Iowa Presidential Watch
Holding the Democrats accountable today, tomorrow...forever.

Dean’s new social contract (12/19/2003)

“About two years ago, I began my campaign – as all candidates do – here in New Hampshire and out in Iowa meeting with small groups of voters to talk and to persuade, but mostly to listen. I ate with Iowans in their diners, gathered with families in their living rooms in New Hampshire, toured factories and farms, and spoke in town halls.

I engaged in one of the great traditions of American presidential politics – listening – really listening to the people at the heart of America.

I heard their hopes and their fears. They shared their concerns and their dreams.

And what I heard truly surprised me. A level of anger and despair I never imagined. About jobs. About working conditions. About making ends meet. About the stress of day-to-day life.

More than anything, I was surprised by the outrage of working Americans at the corporations that employ them and toward the government that serves them. They sense that neither their employers nor their government really care about their problems. That all that matters to business is the bottom line and all that matters to their elected representatives is re-election and collecting campaign contributions.

It became clear to me that there is a fundamental disconnect between the working people of America, corporate America and our government. The social contract that binds us has frayed and stands in desperate need of redefinition and repair.

More than two hundred years ago, the American people launched a new era of self-government. In the words of the Constitution, “we the people” committed to each other to “promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity”.

These words created the promise of America – a pledge by a people to uphold the principles of justice and fairness.

At the heart of those principles was the promise of equal opportunity for all in the land of opportunity. The land where a person born with little can grow to great wealth. The land where the children of immigrants can rise to the highest offices.

I know from the families I’ve spoken to here in New Hampshire and out in Iowa that for too many Americans, the promise of America today is largely unfulfilled.

I believe that fulfilling that promise today requires a new social contract.

The starting point for this new social contract must be a fresh understanding of the way American families live today. A lifestyle that is far different from the family of even a few decades ago.

In 1960, one parent was at home in 70% of all families with children. Today, it’s just the opposite. 70% of today's families with children are headed by either two working parents or a single parent who works. And they’re working harder and longer.

Parents have 22 fewer hours a week outside of work to spend with their children than they did just 35 years ago.

Today’s economy is different as well. One quarter of all American workers are temporary employees, self-employed or part-time, employed in jobs with little security, often without health insurance or pensions.

Too many workers reach 45 or 50 years of age and find that the pension they counted on is greatly reduced or even gone for good.

The average family health insurance policy now costs about $670 a month. To put that in perspective, the average family of four spends $750 a month on its mortgage. The way things are going, the average family without employer-sponsored benefits will soon be paying more for health insurance than on the family home.

Families see their debts increase and wonder how they will pay for their children’s education or their own retirement. They know too well that a single tragedy – the loss of a job, a divorce or the illness of a parent – could spell the end of all their plans for the future.

At the start of a new century, as we shift from the industrial to the information age, it is once more time for “we the people” to form a more perfect union. It is time for us to spell out a new social contract – a fundamental renegotiation of the rights and responsibilities of the critical actors in the American economy: families, corporations and government.

The New Social Contract

Seventy years ago, the Democratic party of Franklin Roosevelt helped create a new Social Contract for American families. In the face of unprecedented economic hardship, FDR assured families certain basic freedoms. And he created Social Security and a range of programs to provide jobs and opportunity to those who earned them by working or raising children.

Today, it is time for a new vision for the Democratic Party and for a new Social Contract for America’s families.

Our party must offer a new vision that speaks to working families. Working families who make just too much to qualify for assistance, but not quite enough to make ends meet.

Republicans seek to dismantle the basic building blocks of our nation’s social contract with working families. They hope to privatize Social Security, dismantle Medicare, and to end public education.

Republicans claim to be helping average Americans with their tax cuts.

The Bush Tax

But let’s look at the facts. The average wage earner did get a few hundred dollars back. But the refund didn’t come for free.

President Bush never told you about the “Bush Tax”. He never mentioned that over the next six years the typical American family will take on $52,000 more in its share of the national debt. That’s a part of the “Bush Tax”. But there’s a lot more.

Take a look at your property taxes. They probably went up. In New Hampshire, property taxes went up an average of $270 per family last year. That’s part of the “Bush Tax”. Or look at your state budget. Is it in crisis? In most states, it is. That’s part of the “Bush Tax”, too.

Getting fewer services and paying more for things like state college tuitions or special education – that’s the consequence of the “Bush Tax”.

The “Bush Tax” is huge – many times greater than most people’s refunds. And it’ll be here for a long time to come. Just add the “Bush Tax” to all the other things the President never told us.

Some Democrats have accepted the Republican notion that the Social Contract cannot be preserved, let alone made stronger.

While Bill Clinton said that the era of big government is over, I believe we must enter a new era for the Democratic party – not one where we join Republicans and aim simply to limit the damage they inflict on working families.

I reject the notion that damage control must be our credo. I call now for a new era, in which we rewrite our Social Contract. We need to provide certain basic guarantees to all those who are working hard to fulfill the promise of America.

First, every American family must have access to affordable health care. The centerpiece of my campaign is a health care plan that gives every American the right to the same private health insurance that Members of Congress and federal employees have, at reasonable rates.

A refundable tax credit will help lower-income people afford the premiums. It’s health care that stays with you and goes with you, whether you work or not.

Second, every American family must have access to affordable quality child care. Right now, only one in seven working poor families do. American families have come to recognize that child care is no luxury item – but a necessity for parents who work and an enormous benefit to children who can start school ready to succeed.

The new Social Contract respects our responsibilities to care for our children. I propose that we make the investment necessary to fully fund Head Start, offer pre-K to every four year old, and expand other child care options to almost a million and a half more children. I call it Investing for Success.

Third, every American family must know that their child will be able to afford to go to college. The cost of college should not be an obstacle that prevents any child from working hard and finishing school. The new Social Contract acknowledges our responsibility to educate our children. That’s why my College Commitment guarantees $10,000 a year in college financing for every student in a mix of grants and loans that depends on family finances. No one will ever pay more than 10 percent of their income after college to repay their loans. And every loan will be fully paid off after ten years. Those who give back to their communities – working as nurses, teachers, policemen for instance – will pay even less.

Fourth, every American family must know that their retirement will be secure. The Democratic agenda here must be broader than simply preserving the critical commitment of Social Security. We must offer working Americans new incentives to save for the future. The Republicans and President Bush may be planning to propose yet more benefits to protect the income and savings of the wealthiest Americans. But I want to target workers and middle class families instead. I will soon propose a new savings program that will help millions of Americans save for their retirement.

Taken together, these are four new rights the Democratic Party must establish as its new social contract with the families of America.

But no contract comes solely with rights and without responsibilities. Each party to this new social contract must fulfill some basic responsibilities.

American citizens have a responsibility to participate in our country’s civic life. That duty starts with the vote. It continues in our neighborhoods and communities – through an ethic of service. That service is promoted through efforts like Americorps in which government provides incentives to serve for young people.

But more importantly, it is through places of worship, charitable organizations and schools at the community level – and on a voluntary basis. Helping neighbors when newborns come home from the hospital, participating in volunteer fire departments, pitching in when disaster strikes. When we lose that tradition, when we forget our responsibilities to each other, we endanger the promise of America.

Corporations too – as fundamental partners to the Social Contract – must recognize and fulfill certain basic responsibilities. And the new social contract must redefine the role of government in establishing appropriate limits for corporate behavior.

The American economy is, of course, the engine of our society, providing jobs and opportunity to American workers. But, today, economic power is concentrated in too few hands, and not very clean hands, at that.

The Boards of Director of too many corporations are governed by the buddy system; the compensation of some top executives could put 19th century Robber Barons to shame.

Economic power has too often become political power, corrupting the very process that is supposed to guarantee our rights. Corporate lobbyists outnumber the Congress many times over.

The new social contract must include stricter accountability for corporate behavior, and a return to a stronger role for government in protecting the public interest.

First, we need to prevent corporate misconduct with laws to make sure corporate boards of directors and auditors are independent of management. And we should reward whistleblowers who expose corporate wrongdoing.

The standards that are on the books must be backed up by regulations with teeth. The fines and penalties imposed for breaking the law must be equal to the potential financial gains. It is absurd that the penalty for promoting an illegal tax shelter worth millions is only $1,000.

We need sound, full and open accounting practices. We should expand the concept of “full disclosure” for corporations. Of course corporations must be held to the highest financial fiduciary standards. But beyond finances, why shouldn’t companies be accountable to investors and the public on other important matters, like environmental standards, and labor relations? Knowledge is power.

And it’s time to look behind the fiction that allows corporations to become “citizens” of places like Bermuda, and avoid paying income taxes on their foreign income. They are Bermuda citizens, yet they still get US corporate welfare, like special tax breaks, while Bermuda protects their directors and executives from liability under American law.

I want to restore protection in the marketplace for all Americans. The regulatory system must be free to work as designed. Our laws deserve to be enforced, and to be free of moneyed interests and their Washington lobbies. This is the only way to ensures opportunity and fair competition for our nation's entrepreneurs and honest business people.

Time after time, the Bush administration and their Republican cronies have removed important safeguards – in the environment, in energy, in finance and consumer protection.

They have rolled back the nation’s clean air standards to allow increased pollution from the oldest and dirtiest power plants. Blocked the investigation of 70 power plants suspected of violating clean air standards. Permitted logging in old-growth forests, but done little to protect homes from wildfires.

Under this administration, Enron took advantage of utility deregulation to rip off California before ripping off its employees and shareholders. Mutual fund companies are cheating their investors; mortgage and credit schemes are putting families deeper in debt; worker safety standards are being lowered.

Americans deserve better. It’s time for corporate America to clean up its act.

And an important step is ensuring that American workers are allowed to organize to protect their interests. Organized labor played a critical role in building the middle class of this country. Yet the Bush administration is doing all it can to make it harde, not easier, for workers to join unions today. Workers should be able to join unions if they freely choose to sign a union card. We need card check legislation, so that workers can organize without enduring coercive anti-union campaigns.

We need to protect the rights of employees to be paid overtime and defeat the outrageous attempt of President Bush and the Republicans in Congress to take overtime pay away from 8 million American workers.

And it’s time to recognize another reality of the 21st century – the fact that there are nearly as many working women as there are men.

The average woman starting out today will be paid half a million dollars less over the course of her lifetime than her male counterpart. That’s unfair and unacceptable. Closing the pay gap will be one of my top priorities as President.

Let me be clear: My program is pro-business and pro-jobs. It will help small businesses and emerging businesses. Entrepreneurs built America. They have always understood the promise of our nation, and seized the opportunity.

Small businesses create more jobs than big business. They’re part of our communities – they don’t move their headquarters or their jobs offshore. Fourteen million American women own small businesses – we must do more to help them grow and succeed.

Small businesses have the right to expect equal access to capital. I have proposed the creation of a major new financing tool for American small businesses, built on the model of the home mortgage finance system that has made our nation a leader in home ownership and the envy of the world.

Business also has the right to expect that government will help keep the nation’s economic engine focused on the future. This means investments for the future not only in our nation’s human capital, but also in the research, science and technology that builds a common base of knowledge for the future.

For instance, America should be a leader in developing and using alternative energy. It’s a major industry ready to take off – ready to create thousands of jobs and major sources of power. Whether it’s wind power, or solar energy, or hydropower, or other new technologies, all we need to do is open the market, take away the old subsidies and corporate welfare, and let them compete.

Taxes

Taxes are what we pay to be Americans – to live in a democracy, to have opportunity, and to use the vast resources of America – the highways, the schools, the national parks, the internet, the medical centers and scientific breakthroughs of government research. No one likes the idea of payroll deductions or writing a check to the IRS, but the truth is our taxes are the membership fees we pay to belong to the world’s greatest society.

And that responsibility includes corporations. Two generations ago, American corporations carried 30-40% of the tax burden in this country. Twenty years ago, under Ronald Reagan, that number went down to less than 20 percent. Today, the corporate share is less than 10 percent, and individuals are shouldering over 90 percent of the tax burden for the country. That balance has to change.

The New Social Contract I am proposing will include fundamental tax reform to ensure that every wealthy American individual and corporation is paying their fair share of taxes – and that the tax burden on working families is reduced.

Not paying your fair share is equivalent to turning your back on being an American. And that’s what American companies that move to offshore shelters are doing. They’re avoiding $70 billion a year in taxes – enough money to bring a real tax cut to every family.

Better and fairer tax enforcement could collect another $30 billion a year from known tax cheats. Closing corporate loopholes and ending unnecessary tax subsidies would bring $100 billion into the US Treasury each year – money that the rest of us are paying today.

I want to get rid of the Bush tax program and repeal the “Bush Tax”. Let’s start over with a real tax reform plan to make the code fairer and simpler, based on a few simple principles:

·        We must eliminate abusive tax shelters and crack down on corporate tax evaders.

·        Corporations and inherited wealth should pay their fair share of taxes.

·        Individuals and small businesses should spend less time dealing with taxes, and the tax code must be simplified.

Our government is the guarantor of the future of America. It is the repository of our trust, and the ultimate keeper of the promise of America.

If our government is to be there in the future – if it is to “secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity”, we must be responsible stewards, not profligate spenders.

This administration has ignored that fundamental responsibility. It pretends that deficits don’t matter and that tomorrow will take care of itself. They have turned us from a beacon of financial strength to the world’s greatest debtor. Foreign investors now control our currency. We are running a credit card economy.

Balanced budgets matter. They lead to economic growth. Social progressives should be fiscal conservatives, because only fiscal responsibility guarantees that the American people will have the government they need when they truly need it.

Part of the New Social Contract will be controlling spending and bringing budgets into balance. I know it can be done. I did it eleven times as governor.

Building this New Social Contract won’t be easy. The interests that oppose change are deeply entrenched. They have built longstanding political relationships. Each hand has washed the other in the basin of Washington politics.

But in our nation, the people are sovereign, not the government. It is the people – not the media, or the financial system, or mega-corporations, or the two political parties – who have the power to create change.

The biggest lie that candidates like me tell people like you is, “Elect me, and I’ll solve all your problems”. The truth is -- you have the power to change this country.

You have the power to write a new social contract that keeps the promise of America.

And you have the power to take our country back and take back the White House in 2004.”

Dean’s foreign policy speech: (12/15/2003)

In the past year, our campaign has gathered strength by offering leadership and ideas and also by listening to the American people. The American people have the power to make their voices heard and to change America's course for the better.

What are the people telling us? That a domestic policy centered on increasing the wealth of the wealthiest Americans, and ceding power to favored corporate campaign contributors, is a recipe for fiscal and economic disaster. That the strength of our nation depends on electing a President who will fight for jobs, education, and real health care for all Americans.

But the growing concerns of the American people are not limited to matters at home: They also are increasingly concerned that our country is squandering the opportunity to lead in the world in a way that will advance our values and interests and makes us more secure.

When it comes to our national security, we cannot afford to fail. September 11 was neither the beginning of our showdown with violent extremists, nor its climax. It was a monumental wake-up call to the urgent challenges we face.

Today, I want to discuss these challenges. First I want to say a few words about events over the weekend. The capture of Saddam Hussein is good news for the Iraqi people and the world. Saddam was a brutal dictator who should be brought swiftly to justice for his crimes. His capture is a testament to the skill and courage of U.S. forces and intelligence personnel. They have risked their lives. Some of their comrades have given their lives.

All Americans should be grateful. I thank these outstanding men and women for their service and sacrifice.

I want to talk about Iraq in the context of all our security challenges ahead. Saddam's capture offers the Iraqi people, the United States, and the international community an opportunity to move ahead. But it is only an opportunity, not a guarantee.

Let me be clear: My position on the war has not changed.

The difficulties and tragedies we have faced in Iraq show that the administration launched the war in the wrong way, at the wrong time, with inadequate planning, insufficient help, and at unbelievable cost. An administration prepared to work with others in true partnership might have been able, if it found no alternative to Saddam's ouster, to then rebuild Iraq with far less cost and risk.

As our military commanders said, and the President acknowledged yesterday, the capture of Saddam does not end the difficulties from the aftermath of the administration's war to oust him. There is the continuing challenge of securing Iraq, protecting the safety of our personnel, and helping that country get on the path to stability. There is the need to repair our alliances and regain global support for American goals.

Nor, as the president also seemed to acknowledge yesterday, does Saddam's capture move us toward defeating enemies who pose an even greater danger: al Qaeda and its terrorist allies. And, nor, it seems, does Saturday's capture address the urgent need to halt the spread of weapons of mass destruction and the risk that terrorists will acquire them.

The capture of Saddam is a good thing which I hope very much will help keep our soldiers safer. But the capture of Saddam has not made America safer.

Addressing these critical and interlocking threats terrorism and weapons of mass destruction -- will be America's highest priority in my administration.

To meet these and other important security challenges, including Iraq, I will bring to bear all the instruments of power that will keep our citizens secure and our nation strong.

Empowered by the American people, I will work to restore:

The legitimacy that comes from the rule of law;

The credibility that comes from telling the truth;

The knowledge that comes from first-rate intelligence, undiluted by ideology;

The strength that comes from robust alliances and vigorous diplomacy;

And, of course, I will call on the most powerful armed forces the world has ever known to ensure the security of this nation.

I want to focus first on two ways we can strengthen the instruments of power so we can achieve all our national security goals. Then I want to lay out my plans for dealing with the central challenges I have identified: defeating global terrorism, curbing weapons of mass destruction.

First, we must strengthen our military and intelligence capabilities so we are best prepared to defend America and our interests.

When the cold war ended, Americans hoped our military's job would become simpler and smaller, but it has not.

During the past dozen years, I have supported U.S. military action to roll back Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, to halt ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, to stop Milosevic's campaign of terror in Kosovo, to oust the Taliban and al Qaeda from control in Afghanistan. As President, I will never hesitate to deploy our armed forces to defend our country and its allies, and to protect our national interests.

And, as President, I will renew America's commitment to the men and women who proudly serve our nation and to the critical missions they carry out.

That means ensuring that our troops have the best leadership, the best training, and the best equipment.

It means keeping promises about pay, living conditions, family benefits, and care for veterans so we honor our commitments and recruit and retain the best people.

It means putting our troops in harm's way only when the stakes warrant, when we plan soundly to cope with possible dangers, and when we level with the American people about the relevant facts.

It means exercising global leadership effectively to secure maximum support and cooperation from other nations, so that our troops do not bear unfair burdens in defeating the dangers to global peace.

It means ensuring that we have the right types of forces with the right capabilities to perform the missions that may lie ahead. I will expand our armed forces' capacity to meet the toughest challenges like defeating terrorism, countering weapons of mass destruction, and securing peace with robust special forces, improved military intelligence, and forces that are as ready and able to strengthen the peace as they are to succeed in combat.

When he ran in 2000, this president expressed disdain for "nation building." That disdain seemed to carry over into Iraq, where civilian officials did not adequately plan for and have not adequately supported the enormous challenge, much of it borne by our military, of stabilizing the country. Our men and women in uniform deserve better, and as President, I will shape our forces based not on wishful thinking but on the realities of our world.

I also will get America's defense spending priorities straight so our resources are focused more on fighting terrorism and weapons of mass destruction and honoring commitments to our troops and less, for example, on developing unnecessary and counterproductive new generations of nuclear weapons.

Leadership also is critically needed to strengthen America's intelligence capabilities. The failure of warning on 9-11 and the debacle regarding intelligence on Iraq show that we need the best information possible about efforts to organize, finance and operate terrorist groups; about plans to buy, steal, develop, or use weapons of mass destruction; about unrest overseas that could lead to violence and instability.

As President, I will make it a critical priority to improve our ability to gather and analyze intelligence. I will see to it that we have the expertise and resources to do the job.

Because some terrorist networks know no borders in their efforts to attack Americans, I will demand the effective coordination and integration of intelligence about such groups from domestic and international sources and across federal agencies. Such coordination is lacking today. It is a critical problem that the current administration has not addressed adequately. I will do so -- and I will meet all our security challenges -- in a way that fully protects our civil liberties. We will not undermine freedom in the name of freedom.

I also will restore honor and integrity by insisting that intelligence be evaluated to shape policy, instead of making it a policy to distort intelligence.

Second, we must rebuild our global alliances and partnerships, so critical to our nation and so badly damaged by the present administration.

Meeting the pressing security challenges of the 21st century will require new ideas, initiatives, and energy. But it also will require us to draw on our proudest traditions, including the strong global leadership demonstrated by American Presidents from Franklin Roosevelt to Bill Clinton, to renew key relationships with America's friends and allies. Every President in that line, including Republicans Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and the first President Bush demonstrated that effective American leadership includes working with allies and partners, inspiring their support, advancing common interests.

Now, when America should be at the height of its influence, we find ourselves, too often, isolated and resented. America should never be afraid to act alone when necessary. But we must not choose unilateral action as our weapon of first resort. Leaders of the current administration seem to believe that nothing can be gained from working with nations that have stood by our side as allies for generations. They are wrong, and they are leading America in a radical and dangerous direction. We need to get back on the right path.

Our allies have been a fundamental source of strength for more than half a century. And yet the current administration has often acted as if our alliances are no longer important. Look at the record: Almost two years passed between September 11 and NATO assuming the leadership of a peacekeeping force in Afghanistan. More than six months have gone by between the fall of Baghdad and any serious consideration of a NATO role in Iraq.

It can, at times, be challenging, even frustrating, to obtain the cooperation of allies. But, as history shows, America is most successful in achieving our national aims when our allies are by our side.

Now, some say we shouldn't worry about eroding alliances because, whenever a crisis comes up, we can always assemble a coalition of the willing. It's nice when people are willing, because it means they will show up and do their best. It does not, however, guarantee that they will be able to accomplish all that needs to be done.

As President, I will be far more interested in allies that stand ready to act with us rather than just willing to be rounded up as part of a coalition. NATO and our Asian alliances are strong coalitions of the able, and we need to maximize their support and strength if we are to prevail.

Unlike the kind of pick-up team this administration prefers, alliances train together so they can function effectively with common equipment, communications, logistics, and planning. Our country will be safer with established alliances, adapted to confront 21st century dangers, than with makeshift coalitions that have to start from scratch every time the alarm bell sounds.

Rebuilding our alliances and partnerships is relevant not only in Europe and Asia. Closer to home, my Administration will rebuild cooperation with Mexico and others in Latin America. This President talked the talk of Western Hemisphere partnership in his first months, but at least since 9-11 he has failed to walk the walk. He has allowed crises and resentments to accumulate and squandered goodwill that had been built up over many years. We can do much better.

Third, I will bring to bear our strengthened resources, and our renewed commitment to alliances, on our nation's most critical and urgent national security priority: defeating the terrorists who have attacked America, continue to attack our friends, and are working to acquire the most dangerous weapons to attack us again.

Essential to this effort will be strong US leadership in forging a new global alliance to defeat terror.

And a core objective of this alliance must be a dramatically intensified global effort to prevent the most deadly threat of all the danger that terrorists will acquire weapons of mass destruction: nuclear, biological, and chemical arms.

A critical component of our defense against terror is homeland security. Here, the current administration has talked much, but done too little. It has devised the color coded threat charts we see on television, but it has not adequately addressed the conditions that make the colors change. Our administration will.

We will do more to protect our cities, ports, and aircraft; water and food supplies; bridges, chemical factories, and nuclear plants.

We will improve the coordination of intelligence information not only among federal agencies but also with state and local governments.

And we will enhance the emergency response capabilities of our police, firefighters and public health personnel. These local first responders are the ones on whom our security depends, and they deserve much stronger support from our federal government. A Department of Homeland Security isn't doing its job if it doesn't adequately support the hometown security that can prevent attacks and save lives.

As President, I will strengthen the National Guard's role at the heart of homeland security. Members of the Guard have always stood ready to be deployed overseas for limited periods and in times of crisis and national emergency. But the Iraq war has torn tens of thousands of Guard members from their families for more than a year. It also deprived local communities of many of their best defenders.

The Guard is an integral part of American life, and its main mission should be here at home, preparing, planning, and acting to keep our citizens safe.

Closing the homeland security gap is just one element of what must be a comprehensive approach. We must take the fight to the terrorist leaders and their operatives around the world.

There will be times when urgent problems require swift American action. But defeating al Qaeda and other terrorist groups will require much more. It will require a long-term effort on the part of many nations.

Fundamental to our strategy will be restoration of strong US leadership in the creation of a new global alliance to defeat terror, a commitment among law-abiding nations to work together in law enforcement, intelligence, and military operations.

Such an alliance could have been established right after September 11, when nations stood shoulder to shoulder with America, prepared to meet the terrorist challenge together. But instead of forging an effective new partnership to fight a common foe, the administration soon downgraded the effort. The Iraq war diverted critical intelligence and military resources, undermined diplomatic support for our fight against terror, and created a new rallying cry for terrorist recruits.

Our administration will move swiftly to build a new anti-terrorist alliance, drawing on our traditional allies and involving other partners whose assistance can make a difference.

Our vigilance will extend to every conceivable means of attack. And our most important challenge will be to address the most dangerous threat of all: catastrophic terrorism using weapons of mass destruction. Here, where the stakes are highest, the current administration has, remarkably, done the least.

We have, rightly, paid much attention to finding and eliminating the worst people, but we need just as vigorous an effort to eliminate the worst weapons. Just as important as finding bin Laden is finding and eliminating sleeper cells of nuclear, chemical, and biological terror.

Our global alliance will place its strongest emphasis on this most lethal form of terror. We will advance a global effort to secure the weapons and technologies of mass destruction on a worldwide basis.

To do so, we will build on the efforts of former Senator Sam Nunn and Senator Richard Lugar, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. And our effort will build on the extraordinary work and leadership, as Senator and as Vice President, of one of America's great leaders, Al Gore.

The Nunn-Lugar program has been critical to securing the vast nuclear, chemical, and biological material inventory left over from the Soviet Union. Incredibly, despite the threat that the nexus of terrorism and technology of mass destruction poses, despite the heightened challenges posed by 9-11, the current administration has failed to increase funding for these efforts to secure dangerous weapons. I know that expanding and strengthening Nunn-Lugar is essential to defending America, and I will make that a priority from my first day as President.

Our new alliance will call upon all nations to work together to identify and control or eliminate unsafeguarded components -- or potential components -- of nuclear, chemical and biological arms around the world. These include the waste products and fuel of nuclear energy and research reactors, the pathogens developed for scientific purposes, and the chemical agents used for commercial ends. Such materials are present in dozens of countries -- and often stored with little if any security or oversight.

I will recruit every nation that can contribute and mobilize cooperation in every arena -- from compiling inventories to safeguarding transportation; from creating units specially-trained to handle terrorist situations involving lethal substances to ensuring global public health cooperation against biological terror.

A serious effort to deal with this threat will require far more than the $2 billion annual funding the U.S. and its key partners have committed. We need a global fund to combat weapons of mass destruction not just in the former Soviet Union but around the world -- that is much larger than current expenditures.

Our administration will ask Congress to triple U.S. contributions over 10 years, to $30 billion, and we will challenge our friends and allies to match our contributions, for a total of $60 billion. For too long, we have been penny-wise and pound-foolish when it comes to addressing the weapons proliferation threat. We urgently need to strengthen these programs in order to defend America.

The next President will have to show leadership in other ways to mobilize the world into a global alliance to defeat terror.

We and our partners must commit ourselves to using every relevant capability, relationship, and organization to identify terrorist cells, seize terrorist funds, apprehend terrorist suspects, destroy terrorist camps, and prevent terrorist attacks. We must do even more to share intelligence, strengthen law enforcement cooperation, bolster efforts to squeeze terror financing, and enhance our capacity for joint military operations -- all so we can stop the terrorists before they strike at us.

The next President will also have to attack the roots of terror. He will have to lead and win the struggle of ideas.

Here we should have a decisive edge. Osama bin Laden and his allies have nothing to offer except deceit, destruction, and death. There is a global struggle underway between peace-loving Muslims and this radical minority that seeks to hijack Islam for selfish and violent aims, that exploits resentment to persuade that murder is martyrdom, and hatred is somehow God's will. The tragedy is that, by its actions, its unilateralism, and its ill-considered war in Iraq, this Administration has empowered radicals, weakened moderates, and made it easier for the terrorists to add to their ranks.

The next President will have to work with our friends and partners, including in the Muslim world, to persuade people everywhere that terrorism is wholly unacceptable, just as they are persuaded that slavery and genocide are unacceptable.

He must convince Muslims that America neither threatens nor is threatened by Islam, to which millions of our own citizens adhere.

And he must show by words and deeds that America seeks security for itself through strengthening the rule of law, not to dominate others by becoming a law unto itself.

Finally, the struggle against terrorism, and the struggle for a better world, demand that we take even more steps. The strategic map of the world has never been more complicated. What America does, and how America is perceived, will have a direct bearing on how successful we are in mobilizing the world against the dangers that threaten us, and in promoting the values that sustain us.

Today, billions of people live on the knife's edge of survival, trapped in a struggle against ignorance, poverty, and disease. Their misery is a breeding ground for the hatred peddled by bin Laden and other merchants of death.

As President, I will work to narrow the now-widening gap between rich and poor. Right now, the United States officially contributes a smaller percentage of its wealth to helping other nations develop than any other industrialized country.

That hurts America, because if we want the world's help in confronting the challenges that most concern us, we need to help others defeat the perils that most concern them. Targeted and effective expansion of investment, assistance, trade, and debt relief in developing nations can improve the climate for peace and democracy and undermine the recruiters for terrorist plots.

So will expansion of assistance to fight deadly disease around the world. Today, HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death in many places.

We still are moving too slowly to address the crisis. As President, I will provide $30 billion in the fight against AIDS by 2008 -- to help the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria meet its needs and to help developing nations meet theirs.

Fighting poverty and disease and bringing opportunity and hope is the right thing to do.

It is also, absolutely, the smart thing to do if we want children around the world to grow up admiring entrepreneurs, educators, and artists rather than growing up with pictures of terrorists tacked to their walls.

We can advance the battle against terrorism and strengthen our national security by reclaiming our rightful place as a leader in global institutions. The current administration has made it almost a point of pride to dismiss and ridicule these bodies. That's a mistake.

Like our country's "Greatest Generation," I see international institutions like the United Nations as a way to leverage U.S. power, to summon warriors and peacekeepers, relief workers and democracy builders, to causes that advance America's national interests. As President, I will work to make these institutions more accountable and more effective. That's the only realistic approach. Throwing up our hands and assuming that nothing good can come from international cooperation is not leadership. It's abdication. It's foolish. It does not serve the American people.

Working more effectively with the UN, other institutions, and our friends and allies would have been a far better approach to the situation in Iraq.

As I said at the outset, our troops deserve our deepest gratitude for their work to capture Saddam. As I also said, Saddam's apprehension does not end our security challenges in Iraq, let alone around the world. Violent factions in that country may continue to threaten stability and the safety of our personnel.

I hope the Administration will use Saddam's capture as an opportunity to move U.S. policy in a more effective direction.

America's interests will be best served by acting with dispatch to work as partners with free Iraqis to help them build a stable, self-governing nation, not by prolonging our term as Iraq's ruler.

To succeed we also need urgently to remove the label "made in America" from the Iraqi transition. We need to make the reconstruction a truly international project, one that integrates NATO, the United Nations, and other members of the international community, and that reduces the burden on America and our troops.

We also must bring skill and determination to a task at which the current administration has utterly failed: We can and we must work for a just and lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Our alliance with Israel is and must remain unshakeable, and so will be my commitment every day of our administration to work with the parties for a solution that ends decades of blood and tears.

I believe that, with new leadership, and strengthened partnerships, America can turn around the situation in the Middle East and in the Persian Gulf. I believe we can defeat terrorism and advance peace and progress. I believe these things because I believe in America's promise. I believe in our capacity to come together as a people, and to act in the world with confidence, guided by our highest aspirations.

Again and again in America's history, our citizens have faced crucial moments of decision. At these moments, it fell to our citizens to decide what kind of country America would be. And now, again, we face such a moment.

The American people can choose between a national security policy hobbled by fear, and a policy strengthened by shared hopes.

They must choose between a go-it-alone approach to every problem, and a truly global alliance to defeat terror and build peace.

They must choose between today's new radical unilateralism and a renewal of respect for the best bipartisan traditions of American foreign policy. They must choose between a brash boastfulness and a considered confidence that speaks to the convictions of people everywhere.

I believe we will again hear the true voice of America.

It is the voice of Jefferson and our Declaration of Independence, forging a national community in which "we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."

It is the voice of Franklin Roosevelt rallying our people at a moment of maximum peril to fight for a world free from want and fear.

It is the voice of Harry Truman helping post war Europe resist communist aggression and emerge from devastation into prosperity.

It is the voice of Eleanor Roosevelt insisting that human rights are not the entitlement of some, but the birthright of all.

It is the voice of Martin Luther King proclaiming his dream of a future in which every man, woman and child is free at last.

It is the voice of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton bringing long-time foes to the table in pursuit of peace.

With these legacies to inspire us, no obstacle ahead is too great.

Our campaign is about strengthening the American community so we can fulfill the promise of our nation. We have the power, if we use it wisely, to advance American security and restore our country to its rightful place, as the engine of progress; the champion of liberty and democracy; a beacon of hope and a pillar of strength.

We have the power, as Thomas Paine said at America's birth, "to begin the world anew."

We have the power to put America back on the right path, toward a new era of greatness, fulfilling an American promise stemming not so much from what we possess, but from what we believe.

That is how America can best lead in the world. That is where I want to lead America. Thank you very much.

Paid for by the Iowa Presidential Watch PAC

1204 Cottage Road, Webster City, IA 50595

privacy  /  agreement  /    /  homepage / search engine

copyright use & information