FDR gave us Social Security. FDR set the stage for national health care. History has credited FDR for bringing us out of the Great Depression with these programs. These programs of his prolonged it. What got us out of the Great Depression was World War II and ratcheting up an economy to manufacture the armaments and materiel necessary to fight World War II. Everybody in the country was working around the clock, Rosie the Riveter, as an example. Even women went into factories, which was unheard of, en masse, back then. And since then what have we done? We've compounded it. We've had the Great Society. We've had the War on Poverty. We have had numerous social programs built upon social programs. We've had Head Start, we've had WIC, we've had AFDC. All the money, all the transfers of wealth from the producers to nonproducers should have cured all of these ills, should it not? And yet on a percentage basis we still have the same percentage of people in poverty, the same percentage of people in the lower classes, the middle class, the five quintiles. The percentages are pretty much the same.
None of this stuff has been wiped out, despite all these efforts by the government. The people who have escaped the lower socioeconomic realms in our society are those who did not rely on government to do it! This is the key, this is the important thing. They did not rely on an FDR; they didn't rely on a Barack Obama; they didn't rely on an LBJ; they didn't rely on affirmative action; they didn't rely on all these redundant programs built atop one another in order to escape whatever it was about their lives they didn't like. They used themselves. They ended up being their best resource, and I say to you, you are your best resource for fulfilling whatever need or desire or ambition you have. Your best resource is not somebody else. I don't care if it's your parents, I don't care if it's your family, I don't care if it's your president. You end up having to do it. If you don't do it for yourself, nobody else is going to do it for you. Nobody is going to come along and decide that a fair wage for you is $150,000 a year, and that's what you are automatically going to get paid. That will never, ever happen. I don't care if Obama gets dictatorial control of this country, that is not going to happen, it cannot happen. That's not what he wants anyway. He wants all of us in as much need and dependence as he can get us. He doesn't want prosperity for people. He doesn't want wealth for people. If he did, there would be no limit on who gets a tax cut.
Your American dream ends at whatever the figure is today, it's waffling now between $250,000 down to $200,000 in terms of annual income over which you get a tax increase and under which you get a tax cut. The evidence is scattered across the world, but it is focused right here in the United States of America. Every effort to provide salvation for economically aggrieved, socially aggrieved groups by the Democrats has been applied. We have spent trillions, we have cared, we have used our compassion, and yet they still exist and they're still angry, and they're still hopeless, and they're still enraged. And guess what? They're still waiting. They're still waiting for a magic man to come along and finally do it right. There is no right way to do what FDR tried, what the Democrats are trying now, what Obama wants to try. There's no right way to do it. The evidence is worldwide that it fails. All around us we see people who have exceeded their own expectations. We see people constantly who surprise everybody with their ambition, their work ethic, and their success. Those are the people, by the way, under an Obama presidency who will become the target. They become the object of punishment.
Those who do not get the proscriptions of a government assistance program of any kind get out of whatever circumstance they're in that they don't like, they use themselves as a resource, they become successful and prosperous, they open businesses, they hire other people, they try to grow, they do everything they can, they play by the rules as best they can. They, the ones who actually use the individual freedom this country provides that FDR and Obama are lying about, they who actually use the freedom are those who prosper. They are the ones who overcome. Those who sit around and wait for a resource other than themselves to lift them up are forever going to be waiting. If there's a recession, you don't necessarily have to participate. If there is high unemployment, you don't necessarily have to participate. The United States of America is one country where you can create your own job, if you choose. You don't have to. You can stay on unemployment or whatever and wait for something to come along that you like. Or you may say, "I don't want to leave town, I don't want to leave where I am," fine and dandy. Just understand the limits that all of us place on ourselves are self-imposed.