"I want to thank my friend, Terry McAuliffe, who's doing a wonderful job as chair of the Democratic National Committee.
I grew up the son of a teamster and a milk truck driver in St. Louis. My mom was a secretary. Neither of them got through high school. But they worked hard and they gave me opportunity unlimited because they loved me and they wanted me to have that opportunity.
"When I was in the sixth grade, my principal, Ms. Thule, called my mother to the school. I think she thought I'd gotten in trouble. But she heard a message that she didn't expect to hear. Ms. Thule said that I should go to college. She asked my mother if she had been saving any money so that I could go to college. My mother said no. She said, 'You'd better start saving.'
"My mom came home that night — I'll never forget it — and she said, 'Dick, Ms. Thule thinks you ought to go to college.' Neither of my parents had been through high school — they didn't even think about that. And so my Mother and Dad started to save $5 a week, $10 or $20 a month, so I could go to college.
"With government loans, and working three jobs, and a church scholarship, I got to go to Northwestern University and the University of Michigan Law School. I got an opportunity to fulfill my potential. I did not do it on my own; I did it because I had a lot of help. We all need help. We all need help.
"Don't you think it's time we had a President in the White House of the United States of America who understood the life experience of ordinary Americans out there trying to give their kids help?
"In 1993, taking that value that I learned in my childhood to the House of Representatives, I worked with Bill Clinton and Al Gore to pass the budget, the first Clinton budget that got this economy back on track. We had faced years and years of deficits, slow growth; we had faced years and years of high interest rates and high inflation. And I worked with the President and the Vice President and our members in Congress to pass that budget. And it was tough to pass. We didn't get one Republican vote in the House. We didn't get one Republican vote in the Senate. But we got it done and it set off the greatest period of economic growth in the history of this country. We created 22 million new jobs. Do remember that? I do.I'm proud of that, and I'm proud of this party for doing that. I'm proud! I am proud of this party!
"And then here comes George W. Bush. We handed him the best economy in probably 50 years in this country, and in two short years, 24 months, he has turned every good fact on its head. We have the lowest amount of new homeownership in this country, we've had massive unemployment, we've had layoffs all over this country, growth is down. Don't look at your 401(k); you'll be mad and surprised if you do.
"This President — you know, there's an old saying: If you're handed lemons, try to turn it into lemonade. Well this President got a great big pitcher of lemonade and he's busy turning it into a lemon economy in this country.
"We need a new President who'll get us back to lemonade.
"But George Bush is not going to be easy to beat. This is a guy who came in second in the election and still figured out how to get in the Oval Office. Don't underestimate him.
"But let me tell you something. We can beat him. But we're going to beat him with our values and our ideas. My values are of that family that I grew up in, in St. Louis. And my ideas come from 26 years in the United States House of Representatives. I learned a lot of from those years. I learned what we can get done, and I learned what we couldn't get done. And I'm going to bring to this contest, which is a political contest, new ideas; innovative, bold ideas; different alternatives to the big challenges that our country faces. And I'm going tell you today some of those ideas.
"Before I start, I want to address the question of foreign policy in Iraq, because I know it's on everyone's mind. I believe we must disarm Saddam Hussein, and I'm proud that I wrote the resolution that helped lead the President to finally make his case to the United Nations.
"For all our military might, there are too many threats to our security, too many global challenges for America simply to go it alone. We need the friendship and we need the cooperation of our time-honored allies.
We need a President who will lead the world toward that consensus and will lead by real leadership and not merely trying to bully other nations into doing that.
"And I would be that kind of President.
"But let me tell you my ideas and how I hope to meet the domestic challenges that we face. I want us to solve the problem of getting everybody in this country covered with health insurance. It is a time-honored goal. It is something we have tried to do for years and years. I helped lead the fight for the Clinton health-care plan in 1994. I believed in that plan. I supported it. We could not get it done, and I learned from that experience.
"So, I have a new idea. It is not a government-run plan. It is not some new, big contraption that we can't pass. I can pass this plan. It gives tax credits and tax incentives to corporations to cover everybody in this country who works. It has help for the unemployed. It has help for people between ages 55 and 65 who don't yet qualify for Medicare. We can do this if we put our minds to it and make it happen.
"And let me tell you why I believe in it. In 1972 when our son Matt was two years old, he was diagnosed with cancer. The doctors told us he wouldn't live. Jane and I had a health-care plan through the law firm with which I worked. And we were lucky. Because of that plan, because of the great work of doctors and nurses, and because of the grace of God, my son lived. And he's 32 years old, and he introduced me in St. Louis two days ago. And I'm thrilled to have him alive.
"There was many a night I sat in that hospital with the parents of kids who had cancer who did not have health insurance. And I looked them in the eye, and they told me the terror that was in their life because they did not have health insurance and didn't know if they could afford the next treatment. I saw the terror in their eyes, and I will never forget it.
"Let me tell you something, folks. In the most powerful, richest country in the world, no one should live in terror because they think somebody's going to die because they don't have health insurance. We got to do this!
"My Mom is 95 years old. In fact, she's 95 today. When she was working, she had five jobs, which is often what happens to people today.
"And she got a little credit for a pension in each job, but it wound up she had one pension that paid her any money. I pay her bills now. She gets $42 a month from one job that she had. She didn't get enough credit in the other jobs to have that tacked together with the $42 she gets a month now.
"I don't think that's right. I don't think that's fair. I don't think that's moral.
"When I'm President, we will have a universal pension plan so that we'll tie together all those private pensions, so in addition to your Social Security, you'll get more than $42 a month.
"I want us to improve education. To do that, we got to help the local districts have better teachers. I know about this because I had great teachers in the public schools in St. Louis. And your education of your child depends on the quality of that teacher that's standing in front of 'em. There's nothing else that matters, really.
"My daughter, Kate, always wanted to be a teacher. She's 26 years old. When she was in college, she'd call me all the time and say, "Dad, should I really do this?" And finally I said, "Kate, why do you keep asking me this?" She said, "Because my classmates laugh at me because I'm not going to make any money." I said, "Kate, money's not what's important. What's important is in your heart, your passion." I said, "Be a teacher." She went ahead and did it. She got her first contract — $17,000 a year. She came home and she said, "Now, Dad, I know what they were laughing about." She lives with Jane and me. She's going to be living with us for as long as she's a teacher.
"How many Kates are we missing? How many Kates are we losing? I don't want to lose any more Kates. Our children need people like Kate, who are motivated and dedicated to do this because it's in their heart.
"When I'm President, we'll have a teacher corps based on the ROTC that we use for the military. We'll pay the college loans of kids who want to be teachers for five years. Don't you think that's important? Don't you think we ought to do that? Don't you think we ought to make that happen?
"And quickly, two additional ideas that I think are new, and I can pass. When I'm President, we not only need good teachers, we need good jobs that pay good wages.
"What's going on in this world is that because of all the free trade treaties that we've entered into, and many of them are important and necessary, we've got a race to the bottom going on in this world. We've got companies all over this world trying to go where there's the cheapest wages so they can make the most money.
"Well, let me tell you something. We not only need supply, we need demand. We need consumers that have money. And we need to treat people with dignity anywhere in this world who decide to work. I will go to the World Trade Organization, and I will ask and demand that we get an international variable minimum wage. We need to honor work anywhere that it's done in this world.
"And finally, we need to protect our environment and finally have a long-term energy program in this country that's worth its name. This President got up the other night in his State of the Union; he spent 30 seconds on hydrogen fuel cell cars. was even amazed that he knew what they were. I will — instead of giving it 30 seconds — I will give you a program that will actually convert this country to hydrogen fuel cell cars and we will, in 10 years, be energy independent! Don't you think it's time that we did that?
"I've thought a lot about this campaign and I've thought a lot about how I see the world as compared to the way George Bush sees the world. It ain't even close. And I figured it out. I see the world, and I suspect you see the world, as tied together. You see, we are all bound together, whether we like it or not. If you don't have health insurance, the truth is, all the rest of us who do probably are going to wind up paying for the health care that you get in an emergency room too late and not done effectively. The truth is, if your child doesn't get a good education, winds up in juvenile delinquency, maybe welfare, or worse, crime, all the rest of us are going to wind up paying the bills. We're tied together, whether you want to believe it or not.
"Martin Luther King said it best. He said: 'We're all tied together in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all of us indirectly.' At another time, he said, 'I can't be what I ought to be unless you can be what you ought to be.'
"George Bush sees it differently. He thinks we're all separate. If you can make it, survival of the fittest, that's great. If you can't, he doesn't think it makes any difference. Well, I do.
"That's why he rejects inclusive America, an inclusive America that embraces choice. That's why he rejects equal rights regardless of sexual orientation. That's why he rejects affirmative action.
"Let me tell you something, folks. We can't stand to be a country that does those kinds of things and doesn't understand that we're tied together.
"And my life is the greatest expression that we are tied together. I'm the son of a milk-truck driver. My mom was a secretary. They had no money. The most money my dad ever made was when he was that Teamster. His back gave out because he was hauling milk bottles up three stories to take it to people's houses.
"They gave me an education. We worked hard, but I got help from them and I got help from my community and I got help from my country. And I got the best education that you could get in this country. I have been majority leader and minority leader in the highest democratic institution in the history of the world, and I'm running for President of the United States. I did none of it on my own. I had help.
"I want to be a President in that Oval Office who, every day that I walk in that office, what I have in my heart and my mind is the aspirations and the dreams and the potential of people like me and families like mine. I want us to have a President who takes this country to higher heights, to live our dreams, to fulfill our potential. I want America to be even better than it's ever been.
"I will carry this message to every corner of America. And that is the country that we together will create.
"Thank you. God bless you. God bless America."