Posted on 07/24/2006 10:16:16 AM PDT by Sub-Driver
Saving the American Dream We must build an opportunity agenda for the middle class and all who want to join it By Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Sen. Tom Carper, and Gov. Tom Vilsack
Table of Contents
For 230 years, Americans have been united by a simple, common dream that tomorrow will be better than today. The promise of American life, handed on through a dozen generations, rests on this basic bargain: All of us should have the opportunity to live up to our God-given potential, and the responsibility to make the most of it.
In the 20th century, that basic bargain built the greatest middle class the world has ever known. The expansion of opportunity in return for hard work and sacrifice made us the richest, safest, strongest nation on earth, and enabled us to defeat fascism and communism. We ended the last century with America's economic might at its zenith, with Americans at their most optimistic, and with nearly all who endeavored to make the most of their opportunities and talents getting ahead in life.
Over the last five years we've taken a different direction -- one that offered the greatest help to those with the most wealth, under the mistaken belief that when the wealthy do even better, the middle class will eventually get their share. But this economic philosophy has shortchanged America and failed the middle class, too. For the first time ever, we've had four straight years of rising productivity and falling incomes. Americans are earning less, while the costs of a middle-class life have soared: In the past five years, college costs are up 50 percent, health care 73 percent, and gasoline more than 100 percent.
U.S. companies and workers face new challenges because they have to compete against companies and workers from other countries that have made education the top national priority, take energy efficiency seriously, and spend half as much on health care as we do.
These trends aren't just a burden for middle-class families. They undermine our way of life, because middle-class strength and growth have been the backbone of America.
Together we can face that challenge. Throughout our history, America has responded to new challenges with a new faith in our basic bargain. The world has changed over the past 50 years, and the terms of our basic bargain must keep pace.
The chance for every American to get ahead, regardless of background, is the engine of America's economic growth and social progress. A growing economy and a growing middle class go hand in hand. To remain strong in the world, the American Dream must be strong and alive here at home. And as we continue to navigate through these changing economic times, restoring the promise of the American Dream is the central economic issue of our time.
That's why the three of us have spent the past year developing the American Dream Initiative, an opportunity agenda for the middle class and all who aspire to join it. With the help of leading thinkers from across the Democratic Party, we developed a set of new ideas for the Democratic Leadership Council's National Conversation in Denver in July. Our vision is straightforward and clear -- to leave our children a richer, safer, smarter, and stronger nation than the one we inherited. We will offer a new opportunity agenda that secures the pillars of the American Dream:
Every American should have the opportunity and responsibility to go to college and earn a degree, and to get the lifelong training they need.
Every worker should have the opportunity and responsibility to save for a secure retirement.
Every business should have the opportunity to grow and prosper in the strongest private economy on Earth, and the responsibility to equip workers with the same tools of success as management.
Every individual should have the opportunity and responsibility to start building wealth from day one, and the security and community that come from owning a home.
Every family should have the opportunity to afford health insurance for their children, and the responsibility to obtain it.
Of all the aspirations that make up the American Dream, perhaps the most important is the opportunity to go to college. College is the key to whether America will get ahead in a competitive world, and whether we can expand and strengthen the middle class here at home.
We propose a plan to produce one million more college graduates a year by 2015 -- so that within a decade, more than half our young people will finish college with a degree. Paid for by getting rid of wasteful business subsidies, our plan consolidates existing tax credits into a new $3,000 refundable tax credit for four years of college or training, and proposes a performance-based block grant that will enable states to reduce tuition costs and increase graduation rates. Together, these ideas will make it possible for any student willing to work part-time or perform community service to go to college for four years tuition-free.
The pillars of the American Dream -- a college degree, a home, a secure retirement, and the chance to get ahead in a growing economy -- are central to our basic values. When we demand responsibility, it makes our families, our markets, and our democracy stronger. When our success depends on how hard we work, not how well we're born, there is no limit to how high we'll reach or how far we'll go.
America needs a new direction steeped in our oldest values. The struggles of the last few years are America's past, not America's future. The American Dream has just begun.
Hillary Rodham Clinton is U.S. senator from New York and chair of the Democratic Leadership Council's American Dream Initiative. Tom Carper is U.S. senator from Delaware and vice chair of the DLC. Tom Vilsack is governor of Iowa and chair of the DLC.
You forgot the barf alert.
The key tenets:
Every American should have the opportunity and responsibility to go to college and earn a degree, and to get the lifelong training they need.
Every worker should have the opportunity and responsibility to save for a secure retirement.
Every business should have the opportunity to grow and prosper in the strongest private economy on Earth, and the responsibility to equip workers with the same tools of success as management.
Every individual should have the opportunity and responsibility to start building wealth from day one, and the security and community that come from owning a home.
Every family should have the opportunity to afford health insurance for their children, and the responsibility to obtain it.
Okay, which ones currently to people not have?
A vote for any dim, is a vote for EVIL! EVIL holds no dream of mine!!!
LLS
How much of the American Dream did Vilsack save for the folks in Newton, Mt. Pleasant and Centerville, Iowa (Maytag, Blue Bird School Bus, Rubbermaid) ?
Hold on to your wallets.
I had a friend who passed a way a few years ago. He was a union man, a WW2 Vet, and a Christian. He voted dem since his first election in 1940, he voted for Roosevelt. But in 1996 just before the election he stopped votings. He could not stomach the liberals anymore. He said, "Son, if you do not make at least $250K a year you have no business voting republican, but if you are any type of Christian you have no business voting democrat either." I have heard similar many times in the past 5 years.
If the dems ever do move the right on social issues, push for a strong defense, and have a popularist economic plan the republicans are in trouble. But most of the people I know will have to be shown that. Deeds speak louder then words. And Hiltery's deeds scream.
Work hard in high school, get good grades, and every American can do this.
Every worker should have the opportunity and responsibility to save for a secure retirement.
Perhaps if the government didn't insist on taking 14% of a worker's salaray to pay for other retirees, they could do this.
Every business should have the opportunity to grow and prosper in the strongest private economy on Earth, and the responsibility to equip workers with the same tools of success as management.
A socialist promoting private economy. Next thing you know, she'll be selling you a brdige in Manhatten...
Every individual should have the opportunity and responsibility to start building wealth from day one, and the security and community that come from owning a home.
Perhaps the government should stop beeing so **** greedy and let us keep a little more of our wealth. And that doesn't mean robbing Peter to pay me, Paul.
Every family should have the opportunity to afford health insurance for their children, and the responsibility to obtain it.
Hey, since we're so big into responsibility, perhaps the government should get out of the health care industry. That might do a lot towards making it affordable, and encouraging people to be responsible.
You won't see the likes of Harry Truman again. And that's what it would take to switch the Donk party...
Think these turds will admit it was Ronald Reagan who caused the defeat of communism? How about the Bush tax cuts stimulating the economy? Will they admit liberals have been worng in foriegn policy at least forty years?
Will they admit abortion is killing? How about the larger the government is, the less freedom people have?
Didn't think so--and we should believe them, why? All they and their proxies do is lie like a pack of sleazy con artists.
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Every American should have the opportunity and responsibility to go to college and earn a degree, and to get the lifelong training they need.
Every worker should have the opportunity and responsibility to save for a secure retirement.
Every business should have the opportunity to grow and prosper in the strongest private economy on Earth, and the responsibility to equip workers with the same tools of success as management.
Every individual should have the opportunity and responsibility to start building wealth from day one, and the security and community that come from owning a home.
Every family should have the opportunity to afford health insurance for their children, and the responsibility to obtain it.
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Every American ALREADY has those opportunities! It's called the free enterprise system. And it is their RESPONSIBILITY to get off their butts and make it happen!
I do not believe that every family has the opportunity to afford health insurance.
ditto.
Agreed. Liek I have said a social conservative, moderate on economic issues would play well. But this bunch is just trying to lip stick the same old liberal pig.
Why not?
Maybe Hitlery should throw in some ideas from Saul Alinsky and see how far that gets her.
My thoughts exactly.
Notice that everything was great until "the turn of the century." LOL: the stock market already was crashing; terrorists ran rampant and unpunished for 8 LONG years under the Slick One, culminating in 9/11; the military was severely downsized, resulting in our need to call up reserves today; the President was politically paralyzed due to his overlapping scandals and lying under oath to a Grand Jury.
In fairness, under His Slickness, the budget was balanced. Now it isn't, due in part to Bush/Cheney's orchestration of 9/11 in their grand scheme to rationalize an attack on Iraq. The deficit is also due to Bush's profligate spending on New Orleans cleanup, which Bush is responsible for causing in the first place since he allowed Global Warning to create big hurricanes.
If we elect Hillary, she will stop killer hurricanes by deeply inhaling before our shores are threatened. She can suck the life out of the damned things.
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