Bill Clinton Said is Doing the Same Thing Over Again Expecting a Different Outcome

One-time President Bill Clinton delivers remarks at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., on Wed. Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

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Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images

Former President Beak Clinton delivers remarks at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., on Wed.

Robyn Brook/AFP/Getty Images

As president and equally a candidate, Bill Clinton was known for sometimes winging it — even in major speeches. In 1994, Clinton famously spoke from retention for a time when the wrong version of his State of the Union address appeared on his teleprompter.

That was the same Bill Clinton who spoke to Democratic convention delegates for nigh 50 minutes Wednesday night — adding most 2,300 words to a speech that started with 3,200 words of prepared text. Some of the night's about memorable lines ("It takes some brass to assault a guy for doing what you lot did") were among the additions.

Employ the original text below to compare the prepared remarks with Clinton's actual speech using the audio or video embedded on this page (or with the transcripts of the actual speech communication posted by the Washington Mail service and others).

PREPARED TEXT:

Nosotros're hither to nominate a President, and I've got one in heed.

Sometime President Neb Clinton delivers the nomination speech Wednesday at the Democratic National Convention, from PBS NewsHour.

PBS NewsHour YouTube

I desire to nominate a man whose own life has known its fair share of arduousness and incertitude. A human who ran for President to change the grade of an already weak economic system and then just six weeks before the ballot, saw it endure the biggest collapse since the Great Depression. A human who stopped the slide into depression and put u.s.a. on the long road to recovery, knowing all the while that no matter how many jobs were created and saved, there were however millions more waiting, trying to feed their children and keep their hopes alive.

I want to nominate a man absurd on the outside only burning for America on the within. A man who believes we can build a new American Dream economy driven by innovation and creativity, education and cooperation. A man who had the skilful sense to marry Michelle Obama.

I want Barack Obama to be the next President of the United States and I proudly nominate him as the standard bearer of the Democratic Political party.

In Tampa, we heard a lot of talk about how the President and the Democrats don't believe in free enterprise and individual initiative, how we want everyone to be dependent on the government, how bad we are for the economy.

The Republican narrative is that all of us who amount to anything are completely self-made. One of our greatest Democratic Chairmen, Bob Strauss, used to say that every politician wants yous to believe he was born in a log cabin he built himself, only it ain't and then.

We Democrats think the country works better with a strong middle class, real opportunities for poor people to piece of work their fashion into it and a relentless focus on the hereafter, with business concern and government working together to promote growth and broadly shared prosperity. We retrieve "we're all in this together" is a better philosophy than "you're on your own."

Who's correct? Well since 1961, the Republicans have held the White House 28 years, the Democrats 24. In those 52 years, our economy produced 66 million individual sector jobs. What's the jobs score? Republicans 24 meg, Democrats 42 meg!

Information technology turns out that advancing equal opportunity and economic empowerment is both morally right and good economics, because discrimination, poverty and ignorance restrict growth, while investments in education, infrastructure and scientific and technological inquiry increment it, creating more good jobs and new wealth for all of us.

Though I often disagree with Republicans, I never learned to detest them the way the far right that at present controls their party seems to detest President Obama and the Democrats. After all, President Eisenhower sent federal troops to my habitation land to integrate Niggling Rock Central Loftier and built the interstate highway system. And as governor, I worked with President Reagan on welfare reform and with President George H.W. Bush-league on national didactics goals. I am grateful to President George Westward. Bush for PEPFAR, which is saving the lives of millions of people in poor countries and to both Presidents Bush for the work we've washed together afterwards the South Asia seismic sea wave, Hurricane Katrina and the Haitian earthquake.

Through my foundation, in America and around the world, I work with Democrats, Republicans and Independents who are focused on solving problems and seizing opportunities, not fighting each other.

When times are tough, constant conflict may be good politics only in the existent world, cooperation works better. After all, nobody's right all the time, and a broken clock is right twice a 24-hour interval. All of us are destined to live our lives betwixt those 2 extremes. Unfortunately, the faction that at present dominates the Republican Party doesn't encounter it that way. They retrieve government is the enemy, and compromise is weakness.

1 of the main reasons America should re-elect President Obama is that he is yet committed to cooperation. He appointed Republican Secretaries of Defense, the Ground forces and Transportation. He appointed a Vice President who ran against him in 2008, and trusted him to oversee the successful stop of the war in Republic of iraq and the implementation of the recovery act. And Joe Biden did a cracking chore with both. He appointed Cabinet members who supported Hillary in the primaries. Heck, he fifty-fifty appointed Hillary! I'm so proud of her and grateful to our entire national security squad for all they've done to make us safer and stronger and to build a world with more partners and fewer enemies. I'1000 also grateful to the young men and women who serve our state in the military and to Michelle Obama and Jill Biden for supporting military families when their loved ones are overseas and for helping our veterans, when they come home bearing the wounds of war, or needing assist with teaching, housing, and jobs.

President Obama's tape on national security is a tribute to his strength, and judgment, and to his preference for inclusion and partnership over partisanship.

He likewise tried to work with Congressional Republicans on Wellness Care, debt reduction, and jobs, but that didn't piece of work out so well. Probably because, as the Senate Republican leader, in a remarkable moment of candor, said 2 years before the ballot, their number 1 priority was not to put America dorsum to work, simply to put President Obama out of work.

Senator, I detest to break it to y'all, but we're going to keep President Obama on the job!

In Tampa, the Republican statement against the President's re-ballot was pretty uncomplicated: we left him a full mess, he hasn't cleaned information technology up fast enough, then fire him and put u.s.a. back in.

In social club to wait like an adequate alternative to President Obama, they couldn't say much most the ideas they have offered over the terminal two years. Y'all see they want to go dorsum to the same former policies that got us into trouble in the first identify: to cut taxes for high income Americans even more than President Bush did; to go rid of those pesky fiscal regulations designed to forestall another crash and prohibit future bailouts; to increase defense spending two trillion dollars more the Pentagon has requested without saying what they'll spend the money on; to make enormous cuts in the rest of the budget, specially programs that assist the middle class and poor kids. As another President once said – there they go once again.

I like the argument for President Obama's re-election a lot better. He inherited a deeply damaged economy, put a flooring under the crash, began the long hard route to recovery, and laid the foundation for a modern, more well-counterbalanced economy that will produce millions of expert new jobs, vibrant new businesses, and lots of new wealth for the innovators.

Are we where nosotros desire to exist? No. Is the President satisfied? No. Are we improve off than nosotros were when he took office, with an economy in free fall, losing 750,000 jobs a month. The answer is YES.

I understand the challenge we face up. I know many Americans are yet aroused and frustrated with the economy. Though employment is growing, banks are showtime to lend and even housing prices are picking up a bit, as well many people don't feel it.

I experienced the same thing in 1994 and early 1995. Our policies were working and the economy was growing simply most people didn't experience it however. By 1996, the economy was roaring, halfway through the longest peacetime expansion in American history.

President Obama started with a much weaker economy than I did. No President – not me or any of my predecessors could have repaired all the harm in just iv years. But weather are improving and if y'all'll renew the President's contract you will experience information technology.

I believe that with all my heart.

President Obama's arroyo embodies the values, the ideas, and the direction America must take to build a 21st century version of the American Dream in a nation of shared opportunities, shared prosperity and shared responsibilities.

So back to the story. In 2010, as the President's recovery program kicked in, the chore losses stopped and things began to turn around.

The Recovery Act saved and created millions of jobs and cut taxes for 95% of the American people. In the concluding 29 months the economy has produced about four.5 million private sector jobs. Merely concluding year, the Republicans blocked the President's jobs program costing the economy more than a million new jobs. So here's another jobs score: President Obama plus four.5 1000000, Congressional Republicans naught.

Over that aforementioned menstruum, more than more than 500,000 manufacturing jobs accept been created under President Obama – the starting time time manufacturing jobs have increased since the 1990s.

The automobile industry restructuring worked. Information technology saved more than a million jobs, non just at GM, Chrysler and their dealerships, but in car parts manufacturing all over the land. That'southward why even auto-makers that weren't role of the deal supported it. They needed to salvage the suppliers likewise. Similar I said, we're all in this together.

Now there are 250,000 more than people working in the automobile industry than the day the companies were restructured. Governor Romney opposed the program to save GM and Chrysler. So here's another jobs score: Obama two hundred and fifty g, Romney, zero.

The agreement the assistants made with direction, labor and environmental groups to double car mileage over the next few years is another good deal: it will cut your gas bill in half, make us more free energy independent, cut greenhouse gas emissions, and add some other 500,000 proficient jobs.

President Obama'south "all of the above" energy plan is helping besides – the boom in oil and gas product combined with greater energy efficiency has driven oil imports to a nearly xx year low and natural gas production to an all fourth dimension high. Renewable energy production has also doubled.

We practise demand more than new jobs, lots of them, merely in that location are already more than than three million jobs open up and unfilled in America today, more often than not because the applicants don't accept the required skills. We have to set up more Americans for the new jobs that are being created in a globe fueled by new technology. That's why investments in our people are more important than ever. The President has supported customs colleges and employers in working together to railroad train people for open jobs in their communities. And, after a decade in which exploding college costs take increased the drop-out rate so much that we've fallen to 16th in the world in the per centum of our young adults with higher degrees, his student loan reform lowers the cost of federal student loans and even more important, gives students the correct to repay the loans every bit a fixed per centum of their incomes for upward to twenty years. That ways no one will have to drop-out of college for fear they tin't repay their debt, and no 1 will have to turn down a task, as a teacher, a police officeholder or a pocket-sized boondocks dr. considering it doesn't pay plenty to make the debt payments. This will change the future for young Americans.

I know we're better off because President Obama made these decisions.

That brings me to wellness care.

The Republicans telephone call it Obamacare and say it's a government takeover of wellness care that they'll repeal. Are they right? Let'south look at what's happened so far. Individuals and businesses have secured more than a billion dollars in refunds from their insurance premiums because the new police requires 80% to 85% of your premiums to be spent on wellness intendance, not profits or promotion. Other insurance companies accept lowered their rates to encounter the requirement. More than 3 meg immature people betwixt 19 and 25 are insured for the first time considering their parents tin at present carry them on family unit policies. Millions of seniors are receiving preventive care including breast cancer screenings and tests for heart bug. Before long the insurance companies, non the government, volition take millions of new customers many of them middle grade people with pre-existing atmospheric condition. And for the final two years, health care spending has grown under 4%, for the kickoff time in fifty years.

So are we all ameliorate off considering President Obama fought for it and passed information technology? Yous bet we are.

There were two other attacks on the President in Tampa that deserve an answer. Both Governor Romney and Congressman Ryan attacked the President for allegedly robbing Medicare of 716 billion dollars. Here's what actually happened. There were no cuts to benefits. None. What the President did was save money by cut unwarranted subsidies to providers and insurance companies that weren't making people any healthier. He used the saving to close the donut hole in the Medicare drug plan, and to add eight years to the life of the Medicare Trust Fund. It's now solvent until 2024. So President Obama and the Democrats didn't weaken Medicare, they strengthened it.

When Congressman Ryan looked into the TV camera and attacked President Obama's "biggest coldest power play" in raiding Medicare, I didn't know whether to laugh or weep. You run into, that 716 billion dollars is exactly the aforementioned corporeality of Medicare savings Congressman Ryan had in his ain budget.

At least on this i, Governor Romney's been consistent. He wants to repeal the savings and requite the money back to the insurance companies, re-open the donut hole and force seniors to pay more than for drugs, and reduce the life of the Medicare Trust Fund by 8 years. So now if he's elected and does what he promised Medicare will get broke by 2016. If that happens, you won't take to wait until their voucher program to begins in 2023 to see the end Medicare every bit we know information technology.

Merely it gets worse. They also desire to block grant Medicaid and cut it by a third over the coming decade. Of course, that will hurt poor kids, but that's not all. Almost two-thirds of Medicaid is spent on nursing abode intendance for seniors and on people with disabilities, including kids from centre class families, with special needs like, Downs syndrome or Autism. I don't know how those families are going to deal with information technology. We can't let information technology happen

At present permit'due south await at the Republican charge that President Obama wants to weaken the work requirements in the welfare reform bill I signed that moved millions of people from welfare to work.

Here'southward what happened. When some Republican governors asked to try new means to put people on welfare back to work, the Obama Assistants said they would only practice information technology if they had a credible plan to increase employment by xx%. You lot hear that? More than work. So the claim that President Obama weakened welfare reform's piece of work requirement is but non truthful. But they go along running ads on it. As their entrada pollster said "nosotros're non going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers." Now that is true. I couldn't take said it better myself – I merely hope you remember that every fourth dimension you see the ad.

Let's talk about the debt. We take to deal with it or it will deal with us. President Obama has offered a programme with 4 trillion dollars in debt reduction over a decade, with two and a half dollars of spending reductions for every one dollar of revenue increases, and tight controls on future spending. It'southward the kind of balanced approach proposed by the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles commission.

I think the President's plan is better than the Romney plan, because the Romney programme fails the first test of financial responsibility: The numbers don't add upwardly.

Information technology's supposed to exist a debt reduction programme just it begins with five trillion dollars in tax cuts over a ten-year period. That makes the debt hole bigger before they even start to dig out. They say they'll make it up by eliminating loopholes in the tax code. When you ask "which loopholes and how much?," they say "Run across me after the ballot on that."

People ask me all the fourth dimension how nosotros delivered iv surplus budgets. What new ideas did we bring? I always give a one-word answer: arithmetic. If they stay with a 5 trillion dollar taxation cut in a debt reduction plan – the – arithmetics tells us that one of iii things volition happen: 1) they'll accept to eliminate so many deductions like the ones for dwelling mortgages and charitable giving that middle class families will see their revenue enhancement bill go upward two thou dollars twelvemonth while people making over 3 one thousand thousand dollars a year go will still get a 250,000 dollar revenue enhancement cut; or 2) they'll have to cut and so much spending that they'll obliterate the budget for our national parks, for ensuring make clean air, make clean water, safe food, safe air travel; or they'll cut way back on Pell Grants, college loans, early babyhood education and other programs that help middle grade families and poor children, not to mention cutting investments in roads, bridges, science, technology and medical enquiry; or 3) they'll practise what they've been doing for 30 plus years at present – cutting taxes more than they cut spending, explode the debt, and weaken the economy. Call up, Republican economical policies quadrupled the debt before I took part and doubled information technology afterward I left. We simply tin't beget to double-down on trickle-down.

President Obama'southward plan cuts the debt, honors our values, and brightens the future for our children, our families and our nation.

My fellow Americans, yous have to decide what kind of state you want to alive in. If yous desire a you're on your own, winner accept all society y'all should back up the Republican ticket. If you want a land of shared opportunities and shared responsibilities – a "nosotros're all in it together" society, you should vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden. If you want every American to vote and you lot think its incorrect to change voting procedures but to reduce the turnout of younger, poorer, minority and disabled voters, you should back up Barack Obama. If you lot think the President was right to open the doors of American opportunity to young immigrants brought hither equally children who want to go to higher or serve in the military, you should vote for Barack Obama. If y'all want a future of shared prosperity, where the centre form is growing and poverty is declining, where the American Dream is alive and well, and where the U.s. remains the leading force for peace and prosperity in a highly competitive world, you should vote for Barack Obama.

I love our country – and I know we're coming dorsum. For more 200 years, through every crisis, we've e'er come up out stronger than nosotros went in. And we will again as long as we do it together. Nosotros champion the cause for which our founders pledged their lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor – to form a more than perfect matrimony.

If that's what yous believe, if that'south what you want, we take to re-elect President Barack Obama.

God Bless You – God Bless America.

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Source: https://www.npr.org/2012/09/05/160643183/transcript-bill-clintons-convention-speech

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