Madison, Wisconsin October 04, 2012 Transcript available at http://wiscomedia.com/president-barak-obama-visits-madison-the-day-after-the-debate/ President Barak Obama in Madison Wisconsin. University of Wisconsin 3:42 P.M. CDT THE PRESIDENT: Hello, Madison! (Applause.) Go Badgers! (Applause.) First of all, I've got to just point out that some members of the Badgers basketball team are here -- they're getting ready for the season coming up. (Applause.) They've invited me to play, so I said after the election. (Laughter.) I will be raining down jumpers on them. (Applause.) Actually I didn't say that. I said I'm getting kind of old. (Laughter.) Can everybody please give Katie an unbelievable round of applause for that great introduction? (Applause.) We've got one of the finest men I know, as well as a great United States senator, Herb Kohl is here. (Applause.) Your next United States senator, Tammy Baldwin. (Applause.) Your next congressman, Mark Pocan. (Applause.) Your mayor, Paul Soglin. (Applause.) And we've got a whole bunch of other folks here. This is an unbelievable crowd. I've been told this is good practice for Halloween on State Street. (Applause.) But there's something that you've got to do before then, Madison -- you've got to vote. (Applause.) In just 18 days, on October 22nd, Wisconsin gets to start voting early. So you can register and vote at your early vote location. And if you need to find out where it is, go to Vote.BarackObama.com -- find out where, when, how to vote. Now, some of you may have heard, last night we had our first debate. (Applause.) And I just flew in from Denver, and I was telling folks there, when I got on the stage, I met this very spirited fellow who claimed to be Mitt Romney. (Laughter.) But I know it couldn't have been Mitt Romney -- because the real Mitt Romney has been running around the country for the last year promising $5 trillion in tax cuts that favor the wealthy. And yet, the fellow on the stage last night -- who looked like Mitt Romney -- (laughter) -- said he did not know anything about that. It was all news to him. The real Mitt Romney said that we don't need any more teachers in the classroom. AUDIENCE: Booo -- THE PRESIDENT: Don't boo -- vote. (Applause.) But the fellow on stage last night, he said he loves teachers -- can't get enough of them. (Laughter.) The Mitt Romney we all know invested in companies that were called "pioneers" of outsourcing jobs to other countries. But the guy on stage last night, he said he'd never heard of tax breaks for companies that shift jobs overseas. Never heard of them. (Laughter.) And he said, if that's true, he must need a new accountant. So now we know for sure that wasn't the real Mitt Romney, because the real Mitt Romney is doing just fine with the accountant that he already has. (Laughter.) Whoever it was that was on stage last night doesn't want to be held accountable for what the real Mitt Romney has been saying for the last year, and that's because he knows full well that we don't want what he's been selling over the last year. (Applause.) Governor Romney may dance around his positions, he may do a tap dance and a two-step, but if you want to be President, then you owe the American people the truth. (Applause.) So here's the truth. Governor Romney cannot pay for his $5 trillion tax plan without blowing up the deficit or sticking it to the middle class. We can't afford to go down that road again. We can't afford another round of budget-busting tax cuts for the wealthy. We can't afford to gut our investments in education, or clean energy, or research, or technology. We can't afford to roll back regulations on Wall Street banks or oil companies or insurance companies. (Applause.) We can't afford to double down on the same top-down economic policies that got us into this mess. That is not a jobs plan. It's not a plan for our economy. It's not a plan to strengthen the middle class. It is not change, it is a relapse, and we're not going to do it. (Applause.) We have been there. We have tried that. We are not going back. We're moving forward. (Applause.) Because I've got a different view. We have a different view about how to create jobs and prosperity. This country doesn't succeed when only the rich get richer. We succeed when everybody has a shot -- when the middle class is getting bigger, when there are ladders of opportunity into the middle class. Our economy does not grow from the top down; it grows from the middle out. That's how it grows. (Applause.) the rest of the transcript is available at http://wiscomedia.com/president-barak-obama-visits-madison-the-day-after-the-debate/

• published: 15 Oct 2012
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