Good morning.
Yesterday, we received another painful reminder
of the serious economic challenge our country is facing
when we learned that 533,000 jobs were lost in November alone,
the single worst month of job loss in over three decades.
That puts the total number of jobs lost in this recession at nearly 2 million.
But this isn’t about numbers.
It’s about each of the families those numbers represent.
It’s about the rising unease and frustration
that so many of you are feeling during this holiday season.
Will you be able to put your kids through college?
Will you be able to afford health care?
Will you be able to retire with dignity and security?
Will your job or your husband’s job
or your daughter’s or son's jobs be the next ones cut?
These are the questions that keep so many Americans awake at night.
But it is not the first time these questions have been asked though.
We faced difficult times before,
times when our economic destiny seemed to be slipping out of our hands.
And at each moment,
we have risen to meet the challenge,
as one people united by a sense of common purpose.
And I know that Americans can rise to the moment once again.
But we need action – and action now.
That is why I have asked my economic team to
develop an economic recovery plan for both Wall Street and Main Street
that will help save or create at least two and a half million jobs,
while rebuilding our infrastructure, improving our schools,
reducing our dependence on oil, and saving billions of dollars.
We won’t do it the old Washington way.
We won’t just throw money at the problem.
We’ll measure progress by the reforms we make and the results we achieve
-- by the jobs we create, by the energy we save,
by whether America is more competitive in the world.
Today, I am announcing a few key parts of my plan.
First, we will launch a massive effort
to make public buildings more energy-efficient.
Our government now pays the highest energy bills in the world.
We need to change that.
We need to upgrade our federal buildings
by replacing old heating systems and installing efficient light bulbs.
That won’t just save you, the American taxpayer,
billions of dollars each year.
It will put people back to work.
Second, we will create millions of jobs
by making the single largest new investment in our national infrastructure
since the creation of the federal highway system in the 1950s.
We’ll invest your precious tax dollars in new and smarter ways,
and we’ll set a simple rule – use it or lose it.
If a state doesn’t act quickly
to invest in roads and bridges in their communities,
they’ll lose the money.
Third, my economic recovery plan will launch
the most sweeping effort to modernize and upgrade
school buildings that this country has ever seen.
We will repair broken schools, make them energy-efficient,
and put new computers in our classrooms.
Because to help our children compete in a 21st century economy,
we need to send them to 21st century schools.
As we renew our schools and highways,
we’ll also renew our information superhighway.
It is unacceptable that the United States
ranks 15th in the world in broadband adoption.
Here, in the country that invented the Internet,
every child should have the chance to get online,
and they’ll get that chance when I’m President
– because that’s how we’ll strengthen America’s competitiveness in the world.
In addition to connecting our libraries and schools to the Internet,
we must also ensure that our hospitals are connected
to each other through the Internet.
That is why the economic recovery plan I’m proposing
will help modernize our health care system
– and that won’t just save jobs, it will save lives.
We will make sure that every doctor’s office and hospital in this country
is using cutting edge technology and electronic medical records
so that we can cut red tape,
prevent medical mistakes, and help save billions of dollars each year.
These are a few parts of the economic recovery plan
that I will be rolling out in the coming weeks.
When Congress reconvenes in January,
I look forward to working with them to pass a plan immediately.
We need to act with the urgency this moment demands
to save or create at least two and a half million jobs
so that the nearly two million Americans who’ve lost them
know that they have a future.
And that’s exactly what I intend to do as President of the United States.
Thanks for listening.