So if I’ve got one message, my message is now is the time to invest in America.  Now is the time to invest in America.  (Applause.)  Today, American companies have nearly $2 trillion sitting on their balance sheets.  And I know that many of you have told me that you’re waiting for demand to rise before you get off the sidelines and expand, and that with millions of Americans out of work, demand has risen more slowly than any of us would like.

We’re in this together, but many of your own economists and salespeople are now forecasting a healthy increase in demand.  So I just want to encourage you to get in the game.  As part of the bipartisan tax deal we negotiated, with the support of the Chamber, businesses can immediately expense 100 percent of their capital investments.  And as all of you know, it’s investments made now that will pay off as the economy rebounds.  And as you hire, you know that more Americans working will mean more sales for your companies.  It will mean more demand for your products and services.  It will mean higher profits for your companies.  We can create a virtuous（善良的） circle.

And if there’s a reason you don’t share my confidence, if there’s a reason you don’t believe that this is the time to get off the sidelines –- to hire and to invest -– I want to know about it.  I want to fix it.  That’s why I’ve asked Jeff Immelt of GE to lead a new council of business leaders and outside experts so that we’re getting the best advice on what you’re facing out there –- and we’ll be holding our first meeting two weeks from now, on the 24th.  So you can get your emails in early, with your ideas, with your thoughts about how we keep moving forward to create this virtuous cycle.

Together, I am confident we can win the competition for new jobs and industries.  And I know you share my enthusiasm.  Here’s one thing I know.  For all the disagreements, Tom, that we may have sometimes on issues, I know you love this country.  I know you want America to succeed just as badly as I do.

So, yes, we’ll have some disagreements; and, yes, we’ll see things differently at times.  But we’re all Americans.  And that spirit of patriotism（爱国主义） , and that sense of mutual regard and common obligation, that has carried us through far harder times than the ones we’ve just been through.

And I’m reminded, toward the end of the 1930s, amidst the Depression, the looming（隐隐约约的） prospect of war, FDR, President Roosevelt, realized he would need to form a new partnership with business if we were going to become what he would later call the “arsenal（兵工厂，军械库） of democracy.”  And as you can imagine, the relationship between the President and business leaders during the course of the Depression had been rocky at times.  They’d grown somewhat fractured by the New Deal.

So Roosevelt reached out to businesses, and business leaders answered the call to serve their country.  After years of working at cross purposes, the result was one of the most productive collaborations between the public and private sectors in American history.

Some, like the head of GM, hadn’t previously known the President, and if anything had seen him as an adversary（对手，敌手） .  But he gathered his family and he explained that he was going to head up what would become the War Production Board.  And he said to his family, “This country has been good to me, and I want to pay it back.”  I want to pay it back.

And in the years that followed, automobile factories converted to making planes and tanks.  And corset factories made grenade（手榴弹） belts.  A toy company made compasses.  A pinball machine maker turned out shells.  1941 would see the greatest expansion of manufacturing in the history of America.  And not only did this help us win the war; it led to millions of new jobs and helped produce the great American middle class.

So we have faced hard times before.  We have faced moments of tumult（骚动，吵闹） and moments of change.  And we know what to do.  We know how to succeed.  We are Americans, and as we have done throughout our history, I have every confidence that once again we will rise to this occasion; that we can come together, we can adapt and we can thrive in this changing economy.  And we need to look no further than the innovative companies in this room.  If we can harness your potential and the potential of your people across this country, I think there’s no stopping us.

So thank you, God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.