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This is what a real opportunity society looks like


President Barack Obama talks with Vice President Joe Biden in the Oval Office in between meetings last April to discuss the ongoing budget negotiations.
The White House

by JOE BIDEN
9:45 PM, Dec. 22, 2011

Mitt Romney recently laid out his plan for America. Reading about it, I thought of my dad. My dad was a hard worker. He took pride in what he did. And, like millions of Americans, that pride was put to the test when he found himself struggling to make ends meet.

When I was a child, he had to ask my grandfather to take care of my mom, my brother, sister and I while he moved away to find a better job in Wilmington, Del. My dad had a saying: “A job is about more than a paycheck. It’s about dignity. It’s about respect.”

He never believed he was owed anything, but he did believe if you worked hard and played by the rules, you were entitled to be treated with dignity and respect and a fair shake.

Today millions of Americans are meeting their responsibilities every day, yet falling behind. They are not looking for handouts or bailouts, but rather an economy in which their hard work is rewarded and the prospects for their children will be brighter than their own.

This is the basic compact that has made America great. These are the basic values that have helped make our workers the most productive, our entrepreneurs the most innovative and our economy the envy of the world. These are the principles on which our vision for the future must be built.

Romney appears satisfied to settle for an economy in which fewer people succeed, while the majority of Americans are left to tread water or fall behind. His proposal would actually double down on the policies that caused the greatest economic calamity since the Great Depression and accelerated a decades-long assault on the middle class.

Romney also misleadingly suggests that the president and I are creating an “Entitlement Society,” whereby government provides everything for its people without regard to merit, as opposed to what he calls an “Opportunity Society,” where everything is merit-based and every man is left to fend for himself.

The only entitlement we believe in is an America where if you work hard, you can get ahead.

And we know from recent experience that his policy prescription for an “Opportunity Society” leads to less, not more opportunity for middle class Americans. How can anyone forget the economic catastrophe brought about by the same policies Mr. Romney’s proposing? His are the same policies that deregulated Wall Street and turned it into a casino that gambled recklessly with hardworking Americans’ money. As a consequence, Americans saw the equity in their homes evaporate and their 401(k)s plummet in value. Millions of jobs were lost.

Americans cannot afford a return to policies that rewarded the recklessness of a few while millions of small businesses and workers were left to clean up the mess. We’ve seen this movie before, and we know how it ends.

The president and I firmly believe, like my father, that every man and woman is entitled to basic dignity. And we believe deeply in opportunity — that if you work hard and play by the rules, no opportunity should be out of reach. That is a fundamentally different vision than what the other side has proposed.

We believe in requiring insurers to cover people with pre-existing conditions and in making sure they provide coverage when people get sick. They want to roll back those protections.

We believe in America building the things the world buys, creating millions of good paying manufacturing jobs, like those in the American auto industry. They want to “let Detroit go bankrupt.” We believe in requiring banks and credit card companies to be transparent about rates, fees and terms and in policing mortgage and payday lenders with a consumer watchdog. They want to kill those protections.

We believe in reducing the deficit in a fair, balanced and responsible way. They refuse to raise taxes on millionaires and billionaires to reduce the deficit, even if they are given $10 dollars in spending cuts for every $1 in tax increases.

We believe in education and training for workers, so we’ve provided record numbers of students with college grants and loans. They want to shut off the funding. We believe in a $1,000 payroll tax cut for working families. They call that a “bandaid” and then block legislation that would prevent taxes from going up for these families next year.

Quite simply, the president and I believe this country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does their fair share, and when everyone plays by the same rules. That is how we define opportunity. It’s an America where everyone has a fair chance to go as far as their talents and drive will take them, and where the middle class is growing, not shrinking.

That’s been our primary goal since our first day in the White House, and it will be our primary goal until we leave. Everyone is entitled to the opportunity for a better life. That’s the American Dream my dad believed in back in 1957, and it’s the one the president and I believe in today.

JOE BIDEN is vice president of the United States.
Contact: Go to www.barackobama.com [ http://www.barackobama.com/ ]

Copyright © 2011 www.DesMoinesRegister.com

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