Remarks as delivered
I just want you to know that NDC passes for friendship. (Laughter.) I'm reminded of what Harry S. Truman said. He said, if you want a friend, get a dog. (Laughter.) And that is the coauthor of my book with me, Bruce Reed, called "The Plan." If you're not interested in the thumping and you need kindling for your fireplace, try "The Plan." I want to -- Bruce said to say a few words and then we're going to take questions, or as Henry Kissinger used to say, does anybody have any questions for my answers, and we'll kind of go from there. (Laughter.) Obviously, he was serious and I'm joking.
It is appropriate not only to recognize both Al, Harold, and Bruce who are dear friends, my attorney general who is a very, very close friend, and a constituent so she has top billing in this room, and a good, very good friend who I wouldn't be here outside of my parents, Lou Manilow, who when I came back from college actually gave me his hand-me-downs in my apartment, which was then legal to do for free, so before Congress.
Let me just do a brief outline of what I think is about a subject that a number of people have touched upon, which is globalization. When Bruce talked about the set of ideas that I've introduced in Congress, whether it's in the area of energy, health care, savings, education, it all comes back to one place. It all comes back to the place where I think America is. This is an important election, as Harold mentioned, because I think it's a make-or-break election, not just because of who wins, because the most important thing is whether America wins. This is a make-or-break election because we are at a crossroads as an economy in this globalized period of time. Globalization is a good thing if you have a strategy for it; globalization is not just a trade agreement. That is the big mistake people make. You collapse one part, or the entire part, into one piece.
Trade agreements are part of globalization; they are not globalization. Globalization is whether you have an agenda to educate and train the most competitive workforce in the world; that is a piece of globalization. Globalization is whether you have a strategy to control costs in health care and extend coverage to make sure businesses and families are not at a disadvantage around the world. Globalization and a strategy for globalization is whether you have a savings agenda so that 75 million people who work full time but have no other retirement plan or no savings plan outside of Social Security have a way to plan for their future. And globalization and a strategy for globalization is whether you have a strategy to invest in new technologies, specifically in the area of energy, which is going to be for the future what the Internet was for the last 20 years, the place where new jobs and new businesses are created. That is what globalization is and I've outlined something called the new deal for the new economy.
And when I say I outlined, it's something I've worked on extensively and learned a great deal, from the DLC to specifically with Bruce, who has been very helpful in that area, and that is we are at a critical juncture in our country's history. Everything that's happened over the last 50 years, 60 years since World War II, the Social Contract, the building of the Greatest Generation, and basically what we know of as the American Century, is at a point and at an influx and a transition, or as Yogi Berra used to say, when you get to that fork in the road, take it. We're at that fork. We're at that point now, and I believe what the DLC does and is helpful for and we have to lay out as a party is 'what is that agenda?' And if you look back the last 20 or 30 years, American businesses have gotten ready and competitive and prepared for this moment in time called globalization.
Has the public sector done its job? We have, and I'll give you one anecdote what I mean by that. We have 12 different credits deductions on the tax code to help kids go to college, 12 all trying to do the same thing. Bruce and I in the balanced budget agreement were responsible for the hope and the lifetime credit, two separate ones. I have a piece of legislation to take the three biggest ones and collapse them down to a single credit. You do not need 12 to do the same purpose of what one can get done. Another example in my view is on the tax code, there's four separate, when you look at the EITC, the per child, and the dependent care, there are four separate definitions of children. Let me tell you, I've got three of them. There's only one definition: they never leave you alone. Okay. Collapse them down to a single family credit where you put the EITC, the dependent care, and the per child into a single credit, so people earning up to $45,000 a year working at fulltime jobs trying to raise kids get a single credit.
Now, at my office every year from January 1 to April 15th with the tax assistance program, we fill out people's taxes who earned income tax credits. We do a little over 1 million bucks a year in return credit for people earning $18,000, $21,000. It's the best anti-poverty, pro-work program you could ever have. But one quarter of the entire benefit goes uncollected, $14 billion a year. Why? -- And it's one of the single largest unclaimed credits. It is the most complicated code and recommendations for what you have to do to get that credit. I think it's wrong, when people who have chosen work over welfare, work over poverty, on average get $2,000; we make them jump through hoops to get that credit. It should be simplified to give them a credit.
Those are just examples of what I mean by a government or a public sector that is reformed to help individuals, the country, succeed at globalization. And our agenda as new Democrats is to think through that reform so we do a better job like the last 50 years for the next 50 years thinking through the policies and the reforms that are necessary to allow individuals and families to succeed in this, I think, very exciting time called, a period of time, of globalization. I believe America will lead that period like it has the last 50 years, not just here at home, but abroad. That's why I also think Barack Obama is so important and this election is so important. And I know that's true for everybody in this room. I'll go anywhere, do anything, to help him win this candidacy.
I want to close on this one last point as Harold talked about, and I just did on the economy, but also on foreign policy. In the last three days or four days we've gotten three reports. One is the military and Armed Forces report that's going to come out today about how we had no plan for the occupation and the consequence of that in Iraq. Second, there is a report out about Afghanistan and the basic SOS signal that our generals an military are sending out in the sense of what we're trying to do in Afghanistan. And today there is a report out about the infighting as it relates to the Afghan-Pakistan border in going after al Qaeda has allowed al Qaeda the time and space to get reconfigured. If there isn't another place and three reports in less than 48 hours to show you the consequences of the lack of a strategy, a policy, and mismanagement, there's nothing else I can do for you to explain that and the consequences. And this is from an administration that told you they were going to be the MBA administration; if that's true, their parents deserve their money back. (Laughter.) (Applause.)
I mean, and there are real consequences, not just our reputation, although that would be dangerous enough, the fact is al Qaeda has reconstituted itself on the Afghan-Pakistan border because of the lack of a policy and the not only lack of a policy, but when they had it, the mismanagement of that policy. There are serious consequences and Senator Obama has the ideas, the energy, and the wherewithal to lead this country both abroad and at home to make sure that the next 50 years are remembered as the American century like the last 50 years. Thank you all for being here and we'll look forward to taking your questions. (Applause.)
