Vice Presidential Candidate Paul Ryan’s address to the 2012 GOP Convention (abridged)

August 29, 2012

Full Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZipUINVXIc

After four years of getting the runaround, America needs a turnaround.

I have never seen opponents so silent about their record, and so desperate to keep their power. They have run out of ideas. Their moment came and went. Fear and division is all they've got left.

With all of their attack ads the president is just throwing away money. And he is pretty experienced at that.

President Barack Obama came to office during an economic crisis, as he has reminded us a time or two.

So here's the question: without a change in leadership, why would the next four years be any different from the last four years?

The American people were cut out of the deal. What did taxpayers get out of the Obama stimulus? More debt. That money wasn't just spent and wasted, it was borrowed, spent and wasted.

Maybe the greatest waste of all, was time. Here we were faced with a massive job crisis so deep that if everyone out of work stood in single file, that unemployment line would stretch the length of the entire American continent.

Obamacare comes to more than 2,000 pages of rules, mandates, taxes, fees and fines that have no place in a free country.

An obligation we have to our parents and grandparents (Medicare) is being sacrificed (by Obamacare), all to pay for a new entitlement that we didn't even ask for.

The greatest threat to Medicare is Obama Care and we're going to stop it.

Mitt Romney and I know the difference between protecting a program and raiding it. Ladies and gentlemen, our nation needs this debate, we want this debate, and we will win in this debate.

Obamacare, as much as anything else, explains why a presidency that began with such anticipation now comes to such a disappointing close. It began with a financial crisis. It ends with a job crisis. It began with a housing crisis they alone
didn't cause. It ends with a housing crisis they didn't correct. It began with a perfect AAA credit rating for the United States. It ends with the downgraded America. It all started off with stirring speeches, Greek columns, and the thrill of
something new. Now all that's left is a presidency adrift, surviving on slogans that already seem tired., grasping at the moment that has already passed, like a ship trying to sail on yesterday's wind.

You know, President Obama was asked not long ago to reflect on any mistakes he might have made. He said, “Well, I haven't communicated enough.” He said his job is to, quote, “tell a story to the American people.” As if that is the whole problem here? He needs to talk more and we need to be better listeners? Ladies and gentlemen, these past four years, we have suffered no shortage of words in the White House. What is missing is leadership in the White House.

And the story that Barack Obama does tell, forever shifting blame to the last administration, is getting old. The man assumed office almost four years ago. Isn't it about time he assumed responsibility?

In this generation, a defining responsibility of government is to steer our nation clear of a debt crisis while there is still time. Back in 2008, candidate Obama called a $10 trillion national debt unpatriotic. Serious talk from what looked like a
serious reformer. But by his own decisions, President Obama has added more debt than any other president before him. And more than all the troubled governments of Europe combined. One president, one term, $5 trillion in new debt.

They (the Obama administration) have no answer to this simple reality: We need to stop spending money we don't have.

My Dad used to say to me: “Son, you have a choice: You can be part of the problem, or you can be part of the solution.” The present administration has made its choices, and Mitt Romney and I have made ours: Before the math and the momentum overwhelm us all, we are going to solve this nation's economic problems.

After four years of government trying to divide up the wealth, we will get America creating wealth again.

Behind every small business, there's a story worth knowing. All the corner shops in our towns and cities, the restaurants, cleaners, gyms, hair salons, hardware stores, these didn't come out of nowhere. A lot of heart goes into each one.
And if small business people say they made it on their own, all they are saying is that nobody else worked seven days a week in their place. Nobody showed up in their place to open the door at five in the morning. Nobody did their thinking, and worrying, and sweating for them. After all that work, and in a bad economy, it sure doesn't help to hear from their president that government gets the credit. What they deserve to hear is the truth: Yes, you did build that.

In a clean break from the Obama years, and frankly from the years before this president, we will keep federal spending at 20 percent of GDP, or less. Because that is enough. The choice is whether to put hard limits on economic growth, or hard limits on the size of government, and we choose to limit government.

I learned a good deal about economics, and about America, from the author of the Reagan tax reforms, the great Jack Kemp. What gave Jack that incredible enthusiasm was his belief in the possibilities of free people, in the power of free
enterprise and strong communities to overcome poverty and despair. We need that same optimism right now. And in our dealings with other nations, a Romney-Ryan administration will speak with confidence and clarity. Whenever
men and women rise up for their own freedom, they will know that the American president is on their side.

Instead of managing American decline, leaving allies to doubt us and adversaries to test us, we will act in the conviction that the United States is still the greatest force for peace and liberty that this world has ever known.

We are four years into this presidency. The issue is not the economy that Barack Obama inherited, not the economy as he envisions, but this economy that we are living. College graduates should not have to live out their 20s in
their childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading Obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life.

Everyone who feels stuck in the Obama economy is right to focus on the here and now. And I hope you understand this too, if you're feeling left out or passed by: You have not failed, your leaders have failed you. None of us have to settle for the best this administration offers, a dull, adventureless journey from one entitlement to the next, a government-planned life, a country where everything is free but us.

Listen to the way we are spoken to already, as if everyone is stuck in some class or station in life, victims of circumstances beyond our control, with government there to help us cope with our fate. It's the exact opposite of everything I learned
growing up in Wisconsin, or at college in Ohio.

Now when I was waiting tables, washing dishes, or mowing lawns for money, I never thought of myself as stuck in some station in life. I was on my own path, my own journey, an American journey, where I could think for myself, decide for
myself, define happen as for myself. That is what we do in this country. That is the American dream. That's freedom and I will take it any day over the supervision and sanctimony of the central planners.

We are a full generation apart, Governor Romney and I. And in some ways, we are different. There are the songs in his iPod, which I have heard on the campaign bus... and I have heard it on many hotel elevators.

Mitt Romney helped start businesses and turn around failing ones. And by the way, being successful in business... that's a good thing!

Mitt Romney has not only succeeded, but he has succeeded where others could not. He turned around the Olympics at a time when a great institution was collapsing under the weight of bad management, overspending and corruption. Sounds kind of familiar, doesn't it?

Mitt Romney was the Republican governor of a state where almost nine in 10 legislators are Democrats and yet he balanced the budget without raising taxes. Unemployment went down. Household incomes went up, and Massachusetts under Governor Mitt Romney saw its credit rating upgraded.

Mitt Romney and I also go to different churches, but in any church, the best kind of preaching is done by example, and I've been watching that example.

The man who will accept your nomination is prayerful and faithful and honorable. Not only a defender of marriage, he offers an example of marriage at its best. Not only a fine businessman, he is a fine man, worthy of leading this optimistic
and good-hearted country. Our faiths come together in the same moral creed. We believe that in every life, there is goodness, for every person there is hope. Each one of us was made for a reason, bearing the image and likeness of the Lord of life.

We have responsibilities, one to another. We do not each face the world alone. And the greatest of all responsibilities, is that of the strong to protect the weak. The truest measure of any society is how it treats those who cannot defend or care for themselves.

Each of these great moral ideas is essential to democratic government, to the rule of law, to life in a humane and decent society. They are the moral creed of our country, as powerful in our time, as on the day of America's founding. They are
self-evident and unchanging, and sometimes, even presidents need reminding, that our rights come from nature and God, and not from government.

The founding generation secured those rights for us, and in every generation since, the best among us have defended our freedoms. They are protecting us right now. We honor them and all our veterans, and we thank them.

The right that makes all the difference now, is the right to choose our own leaders. And you are entitled to the clearest possible choice, because the time for choosing is drawing near. So here is our pledge. We will not duck the tough issues, we will lead. We will not spend the next four years blaming others, we will take responsibility. We will not try to replace our founding principles, we will reapply our founding principles.

Together, we can do this. We can get this country working again. We can get this economy growing again. We can make the safety net safe again.