You're very kind. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Whenever the clapping gets going at a DLC event, everybody -- [Al] From thinks it's for him, so we give Al From another round of applause to thank him for all the -- (laughter, applause).
I say that with a hint of fun in it and more with seriousness. This organization has been an important part of not only the Democratic Party's landscape but I daresay the policymaking landscape in this country for almost 20 years now -- or more than 20 years now. And when one considers the hallmark achievements of governors across this great country, and obviously a president that served all of America so well and so valiantly in the early '90s, and the rise that he made, I should say, in the group in which he worked with a rode to achieve not only his personal political prominence, but what he did on behalf of this country, there is not an organization that deserves more credit, rightly so, than the DLC.
I'm often tickled, Governor O'Malley, and I thank you for the kind words. I'm hesitant, with all that was said about me over the last year, to say anything nice about your daughter other than just to say thank you. (Laughter, applause.) And I look forward to dinner with the entire family. (Laughter.)
When you think about the greatness of the country and the significance of this moment, there are so many in this room who have contributed to us arriving where we are today. Two of my colleagues had to leave for a vote -- Eliot Engel and Bart Gordon, who come from Tennessee. Both have played major roles in combating or, say, during the early '90s, mid-'90s and late '90s, standing firm with a president that believed in fiscal responsibility, that believed in America's strength and dominance being used as an example and inspiration around the globe. Two young members, relatively new members who I'm able to relate to probably a bit more, my dear friends in the Congress, Kendrick Meek and Tim Ryan, both new, towering voices in the party of Governor Blanchard who will carry on the tradition that Michigan continued under your terrific leadership and even continues today under Governor Granholm and our great mayor of Detroit. I thank both of them not only for their friendship, but for believing that America can be a better place, for serving and for doing all they can to live up to the great tradition of Andrew Jackson, FDR and Bill Clinton and our party.
They're seated next to someone who probably understands this whole political situation better than most of us here. He served as an executive in his own state and obviously now serves as the vice chair of this organization and as a United States senator from Delaware. I'm particularly thankful for his friendship because having attended and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, and all the speeding tickets I got driving from Washington to Pennsylvania -- (laughter) -- I'm thankful that his state troopers are not as vigilant and diligent in seeking the paying of those tickets -- (laughter) -- as they are in Tennessee.
So I thank Governor Carper -- or Senator Carper not only for his friendship, but his great leadership of the DLC, his understanding of the connection -- the intersection, I should say, between policy and politics and business, and not only understanding and embracing but realizing that there are more than two kinds of people in our economy -- those with jobs and those without them. There's a third group -- there are those who create them. And I thank him for not only understanding that but for leading on behalf of our party. Give our vice chairman another round of applause. (Applause.)
I mention this whole thing, Governor O'Malley, about the DLC because you and I and Kendrick and Tim -- Congressman Ryan really represent this new generation of leadership that will not push aside our current leadership, but build on what they have laid out and bring to it a modernization that not only will benefit the Democratic Party, but benefit the country. You think back the last 15, 20 years, I daresay just about every good idea, things that became policy that our party puts forward, we in this organization take -- can be very proud of it -- not take a lot of credit for it. I'm not in the business of taking credit. I think you let everybody have the credit and you take the blame when it doesn't go right, but we certainly shouldn't take any blame, for this organization has been at the forefront in pro-family, pro-business, pro-America, pro-defense, pro not only trade but smart trade in insuring that jobs are created in this country, even assuring, Governor O'Malley, that our faith in that, expressions of it are protected in ways that make sense and give every American an opportunity to raise his or her family in an environment conducive with those kids growing up and doing the right things in life.
As we think about the moment we find ourselves today and we think about the past six years, we all have our criticisms of this administration. We can all point to specific things and broader things, but the primary construct is that we have missed an enormous set of opportunities over the last six years to lead this nation and provide a new example for moderation, democracy, for freedom and for liberty here at home and abroad. There are many, many fingers that can be pointed probably not far from here in the same direction down at 16th and Penn. But the challenge of our party and throughout our history has always been not to blame, not to point fingers, even when the fingers should be pointed at ourselves, but to figure out answers and to develop solutions.
The other day, the premier of China gave a speech promising to "put people first." I remember when that was not only our slogan, but America's slogan. If a totalitarian regime with no democracy and one of the worst human rights records on earth can recognize that success in the 21st century depends on giving people the tools to make the most of their talents, how long must the people of the world's oldest democracy, and maybe most important democracy and greatest country be made to wait?
What have we accomplished as a nation, six years into this promising new century we grew up hearing about? What have we as a country, under the stewardship of our national leadership, really done to establish the bedrock foundation on which we will build the future for our children and their children? What have we been led to do as a nation to make sure that America is as great in this century as we were in the one before?
Seventeen years ago, when another young Southern Democrat from a country state right across the bridge from where I'm from in Tennessee. He took over this organization. He challenged his party and his country, Governor O'Malley, to chart a new course. Governor Clinton's ideas and his philosophy and his convictions took our party -- and you can almost interchange "party" and "country" when talking about this era -- to new heights. He spoke for a new generation of Americans, and really spoke to a new ethic and spirit in the country. The time has once come again to chart a new course for our party and the country, and the method is pretty simple: It's time to put the New back in New Democrat. It is time to put new ideas back at the heart of American politics and American public service. And it is time to make clear the mission of our party and the purpose of America, which is to give everyone the opportunity to get ahead, demand a new responsibility from every American, and have America lead the world through the power of our examples, our faith, and our ideals.
The New Democratic movement's quest has been to find new means to advance these enduring values, and new ideas to advance the credo that a young Tennessean, Andrew Jackson, gave our party and our country when he said, "equal opportunity for all, special privilege for none." We believe that if we want to change the world as Democrats, as Americans, we have to change when the world changes.
From Andrew Jackson to FDR, from JFK to Bill Clinton, the great tradition of the Democratic Party has been to recognize that new challenges demand new answers. And as FDR once said, "New conditions impose new requirements on government and those who conduct government." Let me tell you what it means to be a New Democrat in the 21st Century, and what new conditions we must face together as Americans in the years to come.
The core values of our movement are the same in many ways as they were in '91 and '92. We believe in equal opportunity, not equal outcomes. We believe in responsibilities as well as rights, and in every citizen's duty to give their country something back. We believe America must stand strong in a dangerous world and that America cannot be strong abroad unless opportunity and responsibility and known and strong at home.
But today, we face a host of challenges that seemed far off or unimaginable just 15 years ago: the spread of fanaticism, the rise of India and China, the acceleration of climate change. We have different problems to solve and old problems that demand different answers. And thanks to this administration, we face a political climate in Washington that believes the purpose of politics is to grab and gain and accumulate power rather than to help Americans do better. That must change and we must be at the forefront of making that change happen. (Applause.)
Today, I think our country needs, and I think we would all agree needs a healthy, honest conversation and debate about what we stand for, about the direction we're headed, and what a better president can do. This should be a proud and, frankly, awesome time for a debate. We have an outstanding group of candidates seeking the presidency. As state after state acts to move up its primary, candidates are more likely to be judged by their war chests than by their plans for the future, their plans to solve our country's and even the world's most pressing challenges and problems. We risk having a big money primary at the very time we should be having an ideas primary instead. And that's just dead wrong.
It isn't the fault of our candidates, many of whom have begun to put interesting proposals on the table. When Senator Clinton proposes cutting unnecessary government contractors to put our fiscal house in order, or Senator Obama calls for broad political reform, or Senator Edwards -- and he and his wife are in our prayers -- puts forward a plan to cut carbon emissions, or Governor Richardson announces an energy plan, their campaigns are lucky to get any national news coverage at all. By contrast, fundraisers, attack ads, and things people say are treated as front-page news, even though they won't make any difference in the lives of ordinary Americans, and ultimately won't even make the difference in this campaign.
In our democracy, Presidential elections are the best chance to set a new course, and indeed to set a bold course. The next eight months could define America's future for the next eight years. So today we say to campaigns in both parties, and to the press who cover them: The horserace, the money chase, and the in-your-face can wait. Let's turn the next year into the "ideas primary" instead. (Applause.)
For our part, over the next few months, the DLC will hold a series of idea forums around the country with governors and stated leaders and other dynamic decision-makers to shine a light on the major challenges we face and the new answers we have to offer. The message of these forums will be that ideas matter most, and every voter in every state has a right to know what their next president will actually do.
To advance this cause, we will launch a new website, www.IdeasPrimary.com, which will serve as a clearinghouse for new policy proposals throughout the 2008 campaign. We'll keep track of ideas the candidates put forward, offer plenty of our own, and invite elected officials and experts from around the country to weigh in on what is working, what's not working, and how to make things work that are broken. The Web is rife with advice on political tactics, but we believe the Internet has far greater potential to be an online laboratory of ideas.
To kick off this "ideas primary," let me offer a few quick ideas right now. As DLC chair, I will devote my efforts to six challenges: one, keeping America safe; two, giving Americans the tools to compete, regardless of where they live and what their parents do for a living; holding government accountable for results; creating a hybrid economy; promoting family and values; and ending poverty for all who work eight hours a day, if not more. (Applause.)
To keeping America safe we've got to lead America -- to lead America in a dangerous world, we must be more than an anti-Bush, anti-Iraq, anti-party, anti-war-minded people. Democrats have a responsibility to offer what America and the world will need to rebound from the Bush years: a positive plan, a serious plan, a forward-looking plan to combat Islamist fanaticism, prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction, stabilize weak and failing states, and protect people in places like Darfur against mass murder. Where this administration divided our friends and united our enemies, Democrats must renew our strategic alliances and modernize old institutions to fight the new battles against terrorism, proliferation, and genocide and hopelessness.
First, we must rebuild the oldest institution on which our national security rests: America's armed forces. Iraq is not the last war America may have to fight. If we find ourselves in war again -- I hope we don't -- we must not abandon America's soldiers as this administration too often has done, and sometimes it appears they don't even know they have done. We need a new army -- bigger, stronger, and certain that it will always go to battle with the armor it deserves and come home to the heroes' welcomes it has earned. We should give the new army the soldiers it needs so Guardsmen and Reservists aren't forced to serve endless tours they didn't sign up for. We should ensure that the ROTC can recruit on every college campus, and pass a new GI bill of rights to guarantee every soldier and veteran the true thanks of a grateful nation. (Applause.)
As the 2008 presidential debate begins in earnest, it's time for Democrats to look beyond Iraq and offer our own positive plan for defeating extremism. As Harry Truman and President Kennedy understood, and the current administration does not, the only way to win a battle of ideas is to have better ideas. We need a smarter strategy to defeat and discredit jihadist extremism and strengthen Muslim moderates and reformers. Our strategy should draw on all America's might -- our dynamic economy, a smart diplomacy, and the moral example of a thriving, multiethnic democracy. America should lead the way in launching a Greater Middle East prosperity plan to spur investment and growth in the world's most dangerous region and bring it into the world trading system. We need to tap the talents of Muslim Americans to tell our country's story and challenge fanatics who murder innocents in the name of Islam. And we need a patient, peaceful plan to support Muslim aspirations for greater individual liberty and democracy, even if that puts us at odds with friendly autocrats.
As progressive internationalists, we should push to reinvent collective security for the 21st century. Every crisis shouldn't come down to a choice between unilateral U.S. action or a United Nations that doesn't have the strength or coherence to intervene. If an expanded and reformed United Nations Security Council can't or won't do the job, we'll have to look for another forum, such as a worldwide democracy coalition.
Finally, in recognition of the great sacrifices of families, war-fighters and soldiers, to show the world what we're made of, we should give all Americans the chance to serve their country. Since 9/11, citizens of every age and of every background have yearned to do more for America. We should dramatically expand Americans' opportunities to serve by expanding AmeriCorps, the Peace Corps, Experience Corps, and state-based Civilian Defense Corps. And we should make service universal by asking every young American to perform three months of civilian service by the age of 25. (Applause.)
To be strong in the world, we must be strong at home. The change occurring around us is fast and enormous. It is probably not wise or smart of us to believe that we can stop change, but we certainly can adjust to it. My friend Governor O'Malley said it so well when he said, "Ideas are the renewable fuel of this great economy." He couldn't be more right. It's time for a new social contract that gives Americans the tools to compete and take charge of our own economic security.
We need a national strategy not only to compete but to win in this global economy. To start, we need to provide universal health care and universal college and lifelong education. The current president has ignored both needs, but the next president can make both happen. We can cut the costs of health care by modernizing our system, reforming it to reward results instead of procedures, and holding down chronic costs and curing chronic disease. With the money we save, we can achieve universal health care built on universal responsibility. Government should be responsible for making sure everyone can afford health care; people should be responsible for making sure their families are covered; and the health care system responsible for delivering affordable and reliable results.
We also need a new sense of responsibility, as Senator Carper knows, in education as well. There was a time when the U.S. ranked first in the world in the percentage of young people with college degrees. Now we've fallen to seventh. You can't be the greatest and strongest. You can't claim to want to serve as an inspiration, as an example for the world when you are moving in that direction when it comes to acquiring knowledge, building jobs and strengthening your economy. When young people give up on themselves, it's really America giving up on herself. That has to change. And if there is any organization, not only within our party, but any organization in this country equipped to do it, it is ours, this party and this leadership council.
It's my hope that we can find ways to provide young people even with savings and asset growth opportunities. It's amazing to me; we have a $400 billion system in this country that ensures people can make it from month to month when they lack health care, food, or housing. Secretary Glickman, we don't have a system in place to ensure that poor, hard-working people trying to punch a ticket to gain the middle class also have a way to save and build assets and build growth. As great and as strong and as vibrant as our economy is today, some just don't feel right about it because some people are doing extraordinarily well, and I applaud them and wish them the very best, but it just doesn't seem right that the prosperity circle has been closed. We in this party and in this leadership council have an obligation and responsibility to put forth plans that will allow everyone a chance, everyone an opportunity to build the skill set and the asset set needed to live the American dream
Today we need also to scrap this old, bloated system of subsidizing banks to offer student loans, and to use the savings to help states make college free for any young person willing to work or serve. I love basketball. I've been watching the NCAA tournament, and it amazes me how many kids are good at playing basketball. These schools you never heard of have kids that can do all kinds of things that the kids at the schools we have heard of can do. I've got to think, if these schools can find these kids, we ought to be able to find chemists and biologists, we ought to be able to find teachers and pastors; we ought to be able to find nonprofit workers in these little rural areas in Georgia and Texas, these little rural areas in Tennessee and Alabama and Florida where they catch footballs well and they dunk basketballs good and they throw fast balls faster than we ever saw. There are kids who want to do all these things; it's our obligation, if we're serious about sustaining our growth and ensuring that America has the tools to compete, that we give every young person that chance and that opportunity. (Applause.)
The thing this organization is probably known best for with this former president of ours is that we balanced the budget. When I grew up here, my daddy was in Congress. I used to run around this place, and I remember people used to say all the time, Democrats want to tax and spend, can't be trusted with your money. My, my, my -- (laughter) -- the Lord works in mysterious ways. How things have changed. We find ourselves now taking an enormous, if not complete and total departure, from the discipline imposed not just by this organization, this president, but demanded by the American people. You can't and shouldn't expect it to be much for people to ask that we treat our books like they have to treat theirs. If you're sitting around you table -- as the front page of The New York Times tells us today, a family in Newark is about to have to move out of their home and move back in with their parents -- they're in their mid-40s -- because they can't make their mortgage payments. If they have to make ends meet, then we ought to have to do it here.
Whether you're a Democrat or Republican, we ought to demand that of any leader. I don't care if there's a "D" next to his or her name or an "R" next to his or her name. One of the great legacies of this organization was to put our financial house back in order and give this country the tools to look ahead and to look forward. We have to hold this government, regardless of who is in charge, accountable for what they do and how they do it. We know what has happened over the last six years, but now we have an opportunity to lead, and I hope all my friends here, including my congressional friends who had to go vote, that they understand the country is counting on them. And as chairman of this organization, working with Bruce Reed, who was so instrumental in helping this past president, and even Will Marshall, in ensuring that we stayed on path, I promise you we will do everything to ensure that even this new majority, our friends, don't allow this bureaucracy to balloon, don't allow this deficit to grow, and that they indeed live up to what we promised in this campaign, which is not to saddle a new generation of Americans with our silliness, with our greed, and with our inability to balance the budget.
In addition, we've got to get rid of some of these Bush boondoggles. We can start by cutting the number of federal contractors by 750,000; cutting the number of political appointees by half; and breaking up the mammoth Department of Homeland Security, which is too bloated to manage, too open for business to trust, and just too doggone big to fix. Now that Congress has restored pay-go rules, we should crack down on wasteful corporate subsidies, so that Washington is an example and model of fiscal discipline, not a cash machine for small, narrow, powerful interests. We must reform the political system by creating a democracy endowment to finance federal campaigns and end the partisan manipulation of congressional districts. My friend John Tanner would be proud I included that. (Laughter.)
After an administration that has larded the tax system with special breaks for those who need them least, we must take the lead in passing tax reform that rewards work just as much, if not more so, than wealth. We must take the lead in ensuring that a progressive tax code is restored once again. And even though the deep fiscal hole this administration has dug will make it harder to strengthen Social Security and Medicare for the long term, we owe it to ourselves to be honest about this debate. We owe it to our children to be candid and frank about the real choices before us, even if it means making some in our own party uncomfortable as we talk about it, we owe it to children and to everything we stand for as a party to talk about this honestly and forthrightly.
Fourth, it doesn't make much sense to try to fight a war and pay for both sides at the same time. I haven't quite figured that out. I'm not very bright -- graduated from a lower-league Ivy League school -- I'd like to think it was a good one in Penn -- and I went to law school, but I can't quite figure out how you keep buying gas, sending money to the people who are financing the people who are fighting the kids over there and expect to win the war. (Laughter.) It's an enormous test that we're taking, and no one has ever passed it.
I was in Austin, Texas yesterday speaking at the University of Texas. Their mayor down there and their power company has done some amazing things. It's been written about by national columnists. It's on the front page of The Wall Street Journal a couple of days ago. They figured out how to harness and take wind power when the wind blows greater at night time and use it to fuel their cars and even to provide energy -- furnish energy back to their power company, which the people in the city own. They took an existing technology and thought long and hard and creatively about how to use it. That's what happens when people sit around a table and want to solve problems. That's what happens when we bring our best ideas and, should say, best people to the table.
We need to usher in a new hybrid economy that will make new energy technologies our greatest source of new jobs in the next decade. First, we should set a goal that every American household can own a hybrid car or its equivalent by the year 2015, and do whatever it takes to make sure that those hybrids are made here in America, not somewhere else. Second, Al Gore is right: we need to cap carbon now. We need to create a market in clean energy with a cap-and-trade system that raises the cost of burning and emitting carbon, and establish a new tailpipe trading system to increase the fuel efficiency of American autos. Third, we should use this year's farm bill to phase out subsidies for wealthy farmers, and create a new system of energy subsidies that reward small farmers for new, renewable energy sources instead.
For the life of me, I hadn't quite understood why even our own president -- well, I guess I can understand, but I don't understand why he's unwilling, our president, to bring Steve Jobs, who keeps making those iPods smaller and smaller; Bill Gates, who has figured out how to make things go faster; Larry Ellison -- they're all in competition and Berkshire Hathaway men -- brought together, bring them all to the White House and say, we've got two big problems you've got to help me with. Number one, all this existing clean technology and green technology we have, tell me how we use it more efficiently. I'm giving you six months to convene the best engineers and scientists and thinkers on it. I won't pay you a dime. Second, the great challenge in Iraq is that our kids are walking past IEDs and these roadside bombs, Governor Carper, as you and I both know. That's how most of them are perishing and dying. You guys have got to come up with a system that can detect and detonate before our kids walk up one, because if he can make those things smaller and smaller, convince all of us to buy more and more of them, I trust he can convene a group of thinkers and leaders and engineers to think long and hard about developing a solution to this.
America is still the home to the greatest scientists, engineers and thinkers and entrepreneurs in the world. We ought to act like it. We ought to demand more from our leaders. If our leaders in finance can figure out how to engineer the most unbelievable deals that produce the most unbelievable yields, then I know if we challenge them to sit around and develop answers to the pressing challenges of the day, be they education, the environment, or war, they will respond as well.
In short, we need leadership, and that's what we hope to offer, not only with the idea forums over the next several weeks, but we hope the candidates on both sides of the aisle -- naturally we give a little favor to the Democrats, but we hope both parties will offer not the same old rhetoric, not the same old slogans, not the same old kind of campaigning, but give America a campaign that we deserve and a campaign that we want, a campaign deserving of Governor O'Malley's daughter's future, and every daughter and son in this country. And if and when we do that, not only will our party be a better place, America will be a better place, and the world will have a greater example to follow.
But the older our country gets, the more dependent we will be on this thriving new generation. In the decades to come, we need to make America the best place to raise children and the most pro-family nation on earth. We should reward parents for choosing to bet on America's future. Every parent should have access to three months of paid leave. Major employers should promise parents who leave to raise a child that their job will still be waiting for them any time over the next five years. And for kids' sake, we should bring the same enthusiasm we've shown in going after corporate polluters to going after companies responsible for bombarding children with cultural pollution.
I close on this.
We, this organization, also hope to foster conversation on ending poverty for anybody that goes to work. We debated whether we should say ending poverty for all or ending poverty as we know it today. I just think if you get up and go to work, you shouldn't live in poverty; you should have a chance to feed your kids, and your kids want to join a sports team, you ought to be able to at least afford one of the uniforms, at least a jersey or something, for your kids. Your kids get sick, you ought to have a little health insurance.
And we'll do it by keeping a simple promise -- in America, no one who works should be poor. We need to ask as much responsibility from poor fathers as we've asked of poor mothers. Every low-income father should have the opportunity to work, but also the responsibility to do so. We should launch a national campaign to cut teen pregnancy in half. Finally, we should take a great step forward toward a more equal society by passing the ASPIRE Act to give low- and middle-income couples Baby Bonds that will close the asset gap and provide their children the resources they need to make the most of their lives when they grow up.
And we ought to be able to address that Hurricane Katrina took the cover off something we didn't want to -- we kind of knew but didn't really want to see. And the real tragedy of it is it's still about as bad as it was before.
I'm always amazed that people who live in huge homes go down and come back and say, things are better -- (laughter) -- as they find themselves at their country club: things are getting better down there. People are homeless. People have no schools to attend. We refurbished the things that made sense for people to go down there and spend money, but regular people that just keep on living their lives day in and day out don't have a better life. We in this party and we in this organization and those of us who care about business in America, we have an obligation to them as well, for they have as great a claim on the country and the American dream as anyone else.
We must not forget what sets America apart as the greatest experiment in human history. Here in America, it shouldn't matter where you're born or what you look like, for all of us have the same dreams, and every one of us should have the chance to reach them -- to make the most of what God gave us and give our children a better future and a stronger country.
These are just a few ideas of what we in this organization and we in this party should do, not for us, but for all of us -- Republican, Democrat and independent alike. The next eight months will define what we look like over the next eight years. And I say to all who want to be a part of it, we welcome you to join this "idea primary." We welcome your ideas and your thoughts. And we challenge our candidates for president to do the same. Thank you, and God bless you.
