President Barack Obama's Official Remarks in CdM–with Applause and Laughter Breaks

The White House has released an official transcript of President Barack Obama's remarks at a breakfast fundraiser in Corona del Mar this morning–complete with laugh and applause breaks.

Admission to the event started at $2,500 and rose to $35,800 depending on what kind of access one wanted to The Chosen One. His remarks at the residence of Democratic supporters Geoffrey and Nancy Stack, whose sprawling home west of Cameo
Shores overlooks Little Corona beach, follow after the jump . . .
]

For Immediate Release

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT AT CAMPAIGN EVENT

Private Residence
Corona del Mar, California
9:52 A.M. PST

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, everybody. (Applause.) Thank you, Orange County! Thank you. Thank you. Everybody, please have a seat. It is great to be here on such a
spectacular day. This is what California weather is supposed to
look like. (Applause.) I have to say, yesterday, up in LA, I could
see my breath when I was speaking. (Laughter.) I was a little
concerned. But today you guys are living up to your billing.

I want to thank everybody
who's here, but obviously I want to, first of all, thank Janet for the
wonderful introduction, but also being such a powerhouse in terms of
helping making this thing happen. Janet Keller,
thank you. (Applause.) As well as Bernie–thank you so much for
letting Janet spend all this time on this. (Laughter.)

I want to thank Jeff and Nancy and their
entire family for opening up their spectacular home to us. Thank you so
much. (Applause.) Thanks for your hospitality.

To Wylie and Bette and so many others who've
helped to pull this together–you guys have been with me through thick
and thin, so thank you so much. We love you guys.

And a couple of wonderful elected officials–one, your own representative, Loretta Sanchez, is in the house. (Applause.) But we also have an import here. He is going to be hosting us at the Democratic National Convention. He's
the mayor of Charlotte–Anthony Foxx is here. (Applause.) Charlotte, North Carolina. (Applause.)

Now, usually in these things what I like to do
is be brief at the top and then I have some time to answer questions
and take comments and suggestions, and so it ends up being a little more
informal.

But picking up on something that Janet said–we've obviously gone through three of the toughest years that America
has seen in our lifetime: the worst economic crisis since the Great
Depression, the worst financial crisis since
the 1930s. Four million people losing their jobs in the six months
before I took office, 4 million more in the six months after I was sworn
in, but before our economic policies had a chance to take effect. An
auto industry on the brink of collapse. Layoffs
all across the country, state and local governments struggling, at the
same as we faced enormous global challenges, from two wars to a global
economy that was shrinking.

And as we look back over these last three
years, I think we can all say that we're not yet where we need to be, we
haven't solved every challenge, but what we've been able to accomplish–in part because of you, in part because of
your support and your voices–has been remarkable.

The month I took office we were losing 750,000 [jobs] a month. Last month we created 250,000. That's a million-job swing. And that's representative of the progress that the economy has made. We
now have more manufacturing jobs being created
than any time since the 1990s. And although unemployment is still too
high, over the last 23 months we've created 3.7 million jobs, and people
are starting to get a sense that the economy is on the rebound. (Applause.)

Even as that has been our
singular focus, we recognize that there are a whole bunch of issues and a
whole bunch of challenges that faced us even before this recession
hit. That's what led me to get in this race
in the first place–the sense that folks who were working hard were
treading water, that we were becoming a country where just a few did
well and so many others were struggling to get by. Problems like health
care that had been escalating for decades. A lack of an energy policy that had put us in a vulnerable position
every time there was turmoil in the Middle East. Issues that had been
lingering, but we kept on kicking down the road because we didn't have
enough political will and political courage to
do something about it.

So even as we were
grappling with this enormous economic crisis, we did not forget those
challenges that led us to start that campaign in 2008 in the first
place.

And so, yes, we pushed and
pushed and pushed, until we finally were able to pass legislation that
ensures that every American is going to be able to get health care in
the country, and nobody is going to go bankrupt
when they get sick. And already we've got 2.6 million young people who
have coverage who did not have it before because of this law–(applause)–seniors all across the country benefiting from lower
prescription drug plan–(applause)–and the promise
not only of making sure health care is affordable, and preventive care
and mammograms and other things are available, and people aren't being
dropped from their health insurance when they get sick because they now
have the Patient's Bill of Rights, but it
also promises to actually, over time, lower health care costs, which
will help reduce our deficits, and help businesses and families well
into the future.

We kept on focusing on
energy, even though we were grappling with this economic crisis, and
have doubled the production of clean energy in this country from wind
and solar and biodiesel. And even as we have said
that we're going to have to continue to develop American energy and
traditional energy sources like oil and gas, we've also said we're not
going to compromise on making sure that there are strong environmental
controls in place, because we want our kids having
clean air and clean water. We want them growing up in the kind of
country–(applause)–the kind of country that protects and preserves
its natural resources, and conserves our land and this incredible
bounty that God has given us.

Even as we were focusing
on the economy, we said, we want an America where everybody is treated
fairly. So [the] first bill I passed–equal pay for equal work. I want my
daughters to be treated just like somebody
else's sons when it comes to a job. (Applause.)

And we said, given the
incredible sacrifices that our military makes, we don't want your
capacity to serve the country you love to be dependent on who you love. And we ended “don't ask, don't tell,” because that's
part of fairness. That's part of who we are as Americans. (Applause.)

Whether it was doubling
fuel efficiency standards on cars–probably the most significant
environmental action that's been taken in two or three decades–to
making sure that student loans were more accessible
to folks who are going to college, to trying to revamp our job training
system so that our workers are getting the best skills in the world and
can compete in this 21st century–even as we were dealing with the
immediate crisis, the immediate emergency,
we've tried to keep our eye on our long-term goal, which is restoring
an America where everybody gets a fair shot, everybody does their fair
share, and everybody is playing by the same set of rules–an America
where everybody feels a sense of responsibility
not only to themselves, but also to the larger community and the larger
country.

And we've done all this obviously with some
fairly vocal opposition. (Laughter.) And we've done this even as the
weight of the economic crisis made it more difficult. We did this at a
time when changes around the world were taking
place more quickly than we've ever seen before. And so, even as I was
managing two wars, we also had to deal with an Arab Spring in which
suddenly millions of people, especially young people, said, we want a
different way of life.

And there have been setbacks. There have been
times where progress was not as fast as we wanted. And there's so much
more work that remains to be done. We still have a broken immigration
system that has to be reformed so that we
are a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants. We still have more
work to do on energy, because the fact of the matter is that, for
example, if America simply matched the energy efficiency of a country
like Japan, we would lower our overall energy utilization
by 20 or 25 percent. Nothing could be more important in terms of our
economy and the long-term health of this planet. That's more work to
do.

We are going to have to make sure that we
close this deficit and reduce our debt in a responsible and balanced
way, which means that we get rid of programs that don't work and we
evaluate carefully our spending to make sure we're getting
a good bang for the buck. And we say to those who can afford to do a
little bit more, like me, that you've got to be part of the solution in
terms of lowering this deficit. It can't be just done on the backs of
seniors or students in the forms of higher
loans or more expensive Medicare.

So we've still got a lot of work to do. And
that's, hopefully, why all of you are here today. I always joke that
back in 2008, if you got behind my campaign it wasn't because you
thought it was a sure thing. (Laughter.) Electing
Barack Hussein Obama was not the–(laughter)–easy route to take. So you got involved because you had a sense of possibility, a sense of
how this country could be brought together and start moving in a new
direction.

We've begun that process,
but the journey is not complete. And although I'm a little grayer now
than I was, a little dinged up–(laughter)–and some of the newness
and excitement that possessed us in 2008 naturally
will have dissipated. That sense of urgency and determination, and the
values that are at stake are no less today than they were back in
2008. (Applause.) If anything, it's more urgent and we have to be more
determined and more energized and work even harder. And if we do, we're going to have four and a half more years to change
America.

Thank you. Thank you, everybody. (Applause.)

Follow OC Weekly on Twitter @ocweekly or on Facebook!