As prepared for delivery.
Good afternoon. What a great day it is to be here in Georgia. And what a welcome we’re about to give to a President who has never stopped fighting for the people of this great state.
Now, many of you may think the best part of my job as Treasury Secretary is getting calls from President Trump in the middle of the night.
“Scott, I didn’t wake you, did I?” “No, sir. I’m always up at 1:52 am on Tuesdays.”
But the best part of my job is the chance to get out of Washington to spend time with the amazing people of these United States. And there are few places where you see the strength and spirit of America more clearly than in Georgia.
Georgians don’t believe that the government creates jobs so much as clears the way for the people who do.
You believe that prosperity is built from the ground up, not imposed from the top down.
And that small businesses build stronger communities than big government ever could.
Cobb County, in short, is Trump Country. There’s a reason why President Trump won more votes in Georgia than any other candidate in history. And I am grateful to be with you today to hear directly from him in just a few moments.
Now, serving President Trump is the honor of a lifetime. And from my view at Treasury, I can tell you that no one fights harder. No one works longer. And no President has asked more of his team and of himself so that we can restore American strength and reclaim American sovereignty.
His record speaks for itself. But let me remind you that President Trump has signed the largest tax cuts in American history. Rebalanced global trade in favor of our working families. Reclaimed our position as the world’s energy superpower. And saved this country by securing its borders.
Any one of these wins would be historic on their own. But taken together, they are transformative.
Our economy has now averaged over 100,000 good paying private sector jobs per month for the last four months and real GDP growth has increased at a rate of 2.7 percent over the past four quarters. Private sector employment is up more than 900,000 since Inauguration Day. The Working Families Tax Cuts delivered the largest share of tax relief directly to millions of low- and middle- income Americans. Here in Georgia, the Trump tax cuts saved the average family more than $3,100 on their taxes this year and protected over 200,000 jobs. Meanwhile, companies have poured trillions of dollars of new investment into our country. And more Americans are working under President Trump than at any other time in history.
But of all this President has achieved, his most enduring legacy may be the reason we are here today.
Trump Accounts represent the most successful program launch in government history, with more than 6 million signups before it even went live.
Every child born during the President’s term can get a stake in the American Dream from day one with a $1,000 seed investment from the U.S. Treasury. And don’t listen to the Democrats when they claim that this is a program for the rich. Eighty-six percent of enrolled children are from families earning less than $200,000. Trump Accounts are reaching the very people they were designed to serve.
Of course, for decades, the federal government demonstrated its ineptitude at building a product that people wanted and delivering it at scale. Obamacare gave us a website that collapsed upon its launch. And Obama’s so-called “myRA” savings accounts are now defunct because they were such an abject failure, although not before costing taxpayers tens of millions.
But under President Trump’s leadership, we have designed and built a world-class platform.
Trump Accounts enrolled a million children every single month between its announcement and launch. No tech launch in history has seen those numbers. Millions of American youth are now able to watch their investment accounts compound in real time, from a couple thousand dollars in kindergarten to an estimated half a million dollars by the age of retirement.
It turns out that the federal government was never incapable of delivering something this ambitious. All we needed was a new president.
Now critically, Trump Accounts are no government handout. They are a child’s first claim upon the American Dream at a time when too many are taught to doubt it.
Look around our campuses and classrooms today—apart from those here at Wheeler, of course—and you will find that our students are being sold the seductive lie that government can solve every problem, redistribute every dollar, and supplant its judgment for our own.
Our children are taught to romanticize an ideology that results in ruin wherever it is tested. To critique capitalism for every one of its flaws and to forgive socialism for every one of its failures.
In New York, the current mayor rose to power by repackaging failed ideals of the past as the moral cause of the future. But in Georgia, you know that beneath his youthful veneer lies the oldest impulse in politics, which is to concentrate power and then call it compassion.
Show me some place where this has ever worked. Moscow? Caracas? Havana? These workers’ paradises all ended up deprivation hellscapes.
So, at their core, Trump Accounts represent the triumph of capitalism over socialism—and how our answer to the next free stuff, big government charlatan is to build an ownership economy.
It is to counter the rising tide of freedom-strangling socialism by creating a new generation of shareholders.
And it is to remember that the surest defense of a free society is the citizen who owns a greater share of it.
So, the full reach of this presidency will ripple across generations thanks to policies like Trump Accounts. But my own sense of his place in history is already clear: Donald J. Trump is the most consequential president of my lifetime. And I know you share my excitement in welcoming him to Georgia today.
For everyone in this audience, especially the young people, know that President Trump is creating assets for the American people, not more debt and broken promises.
So, thank you once again to the families of Wheeler High School for receiving us so warmly. To the great people of Cobb County for being here. To President Trump for affirming that the American Dream belongs to every child—and for equipping the next generation to claim its rightful share of it.
Thank you.
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