Address on Growing the Economy Without New Taxes in Sarasota, Florida

[As prepared for delivery.]

Thank you all for being here.

Every time an election rolls around, the media becomes obsessed with polls. But oftentimes they obsess over the wrong ones. Today I want to tell you about a poll the media is ignoring, but that should be the talk of this entire election.

It's a recent poll that asked, "Is the American Dream alive or dead?"  Almost half of millennials, meaning young Americans, replied that the American Dream was dead. Other polls have shown even higher numbers, across all generations.

This is a warning sign for America — a sign that what's at stake in this election is our identity as a special nation. That identity has long been tied to the belief that here, anything is possible. That here, you don't have to come from wealth or privilege to provide a comfortable life for your family. That here, anyone who works hard can leave their children better off than themselves.

That is the real American Dream. But today, it is dying. It's not dying because our people have changed. They haven't. It's dying because both parties in Washington have let us down.

It's dying because Barack Obama has abandoned the economic principles that made us the most prosperous nation in the world. It's dying because Congress has spent us into unprecedented debt. And it's dying because, while our economy is pushing the boundaries of the 21st century, our leaders are stuck in the 20th.

They fail to grasp the way technology and globalization have transformed our economy. They raise taxes and grow government even though it's costing jobs and making America globally uncompetitive. They shrug off the rising importance of trade and foreign policy on our household budgets. They seem bewildered when market turmoil in Beijing triggers market turmoil in New York.

To confront new realities, we need new leaders — leaders who will apply the free market principles of our founding to the economic realities of our time — who will once again place Washington's faith in our economy, rather than forcing our economy to place its faith in Washington.

The purpose of my presidency will be to restore the American Dream. And I will start by re-embracing free enterprise, because it is the greatest economic system in history — the only system where poor people can become richer without rich people becoming poorer. The only system where everybody can be better off.

Here's what Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton don't understand about free enterprise: In a free enterprise system, the president does not run the economy. The president's job is to ensure policies are in place that allow the private sector to succeed, because it is the private sector that creates jobs and opportunity.

Today, we don't have those policies in place. Under Barack Obama, Washington borrows an average of more than a trillion dollars a year. It forces our private sector to spend almost two trillion dollars a year to comply with regulations. It imposes the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world. It thinks its job is to make your health care decisions, to bailout big businesses, and even to control the weather.

As president, I will put Washington in its place. It will once again stand behind our people, not in their way.

I will repeal and replace ObamaCare before it repeals and replaces any more American jobs. I will shred Obama's job-killing executive orders. I will cap the amount regulations can cost our economy. And I will end Washington's addiction to wasteful spending. Because by the time our next president takes office, America will already be $20 trillion in debt.

It's difficult to even fathom how much that is. So think about it this way: If you were to count 20 trillion dollars by hand, at one dollar per second without stopping, it wouldn't take a year or a decade or even a century to finish counting. It would take you over 600,000 years.

That's how much money we will owe when Barack Obama leaves the White House. The debt will have almost doubled since he took office. Much of it we'll owe to China. And make no mistake: if we change nothing, we are going to have a debt crisis in this country. It is going to destroy jobs. It is going to disrupt the function of our government. It is going to threaten our national security.

This is the most predictable crisis in American history. But every time the alarm starts blaring, signaling we're reaching the debt ceiling, Washington hits the snooze button and goes back to sleep. Under our last three presidents, the debt ceiling has been raised more than 20 times without serious spending reforms.

I will stop this irresponsible spending and solve our nation's debt crisis.

First, I will have the political courage to reform the main drivers of our debt, which are Social Security and Medicare. If we do nothing to save these important programs, they will bankrupt themselves and our nation. I will save them for future generations by placing them on fiscally sustainable paths.

But that alone will not avert a debt crisis. Because history backs up the following fact: If you don't have laws in place to keep politicians from spending money they don't have, they will borrow money and spend it. And since Congress refuses to pass a law restricting itself, we are left with only one option.

We must do what our founders gave us the power to do: we must call a convention of states to amend the U.S. Constitution. We must pass amendments limiting the size and scope of the federal government, forcing Congress to balance the budget, and imposing term limits on Congress and the Supreme Court.

As president, I can promote such a convention, but I cannot make it happen without the American people. That's why I'm asking for your help today. To any American worried about the debt we're leaving our children: Join me in this effort. Press your state representatives to convene a convention of states.

The third and final step to solving our debt crisis is growing the American economy. That will happen by making America the best place in the world to own and operate a business. If you want to know how to do this, talk to our job creators.

I don't know of a single job creator who is looking for more taxes or more regulations, yet that's exactly what some candidates for president are proposing.  Hillary Clinton's answer to every problem is to raise taxes and create a new government program. And it's not just her, or the avowed socialist running against her. Believe it or not, multiple Republican candidates for president support new taxes on the American people.

Some even support imposing a new tax that generations of conservatives have fought against, called a Value Added Tax — also known as a VAT.  The VAT being proposed in this election works by taxing businesses at each stage of the production process. It falls squarely on profits and wages. That means it punishes businesses for earning money, and it punishes your boss for giving you a raise.

The VAT is also intentionally sneaky. It attempts to trick people into believing their taxes are being lowered, when in reality they're simply being shifted to employers — meaning everyday Americans would feel its impact through higher prices and lower wages. This would be especially harmful to the poor and senior citizens with fixed incomes.

The VAT makes for a dangerous expansion of Washington's power, especially when stacked on top of an income tax. In most European countries where a VAT has been implemented, government has grown in size. It's no wonder that fans of the VAT include Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama, who called it a "novel" idea.

And opponents included Ronald Reagan, who said the Value Added Tax, quote, "gives a government a chance to blindfold the people and grow in stature and size."  And he was right. No candidate who supports this tax can claim to be in favor of "abolishing" the IRS. Reagan's Treasury Department estimated it would need 20,000 new agents just to administer a VAT.

Republican candidates today try to hide their support for the Value Added Tax by renaming it a "Business Flat Tax." But don't be fooled. If it acts like a VAT, taxes like a VAT, and grows government like a VAT — it's a VAT.

This isn't the only anti-free market idea being offered up by Republicans in this race. Other Republicans running for president support an Internet sales tax that could subject businesses to audit from almost 10,000 jurisdictions around the country. The Internet is the marketplace of the 21st century and it's unacceptable that anyone who claims to be a conservative would join the liberal call for an online tax.

Let me be clear: I do not support new taxes of any kind, because what our country needs is economic growth, and there is no new tax that leads to economic growth.

I have offered a plan to simplify and reduce taxes on both individuals and businesses. My plan is pro-growth and pro-family. It will lower the corporate tax rate to be globally competitive, it will level the playing field between big businesses and small ones, and it will make it easier for your boss to give you a raise.

It will also allow families to keep more of what they earn. Today it is more expensive than ever to raise a child, and our tax system is making it even costlier. With four children of our own, Jeanette and I live this every day in our house. As president, I will raise the per-child tax credit so parents can keep more of their money to spend on food, clothing, school supplies, and all the other daily costs of raising children.

I will also end the marriage penalty that leads to couples being taxed more than individuals. Nothing has the ability to improve a child's future more than being raised in a loving two-parent home, and it's time our tax code recognizes that.

Through tax reforms, I will also strengthen family leave policy so fewer parents have to choose between providing financially for their children and being there for them in times of crisis. Instead of raising taxes and growing government to solve this problem, as Hillary Clinton just proposed last week, I will solve it by cutting taxes for all businesses that offer between four and twelve weeks of paid leave.

From the individual to the business side, my free market reforms will yield a tax code that makes it easier for Americans to find jobs and easier for businesses to create them. They will help everyone succeed and create millions of new jobs.

As president, I will recognize that what makes America great is not that we have rich people. Every country has rich people. What makes America great is that we have millions of people who are not necessarily rich, but who have a job that pays a comfortable wage, that enables them to do the activities they enjoy with the people they love, to retire with dignity, and ultimately to leave their children better off than themselves.

That has been possible in America because of the choices generations before us have made.

Almost every other country in the world has chosen to have government dominate the economy. In those countries, those who can influence government keep winning, and everybody else stays the same. The employee never becomes the employer, the small business can never compete with the big business, and no matter how hard your parents work or how many sacrifices they make, if you weren't born into the right family, there's only so far you can go.

Americans before us have chosen something very different. They chose individual liberty. They chose a limited government that exists to protect our rights, not to grant them. They chose a free enterprise system designed to provide equality of opportunity, not compel equality of results.

And yet, there are still people who cling to the belief that America is better off adopting the economic policies of nations whose people immigrate here. There have always been these voices in American politics. But seven years ago, one of them was sworn in as president.

Since then, his ideas have sent the message to our people that becoming better off requires someone else becoming worse off — that the only way to climb up the economic ladder is to pull someone else down — that government is the best hope for those in search of a better life.

But his big government ideas have failed us. Our people hear him talk about how well the economy is doing, but they don't feel it in their lives. And as a result, we are now at risk of seeing an entire generation of Americans lose hope in the fundamental promise of our country: the promise that hard work and perseverance will lead to a better life.

Seven years of Barack Obama have left us a nation in decline. But we can still pull out of the dive. Because we are not a weak country, we just have a weak President.

But the time to act is now.

We cannot afford to elect Hillary Clinton, because America cannot afford another four years like the eight before it. And we cannot settle for just any Republican, because this election is not just a choice between two parties, it is a generational choice about our identity as a nation.

We did not become an exceptional nation by accident. For over two centuries, each generation before us did what they needed to do to make this the greatest nation on earth.

And now, the time has come for us to do our part.

If you elect me president, we will return to the principles that made America great, we will put the false promise of big government behind us and embrace the power of a free people in a free economy to create a more prosperous nation. In doing so, we will not only save the American Dream, we will expand it to reach more people than ever before.

And the 21st Century will not just be as good as the 20th century, it will be better.

It will be a New American Century.