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I am honored to accept Governor Vilsack's challenge to lead the American Dream Initiative for the DLC, because its mission goes to the heart of why I am a senator and what I believe about public service: that we are here to leave our children a richer, safer, smarter, and stronger land than the one we inherited from our parents, and that tomorrow can be better than today if we work together seeking common ground, standing on common values, and moving forward. Today I would like to begin my new assignment by painting my own portrait of the American dream.

Now, to do so we have to take a time machine into the future, to July 25th, 2020. Now, we've come back to Columbus, Ohio, in 2020 with clearer vision for our country -- 20/20 vision. Ohio is back in the Democratic column, as it should be. And the first thing we notice about America in 2020 is that it is a safer place. We are better protected against terror here at home and more capable of defeating it wherever it exists, with a unified, coherent strategy focused on eliminating terrorists wherever we find them, improving homeland defense, and delivering a message of hope and freedom that is far more compelling than the terrorist celebration of chaos and death.

Now, we worked hard for years to secure our country in a host of wise ways. In 2020, America is safer because we have invested more in protecting our borders, hardening nuclear, chemical, and other sensitive sites, inspecting more cargo and aircraft and ships, securing mass transit, making sure that mayors like Columbus Mayor Coleman and our police and firefighters and emergency services have not only the resources, but the training and equipment that they need. We've put more troops in uniform, we've equipped them better, and we've trained them to face today's stress, not yesterday's. We've actually recognized that having the strongest military in the world is the first step, but we also have to have a strong commitment to using our military in smart ways that further peace, stability, and security around the world. I was talking to Mayor Coleman, whose son is currently with the Marines in Iraq, and I told him that I'd spent a lot of time talking to young Marines and soldiers both in Iraq, where I've been twice, and back home, and listened to them. There has never been a better generation of young people who are volunteering and committing themselves to serve our nation. We have to make sure that we do everything possible to give them the resources, the respect, and the strategy they deserve.

In 2020, we also see that our universal voluntary national service program includes civil defense workers who supplement our brave first responders and share the burden of vigilance at home. We have revamped our intelligence services, strengthening our cooperation with other countries to deter terrorist acts and to secure and destroy nuclear, chemical, and biological materials the world over. We've also made progress undermining the evil ideology of terrorism, working with mainstream Muslim and other religious groups to de-legitimize the twisted teaching and thinking that there is glory in killing innocent civilians. No longer do people glorify killing adults going to work or children seeking candy from American soldiers. We learned the tragic lessons of New York, of Indonesia and Morocco, of Madrid, Iraq, London and elsewhere, and the world is united. It is not us against them; it is all of us together furthering our mission of eliminating terrorism and making them seek out the dark, dark places left in the world where we finally finish them off.

We've again shown the world that the core values that really undergird free societies like ours -- fre edom of religion, freedom of dissent, and so much else enshrined in our Constitution -- are being extended to people around the world, including girls and women, and that in fact these core values are our most profound and strongest defense against tyranny and nihilism, and that they can be embraced by people of every faith and of no faith.

We are re-engaged with the world on a range of global challenges that can only be solved with global coalitions. A reformed, more capable U.N. serves as a forum for consensus building and action. We've adopted a realistic foreign policy that is not based entirely on military might nor on the naive notion that we do not need the capacity to take tough action when necessary. We are combining a progressive international agenda on issues like arms control, climate change, and efforts to eliminate extreme poverty, lack of schooling, and the ravages of disease in developing countries. Updated military alliances, including NATO, carry the credible threat of force against intractable foes. As a result, there is a broader and stronger coalition against terror in a world with more partners and fewer enemies.

Now, America's security policy is reflected in the eagle that graces the seal of our country, with one leg carrying weapons to protect us from enemies while the other leg holds out olive branches to all who would be our allies. We are strong enough to protect ourselves and wise enough to help others, respected not only for our might, but also for our values.

As we survey the landscape in the year 2020, we find other signs of progress in the American dream. Everyone has access to health care that is affordable and effective. After all, this is my dream. Today we spend more of our income on health care than any other nation, with no end in sight. We still have more than 40 million Americans who have no health coverage and millions more whose health coverage is limited and often not what they thought they had paid for when the moment arises and they actually need it. It costs those of us with health care more than $35 billion a year just to pay for the expensive emergency room and hospital visits that the uninsured and the underinsured need, many of which could be avoided if we made sure that all Americans had access to the kind of preventive care that many of us take for granted.

Today also, the cost of health care is eliminating enormous numbers of manufacturing and service jobs in America because many of our companies pay the full cost of health care while their foreign competitors can rely on either national systems or the fact that they don't have to pay any benefits for health care. And, therefore, they price American goods, like cars, out of the global marketplace. There are now more American cars being made in Canada than in our country, and we have just recently seen Toyota announce that its next big North American plant will be in Canada, and in talking to the leaders of the American companies we know that the health care costs, combined with the legacy costs of health care and retirement, are making it very difficult for them to figure out how they can be competitive again.

But by 2020, we have a reformed health care system that extends coverage to those who did not have it without weakening the coverage for those who did. Now, we do this by creating a more patient-centered health system and making health care delivery more efficient. We were wasting about $200 billion a year in administrative costs, amounting to about 34 cents on each dollar -- 15 cents more than any other country spends on administrative costs. The initiative that I put together with Senator Frist and others back in 2005, creating electronic medical records while preserving patient privacy, used 21st century technology to eliminate 20th century bureaucracy. We also succeeded in getting more people uninsured in larger pools with easy-to-administer options like the Federal Employee Health Benefit Plan. And we cut costs further by creating incentives for reducing childhood obesity and other unhealthy lifestyles, increasing the number of living wills and lowering the costs of doctors' malpractice insurance through large self-insured pools, alternative dispute resolution models, and reductions in errors.

In my American dream, every young person who wants to go to college in 2020 can afford to do so because we reversed the late-20th century barriers against access for middle-class and poor students. Every child now has more choice about what public school to attend. Every school has an effective principal, good teachers, and students whose performance is measured according to high, nationally recognized standards. Because our fiscal responsibility brought us more growth and more resources, we were able to build more schools and renovate old schools, recruit more teachers, especially in shortage areas like math and science, to provide the quality education that all children deserve.

In my American dream, the Family and Medical Leave Act now applies to all Americans and parenting has been given more tools to do the hardest job there is. We finally have employed technology and implemented a uniform ratings system applied to all media -- based on research that conclusively demonstrated the impact media and its content have on children's developing brains, behavior, and values. We are finally making policy decisions based on scientific research, facts, and evidence, not substituting ideology and politics.

By 2020, and I hope a lot sooner than that, we have a strong, enforceable international ban on human cloning, but we also have reversed the ban on stem-cell research. And we are realizing the benefits of human genome discoveries. We may just have found cures and prevention strategies for juvenile diabetes, for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and other diseases. And in 2020, Social Security is safe from the ideologues. It is still providing survivor benefits and benefits for the disabled and providing millions of retired baby boomers with benefits without the threat of bankruptcy while all Americans, regardless of income, have more options to amass additional retirement savings.

So, America in 2020 is a more prosperous place with a huge and thriving middle class. We've eliminated the budget deficit by adopting the tough spending controls of the 1990s that worked so well in that decade. The Republicans abandoned arithmetic; well, we brought it back. In fact, we have reformed the tax code to favor work over privilege, productive investments over non-productive ones. And we have made the right kinds of investments in our economy and created high-tech, high-wage jobs for millions. We are helping businesses of all sizes use the latest technology and access global markets, and we are funding research in science and technology at the highest level ever. And we have stopped blaming China, India, and other countries for trying to compete with us, but we have restored the vigorous enforcement of our trade laws against unfair competition, which the Republicans had drastically reduced by 2005.

And finally, we recognize that all new trade agreements, while offering broad benefits to America as a whole, impose severe burdens on some sectors of economy. In fact, we now know that our future depends on the right kind of trade, and that is why we require an economic impact statement to be filed with every new trade agreement, outlining the costs of preparing displaced workers for new and better jobs and providing the funds to do so.

In my American dream, America in 2020 is in the midst of a major transition to a smart, clean energy future, with new energy sources and conservation technologies. Public and private investment in energy research and development has made America the world leader in clean, efficient energy use. Cars and trucks are powered by advanced hybrid engines, biofuels, fuel cells, and clean diesel engines. Windmills and other renewable energy sources are generating 20 percent of our electricity. New coal-fired plants are using American coal while reducing pollution and capturing carbon dioxide emissions. Electric bills have dropped because of more efficient generation and transmission, advanced heating and cooling systems, widespread use of cost-effective solar panels, longer lasting lighting, and other super-efficient appliances. We're in the middle of an energy revolution that has made America more secure by reducing our dependence on foreign oil, that has put Americans to work in high-paying jobs, that now is one of our major export opportunities, that has reduced the emissions responsible for climate change and cleaned the air our children and grandchildren are breathing, reducing heart disease, cancers, asthma, and other respiratory ailments.

Finally, my dream for America in 2020 is one in which our people are not so divided along racial, religious, ethnic, or partisan lines. Our society does not dim the bright lights of any of our children, and individuals accept more responsibility for themselves and their families and for the betterment of our communities and our country. In my dream, our faith in God and our shared values give us the strength to conquer our fears of one another and the unknown. We condemn crimes of hate in fact and in law. We welcome relationships based on love. We protect our children from the excesses of the popular culture. We find common ground.

As we ensure that women are able to make their own personal decisions about reproductive health care, we work together to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies and abortions by promoting family planning and by strengthening our systems of adoption and foster care so that every child has a chance for a loving, permanent home. We contribute more to charity, not only online but also by putting ourselves on the line, as AmeriCorps continues to grow in strength and diversity, with more volunteers of all ages. We vote in greater numbers and all of our votes are counted. We have already done some important reforms of our government and we demand and get better representation in Washington, in state capitals, and in town and city halls everywhere.

Well, that is my American dream. Now, some may say it is unrealistic. It is certainly optimistic. Still, I hope you share it, along with a determination to achieve it. Things are not looking so good right now, with so much out of balance in the body politic, but I believe that our great party, with its own rich legacy of progress from the time of Andrew Jackson to Truman, Kennedy, to Clinton, and so many other Democratic leaders of vision and accomplishment, is poised to help realize the dreams I have imagined for America today.

After more than four years of Republican control, our government has not only gone off track, it has reversed course. They turned our bridge to the 21st century into a tunnel back to the 19th century. And while we envision restoring the American dream to its full potential, the Republican leadership is busy concentrating wealth and power, restricting opportunity, and abandoning responsibility for our shared future.

Thus, the clear mission of a unified Democratic Party is to back us out of that Republican tunnel, fill it in, go back across the bridge, and get America back in the business of building dreams again. Let us start by uniting against the hard-right ideology, of those who have used it to divide Americans and distract us from our common responsibility. We Democrats have not yet succeeded in isolating and defeating the far right, in part because all too often we have allowed ourselves to be split between left, right, and center. We can and should differ with one another on this or that detail of politics and ideas. After all, we are thinking Democrats, not lockstep Republicans.

But let us acknowledge that what separates us on occasion is but a tiny sliver in comparison to the Grand Canyon gap between us and the Republican Party. Now, I know the DLC has taken some shots from some within our party and that it has returned fire, too. Well, I think it's high time for a cease-fire. It's time for all Democrats to work together based on the fundamental values we all share, values violated every day in Washington by the ideologues of the Republican right. Now, that is not just a dream. That must be our common goal and mission. I have been involved with the DLC for many years and I am proud of the ideas like the earned-income tax credit, welfare reform, and national service that have come from its policy shop.

In the 1990s, making those ideals real helped millions of American families. I have also been involved with other progressive groups because they too have good ideas like expanding preschool or immunizing all of our children, increasing childcare for working parents, using innovation and market forces to protect the environment and doing more to figure out the environmental impact on our health care status, protecting personal financial and medical privacy against constant intrusion. It is vital that we bring everyone's positive, Democratic, progressive ideas to the table.

That is why I am so excited about the American Dream Initiative. We will be bringing together progressive people from all perspectives to help shape a positive agenda for change. We will focus on challenges facing all Americans: keeping our citizens safe, building an opportunity in society, transforming our health and energy policies, standing up for families and children, making sure our political and electoral systems work for everyone.

And we will avoid accepting the false logic of false choices that keeps our party and our country divided and drifting. I believe we can support and prove that the Democratic Party stands for both expanded health care coverage and greater fiscal responsibility. We can support a woman's right to choose that makes abortion safe, legal, and rare and reduces the number of abortions. We can continue to open up new markets for America without giving in to lopsided trade agreements that lack adequate protections for workers and the environment. We can have faith and religion in our lives without using religion to divide Americans. We can be for programs that help the poor and favor work over dependence, for greater access to education and higher standards and accountability, for initiatives like the COPS program that prevents crime, and for tough penalties on serious criminals. We can fight terrorism aggressively and strengthen our alliances to build that world of more partners and fewer enemies. I know we can do all of these things because we have done it before.

In the 1990s, many people like you and millions more across our country proved that we were up to the challenge. And now we can do it again: to rise to the new challenges of this time. Our ideas are rooted in the values that have always worked for America, the belief that people born with nothing deserve the same opportunity to succeed as those who grow up with all of the advantages, the belief that our primary obligation is not to consume all of our bounty today and borrow from our children's futures, but to help build for our children the more perfect union of our founders' dreams.

The American dream is not just for us; it is for all who will come this way when we are gone. They deserve more than the self-indulgent and self-defeating policies of the Washington Republicans and we can give it to them. We can restore America to its historic devotion to opportunity, responsibility, and the common good, with big dreams, new ideas, and old-fashioned values.

American life is not a zero-sum game. Our individual success is not dependent on someone else's failure. We must all rise together to renew the American dream for ourselves and for generations to come. We have come to Columbus today to begin a new voyage of discovery toward the America our children deserve from us. That is our solemn responsibility and our great calling as Democrats and Americans. If we pursue it with energy, optimism, and determination, we will have a giant celebration when we come back to Columbus in 2020. There is nothing more wonderful than making dreams come true.