go broke just because you got sick. we both are grateful that two years ago, our president, barack obama, signed into law historic changes to right that wrong. the law is already helping

millions of our grandkids. as many of us in no, it is making a huge difference for seniors. one of the most important ways it is helping us is by closing the doughnut hole. that means a lot to me. like most of us, i have had some aches and pains over the last few years. i take prescriptions for some breathing issues. the bills are adding up. athe last time i went to the pharmacy, i asked them how close i was to hit in my limit. we figured out my insurance

will cover my medicine until about may or june. just a couple more months. for the rest of this year, i'd be on my own. that is why i will be spending the rest of this year fighting to reelect president obama. [applause] the health care law is already saving seniors money on our prescriptions. when it is fully up and running, president obama will close the doughnut hole completely. [applause] when the other guys talk about repealing health reform, what they really mean is that they will reopen the doughnut hole

completely. they are telling us that when the going gets tough, we are on our own. that would hurt almost everyone here. it would hurt a whole lot of folks in florida. it would hurt a lot of seniors all across america. it is going to be a tough fight, and i am glad we have vice-president biden in our corner. when he goes out there and fights, he is fighting to protect our economic security and our health security. it is my great honor to introduce him to you now. please join me in welcoming vice-president joe biden. [applause]

>> thank you very much. thank you. thank you very much. my taking my coat off does not mean the speech will be longer. howard, thank you very much. thank you very much for being here. folks, this is the second of four speeches that i will be making this spring on what is at stake from our perspective. what is at stake for the middle class in this election. the issue i will focus on today, with your permission, is retirement security.

i have to tell you, i come at this issue from a slightly different angle than it is usually talked about. my dad used to have an expression. my dad said, don't tell me what you value. show me your budget. i will tell you what you really value. like many of you, i had the

privilege of having my mom and dad live with me in my dad's final months and my mom's final years. neither my siblings nor i could separate the security of my mom and dad from our own well-being. neither my siblings nor i could separate the needs of our parents from the needs of our children. this is all family. we talk about it like it is an either-or proposition. this is about to we are. this is about what we value. that is how our parents lived their lives. and how we lived hours. i was raised in my mom and dad's house. like many of you, as you grew up, there was no alternative. i think that is what is missing in this debate today. how the connective tissue. the notion we are all in this together. every generation, every generation. there is no question that the baby boom generation puts

incredible pressure on medicare and social security. the number of seniors will be doubling by the year 2040. are we going to strengthen it and sustain these programs of medicare and medicaid now and for the future? or are we going to use these challenges as a pretense to do what so many have been trying to do from the beginning? dismantle both of these programs. i said to the overflow room, which were kind enough to -- i went to see them before i came to see you -- at the end of the day, we have been around enough to know that it is not just what you hear or see, what you feel, what you taste, what your heart tells you. what your heart tells you about whether or not someone speaking to you means what they say.

the one good aspect of growing older is that mechanism gets more acute. we understand better. the president and i believe that every american, after a lifetime of hard work, should be able to look forward to security and dignity that social security and medicare provide. [applause] it is about dignity. it is not just about health. it is about dignity. it is about our dignity. if we had any doubt about the clarity of the choice, just how high the stakes are regarding both these programs, we got a reminder a couple of days ago from a good man.

a guy named congressmen ryan. i disagree fundamentally with him, but this is a smart, decent guy. he is a republican leader. this week, congressman ryan reintroduce the republican budget, embraced by every republican candidate for president. they made a clear choice. the choice they made was in order to save "the programs," they lower the standard of living for those on medicare rather than asking the wealthiest among us to help deal with the problem. you may remember the first ryan budget. nothing subtle about it. it dismantled medicare within 10 years, it was a voucher

system. the average senior would be paying another $6,000 a year out of pocket for the medicare benefits they now receive. their action to the nation was not very subtle either. after an overwhelming rejection of the last year's ryan budget plan, they went to work to drafting another one. if you take a look at it, it did not change anything they're trying to do. if you do not change much, what is the difference between these two budgets? the way they talk about it. literally the way they talk about it. do not take my word for this. all of you are adept with computers. go on line to politico.com. a well respected publication

that all of the major newspapers look to. read an article that was in yesterday's or the day before. how paul ryan sold his budget plan. he sold it to all of his colleagues by telling them there is a new way to talk about what they will do without getting hurt politically. he told them they could win this debate this time would essentially the same plan if "you use the right poll tested words." go look at the article. if you use words like bipartisan, fix medicare, choice, the american people will not punish you. the american people, though, are not about to be fooled.

i've more faith in the american people that i think our republican colleagues to of being able to cut the wheat from the chaff here. [applause] the vast majority of the american people, whether they're democrats or republicans, not there is a fundamental difference between us and republicans on this issue. we believe in strengthening medicare. they do not. make no mistake about it, the republicans in congress, if any of them get their hands on the white house, i promise you, you'll see medicare ended as you know it. it is not just about medicare.

it is about the other benefits for seniors they want to undo. we passed a law to close the doughnut hole. saving the average senior $600 just this last year alone. that will increase. they want to repeal it. they simply said they want to repeal it. we passed a law to provide for preventive services. thank god my mother had two financially successful children. not me. [laughter] we would get my mom's prescriptions. we would have to lie to her and tell her that it was all covered. we all chipped in about $6,000 a month.

at the very end, when she needed some care, she had somebody there to help with her lunch. she always ask me, show me my checkbook. she had dignity. [applause] this is about what these guys do not get. it isn't more about whether or not my mother and father got the care they needed. it was how they got the care they needed. when my kids went off to school, we sold the house we had and we build another house. on the ground floor, it was on a hill, i built a whole suite for my mom and dad.

they would not move in. my whole life i had somebody living with me, and i will not do that to my kids. you know the deal. everyone of you feels that. what did they want to do? she knew it would cost 20% she would have to pay to get a checkup. she did not want to ask her kids. obviously, if we knew, we would have worked something beforehand. but she did not want to ask her kids. how many times do you feel that pain? and you do not know what it means?

how many of you wonder whether that thing that just happened to you, is a harbinger of something more serious? you just want to go ask the doctor. folks, these guys want to repeal all of that. in the process, i would argue, that they will be repealing that sense of dignity. they want to repeal all the things that i have mentioned. the end result, you'll have to pay at least $600 more a year for your drugs, 20% for your visits to the doctor. he will see medicare change. we would be so much better off as a country if we spend a lot less time and energy fighting off these efforts to dismantle medicare. i mean dismantle it. if we spend a little more time together, working to figure out how to strengthen medicare, we can make medicare solvent again.

we do not have to cut it to make it last. look, in our health care law, we have already extended the life of medicare until 2024. we have on coverage and recovered over $10.7 billion since we have been in. if our republican colleagues would join us, we could reduce the cost of medicare by $100 billion just by doing one thing -- saying drug companies cannot charge medicare any more than they charge any other federal program. [applause] they cannot charge our elderly anymore they charge our veterans. that is $100 million. we could save another $20 billion by asking the very

wealthiest of us, those who could easily afford health care, if they have retirement incomes that are significant to pay a little more. that would add another $20 billion. there is a lot more we can do. look, there is a lot more we can do to save this program, but it requires someone on the other side wants to preserve the system, really cares about preserving it and not gutting it. look, we are preparing to sit down -- the president and i, sit down and work with our republican colleagues. you may remember we talked about the biden budget talks with the republicans. we talked about all these things. but not one single thing was able to get done. but if you do not start from the premise that this program, this program, medicare, must be preserved in its current form. look, folks, social security. social security is in better shape. but here again, republicans have an approach on social

security that they say "saves social security for the next 75 years." and they do it by cutting the benefits. some salvation. a plan like the one that governor romney has introduced would cut social security benefits for your kids and your grandkids, cut by $2,400 a year for a double co-worker in their 40's. it would cut by $4,700 social security coverage anyone working in their 20's would get by the time they retire. here is the thing that nobody has really noticed, governor romney and the rest of supported a thing republican leaders call cut, cap, and balance. they call it cut, cap, and balance. another one of those new republican party plans which

are probably the right-tested words. cut, cap, and balance. except nobody knows what it really means. nobody knows exactly what they intend. because like so many of the most damaging things, it looks and sounds innocuous, so let me cut through -- no pun intended, and tell you what it means in plain english. the cuts are in the beginning cuts in social security benefits. they will tell you, do not worry, you will not be cut. as if all you care about is yourself. and the thing that i get angry about, they look at people like you and me, and they think all we care about, after all you have done for the nation, all we care about is ourselves. after a lifetime -- a lifetime of you not caring for yourselves but caring for all those people you love. caring for your community. [applause] they turn around and say as long

as we tell you you will not be cut, you will not mind if your children -- you will not mind if your grandchildren -- you will not mind if you're younger neighbors and friends end up having to pay. they do not understand us. look, the cap they talk about is the cap on what they ask of the wealthiest americans, the top percentage of americans and what they pay to make this country work. and the balance they talk about is the balance the budget on the backs of seniors and men across americans. why? so that they can preserve the this is not your father's republican party, guys. so that they can preserve a $1 trillion tax cut. a new $1 trillion tax cut for the wealthiest americans. that is not hyperbole, folks. that is not hyperbole. that is what this is about. governor romney supports cut, cap, and balance. there is no daylight between

governor romney and republican leaders on the most important issues facing this country. and not even romney's etch-a- sketch is going to change that. he might buy a new one, but he cannot do it. folks, we can resolve -- we can resolve the challenge that social security faces. we can do it in good faith. we did it before. i was there. in 1983, it looked like social security was going to run out of money. remember? it was coming to an end. in 1983, i sat down in a room as one of the junior guys, leaders like republican bob dole, president ronald reagan, democrats like pat moynihan and tip o'neill, and we shook hands. we should hands. everybody gave something. we preserved the system through 2028. together we sell this for generations at that time.

look, folks, you know in your gut what i know. it is about being willing to put politics aside, just for a moment. just put it aside for a moment. to preserve the single most significant and consequential government initiative in american history, social security. look, some of you remember -- i remember. these two guys will not remember. [laughter] but some of you might remember. we remember a day when we did not have social security. but remember a day when our grandparents did not have medicare. and remember what it meant. remember what it meant. we remember. look, what we need today is just a temporary -- like they say in grade school, a timeout. just a timeout. say, ok, what are we going to do to deal with preserving both these programs?

and that is what is missing this time, folks. it was there in 1981, 1982, 1985, and 1989. because the republican party today is fixed on one thing, additional tax cuts for the very wealthy. we tried to put 400,000 teachers back to work and 18,000 cops back to work because city budgets are being crunched. we said we will have a tax on every dollar after the first $1 million you make. that would have paid for the whole thing. no republican would vote for that. millionaires were calling me saying they were for it. i come from the wealthy state of delaware. the people of there, the people who have the money, knew they should be paying just a little more than that. folks, these guys will not budge a single inch on a $1 trillion problem. we know we have to bring our

budget back into balance. was a democratic president who last balanced the budget, i will remind you. [applause] and folks, the day that president obama and i were sworn in, that they were sworn in, that magnificent day on january 20, looking out on a million people on the mall watching, we were handed that day a gigantic deficit and an economy that was in free fall. and we moved ahead. we moved ahead to get the economy moving again, but we also moved ahead to begin to cut the deficit. last year, with the help of my two colleagues, we cut spending by $1 trillion. we also made a deal with republican friends to cut it by another $1.2 trillion and set up as supercommittee. remember? what did they come up with? nothing. and we are on our way, on the cusp -- cusp of negotiating, i was doing most of the

negotiation, for an agreement that would cut the overall deficit by something like $4 trillion. but republicans walked away from it. why? because they wanted to maintain every major tax cut for the very wealthiest and have them move in perpetuity. look, they want an additional $1 trillion in tax cuts. when you say that, it is like $1 trillion -- you cannot even calculate that. let me put it this way. of that $1 trillion, $813 million of that $1 trillion tax cut will go to households making over $1 million a year. 315,000 of the wealthiest families in america, average income $3.1 million a year, would get a $100,000 tax break per year for the next 10 years.

look, we're not asking anybody very wealthy to change their standard of living. i am serious. we're not asking them to do anything they cannot do now. $3.1 million, you do not need another $100,000 to maintain your home, to drive your vehicle, to vacation where you want to vacation. but when we ask you to take a 20% cut or a 30% cut in your medicare or your social security or your children, that changes the standard of living. ladies and gentlemen, we do not think it is fair, and we do not think it is right. more importantly, we do not think it is in the interest of the economic growth of this country. either you preserve medicare and fix social security and brought down the deficit or you spend another $1 trillion on tax

cuts for the wealthiest. you cannot do both of these things. you cannot do both. and we refuse. we refuse to shift the burden and responsibility of putting america's fiscal house in order on the backs of those who will have to change their standard of living, who have played by the rules, who have worked hard all their life, and have earned their retirement benefits they are getting. [applause] ladies and gentlemen, like so many of you, i came from a family where medicare and social security made a difference in the lives of the people i loved the most. i am not sure, as i said, that these guys remember what it was like when folks did not have medicare. but i can remember, a lot of you can remember. there was not -- it is not a time we want to go back to again. 17 million men and women would be struggling in poverty without social security. just that alone. before medicare, nearly half of

all americans aged 65 lacked health care. one half of all americans lacked health care. these programs have afforded the elderly -- i do not like the word elderly anymore, man. i am not big on that word. [laughter] for years, i used to rip up the aarp books i got. but i am not ripping up my social security checks. know what i mean? but i do not like elderly. those of us who are more mature. [applause] but i tell you what, it is about our independence. it is about the dignity everybody craves. they argue that cutting now is the only way to save programs for the next generation. i read an article in the paper

today here about that. that is not how i see it. retirement is multi- generational. it is a matter that matters to your children. if you have a decent retirement, everyone of you, it matters to your children. because if you do not, your children feel obliged to step up. caring for a parent is a privilege and one that any honorable child would try to undertake. but for some families, it would come at an incredibly high cost. because they are struggling so badly themselves. the cost for my family was de minimus because of the circumstance my mother's four children were in. because a lot of families, you know, they cannot get their kids to college, having trouble paying the mortgage, out of the job, and the added burden of looking at mom and dad and knowing they do not have the health care they need. they are having to make these choices that you talked about when you go into the drugstore. that is something that is multi-

generational. and families are stretched thin. it forces hard choices. i say families. not when we are stretched thin. when our children as well are stretched thin. this is more than access to health care. it is about who we are. the last thing my mother and father wanted to do was to be a burden to meet and my siblings. social security and medicare helped them live independently right to the very end, preserved their dignity, and most temporarily from my father's perspective, their pride. so if they choose to cut social security and make vouchers for medicare, rather than asking for a shared responsibility for all, they're not saving the next generation. they are putting an incredible burden on the next generation. they are doing that right now. [applause] and to make it even harder for the middle-class at a time when we know if we want our economy to be strong, the middle class has to be strong.

they are tearing the bonds that connect us generation-to- generation at the moment we should be strengthening those bonds. this year, you're going to make some choices about what you want, do you want to lead this country, and who will speak up for you and speak in the way you want on this and many other issues. on this issue, i ask you to do one thing, as i said at the beginning, when you look at obama and me, when you look at our opponents, take our measure. i used to say as a kid, look me over. if you like what you see, vote for me. if not, vote for the other guy. but look this over. look into your heart. ask yourself the question after all these speeches are done -- who do you believe? who do you believe is genuinely committed to preserving the dignity of people in terms of their health care and other basic, basic ability to live? thank you all very, very much.

i love you. thank you for having me. [applause] ♪ ♪ ♪ ahead

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>> next, like, your calls and comments of "washington journal." and then a house hearing on the eurozone financial situation with secretary geithner en ben bernanke yhuri had applied and noon, a tea party rally for the repeal of the health care law. >> i remember lying on bed one night as i heard an argument in my parents' bedroom only to be shocked by the deafening sound of my mother's job being crushed. -- jaw. i remember my father holding a

large knife to her throat as she cried and begged to be put out of her misery. >> for five seasons, she starred in the wire on the hbo. for her experiences growing up, she started the nonprofit, rewired for change to help you send their families. >> we are looking for real help. what has unfolded is what we want to see is a deep level of healing in the life of the young person, but also in the lives of the entire community. >> more with her sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's "q&a." >> this morning, lisa marie windsor talks about robert bales. then, from the americ