We believe that no matter where you come from or who your parents are, how much money you started with, opportunity should be yours if you're willing to reach for it and work for it. We believe that, while there are few guarantees in life, you should be able to count on a job that pays the bills -- health care when you need it, so you're not bankrupt when you get sick; a pension when you retire; an education for your children; making sure that they can go to college, even if you're not wealthy, so that they can fulfill their God-given potential.
We believe that if you live in the United States of America and you work, you should not want. You should never be hungry. You should never be homeless. You should never face a threat of poverty, ever. That's what we believe as Democrats. That's what we're fighting for in this election.
Poverty isn't an issue that's talked about on the news or in Washington. It's not always the kind of issue that polls well. But John Edwards decided to talk about it anyway. He decided to center his campaign around it. He came up with new ideas to solve it. He pushed the rest of us to talk about it and debate it. And he did it, not because it was popular, but because it was right. Well, it is still right. It is still worth debating. It is still worth talking about.
I moved to Chicago more than two decades ago to lift up neighborhoods that were devastated by joblessness and poverty when the local steel plants closed. And today, I can tell you that the fight I waged then, the fight that John is waging right now, will be a fight I carry into the White House for the next four years, because that fight is not done. It has not even been started by this White House. We're going to have to change things around, because we need to lift up every American out of poverty. That is one of the goals of the Democratic Party. That's what we're going to be fighting for.
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A few days ago, John announced that he'll be running a new campaign, a campaign to cut poverty in half over the next 10 years. Well today, as John indicated, I want to make sure that everybody knows that he will have a partner in that effort, because that is a goal that I will set as president of the United States of America.
We can do this. We can do this. We can make it so that if you want to work, you can find work. And then if you do work, you'll never want. We can start by ending the tax breaks we give to companies that ship jobs overseas and start giving them to companies that are investing in good jobs right here in the United States of America. We can create 5 million new green jobs, if we invest in renewable energy; 2 million jobs that will put people to work rebuilding our roads and our bridges laying broadband lines to stitch the entire country together on the Internet superhighway. And for those who have trouble finding work, we can invest in transitional job programs that get people a weekly paycheck and the skills they need to find a permanent job. We can do those things.
We can refuse to give more tax breaks to the wealthy few who don't need it and aren't even asking for it, and decide --
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And decide that the next tax bill signed by the next president will put money in the pockets of the working families who need it most, by expanding the earned income tax credit, a program that's lifted millions and millions of families out of poverty. We can help struggling Americans save to ensure that every single family as a free savings account that comes with a small nest egg, so that they don't spiral into bankruptcy because of an emergency or an accident. We can ensure that no working family is forced to live on the streets by offering more housing vouchers for families willing to work and willing to save. And we can build more affordable housing in good neighborhoods, where they can thrive and where they can succeed.
We can make sure that every child in America -- EMT, I think we may have had somebody who fainted. So if we've got somebody out there. Somebody want to catch this? Give them some water and give them some space. They'll be all right. EMT, they're right in front of me. Give them some space.
We can make sure that every child, no matter where they come from, no matter who they look like, have the chance to get a world-class education by investing in early childhood education to make sure that every child gets a good start in life. And I won't just talk about how great teachers are, because we're going to reward them for their greatness by giving them higher salaries and giving them more support. We'll invest in after-school programs and summer school programs for children who don't have anyplace to go when school is out. We'll make sure that they get the support they need.
And when they graduate from high school, we are going to be making absolutely sure that they can afford to go to college by giving them a $4,000 tuition credit, every student, every year, in exchange for community service; because young people want to give back to this country. We'll invest in them. They'll invest in America. Together, we're going to march this country forward. We can do that.
John Edwards and I both got into this race, because we believe in an America where it's always possible to change the way things are, to build a better tomorrow. This kind of change has never started in the halls of Washington. It starts on the streets, not from the top down, but from the bottom up. It happens because the American people choose to look past difference of race and region and class and religion and party to build one America, where everybody has a chance to succeed, where anybody can make it if they try.
And that was the central premise of this campaign. That was a bet that both John and I made when we started this campaign. That's why we both decided we wouldn't take PAC money. We wouldn't take money from federal registered lobbyists, because we don't believe that special interests should be dictating the agenda in Washington. You should be dictating the agenda in Washington. They have not funded our campaign. They will not run our White House [wait, did Obama just announce the ticket?]. And they will not drown us, the voice of American people when I'm president of the United States of America.
And John's absolutely right, that this campaign is not about me, and it's not about him. It's not about Hillary. It's not about John McCain. This campaign's about you. It's about your struggles. It's about your hopes. It's about your dreams.
It's about the guy I met in Marion, Indiana who had worked in the same plant for 20 years. His father had worked in the same plant before him. There was a period where they overlapped. They were both working in the same factory together. And he described the feeling when he was packing up that equipment, because the company was moving overseas, and how he wasn't just losing a paycheck. He wasn't just losing his health care and his benefits, eventually his home. He was losing a way of life. He was losing a sense of community. He was losing a sense of who he was. That's something that people all across Michigan have been feeling. The campaign's about him.
The campaign is about the young women I met in Iowa, who got three hours of sleep every night, because she had a sister with cerebral palsy. And so she was going to school full-time. She was determined to go to school and get her college degree. But she also had to take care of her sister. So she would work the night shift from 2:30 in the morning until 10 o'clock, and then go back and start school. She got three hours of sleep every night. And she didn't expect government to solve all her problems. All she was hoping for was maybe government could give her a little bit of a hand up -- help make sure her sister got decent health care; help make sure that she was able to afford to go to college.
The campaign's not about me. It's not about John or Hillary or McCain. It's about her. It's about every American who's worried about losing their home right now, because nobody was providing oversight and regulation when the mortgage lenders were offering a bunch of predatory loans. It's about all the Americans who have watched their wages and incomes decline, although they're working one job, two jobs, sometimes three jobs at the same time as the wealthiest Americans have never had it better. That's what this campaign's about.
And sometimes we lose sight of it. Sometimes we get so caught up in the competition and the egos and the ambition, we lose sight of why we do this. But that's why you're so important in this process, because you're the corrective to our politics. You are the folks who are going to hold us accountable. This election is the opportunity for you to make a declaration that we are a country that is going to come together, and finally solve problems, and set aside our differences, and put aside our gimmicks, and restore our values and our ideals.
This election's also about how we apply those values and ideas overseas, because since this war in Iraq started, we have lost our bearings. We have lost our focus. We have not gone after Al Qaida in Afghanistan, those who killed 3,000 Americans, with everything that we've got, because we've been distracted. We have seen thousands of lives lost, hundreds of billions of dollars spent -- money that we could have been spending rebuilding America.
And it has not made us more safe. And that's why I opposed this war in 2002; and that's why we will bring this work to an end in 2009; that's why we will close Guantanamo; that's why we will restore habeas corpus; that's why we will initiate diplomacy; that's why we will reach out to poor countries and help them build schools and public health infrastructure; that's why we will end the genocide in Darfur and respect our Constitution, because that's who we are as Americans; that's what we stand for; that's what this election is all about.
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This is the country that gave my grandfather a chance to go to college on the G.I. Bill when he came home from World War II; a country that gave him and my grandmother the chance to buy their first home with a loan from the government. And that is why we are going to make sure that not only are we training our troops properly and equipping them properly, and putting them on proper rotations, so that they are not seeing strains in their families; but we are also going to make sure that when they come home, we are treating them with the respect and dignity they deserve. No more homeless veterans; no more begging for disability payments; no more waiting in line for hours for the V.A. That's who we are -- the country that gave my grandparents an opportunity.
This is the country that made is possible for my mother, a single parent who had to go on food stamps at one point, to send my sister and me to the best schools that this country has to offer. This is the country that gave the son of a mill worker from Robbins, North Carolina the chance to be the first in his family to get a college education and to succeed beyond his wildest dreams. John Edwards hasn't forgotten what this country did for him. He hasn't forgotten what this country did for Elizabeth, what this country did for Michelle, what this country has done for me, what this country has done for you.
This isn't just the America of yesterday. This is the America of tomorrow, the America we can build in our future. This is the America we can build for that child in New Orleans, for that auto worker in Detroit, for that family sitting around the kitchen table trying to figure out how to pay the bills. This is our time to answer the call that so many generations have answered before, by insisting that by hard work, and by sacrifice, that the American dream will endure.
You know, we are going to have a choice in this election, because John McCain, as much as I honor his service, as much as I admire his heroism in battle, John McCain is offering eight more years of the same -- eight more years of a cramped vision about what's possible in America; eight more years of your-on-your-own politics; eight more years of a can't-do, won't-do, won't-even-try style of government. That's what John McCain is offering. That is the politics of the past. We are offering the politics of the future. We are tired of the politics of fear. We're going to offer the politics of hope.
And John is right. It will be hard. It is not going to be easy. Nothing ever is. And I know how hard it's going to be. I know how difficult change is, because I have fought on the streets as an organizer. I've fought in the courts, just like John fought as a lawyer. I have fought in the legislature. And I've won some, but I've lost some too; because the status quo resists; because people are afraid; because cynicism sometimes wins out.
But I am absolutely convinced that the American people are looking for something different this time. I'm convinced that they are feeling hope stirring in the face of adversity, that they are saying this time's going to be different -- the same hope that allowed the greatest generation to defeat fascism and lift itself up out of a great depression, the same hope that allowed civil rights workers to travel down South and brave adversity to help deliver freedom, the same hope that allowed women to win the right to vote, the same hope that allowed young people to bring an end to a war.
That hope is stirring all across America. And if you're willing to set down the cynicism and put down the fear and join John Edward and Barack Obama ... and Hillary Clinton and the Democrats, then I promise you, we will not just win this election. We will change the country, and we will change the world. God bless you, Grand Rapids. God bless America.