Happy holidays.

I hope sales are good.

(laughter)

I want to spend most of my time, as I usually

do, taking questions.

I want to thank Randall and the rest

of the executive committee for the opportunity

to speak with you here today.

Let me just give you a sense of where I think

our economy currently is, what's happening around

the world and where I think it should be,

and the chances for us here in Washington

to accelerate rather than impede some of the progress

that we've made.

Around this time six years ago, America's businesses

were shedding about 800,000 jobs per month.

Today, our businesses, including some of the most

important businesses in the world that are represented

here today, have created over 10.6 million

new jobs; 56 months of uninterrupted job growth,

which is the longest private sector job growth

in our history.

We just saw the best six-month period

of economic growth in over a decade.

For the first time in six years, the unemployment rate

is under 6 percent.

All told, the United States of America,

over the last six years, has put more people back

to work than Europe, Japan, and the rest

of the advanced world combined.

And that's a record for us to build on.

At the same time, what we've been doing is working

on restructuring and rebuilding our economy

for sustained long-term growth.

Manufacturing has grown.

The auto industry has the strongest sales since 2007.

Our deficits have shrunk by about two-thirds,

something that very few people, I suspect,

in the BRT would have anticipated in some

of our conversations three or four years ago.

When it comes to health care costs,

premiums have gone up at the lowest pace on record,

which means that a lot of the businesses here are

saving money, as are a lot of consumers.

On the education front, high school graduations

are up, college enrollments are up, math and reading

scores have improved.

Internationally, our exports continue to hit record levels.

On energy, we have seen a revolution that is changing

not just the economy but also changing geopolitics.

Not only is oil and natural gas production up --

in part because of technological changes

that have taken place -- but we've also doubled

our production of clean energy.

And solar energy is up about tenfold;

wind energy is up threefold.

Unit costs for the production of clean energy

are dropping down to where they're getting close

to being competitive to fossil fuels.

And as a consequence, we've also been able to reduce

carbon emissions that cause climate change faster

than most of the other industrialized countries.

So the bottom line is, is that America continues to lead.

I was -- Andrew Liveris and I were talking -- I was with

his people in Brisbane, Australia, and at the G20,

what was striking was the degree of optimism that the world

felt about the American economy -- an optimism that

in some ways is greater than how Americans sometimes

feel about the American economy.

I think what you saw among world leaders was consistent

with what we know from global surveys, which is when you

ask people now, what is the number-one place

to invest, it's the United States of America.

It was China for quite some time.

Now folks want to put money back into this country.

And a lot of that has to do with the fact that we've

got the best workers in the world, we've got

the best university system, and research

and development and innovation in the world,

and we've got the best businesses in the world.

And so a lot of you can, I think,

take great credit for the kind of bounce-back

that we've seen over the last six years.

Having said all that, I think we recognize that

we've got a lot more progress to make.

And I put it in a couple of categories.

There are some common-sense things that we should be doing

that we're not doing, and the reason primarily

is because of politics and ideological gridlock.

But I suspect that if we surveyed folks here,

regardless of your party affiliation, you'd say,

let's get this done.

Infrastructure is one area where we need to go ahead

and make some significant investments.

Anybody who travels around the world and looks at what

airports outside the United States now look like,

and roads and trains and ports and airports now look like,

recognize that it makes no sense for us to have

a first-class economy but second-class information.

And that would not only help accelerate growth right now,

it would also lay the foundation for growth in the future.

Tax reform -- an area which I know is of great interest

to the Business Roundtable: I have consistently said that

for us to have a system in which we have, on paper,

one of the two or three highest tax rates in the world

when it comes to corporate taxation, but in practice,

there are so many loopholes that you get huge variations

between what companies pay doesn't make sense.

And we should be able to smooth the system out,

streamline it in such a way that allows us to lower rates,

close loopholes, and make for a much more efficient system

where folks aren't wasting a lot of time trying to hire

accountants and lawyers to get out of paying taxes,

but have some certainty and were able to raise just

as much money on a much simpler system.

That's something that I think we should be doing.

Trade: In Asia, there is a great hunger for

engagement with the United States of America,

and the Trans-Pacific Partnership is moving forward.

Michael Froman, who is here, has been working non-stop.

I've promised his family that he will be home sometime soon.

We are optimistic about being able to get a deal done

and we are reinvigorating the negotiations with

the Europeans on a transatlantic trade deal.

If we can get that done, that's good for American businesses,

it's good for American jobs, and it's actually

good for labor and environmental interests

around the world.

Because what we're trying to do is raise standards so that

everybody is on a higher, but level playing field.

And I think that your help on that process can make

an enormous difference.

Immigration reform: I recognize that there's been some

controversy about the executive actions that I've taken.

On the other hand, I think the BRT has been extraordinarily

helpful in getting the country to recognize that

this is the right thing to do for our economy.

We know it will grow the economy faster.

We know it will help us reduce the deficit.

We know that it gives us the capacity to bring in

high-skilled folks who we should want to gravitate towards

the United States to start businesses and to create

new products and new services, and to innovate,

and to continue the tradition of economic dynamism that's

the hallmark of the United States of America.

I am still hopeful that we can get legislation done,

because if we get legislation done,

it actually supplants a lot of the executive actions that I've

already taken -- which I've acknowledged are incomplete,

allow us to make some progress, but they're temporary,

and we could be doing a lot better if we actually

get legislation done.

So the good news, despite the fact that obviously the midterm

elections did not turn out exactly as I had hoped,

is that there remains enormous areas of potential bipartisan

action and progress.

And I've already spoken to Speaker Boehner and Senator

Mitch McConnell, and what I've said to them is that I am

prepared to work with them on areas where we agree,

recognizing there are going to be some areas where

we just don't agree.

And I think one of the habits that this town has to break

is this notion that if you disagree on one thing,

then suddenly everybody takes their ball home

and they don't play.

I think that there's got to be the capacity for us to say,

here's an area where we're going to have some vigorous

disagreement, but here are some areas where we have

a common vision -- let's go ahead and get that done,

and build some momentum, start working those muscles

to actually legislate, sign some legislation,

give the American people some confidence that those