New York, New York – Below are excerpts of remarks as prepared for delivery today by Senator John Edwards at the Ninth Annual National Action Network Convention’s “Keepers of the Dream Dinner.”

“Tonight, I want to talk about intolerance and inequality and the insidious way they feed on each other, hurting not only the people and groups they target, but all of us and the future of our country.

“We’ve obviously heard a lot about this lately thanks to the repugnant remarks of one broadcaster on the radio and television last week.

“I find it astonishing that there was even a debate over whether Don Imus’ comments crossed the line. And I know I don’t have to tell anybody here: Don Imus’ comments didn’t just cross the line. They defined the line that divides this country like the blade of a knife.

“There can be no debate over how much bigotry is too much bigotry. Any bigotry is too much.

“There can be no question of how much intolerance this country can tolerate; we have already tolerated its effects for far too long.

“And let’s be crystal clear: Intolerance affects everything, starting with our economy and ending with our ability to lead at a time of massive global change and new threats to our security.

“I think some people really believe that we have put these things behind us; that the civil rights movement took care of all that and everyone is on a level playing field now.

“I think some people really believe that all you have to do to succeed in this country is pull yourself up by your bootstraps and work hard.

“Well, I can tell you, I have traveled all over this country and I have been in the places where people’s bootstraps are worn to a thread from all the pulling they’ve been doing. Places where all the hard work in the world hasn’t helped to pull them out of poverty—because the system discriminates and opportunity isn’t equal. But if we come together and are honest about it, we can change that and build an America that gives every American an equal chance.

“There is no question in my mind that intolerance is a direct cause of one of our greatest and most threatening problems: the growing disparity between rich and poor, between haves and have nots, between working people and all those powerful forces who do not have their best interests in mind. Because guess what? The people that are usually the targets of intolerance and bigotry are too often the same people who suffer from lack of opportunity, the same people who are left behind. And as long as intolerance pervades our culture, it’s far too easy for politicians in Washington to ignore the big changes we need to make in order to end poverty once and for all.

“I don’t just talk about these issues here—racial intolerance, the two Americas that still exists—I talk about them everywhere I go, because it’s silence that allows them to survive and even thrive. And I hope everyone running for president will do the same, because we have an obligation and the opportunity to help end the silence.

“It’s a shame we have to wait for the Don Imus’ of the world to provoke a national conversation through bigotry—but we should jump at the chance to have this conversation, not just to look at whatever bigotry lies in our own hearts, but to finally engage on a problem that isn’t going anywhere unless we do something about it. And our strength as a nation depends on it.”

John Edwards’ responses to questions from MoveOn members about how to end the war in Iraq

Question 1

What is your plan for ending the war in Iraq?

Response

Well thank you. First of all, let me say for the past 9 months, MoveOn members have accomplished amazing things for the progressive movement.

Last year you helped elect a new Congress. And thanks to your relentless grassroots pressure, you’ve actually helped shift the national debate about ending the war in Iraq from a question of ‘if,’ to a question of ‘how soon.’ Thank you.

As you probably know, I voted for this war. I was wrong and I take responsibility for that.

Every day this war drags on it is worse for Iraq, worse for our troops—worse for our country. We don’t need more debate; we don’t need symbolic resolutions; and we don’t need abstract goals—what we need are binding requirements. And we can’t wait until the next president takes office in 2009.

Here’s what I believe ought to happen:

Simply put: Congress should use their funding authority to force President Bush to end the war and start immediately bringing American troops home from Iraq.

I’ve been advocating for Congress to use its funding authority since I voted against the first 87 billion dollar supplemental back in 2003. That funding authority is still the most powerful check we have—if Congress is willing to use it.

I’d propose we begin by capping funding levels at 100,000 troops to stop Bush’s escalation and force an immediate withdrawal of 40,000 to 50,000 troops, which should come out of the north and the south of Iraq.

During that time, we should not allow Bush to deploy any replacement troops to Iraq that do not meet real readiness standards and that have not been properly trained and equipped.

Our withdrawal will help us to directly engage the Iranians and the Syrians to help stabilize Iraq.

The withdrawal of all combat troops should be complete in about a year.

So that’s the outline of my plan for what ought to happen. But we should not be talking hypothetically, because we have already reached a critical moment, and what we do right now will make all the difference.

Thanks in part to your hard work, both houses of Congress have recently passed funding bills that set a time table for withdrawal. President Bush has promised to veto that funding, calculating that he can use the bully pulpit to intimidate Congress and get them to back down.

But this is not the time for political calculation, this is the time for political courage. This is not a game of chicken. This is not about making friends or keeping Joe Lieberman happy. This is about life and death—this about war. We are done letting George Bush manipulate the rhetoric of patriotism, only to use our troops as political pawns. If Bush vetoes funding for the troops, he’s the only one standing in the way of the resources they need. Nobody else.

Congress must stand firm. They must not write George Bush another blank check without a timeline for withdrawal—period. If Bush vetoes the funding bill, Congress should send another funding bill to him with a binding plan to bring the troops home. And if he vetoes it again, they should do it again.

The American people are overwhelmingly in favor of ending this war. If our side stands firm, if we show courage now, we can finally bring our troops back home and bring this war to an end.

Thank you.

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Question 2

What are you going to do about prosecuting war profiteering in Iraq?

Response

Well let me say first I will end war profiteering in Iraq.

What the Bush administration has done is they’ve signed no-bid contracts with Halliburton and Bechtel to complete billions of dollars of work in Iraq. Not only does this war profiteering waste taxpayer dollars; it undermines the credibility of America’s reconstruction efforts in the eyes of the world.

We need to do everything in our power to get rid of fraud and abuse in Iraq. We need to hold powerful corporations like Halliburton accountable for no-bid contracts they’ve secured through cronyism.

None of you will be surprised to hear that I believe in using the U.S. judicial system to hold powerful corporations like Halliburton responsible for their wrongdoing—I’ve done it for a long time.

For all new Iraq contracts, we should impose a cap on profits from Iraqi reconstruction. Contractors should be permitted to earn only a reasonable profit on their Iraq contracts, based on the average profits of comparable, competitively bid government contracts. This is a version of the excess profits tax that was imposed during the First and Second World Wars. As President Franklin Roosevelt explained, in a time of war, “the few [should] not gain from the sacrifices of the many.”

We should also bar corporations, senior executives, lobbyists and directors from making donations to presidential candidates and political parties for at least a year before or after bidding on a major government contract.

Finally, we ought to break the link between government procurement and private sector contracting jobs. Private sector executives seeking government contracts would not be able to take official contracting jobs for 12 months, and similarly, those with responsibility for contracting would not be able to go to firms seeking contracts for 12 months.

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Question 3

The Iraq bill recently passed by the House included a version of Rep. John Murtha’s proposal forcing the President to certify that troops going to Iraq meet the Pentagon’s standards for sufficient training, proper equipment, and overall readiness to fight. Do you support this approach and do you think it should be in the conference committee’s final version of the Iraq bill?

Response

Yes.

Representative Murtha’s bill echoed the policy that I actually announced in February of this year, I believe in it strongly.

In my policy, I would prohibit funding to deploy any new troops or any replacement troops to Iraq that do not meet real readiness standards and that have not been properly trained and equipped, so that American tax dollars are used to train and equip our troops, and not used to escalate this war.

Requiring the President to make sure that the troops are prepared is actually the best way to stand by our troops and it’s also the best way to force this President to change his policy.

The members of the conference committee have to stand strong on this requirement. They should stand up to this President’s veto threat and they ought to pass this legislation and stand behind it.

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Closing Statement

I spoke earlier about the need for political courage and the need for political courage to trump political calculation.

We know George Bush and Karl Rove will deploy the full fury of their PR machine to blame Democrats for Bush’s choice—Bush’s choice—to veto funding for the troops.

There are many people in Washington that will be tempted to cry uncle and say they’ll say we’re going to let Bush win another round in this fight.

So where will Congress find the courage to stand firm?

I’ll tell you where they’ll find it. They will find in your letters. They will find it in your calls. They will find it in your voice.

Forty years ago, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave a sermon speaking out against the war in Vietnam. He said, “There comes a time in all of our lives when silence is a betrayal.”

That has never been more true than it is today. It’s true because in the weeks and months to come our voice has extraordinary power to really change things—and that means we have an absolute responsibility to use that power to the fullest.

So that’s what I’m committing to—using every opportunity I have in this campaign to speak out for immediate action to end this war. And it’s what you’re doing—through you work with MoveOn and in your communities.

Together, I believe we will succeed. And it is a great honor for me to join you in that effort.

Thank you all very much.

Remarks as prepared for delivery
Manchester, New Hampshire

A little more than three years ago, I gave a speech here in New Hampshire I called “In Defense of Optimism.” Some of you probably wonder if I could give a similar speech today. After all, a lot has happened since then – and a lot of it hasn’t been good – the escalation of the war in Iraq, the aftermath of Katrina, health care costs rising, incomes staying flat, mounting evidence of global warming. I could go on.

But as a matter of fact, I am still optimistic – maybe even more so than I was then. I am still optimistic that America can be a country where anyone who works hard is able to get ahead and create a good life for their family. I am optimistic that we can restore America’s moral authority. The challenges may be larger, and we may have even more work to do to build a country that lives up to our ideals and our potential. But we can do it.

I am optimistic we can do these things because my own life says it is possible. I am optimistic we can do these things because everything I love about America and our entrepreneurial spirit and sense of decency says it’s possible. But most of all, I am optimistic because of you and the millions of people like you. You don’t have to look very far or dig very deep to find people determined to make the changes we need. Millions of people are impatient to take control of their own lives and to take the responsibility to get our country back on track. Millions of people who know we can’t just wait for the next president to come in and fix all of our problems or for government to do what needs to be done.

Millions of people who know that America is so much more than just a place – America is an idea. And the idea of America – real, fundamental equality – equality of opportunity, equality of culture, equality of respect – equality for all – matters more than ever. Our job is to make the idea of America real for all Americans, and to rekindle that idea around the world.

So I want to take a few minutes today to talk about some of the challenges we face. But I want to spend most of my time talking about the opportunities before us if we have the courage to do what it takes.

Because we have not yet realized the promise of America; we still struggle to live up to the idea. There are still two Americas here at home, one for the powerful and another one for everyone else. And there are two Americas in the world, the America that we aspire to and has been a light to the world, and the one you’ve seen too often on the news lately.

Here at home, the country with the most advanced health care in the world, we have more Americans without health care – 47 million – not fewer.

In the richest country in the history of the globe, we have more millionaires and more billionaires that ever – but we also have more Americans living in poverty – 37 million people unable to fulfill their basic needs of food and shelter, no matter how many jobs they work – not less.

As someone who grew up in the segregated South it hurts me to say that more than 50 years after the Brown decision, we still have two school systems – one for people who live in the right neighborhoods and one for everyone else. And the truth is that opportunity is too often denied to people because of the color of their skin, their ethnic background, their gender, or their sexual preference.

And you all know that we are not leading the world in a way that lives up to the idea of America – or is good for us here at home.

What we used to call foreign policy has such a profound effect on our everyday lives that there really is no such thing as purely foreign policy anymore. Trade policies affect jobs and wages here and throughout the world. Energy policy affects climate change here and all over the world, and it impacts domestic and foreign security. Poverty is an issue for us here – I could talk about that all day long – but poverty is also an issue directly related to the rise of terrorism and our place in the world economy. A well-known politician from a neighboring state used to say that all politics is local. Today, all policy is local.

We are not going to solve these problems with the usual approaches. These challenges are too big, too connected, and too complicated to be answered with the same old politics of incrementalism. Meeting them requires more than just a new president—it requires an entirely new approach.

To build the America we believe in requires fundamental, transformational change. Not change for the sake of change, but change for the sake of getting to where we know the country and the world can be, should be, and needs to be. Not incremental, baby-step changes, but invigorating, uplifting, challenging, daring, boundary-pushing changes that address the root causes and understand the complexity of our challenges.

So if we are going to lead from this point in the 21st century, we must lead with a bold and confident step – confident in the greatness of the American idea, and bold in our plans to make it real.

To lead the world in addressing the challenges of our century, America must restore our moral authority.

Restoring our moral authority isn’t just about feeling good about ourselves. When the world looks to America for leadership, we are stronger and safer, and so is the rest of the world.

Restoring our moral authority means leading by example, and making clear that hard challenges don’t frighten us, but call us to action.

To me, there is no better opportunity to make this clear than the enormous challenge of helping the 37 million Americans who live in poverty.

Maybe you’ve heard the phrase "it’s expensive to be poor." Well, it’s also expensive for America to have so many poor.

We all pay a price when young people who could someday find the cure for AIDS or make a fuel cell work are sitting on a stoop because they didn’t get the education they need.

And don’t think for a second that addressing poverty is charity – addressing poverty makes our workforce stronger and our economy stronger.

That is why I’ve set a national goal of eliminating poverty in the next 30 years – and laid out a detailed plan to do it by creating what I call a "Working Society," building on what we’ve learned to create solutions for the future.

In a Working Society, we will reward work with a higher minimum wage, stronger labor laws, and tax credits for working families. We will offer affordable housing near good jobs and good schools, and create a million stepping-stone jobs for people who cannot find work on their own. We will help workers save for the future with new work bonds and homeownership tax credits. And we will all take responsibility for the problem of poverty and not just leave it to government.

By building a Working Society, we won’t just try the old solutions and the old politics. Instead, we will work, as a nation, to change fundamentally the culture of poverty itself and create the conditions that allow people to lift themselves up into the middle class.

Rebuilding our middle class for the 21st century also means getting at the root of one of the main obstacles to middle class prosperity — the cost of health care.

Americans spend more than $2 trillion per year on heath care –- more than any other country on earth.

Despite this incredible expenditure, more than 47 million Americans don’t have any health insurance at all.

That’s not just morally wrong. It undercuts our personal security and our competitiveness in the global marketplace.

That’s why I’ve introduced a true universal health care plan to cover every man, woman and child in America – by the end of my first term as President. I’m proud to be the first and only candidate to do so.

We cannot wait to transform our health care system. My plan sets up health care markets around the country to give people a choice of good health care plans, including a choice between private and government plans. It provides access to preventive care. It creates efficiencies that don’t exist today by dramatically lowering administrative costs. Under my plan, if you don’t have health care, you will. If you have health care, your costs will go down.

It may seem complicated in its details, but I see health care as a simple matter of right and wrong. I believe every single one of us has equal worth, and we should not treat anybody as better than anybody else. Every American – rich or poor, no matter which America we live in – has the right to health care. My plan delivers it.

Our domestic problems are intertwined with our global challenges, and nowhere is this truer than at the nexus of global warming and energy independence.

Global warming is a problem that is here, now, and not going away. The United States must lead – lead smart, lead courageously, and lead by example.

It is time to ask the American people to be patriotic about something other than war. We need investments in renewable energy – more efficient cars and trucks – and a national cap on carbon emissions.

By taking personal responsibility for our energy use, we can all reduce our impact on the environment in big ways and small. This week, I announced that we’re going to do exactly that in our campaign – our campaign is going to be carbon neutral.

Tackling global warming through responsibility and conservation helps reduce our reliance on foreign oil. And reducing our reliance on foreign oil strengthens our national security. But we won’t stop there.

By creating a new energy economy – by transforming our energy infrastructure and investing in research, development and deployment of alternative energy technologies – we can not only address global warming and energy independence, we can create more than a million new jobs in America, and lay the foundation for a secure middle class and a manufacturing base for America in the 21st century.

Our education system, too, needs fundamental change. As I said a few minutes ago, more than 50 years after Brown v. Board of Education, our education system remains shockingly unequal. There are nearly 1,000 high schools where more than half of the students won’t graduate. Minority 12th-graders read at the same level as white 9th-graders.

Our education system shortchanges the skills our children need for the future – math and science, creativity and critical thinking. Every day you can read reports about how we’re falling behind in math and science – our 9th-graders are 18th in the world in science education. We need to fundamentally change the discussion about education in our country, to move beyond a focus on testing and get to the issue of educating our children for the challenges of the 21st century.

We need a serious, sustained effort to turn around failing schools. We should invest in our teachers – the most important part of any school. We need to do more to recruit them, train them, and pay them, particularly in math and science and other places where there are teacher shortages.

Finally, it has been more than a century since we made high school universal, but high school graduates from well-off families are five times more likely to enroll in college. Those who do go to college pick up larger and larger debts. I have a plan called College for Everyone that will pay for the first year of college for anyone willing to work part-time. And this is one of the hallmarks of the fundamental changes we need, we as Democrats. Work and personal responsibility are good things – and we should be encouraging both.

When we’re serious about moral leadership at home, we have the standing to assert moral leadership in the world.

And I believe we can begin by leading in areas that – at first glance – might not seem directly related to our self-interest. I’m talking about global poverty, primary education. But I believe if you look closely, it’s clear that these areas are in fact directly related to our present and future national security.

We know that terrorists thrive in failed states, and in states torn apart by internal conflict and poverty.

And we know that in many African and Muslim countries today, extreme poverty and civil wars have gutted government educational systems.

So what’s taking their place? The answer is troubling – but filled with opportunity if we have the courage to seize it.

A great portion of a generation is being educated in madrassas run by militant extremists rather than in public schools. And as a result, thousands and thousands of young people who might once have aspired to be educated in America are being taught to hate America.

When you understand that, it suddenly becomes clear: global poverty is not just a moral issue for the United States – it is a national security issue for the United States. If we tackle it, we will be doing a good and moral thing by helping to improve the lives of billions of people around the world who live on less than $2 per day – but we will also begin to create a world in which the ideologies of radical terrorism are overwhelmed by the ideologies of education, democracy, and opportunity. If we tackle it, we have the chance to change a generation of potential enemies into a generation of friends. Now that would be transformational.

But the challenge is great – generational struggles require generational solutions – so we must meet the challenge with an audacious plan.

As President I would implement a four-point plan to tackle global poverty – and improve the national security of the United States:

First, we would launch a sweeping effort to support primary education in the developing world.

More than 100 million young children have no school at all, denied even a primary education to learn how to read and write. Education is particularly important for young girls; as just one example of the ripple effects, educated mothers have lower rates of infant mortality and are 50 percent more likely to have their children immunized.

As president, I will lead a worldwide effort to extend primary education to millions of children in the developing world by fully funding the Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education by 2015. The U.S. will do its part by bringing education to 23 million children in poor countries, and we will ask our allies to step up and do the rest. It’s not just good for our security; it’s good for theirs.

Second, we will support preventive health care in the developing world.

Women and children bear the burden of poverty and disease in the developing world. Women in our poorest countries have a 10% chance of dying during childbirth. More than 10 million children die each year from preventable diseases. Many of these diseases are preventable with clean water and basic sanitation or affordable immunizations.

As president, I will convene a worldwide summit on low-cost investments in clean drinking water and sanitation. Under my plan, the U.S. will increase its investment in clean water six-fold.

Third, we can get to the root of global poverty by increasing opportunity, political opportunity and economic opportunity. Democratic rights allow poor citizens to force their countries to create more progressive laws, fight oppression and demand economic stability. Economic initiatives like microfinance and micro-insurance can spark entrepreneurship, allowing people to transform their own lives.

And fourth, I would appoint an individual in the White House, reporting directly to me, with the rank of a Cabinet member, to oversee all of our efforts to fight global poverty. Despite its importance to our national security, the United States still lacks a comprehensive strategy to fight global poverty. We need to embrace the vision of John F. Kennedy, who recognized that “the Nation’s interest and the cause of political freedom require” American efforts to lift up the world’s poor.

Our current effort has plenty of bureaucracy – over 50 separate U.S agencies are involved in the delivery of foreign assistance. What it lacks is efficiency and accountability. As President, I’ll change that.

Accomplishing these goals – ending poverty in America and transforming our approach to poverty around the world, creating a new energy economy, bringing health care to every American, and building an educational system that helps to build and support the middle class of the 21st century– will not be easy.

And attempting them will require a change in our politics.

We can no longer accept having the course of our country dictated by a relatively few people who push onto the rest of us policies that suit their particular interests. We need leaders who insist that all voices are heard, leaders who will take the role Harry Truman defined so clearly: a president who is the lobbyist for all the people who don’t have, don’t want, and can’t afford one.

But this is not just about the leaders. It is also about you taking responsibility for your own country, for your own government, for your own community, for your own family. I was only in the Senate for 6 years, but that was more than enough time to learn firsthand what I feared and what you know: if you see a problem, you can’t wait for the government to fix it.

We are at one of those rare moments in history – a time when two paths are clear before us.

On one side is the path we have been on.

It is a path in which we argue over fuel standards while global warming gets worse; where the Senate passes non binding resolutions on the war in Iraq while the war escalates; where the middle class shrinks and disappears while tax cuts for the wealthiest set in; a path where the two Americas is still there and still wrong.

On the other side is that future which we have all long imagined – a future in which America’s moral leadership once again makes us strong and secure.

A future in which the gulf between the haves and have-nots is fading because we are actively working to lift our fellow human beings up from poverty. Where every American has health care. Where America leads the world in creating a new global economy powered by clean energy. Where women around the world enjoy the same opportunities as men. A future in which we recognize that our security is not just measured by our military might, but by our ability and determination to build a more peaceful, more prosperous, more stable world.

I believe that future is ours for the taking. We can make it real. We know that. We – the American people – have changed the world before.

Nearly 70 years ago, another generation of Americans faced a world darkened by insecurity.

The storm clouds of fascism and totalitarianism were gathering over Europe and Asia. We were struggling to emerge from the depths of the Great Depression. And it was easy to think then that our problems at home were too big for us to try to tackle the problems mounting abroad.

Yet that generation of Americans saw in the challenges of their day not a cause for despair, but a call to greatness.

And they answered it. Not meekly, not uncertainly. But proudly, confidently, and with conviction. Because they had what we have – the idea of America. It’s right here.

And in answering that call, not only secured freedom for the people of Europe and Asia – they laid the foundation for a new American economy that produced the greatest expansion of the middle class and the sharpest reduction of poverty in the history of the world.

They turned the 20th century into the American century.

Now it is our turn – to see the challenges we face with an unblinking eye and once again to answer the call.

Proudly, confidently, and with conviction.

It is our responsibility. As Abraham Lincoln once called us, we are still the “last best hope of earth.” If America does not lead, who will?

I believe we are up to the task. I am certain of it.

After all, I am an optimist.

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Fact Sheets Related To This Speech:

• Ending Poverty In America Within A Generation
• Restoring America’s Moral Leadership By Fighting Worldwide Poverty
• Universal Health Care through Shared Responsibility

 

Washington, D.C.
February 2, 2007

Thank you.

We’re all here together – but why are we here?

Why are we here?

We are here because somewhere in America an eight-year old girl goes to sleep hungry, a little girl who ought to be drawing pictures and learning multiplication cries herself to sleep, praying that her father, who has been out of work for two years, will get a job again. It doesn’t have to be that way.

We are here because somewhere in America, a hotel housekeeper walks a picket line with her union brothers and sisters fighting for decent health care benefits during the day and works the late-shift at a diner at night so that she and her family can live a decent life and so her boy can go to college and have choices she never had. And somewhere a young man folds a college acceptance letter and puts it in his drawer because even with his part-time job and his mother’s second job, he knows he cannot afford to go. It doesn’t have to be that way.

We are here because somewhere in America a mother wipes her hand on a dishcloth to go answer a knock on her door … and opens it to find an army chaplain and an officer standing there with solemn faces and her boy’s name – her patriotic son who enlisted after September 11 – on their lips. It doesn’t have to be that way.

We are here because somewhere in the world, a 5-year old boy in a refugee camp is bending under the weight of his 2-year old sister. His family massacred, he carries his remaining sister everywhere, and sleeps with his arms wrapped tightly around her, knowing that tomorrow he will have to do the same thing, and again the next day and the day after that because she is all the family he has now. It doesn’t have to be that way.

We are here because somewhere in America a father comes home from the second shift and feels a raging fever on the brow of his sleeping daughter as he kisses her goodnight. And now, bone-weary and worried, he cradles that child in his arms at the emergency room, because there is nowhere else for him to go. It doesn’t have to be that way.

They are why we are here. Because everywhere in America, people are counting on us to stand up for them.

And so I ask you, will you stand up for that tired father forced into emergency rooms to get health care for his little girl?

Will you stand up for the brave young boy in the refugee camp?

Will you stand up for the working men and women in our labor movement who have to fight for decent working conditions and living wages?

Will you stand up for the young man who knows that education is his way out of the cycle of poverty and yet it seems beyond his grasp?

Will you stand up for that hungry eight-year old girl so she doesn’t give up on her life before it’s even begun?

Will you stand up for all the American families whose loved ones are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Will you stand up?

Will you stand up for America?

Because if we don’t stand up, who will?

If we don’t speak out, who will?

Forty years ago, speaking in protest against the war in Vietnam on the eve of its escalation, the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King said there comes a time when silence is betrayal. Silence is betrayal.

That time has come again. We cannot stand silent.

They have to hear you. Can they hear you?

I believe it is a betrayal not to speak out against the escalation of the war our nation is engaged in today, in Iraq.

It is a betrayal for this President to send more troops into harm’s way when we know it will not succeed in bringing stability to the region.

And it is not right by our silence to enable this President to escalate the war in Iraq. And we must not delude ourselves: our silence enables this President to escalate the war.

It is a betrayal not to stop the President’s plan when we have the responsibility, the power and the actual tools to prevent it.

Being satisfied with non-binding resolutions we know this President will ignore is a betrayal. And shutting down debate in the Senate on this issue is worse than a betrayal. It’s an outright denial of the people’s will.

And one more thing, while I’m at it.

You described yourself as “the decider.” I have news for you. The American people are the real “deciders,” Mr. President. And they are saying, “You have had your chance.”

Americans are speaking out. And our leaders must do no less.

You must stand up now against George Bush’s escalation of the war in Iraq. George Bush is counting on us not to stand up, not to fight against this escalation with everything we have. George Bush is counting on a Democratic Party that will not press for what we know is right.

Silence is betrayal.

Opposing this escalation with all the vigor and tools we have is a test of our political courage. And you’d better believe that George Bush, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove are betting that we don’t have that courage.

They don’t think we have it in us. They’re counting on their opponents to be weak, and political, and careful.

This is not the time for political calculation. This is the time for political courage. Stand up.

Being honest and changing course in Iraq is the first step in restoring America’s ability to provide moral leadership throughout the world. And make no mistake: America must lead. We are the pre-eminent, stabilizing power in the world. If we don’t stand up, who will?

This is the time for political courage – not only when it comes to speaking out against Iraq, but also about the challenges we face here at home.

Because, when it comes to 37 million Americans living in poverty, silence is betrayal.

One in every five children – count them, one in every five American children – live in poverty, here on the richest nation on the planet. It doesn’t have to be that way.

The causes of poverty are complex, entrenched, and powerful. And our will to address them and restore the promises of equality and social justice must be just as strong. Are you strong enough? Will you stand up to end poverty in America? It means addressing education, jobs, health care, housing, predatory lending, and personal responsibility. The fight will be long and it will not be easy. Are you ready? Will you use your voice against poverty, or will you stand silent? Stand up. Stand up to eradicate poverty in America.

When it comes to 47 million Americans without health care, silence is betrayal.

The 47 million are silent victims of a health care system gone wrong, where policies are driven by profits not patient care. We have to stop letting the health insurance companies and the big pharmaceutical concerns decide our nation’s health care policy. We have to give the silent victims, who stand in line at free clinics and use the expired medicines of friends and neighbors, we have to give them the dignity of universal health care.

And while we’re at it, we have to stop using words like “access to health care” when we know with certainty those words mean something less than universal care. Who are you willing to leave behind without the care he needs? Which family? Which child?

We need a truly universal solution, and we need it now.

Will you stand up for universal health insurance in America?

And it’s time we stood up for an energy policy that’s not dictated by the profit margins of Big Oil — and an environmental policy that’s not promoted by or regulated by polluters. Today, not tomorrow, or in the next decade or in the next generation. Today, our planet is at risk, and here, again, silence is betrayal.

So, will you speak out? Will you stand up?

These are the great moral imperatives of our time. And by breaking the silence we are not breaking faith with our flag or our forefathers or our brave young men and women in uniform. We are keeping faith with America.

Because we are better than this. We are better than this.

We should be the bright light, the beacon for all the world.

We are not the country of the Superdome in New Orleans after Katrina;

We are not the country of Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo;

We are not the country of secret surveillance and government behind closed doors.

We are Americans, and we’re better than that.

And we are Democrats, the party of action – not reaction. We are Democrats, the party of principle – not appeasement. The time for half-measures, empty promises, and sweet rhetoric is gone. Now is the time for courage, decisiveness and moral leadership.

It’s time to stand up for the promise of America again — and for the principle that every American matters, no matter where you come from, or what color your skin is, or how much money you have in your pocket.

Let’s stand up for the working people whose labor made this country great. America was built by men and women who worked with their hands. And organized labor has fought for and made better the lives of every working man and woman, by giving them a voice – labor never stands silent where wrongs need to be righted. Will you stand with them? It is time we acknowledged that it is organized labor, which has protected the American worker against mistreatment by corporate America. I am proud to stand beside organized labor? Will you stand with them, too? Will you walk with them and march with them?

We know one thing for sure: it is time to be patriotic about something other than war. It is time to do what you know is right and to speak out against what you know is wrong.

Not tomorrow. Now. Speak out now, take action now.

We don’t have to wait to see if someone keeps the promises of a 2008 campaign. In fact, the transformational change this country needs cannot wait until January 2009.

Tomorrow begins today. And our obligation to act starts right here, right now.

Because somewhere in America, because everywhere in America, people are counting on us to stand by them and to fight alongside them for what we know in our hearts is right.

So let’s stand up together. We have always been the party of promise who stood with the working man and woman, the party of hope who stood with the needy, the party of compassion who stood with the young and the old and the frail. It is who we are.

In times like these, we don’t need to redefine the Democratic Party; we need to reclaim the Democratic Party.

Thank you, God bless you and God bless this great country.

Remarks as Prepared for Delivery

Thank you. It’s good to be here.

I thank you for the opportunity to speak — this is an important moment in time for our country.

The focus of my speech will be on poverty. But we cannot address an issue like poverty without answering a few basic questions. Questions we ought to be asking ourselves and answers we ought to be demanding from our leaders about how we as a nation are going to confront the very real and very major challenges we face, including the great moral challenge of poverty.

First, what kind of leadership should America be providing in the world? We live in a moment of dramatic change and huge global challenges. Our military power is fortunately strong, and we must keep it that way. But our economic power will be challenged by new forces, and our most important asset, our international moral authority, is not what it ought to be. Far from it. What kind of leadership can address all these fronts and serve us at home as well?

Second, what kind of America do we want, not just today, but twenty years from now, and how do we think we can get there from here? The founders of this country created the country we have today because they dreamed large. They knew there were obstacles, but those obstacles didn’t mean that they decided a less perfect union would be a good compromise. We will never get what we don’t reach for. So in 2006 and the decades to come, for what should we reach?

And last, on a more partisan note, what and for whom do we want our Democratic Party to stand for and fight for?

Those are the questions. I’d like to start with direct answers to these questions.

On America’s leadership role in the world, we need to restore the moral core and legitimacy that has been the foundation of our influence. It’s no secret that America’s credibility has been tarnished during the past six years. And that in too many places, even among our best friends, the very idea of American leadership seems like a contradiction. Poll after poll shows this, but it isn’t some abstract thing – during the past year, I’ve felt this first-hand, from Europe to the Middle East to India and Russia. Reversing this is one of our most important challenges.

I want to live in an America that is once again looked up to and respected around the world; an America that is an inspiration to common people everywhere who want to make their lives better. That means working to restore our legitimacy by strengthening international institutions or creating new ones; it means leading on the great challenges before us: whether it’s preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, ending the genocide in Darfur, or fighting extreme poverty and diseases that ravage societies. It also means a plan to substantially reduce our presence in Iraq, by at least 40,000 troops immediately, and to continue that reduction so that the Iraqis can take control over their own lives. As we do so, we should call upon the other countries in the region who have expressed an interest in securing the stability of Iraq to step forward. Restoring our credibility and legitimacy is absolutely essential if we are to defeat global jihadists.

How we work to improve our country and lift people up is also critical to restoring American leadership in the world. For decades, many drew inspiration from us, admiring how we worked everyday to make our country a better place. And the whole world is watching. Just as we fight poverty here at home, we must show more leadership in ending extreme poverty around the globe. It is wrong that close to half the world’s population – more than 3 billion people – live on less than 2 dollars a day. And it is a disgrace that millions of people suffer and die from diseases that are preventable – for example, a $5 dollar mosquito net could save a family from malaria; a few cents could vaccinate a child; and a $4 dose of medicine can help prevent a mother from transmitting AIDS to her newborn at childbirth. If we are to rebuild America’s moral leadership, we must do better at home – and abroad.

On the America we want to achieve in the next twenty years, I don’t think the picture is hard to draw. It is an America where we are well on our way to ending poverty. It is an America where every American has health care coverage – not access to health insurance or other wiggle-word ways we try to describe something less than health coverage for every American. It is time. It is an America where businesses and working people thrive in a competitive and fair international marketplace. It is an America where everyone can join the middle class and everyone can build a better future than their parents had.

I want to live in an America free from dependence on fossil fuels, where our environmental policies reflect our pride in the blessings of a beautiful and abundant country and our commitment to preserve that country for our farmers, our fishermen, our children. Sacrifice, conservation, and innovation will be required.

I want to live in an America that has not sacrificed individual liberties in the name of freedom, where – in the fight to preserve the country we love – we do not sacrifice the country we love, where we don’t make excuses for violating civil rights, though we understand the test of liberty is in the moments when such excuses almost sound reasonable.

I want to live in an America where we value work as well as wealth, because we understand that we are only strong because our people work hard, that we are made strong by our longshoremen and autoworkers, our computer programmers and janitors, and disrespect to any of them is disrespect to the values that allowed for America’s greatness in the first place.

I want to live in an America where the difference in our best schools and our worst schools cannot be measured by Newsweek, where those who can teach are encouraged and rewarded and where the world of learning is opened to every child.

Today I will focus on the first of these goals – an America without poverty, but in the coming months, I will address each of these issues that will make such a difference to the country we can be in twenty years.

Finally, the Democratic Party. We should also recognize that our political parties, and what they stand for, are critical in shaping our country’s future. I believe in a Democratic Party of big ideas, with the courage and backbone to translate those ideas into workable policies.

I believe in a Democratic Party that fights for those who have no voice: the forgotten middle class, the poor, those who have labored a lifetime, and all those who speak the truth against overwhelming public opinion.

And I believe in a Party willing to take stances that are right, whether or not they are popular. This is the tradition of America, fighting for what is right regardless of the odds, regardless of the power of those on the other side. It is what the Democratic Party I believe in is all about. We do not have to posture or to accept mediocrity or compromise our values. We can decide to be great, we can address great problems, we can see great possibilities.

I do not believe in a Party obsessed with incrementalism, half-measures, and positions based on yesterday’s polls. If we want to lead – and in these times we desperately need to lead in another direction – we have to represent something greater than our own self-promotion. We have to believe that our country is more important than ourselves. These times are critical, so let me be clear: in this battle for the soul of our Party, no less than the future of America and the future of the world are at stake.

As Democrats, we need to speak to these issues with specifics on how America should address them.

As Democrats, we need to make clear that hard challenges don’t frighten us, but call us to action.

To me, there is no better opportunity to make this clear than the enormous challenge of helping 37 million Americans who live in poverty.

How we respond to the fact that millions among us live in poverty says everything about the character of America.

***

As some of you know, I’ve served as director of the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for a little over a year. The Center is a place where we’ve brought together the best minds in the country to discuss – and challenge – the latest ideas about how to fight poverty. In our first year, we’ve held several national forums, asked all the tough questions, and scoured the country to find the most innovative solutions being implemented now. When I talked about poverty in the 2004 campaign, political types said it was futile. They said nobody cares about poverty except for the poor. Not true, and we saw it with Katrina. You’ve heard me talk about the Two Americas? One for those families who have everything they need, and then one for everybody else. Katrina showed us the Two Americas. Those images of men and women at the Superdome stranded without food, water or hope – simply because they didn’t have a car or the cash to escape. Those images are something we’ll never forget.

They’ve become the face of poverty in America – a symbol of the poor and forgotten families that live in big cities like New Orleans and in small towns and rural America too.

But if Katrina showed us the Two Americas, it also showed us something else. It showed us the American people want to live in one America. In the months after the hurricane, millions opened their hearts, their homes and their wallets to this cause.

It’s clear the American people want to do the right thing on poverty, but it’s also clear there are a couple things holding us back.

So many of our families are struggling too much themselves to focus on those in need. Others don’t want to repeat the failures of the past and throw money at a problem with the hope it will magically disappear.

These are very real concerns, but they’re ones we can overcome.

• If our ideas about alleviating poverty are based on the values that made our country great — that we expect people who are capable of working to work, expect them to be responsible, and expect them to make smart choices.

• And if we make it clear that ending poverty is not something we are doing just for others but something we do for all of us.

Maybe you’ve heard the phrase “it’s expensive to be poor.” Well, it’s also expensive for America to have so many poor.

We all pay a price when young people who could someday find the cure for AIDS or make a fuel cell work are sitting on a stoop because they didn’t get the education they need.

We all pay a price when our people turn to crime because they have no other hope. Harvard’s Richard Freeman estimates that growing incarceration costs and unemployment of ex-offenders costs 4 percent of our economy, each and every year.

And we all pay a price when the American Dream no longer seems American.

We need to restore the dream that is America. But we also need to do it in a way that all Americans will be proud of. Not just by giving handouts to the poor, or pumping money into a broken government program. But by finding ways to help everyone who works hard and makes smart choices get ahead.

If we’re going to be the America we believe in, we can’t look the other way.

It’s wrong we have 37 million Americans living in poverty – - separated from the opportunities of this country by their income, their housing, their access to education and jobs and health care- – just as it was wrong we once lived in a country legally segregated by race. Too many places today are segregated by class.

Poverty is the great moral issue of our time, and we all have an obligation to do something about it.

Not just alleviate some of the symptoms…

Not just find ways to help some of the people…

But end it.

***

America has fought poverty before. Past efforts like Social Security, Medicaid, welfare reform and the Earned Income Tax Credit have made a real difference.

But poverty is still with us. Any effort to address it must face up to the reasons that past efforts have fallen short, and to the new challenges that have arisen.

First, work doesn’t pay enough. A single mom with one child who works full-time for the minimum wage is about $2,700 below the poverty line. In 2005, while corporate profits were up 13 percent, real wages fell for most workers.

Second, in too many poor communities, marriage is too rare, and male responsibility is not what it should be. Welfare reform has helped reduce poverty rates among single mothers, but too many young men remain cut off from the hopes and routines of ordinary American life.

Third, the debate of poverty policies is stuck in the old days. One side is driven by guilt, and the other by a deep skepticism of what government can accomplish. In reality, we need both the courage and the confidence to take a new course. And both sides should recognize that our whole economic future depends on making upward mobility universal.

***

Which is why, today, I’m proposing we set a national goal of eliminating poverty in the next 30 years.

It’s an ambitious goal, but it’s one we’ll meet by building the America our founders imagined – - an America where if you work hard, take personal responsibility and do the right thing, you won’t live in poverty, you won’t just get by, you’ll get ahead.

I propose a great national goal, because Americans believe in achieving great things. Like JFK challenging America to land a man on the moon, a national goal of eradicating poverty will sharpen our focus, marshal our resources and at the end of the day, bring out our best.

Besides, we need a goal. America will never get close to eliminating poverty until we set our sights and commit to try.

Poverty is such a low priority in Washington that politicians aren’t even interested in developing an accurate statistic. The official measure is incomplete and out-of-date – overlooking as many as 1 million Americans. It’s a metaphor for how poverty is ignored. Setting a bold goal is how we’ll bring change.

Tony Blair understands the power of great goals. In 1999, he announced a goal of ending child poverty by 2020. Since then, British child poverty has dropped by 17 percent. It’s a remarkable accomplishment in just seven years, and there is no reason we can’t see similar results here.

But this afternoon, I want to make clear I’m not willing to settle for some Washington “pie-in-the-sky” dream that gets promised and then quickly forgotten. Poverty is an issue where we cannot fail. So to hold us accountable, I propose we also set a benchmark to measure our progress and guide our way.

In the next 10 years, we need to cut poverty by a third, improving the lives of 12 million Americans.

If we meet this benchmark, we’ll be well on our way.

***

In order to get the country on the path to eliminating poverty, we must build a “Working Society,” which builds on the lessons of the past to create solutions for the future. At the heart of the Working Society is the value of work. Work is not only a source of a paycheck, but also a source of dignity and independence and self respect.

In a Working Society, we would create new opportunities to work. We would offer affordable housing near good jobs and a million last-chance jobs to people who cannot find work on their own.

In a Working Society, we would reward work. We would raise the minimum wage and cut taxes for low-income workers. We would find ways for workers to not only have but keep their health care and other key benefits, a topic I’ll return to in the future. We would help workers save for the future with Work Bonds and homeownership tax credits. And we would create a million more housing vouchers for working families.

And in a Working Society, we would expect work. In return for greater investments, we would expect everyone who can work to work, for the sake of their country, their families, and themselves.

***

In a few months, there’s a new movie coming out starring Will Smith. It’s called “The Pursuit of Happyness.”

The film is about a man who goes from being homeless to earning millions as a stockbroker.

The rags to riches movie is based on a true story, but to too many poor Americans, it sounds like a fairy tale.

That’s because we live in a time where it’s harder than ever to get ahead. Today, it’s easy to be a millionaire, but trying to become one is like climbing a greased pole.

The Working Society is based on the premise that we should expect work and reward work.

One harsh reality is that some people are in poverty because no one will give them a job, either because they have no prior work history, they lack basic skills such as the ability to read, or, the truth is, they have physical and mental challenges.

This is particularly true for young men. Welfare reform asked young mothers to join the workforce and gave them help to get there. Millions of poor women benefited, but poor men lost ground during the best economy we’ve ever had. In America today, there are communities where half the young men are out of work.

It’s time to finish the job of welfare reform by giving low-income men the opportunity to work and challenging them to take responsibility for doing so. If they don’t work, they won’t get paid. If they owe child support, their children will get paid first, because women shouldn’t have to raise children on their own.

I believe we’ll find out once again that poor people are just like everyone else: they want to work, they want to do right by their children, and given the chance, they will work their hearts out.

If we believe that everyone who is capable of working should work, then we need to make sure that they have the opportunity to do so. I believe that we should create one million “stepping stone” jobs over five years. A good job that will let people work their way out of poverty in the short term, and help them get experience so they can get better jobs in the future.

These jobs could change the face of our hardest hit communities. Workers could serve with non-profit organizations working wonders, building parks and keeping our neighborhoods clean. They will bring opportunity to neighborhoods where jobs are scarce and hope is sometimes even scarcer.

And while we expect people to work and help make sure they can, the Working Society would make sure all Americans have something to show for it.

The erosion of the minimum wage is a disgrace; we need to raise it to at least $7.50 an hour – a step that, by itself, would give full-time workers a $4,800 raise and lift more than a million people out of poverty. Just yesterday, Republicans in the Senate blocked Senator Kennedy’s attempt to raise the national minimum wage. Since the Republicans in Washington won’t raise the minimum wage we are taking this fight to the states.

We also need to give America’s workers a real right to organize. Unions helped move manufacturing jobs into the foundation of our middle class, and they can do the same for our service economy. This week’s Time magazine describes one difference between a janitor making $6.50 an hour and another making $12.50 an hour — a union. The union itself is the difference between working in poverty and working your way out of poverty.

There’s a saying you may have heard – “income is what you use to get by, but assets are what you use to get ahead.”

It’s true, and it’s why we’ll beat poverty by helping every working American build – and protect – their own assets… a savings account they can use to start a small business, money to fall back on in hard times, or a down payment to buy their first home. I’ve previously described a proposal I call “Work Bonds,” which would match low-income workers’ wages with a tax credit to help jumpstart their savings accounts.

***

In the 1990s, we saw how a new approach to welfare could help millions of families achieve independence. Now it is time for a new approach for another tough issue: housing.

I believe we should radically overhaul HUD in three big steps.

First, we need to integrate our neighborhoods economically. Many neighborhoods were once segregated by race; now segregation by wealth is common, often with a racial dimension. If we truly believe that we are all equal, then we should live together too.

We could all see the problems of concentrated poverty after Katrina, but the truth is that nearly every major American city has similar neighborhoods that remain unseen. The federal government has built public housing in the worst neighborhoods and overlooked the need for affordable housing in the suburbs.

These policies cut willing workers off from entry-level jobs, which are often created in the suburbs, far from public transportation. And they keep low-income children far from good schools.

If conservatives really believed in markets, they’d join us in a more radical and more sensible solution: creating 1 million more housing vouchers for working families over the next five years. Done right, vouchers can enable people to vote with their feet to demand safe communities with good schools. We can help pay for this by cutting back HUD’s role in managing public housing, which it doesn’t do very well and often sticks working families in bad neighborhoods.

Second, we need to put families ahead of bureaucracy. HUD is bloated and has a track record of mismanaging money.

We should start by cutting back HUD’s excessive, unnecessary, and sometimes incompetent contractors. Second, we should trim the agency by at least 1,500 employees and get the money out where it can do some good.

We can take the opportunity to give more authority to cities and states to tackle housing problems in their own regions. They will be responsible for taking a regional approach — including both cities and suburbs — and creating affordable housing near jobs and good schools.

Finally, work should be at the center of our housing policy just as it is at the center of our other social policies. We should attach a contract to new housing vouchers: if they don’t already have jobs, recipients must work toward independence, and in return we will help them earn more and save more. A similar program is already working for 75,000 families today.

I’ve talked a lot about housing in cities, but we shouldn’t forget that housing is a rural problem too – 1.5 million rural homes are substandard – without plumbing or with a crumbling foundation or sagging roof.

The Working Society won’t forget about America’s small towns and rural communities. It will offer tailored solutions to meet their needs.

We would invest in community colleges, which are particularly important in rural areas.

We would open rural small business centers, which will provide investment capital and advice to help entrepreneurs get off the ground.

And we would take a long, hard look at America’s schools, which are too often no better than the zip code they’re in.

***

Across the country, many of our schools – particularly our high schools – are failing.

Today, almost one in three students don’t graduate. On average, minority students enter high school four years behind their peers.

In the Working Society, we’d get serious about improving our schools. There is no greater challenge in America today, and I’ll talk more about what we need to do in the coming months. It includes expanding preschool for three- and four-year-olds, getting good teachers into the places we need them most, and overhauling our outdated high schools.

We also need to address the dropout crisis in our nation. We can never overcome poverty until we address it — not by lowering standards, but by making sure everyone can meet them.

America is about second chances, so I don’t see why we shouldn’t have “second-chance schools.” These schools would lift up former dropouts, offering them one-on-one attention and a chance to earn a diploma at night or at a local community college. Many drop-outs want to do the work and they realize dropping out was a mistake. They should have the chance to earn a diploma and get on with their life.

Now, if you’ve every heard me talk about education, you know about a program I call “College for Everyone,” which allows students to go to the first year of college for free if they are willing to stay out of trouble and take a part-time job.

Today, I have good news. College for Everyone works.

Last month, I attended a high-school awards ceremony in Greene County, North Carolina. Through a pilot program we were able to provide students there over $300,000 in aid. That means kids who never before would have dreamed of going to college are not only leaving for school this fall – but paying for their first year without going into debt.

***

Good public schools and the chance to go to college meant everything in my life. But even to this day, there’s something that matters more. Family. I don’t know where I’d be without parents who taught me right from wrong, and that there are consequences for the choices I make in life.

In a Working Society, we’ll make a priority of strengthening families.

As a start, we would cut the marriage penalty that still hits poor workers, because penalizing marriage makes absolutely no sense. We would also cut taxes for low-income single workers, who are the only Americans living in poverty and paying federal taxes, to draw them into the workforce. And, as I mentioned earlier, we would create opportunities for young fathers to work and take responsibility for their children, and reward them for doing so.

But after that, there’s only so much the government can do. So the real burden of promoting strong families falls to us.

All of us—parents, clergy, teachers, public officials—we need to say that it is wrong when young men father children but don’t support them.

It is wrong when girls and young women bear children they aren’t ready to care for.

It is wrong when corporate America – through movies, music and advertising – promotes a culture of reckless behavior to our youth.

And it is wrong when all Americans see this happening and do nothing to stop it.

Fighting poverty is a job for government, it is a job for communities, it is a job for all of us.

***

One of the great pleasures I’ve had this past year is traveling to college campuses to engage young people in the cause of poverty. I’m so impressed with young people today, particularly the 700 college students who skipped Spring Break to clean up Katrina damage with me in St. Bernard Parish.

These young people were tremendous. They understand that in America, when a neighbor is in need, you don’t make excuses. You don’t point to someone else and say it is their responsibility. You just step up.

I believe these college students have a lot to teach us about how we approach challenges like poverty. All of us, we need to move right past the skeptics, and follow the lead of these young people.

We need to get involved when our neighbors need us.

We need to speak up when we know something’s wrong.

And we need to step forward to meet the challenges we all face.

Issues like poverty, they are our test, and we have a moral obligation to make sure we pass.

In America today, there are millions of our neighbors who think they’re alone. That no one knows they’re struggling with their bills. That no one cares they can’t afford to turn on the lights. That no one thinks twice about the fact their kids go to bed hungry at night.

Well I have something to say to those families today: We know. We care. And we will lift you up.

There was a woman – an extraordinary activist – who would end her speeches by saying “you know, the leaders we have been waiting for are us.”

She’s exactly right. Poverty is our challenge. It’s time for us to lead.