I was thinking about this last week.  I was thinking about this last week on the day I announced the end of our combat mission in Iraq. (Applause.)  And I spent some time, as I often do, with our soldiers and our veterans.  And this new generation of troops coming home from Iraq, they’ve earned their place alongside the greatest generation. (Applause.)  Just like that greatest generation, they’ve got the skills, they’ve got the training, they’ve got the drive to move America’s economy forward once more.  We’ve been investing in new care and new opportunities and a new commitment to our veterans, because we’ve got to serve them just the way they served us. (Applause.) 

But, Milwaukee, they’re coming home to an economy hit by a recession deeper than anything we’ve seen since the 1930s.  So the question is, how do we create the same kinds of middle-class opportunities for this generation as my grandparents’ generation came home to?  How do we build our economy on that same strong, stable foundation for growth? 

Now, anybody who thinks that we can move this economy forward with just a few folks at the top doing well, hoping that it’s going to trickle down（向下滴流） to working people who are running faster and faster just to keep up, you’ll never see it.  (Applause.)  If that’s what you’re waiting for, you should stop waiting, because it’s never happened in our history.  That’s not how America was built.  It wasn’t built with a bunch of（一群，一堆） folks at the top doing well and everybody else scrambling.  We didn’t become the most prosperous country in the world just by rewarding greed and recklessness.  We didn’t come this far by letting the special interests run wild.  We didn’t do it just by gambling and chasing paper profits on Wall Street.  We built this country by making things, by producing goods we could sell.  We did it with sweat and effort and innovation.  (Applause.)  We did it on the assembly line and at the construction site.  (Applause.)

We did it by investing in the people who built this country from the ground up –- the workers, middle-class families, small business owners.  We out-worked folks and we out-educated folks and we out-competed everybody else.  That’s how we built America.  (Applause.)

And, Milwaukee, that’s what we’re going to do again.  That’s been at the heart what we’ve been doing over these last 20 months: building our economy on a new foundation so that our middle class doesn’t just survive this crisis -– I want it to thrive.  I want it to be stronger than it was before.

And over the last two years, that’s meant taking on some powerful interests -- some powerful interests who had been dominating the agenda in Washington for a very long time.  And they’re not always happy with me.  They talk about me like a dog.  (Applause.)  That’s not in my prepared remarks, it’s just -- but it’s true. 

You know, that’s why we passed financial reform to provide new accountability and tough oversight of Wall Street; stopping credit card companies from gouging（凿，乱要价） you with hidden fees and unfair rate hikes.  (Applause.)  Ending taxpayer bailouts of Wall Street once and for all.  They’re not happy with it, but it was the right thing to do.  (Applause.)

That’s why we eliminated tens of billions of dollars in wasteful taxpayer subsidies（补贴，津贴） , handouts to the big banks that were providing student loans.  We took that money, tens of billions of dollars, and we’re going to go to make sure that your kids and your grandkids can get student loans and grants at a cheap rate and afford a college education.  (Applause.)  They’re not happy with it, but it was the right thing to do.  (Applause.) 

Yes, we’re using those savings to put a college education within reach for working families.

That’s why we passed health insurance reform to make coverage affordable. (Applause.)  Reform that ends the indignity（侮辱，轻蔑） of insurance companies jacking up（提高，顶起） your premiums at will, denying you coverage just because you get sick; reform that gives you control, gives you the ability if your child is sick to be able to get an affordable insurance plan, making sure they can’t drop it. 

That’s why we’re making it easier for workers to save for retirement, with new ways of saving your tax refunds, a simpler system for enrolling in plans like 401(k)s, and fighting to strengthen Social Security for the future. (Applause.)   And if everybody is still talking about privatizing Social Security, they need to be clear:  It will not happen on my watch.  Not when I’m President of the United States of America.  (Applause.)#p#分页标题#e#

That’s why -- we’ve given tax cuts -- except we give them to folks who need them.  (Applause.)  We’ve given them to small business owners.  We’ve given them to clean energy companies. We’ve cut taxes for 95 percent of working Americans, just like I promised you during the campaign.  You all got a tax cut.  (Applause.)

And instead of giving tax breaks to companies that are shipping jobs overseas, we’re cutting taxes to companies that are putting our people to work right here in the United States of America.  (Applause.)  

See, we want to invest in growth industries like clean energy and manufacturing.  You’ve got leaders here in Wisconsin -- Tom Barrett, Jim Doyle -- they’ve been fighting to bring those jobs to Milwaukee, fighting to bring those jobs here to Wisconsin.  I don’t want to see solar panels and wind turbines and electric cars made in China.  I want them made right here in the United States of America.  (Applause.)

I don’t want to buy stuff from someplace else.  I want to grow our exports so that we’re selling to someplace else -- products that say “Made in the U.S.A.”  (Applause.)

AUDIENCE: U.S.A.!  U.S.A.!  U.S.A.!