The Speech Not Given

Your Invitation For Office Hours June 9, 2023

Robert F. Kennedy was murdered 55 years ago on June 5, 1968. The world would have been far different had he lived.

On June 2, 2023, President Biden delivered an address from the Oval Office on America’s debt.

Here is the speech he should have delivered:

My fellow Americans. One word describes the story of this country — More. More land, more freedom, more people, more wealth and more Democracy.

There is nothing wrong with more. If you’re able to answer the question, “More of what?”

What do you want more of?

This week my Republican colleagues and I negotiated a debt ceiling bill that gave more to our military but less in food stamps. To prevent a default, I agreed to stopped as many as 170,000 Americans from receiving SNAP benefits.

I passed a budget on the backs of our nation’s neediest. For that I am sorry.

As your president, I need to do a better job explaining how our budget process works so you don’t fall prey to right wing lies.

And, what I need you to understand is that your finances are nothing like the government’s. I need you to wash clean from your mind the lie you’ve been fed, that the government, like a family, must live within its means.

This lie is spread by the wealthiest in America who don’t want to pay taxes. And, because they don’t want to pay taxes, they want the government to cut spending just so the rich will not have to pay their fair share of taxes.

Now, here’s the important thing you need to understand. The wealthiest people in America, who control both parties, and all the economists and the universities where they teach, say that they want a balanced budget. They don’t! If America balances its budget, or runs a budget surplus, that means our treasury department stops issuing bonds. You see, when we run up a debt, like the 33 trillion dollars we owe right now, that means we issue 33 trillion dollars in treasury notes, and rich people along with institutional investors buy those treasury notes because those notes pay interest and they’re guaranteed by the full faith and credit of the United States.

I am signing this new debt ceiling bill tonight mostly to signal to the world that a United States treasury note is one of the safest places you can put your money. Thanks to the 14th amendment, America will never default on our debt.

The wealthy want us to be in debt because they want a safe place to put their money so they can collect interest on it.

That’s the difference between your government and your family. The economy will not grow unless the government has debt. Unlike your family, the government pays its debt by forcing everyone in the country to pay the government each year on April 15th.

Government finances are nothing like family finances.

Families go bankrupt. The US government does not. Families have no guarantee that money will be coming in. The US government does.

Stop thinking that the government must live within its means. The government can print the money it doesn’t have. You and I (and everyone else), cannot.

So, now that we know the government is completely different from a family, let’s talk about our 33 trillion dollars in debt.

Where did this debt come from? Seven trillion of it came from Donald Trump’s tax cuts for the rich.

The rest of the debt came from George W. Bush’s tax cuts for the rich and Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts for the rich.

We were lied to, and we’re still being lied to, by Republicans who claim lowering taxes for the wealthy will balance budgets because the wealthy will create so many jobs that our treasury department will be overflowing with new income taxes.

We gave it a try. But, unfortunately, all those tax cuts did is increase our debt to 33 trillion.

The truth is wealthy people don’t create jobs with their money — they hoard it buying treasury notes.

Whether you like it or not, the government creates jobs by pouring money into the economy through tax credits, entitlement programs and government contracts. I can assure you there is not a single “self-made” billionaire who didn’t make his fortune through some sort of government subsidy or government contract.

The very same people who demonize government spending are the very same people who benefit from its largesse.

Think of all the wealthy Republicans who voted against my student loan relief while they themselves were the recipients of Paycheck Protection Program loans that they never paid back.

So, what is an economy?

It is battle among special interest groups fighting for a slice of government spending. They are fighting over how expensive, or how cheap, the Federal Reserve will make it to borrow money.

And, this is a glorious struggle. All sorts of special interests fighting it out in the public square, making their case for why they deserve the government’s help. That’s how a Democracy is supposed to work.

But our Democracy doesn’t work. And, our economy doesn’t work. At least not for everyone. Why is that?

Because the one voice not heard in this epic struggle for government largesse is the American citizen. The people who work, and vote and pay their taxes don’t have anyone speaking for their fair share of the pie.

I am not a Marxist. But I also do not believe in a free market, because markets are manipulated by the rich and the powerful, and the easiest way to manipulate the market is to control the government. Those who control the government, control government spending. And so, we have now reached a point where the government is controlled by the rich, which means the tax code, and government spending, is dictated by the rich. How else can you explain this budget deal where poor people must work for food stamps, but children of billionaires can inherit their first 20 million without paying a single dollar in taxes.

The conversation about government spending has been contaminated by economists and politicians who are paid mightily by the richest one percent to lie about so called government handouts.

It is a lie that food stamps make people lazy. It is a lie that welfare programs create a class of people who’d rather sit on the couch than go find work.

The rich don’t believe that free money hurts people, otherwise they wouldn’t spend millions rewriting the tax codes to make sure their children never have to work a day in their life.

It is obscene for Kevin McCarthy to insist that making people work for food stamps will give them a sense of self-worth. Jobs are no guarantee of self-worth. As a matter of fact, most jobs strip us of our self-worth so that we never ask for a raise.

Self-esteem isn’t found solely in our work nor our net worth. Often it is found in our familial interactions, an artistic venture, or a garden that nobody even knows about.

In the end, the economy is what we say it is. Jobs and salaries are based on what we value as a society.

I keep a bust of Robert F. Kennedy in my Oval Office as a reminder of what this country is supposed to be.

Robert F. Kennedy was a mean son-of-a-bitch. Born into immense wealth, he never had to work a single day of his life. But, work he did. He was ambitious, driven, and made enemies. Early in his political career he was considered somewhat of a street fighter. He never had to worry about food, housing, or education. It was all handed to him, and that freed him up to fight the world. At the beginning of his career, he fought the wrong fight, siding with Joseph McCarthy in ruining the lives of American communists or taking on the Teamsters who were no more corrupt than the companies whose freight they carried.

But, he maintained a fire in his belly, despite all the wealth and handouts he received from his rich father. And then, after his brother, John F. Kennedy was assassinated, Bobby Kennedy underwent a profound transformation. In his final years, he learned that all Americans are ambitious no matter how much or how little they are born with. We all want more. We all want the moon, rich or poor.

He realized that free food, free education a social safety net doesn’t make a person dependent, it makes them stronger. Bobby visited Appalachia, went into the shacks and laid witness to the children with bloated bellies, he marched with Cesar Chavez and the field workers. Kennedy realized that everyone deserves a handout, everyone deserves a warm meal, a home, an education, and by making the least amongst us stronger, it makes our economy stronger and all of us safer.

This country has been taken over by the greedy.

As I stated at the start, America can be defined by the word more. But, unfortunately, we are being run by rich people who want more money than they actually need.

This sickens me because for them, enough is never enough.

They have poisoned our government, our environment, our jobs and our lives.

There is nothing wrong with wanting more. Our country was built by people wanting more. My ancestors came to America for more.

But enough is enough. Let’s remember why we have a government. We have a government to protect all of us and not only the richest one percent. We pay our taxes to protect everyone, especially the least among us, children, the elderly, the unlucky, people born with physical or emotional difficulties—that is the only reason we have a government.

The Scriptures teach to look after the poor. So why are we punishing them?

Let’s reimagine an economy and a government that focuses on the bottom. Let’s make rock bottom soft enough so all of us can bounce back. Otherwise, what is the point of government or for that matter any of us being here.

Goodnight and God Bless, the United States.