Press Release: Remarks of President Barack Obama at Smith Electric Vehicles in Kansas City, Missouri - As Prepared for Delivery

As Prepared for Delivery—

It's great to be here at Smith Electric Vehicles. We just finished a tour where we saw some of the battery-powered trucks you're manufacturing. And I had a chance to talk to a few of the folks who build them. But the reason I'm here today is because, at this plant, you are doing more than producing new vehicles. You're helping us to fight our way out of a vicious recession.

Now, that's not easy. This recession was the culmination of a decade of irresponsibility — a decade that fell like a sledgehammer on middle class families. For the better part of ten years, folks faced stagnant incomes, skyrocketing health care costs and tuition bills, and declining economic security. This all came to a head in a massive financial crisis that sent our economy into a freefall and cost 8 million Americans their jobs, including many in this community.

It was in the middle of this crisis that my administration walked through the door. And we had to make some difficult decisions at a moment of maximum peril — a moment when the markets were in turmoil and we were losing millions of jobs. Some of those decisions were unpopular at the time — and, in fact, may still be unpopular today. But I made those decisions to stop a nosedive that threatened to drag us into a second Great Depression. And because we made those hard choices, our economy is in a different place today than it was just a year and half ago.

One of those decisions was to provide critical funding to promising, innovative businesses like Smith Electric. And because we did, there is a thriving enterprise here instead of an empty, darkened warehouse. Because of the grant that went to this company, we can hear the sounds of machines humming and people doing their jobs, instead of the quiet of an empty building where the workers were laid off long ago.

And we made decisions like this all across America. We were guided by a simple idea. Government doesn't have all the answers. And it cannot generate the jobs or growth we need by itself. But government can lay the foundation for small businesses to expand and hire, for entrepreneurs to open up shop and test new products, for workers to get the training they need, and for families to achieve some measure of economic security. And that role is especially important in tough economic times.

That's why, when my administration began, we immediately cut taxes for working families and small business owners — to help folks get through these storms. And through small business loans, a focus on research and development, and investments in high-tech, fast-growing sectors like clean energy — we're helping to speed our recovery by harnessing the talent and drive and innovative spirit of the American people. Our goal has never been to create some government program, but to spur private-sector growth.

For example, right here at Smith Electric, you've recently passed a milestone — hiring a fiftieth employee — and I know you're on your way to hiring fifty more. And we're seeing similar things all across America, with investments and incentives that are fostering growth in wind power and solar power, in energy efficient appliances and home building materials, and in advanced battery technologies and clean energy vehicles.

Just last week, Abound Manufacturing in Colorado received backing for two plants to produce solar panels — creating 2,000 construction jobs and 1,500 permanent jobs. One of the plants will actually take over what is now an empty Chrysler supplier factory. Another company, Abengoa Solar, is now planning to build one the largest solar plants in the world right here in the United States. When it's finished, this facility will be the first large-scale solar plant in the U.S. to actually store the energy it generates for later use — even at night.

All told, we expect energy investments alone to generate 700,000 jobs over the next few years. And these are investments that will not only boost our economy in the short run — but provide opportunities for growth in the long run. Just a few years ago, for instance, America had the capacity to build only 2 percent of the world's advanced batteries for electric and hybrid vehicles. But thanks to a new focus on clean energy and the work taking place at plants just like this one — we could have as much as 40 percent of the world's capacity to build these batteries in just five years. That means jobs. But that also means we'll have the expertise in this sector to keep building and growing and innovating far into the future.

All of our efforts, taken together, are making a difference. A year and a half ago, our economy was shrinking rapidly; now it's growing. The economy was bleeding jobs; it's now adding private-sector jobs, and has been for six straight months. Of course, the progress we have made so far is not nearly enough to undo the enormous damage the recession caused. There are still five unemployed workers for each vacancy. Empty storefronts still haunt our Main Streets. As I've said since the day I took office, it is going to take time to reverse the toll of the deepest recession in generations. And I won't be satisfied as long as even one person who needs a job can't find one.

But what is absolutely clear is that we are headed in the right direction — and that the surest way out of these storms we've been in is to keep moving forward, not back. There are those who argue that we ought to abandon our efforts — and others who have made the political calculation that it's better to obstruct than lend a hand. But my answer is that they ought to come here to Kansas City. They ought to tell the workers of Smith Electric that we'd be better off if your jobs didn't exist. They ought to travel across America and meet the people I've met at places like Navistar in Indiana, where folks are being hired to build new electric trucks; or Siemens Wind Power in Iowa; or Celgard, a battery technology company in North Carolina that has hired more than 50 people because of the investments we've made; or Poet Biorefining here in Missouri that's putting people to work harvesting home-grown energy.

And while they're at it, they ought to talk to the small business owners who've gotten tax breaks to pay for their health plans and new SBA loans to expand— including tens of millions of dollars in loans for companies in Kansas City. They ought to talk to the crews rebuilding highways and laying tracks for new rail lines — including road projects that are putting hundreds of people to work in this area. And they ought to talk to the scientists toiling day and night to develop the technologies and the cures with the potential to improve our economy and our health and wellbeing.

Because this is how we take charge of our destiny. This is how we create jobs and lasting growth. This is how we ensure that America not only recovers, but prospers — that this nation leads in the industries of the future.

Yes, this has been a difficult period for America: two years of brutal recession; a decade of economic insecurity. And there will be more hard days. That's the truth. But what you are proving here at Smith Electric is the promise of a brighter future. What you are proving is that — if we hold fast to the spirit of entrepreneurship and innovation that has always defined us as a people — we will not only emerge from this period of turmoil, we will emerge stronger than ever before. What you are proving is that as long as we keep moving forward, America's best days are still ahead.

Thank you.