M******e
发帖数: 1193 | 1 Good evening.
How great it is to be with you tonight.
Let me begin by thanking the hundreds of thousands of Americans who actively
participated in our campaign as volunteers. Let me thank the 2 1/2 million
Americans who helped fund our campaign with an unprecedented 8 million
individual campaign contributions – averaging $27 a piece. Let me thank the
13 million Americans who voted for the political revolution, giving us the
1,846 pledged delegates here tonight – 46 percent of the total. And
delegates: Thank you for being here, and for all the work you’ve done. I
look forward to your votes during the roll call on Tuesday night.
And let me offer a special thanks to the people of my own state of Vermont
who have sustained me and supported me as a mayor, congressman, senator and
presidential candidate. And to my family – my wife Jane, four kids and
seven grandchildren –thank you very much for your love and hard work on
this campaign.
I understand that many people here in this convention hall and around the
country are disappointed about the final results of the nominating process.
I think it’s fair to say that no one is more disappointed than I am. But to
all of our supporters – here and around the country – I hope you take
enormous pride in the historical accomplishments we have achieved.
Together, my friends, we have begun a political revolution to transform
America and that revolution – our revolution – continues. Election days
come and go. But the struggle of the people to create a government which
represents all of us and not just the 1 percent – a government based on the
principles of economic, social, racial and environmental justice – that
struggle continues. And I look forward to being part of that struggle with
you.
Let me be as clear as I can be. This election is not about, and has never
been about, Hillary Clinton, or Donald Trump, or Bernie Sanders or any of
the other candidates who sought the presidency. This election is not about
political gossip. It’s not about polls. It’s not about campaign strategy.
It’s not about fundraising. It’s not about all the things the media spends
so much time discussing.
This election is about – and must be about – the needs of the American
people and the kind of future we create for our children and grandchildren.
This election is about ending the 40-year decline of our middle class the
reality that 47 million men, women and children live in poverty. It is about
understanding that if we do not transform our economy, our younger
generation will likely have a lower standard of living then their parents.
This election is about ending the grotesque level of income and wealth
inequality that we currently experience, the worst it has been since 1928.
It is not moral, not acceptable and not sustainable that the top one-tenth
of one percent now own almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent, or
that the top 1 percent in recent years has earned 85 percent of all new
income. That is unacceptable. That must change.
This election is about remembering where we were 7 1/2 years ago when
President Obama came into office after eight years of Republican trickle-
down economics.
The Republicans want us to forget that as a result of the greed,
recklessness and illegal behavior on Wall Street, our economy was in the
worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Some 800,000 people a
month were losing their jobs. We were running up a record-breaking deficit
of $1.4 trillion and the world’s financial system was on the verge of
collapse.
We have come a long way in the last 7 1/2 years, and I thank President Obama
and Vice President Biden for their leadership in pulling us out of that
terrible recession.
Yes, we have made progress, but I think we can all agree that much, much
more needs to be done.
This election is about which candidate understands the real problems facing
this country and has offered real solutions – not just bombast, fear-
mongering, name-calling and divisiveness.
We need leadership in this country which will improve the lives of working
families, the children, the elderly, the sick and the poor. We need
leadership which brings our people together and makes us stronger – not
leadership which insults Latinos, Muslims, women, African-Americans and
veterans – and divides us up.
By these measures, any objective observer will conclude that – based on her
ideas and her leadership – Hillary Clinton must become the next president
of the United States. The choice is not even close.
This election is about a single mom I saw in Nevada who, with tears in her
eyes, told me that she was scared to death about the future because she and
her young daughter were not making it on the $10.45 an hour she was earning.
This election is about that woman and the millions of other workers in this
country who are struggling to survive on totally inadequate wages.
Hillary Clinton understands that if someone in America works 40 hours a week
, that person should not be living in poverty. She understands that we must
raise the minimum wage to a living wage. And she is determined to create
millions of new jobs by rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure – our roads
, bridges, water systems and wastewater plants.
But her opponent – Donald Trump – well, he has a very different view. He
does not support raising the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour – a
starvation wage. While Donald Trump believes in huge tax breaks for
billionaires, he believes that states should actually have the right to
lower the minimum wage below $7.25. What an outrage!
This election is about overturning Citizens United, one of the worst Supreme
Court decisions in the history of our country. That decision allows the
wealthiest people in America, like the billionaire Koch brothers, to spend
hundreds of millions of dollars buying elections and, in the process,
undermine American democracy.
Hillary Clinton will nominate justices to the Supreme Court who are prepared
to overturn Citizens United and end the movement toward oligarchy in this
country. Her Supreme Court appointments will also defend a woman’s right to
choose, workers’ rights, the rights of the LGBT community, the needs of
minorities and immigrants and the government’s ability to protect the
environment.
If you don’t believe this election is important, if you think you can sit
it out, take a moment to think about the Supreme Court justices that Donald
Trump would nominate and what that would mean to civil liberties, equal
rights and the future of our country.
This election is about the thousands of young people I have met who have
left college deeply in debt, and the many others who cannot afford to go to
college. During the primary campaign, Secretary Clinton and I both focused
on this issue but with different approaches. Recently, however, we have come
together on a proposal that will revolutionize higher education in America.
It will guarantee that the children of any family this country with an
annual income of $125,000 a year or less – 83 percent of our population –
will be able to go to a public college or university tuition free. That
proposal also substantially reduces student debt.
This election is about climate change, the greatest environmental crisis
facing our planet, and the need to leave this world in a way that is healthy
and habitable for our kids and future generations. Hillary Clinton is
listening to the scientists who tell us that – unless we act boldly and
transform our energy system in the very near future – there will be more
drought, more floods, more acidification of the oceans, more rising sea
levels. She understands that when we do that we can create hundreds of
thousands of good-paying jobs.
Donald Trump? Well, like most Republicans, he chooses to reject science. He
believes that climate change is a “hoax,” no need to address it. Hillary
Clinton understands that a president’s job is to worry about future
generations, not the short-term profits of the fossil fuel industry.
This campaign is about moving the United States toward universal health care
and reducing the number of people who are uninsured or under-insured.
Hillary Clinton wants to see that all Americans have the right to choose a
public option in their health care exchange. She believes that anyone 55
years or older should be able to opt in to Medicare and she wants to see
millions more Americans gain access to primary health care, dental care,
mental health counseling and low-cost prescription drugs through a major
expansion of community health centers.
And What is Donald Trump’s position on health care? No surprise there. Same
old, same old Republican contempt for working families. He wants to abolish
the Affordable Care Act, throw 20 million people off of the health
insurance they currently have and cut Medicaid for lower-income Americans.
Hillary Clinton also understands that millions of seniors, disabled vets and
others are struggling with the outrageously high cost of prescription drugs
and the fact that Americans pay the highest prices in the world for their
medicine. She knows that Medicare must negotiate drug prices with the
pharmaceutical industry and that drug companies should not be making
billions in profits while one in five Americans are unable to afford the
medicine they need. The greed of the drug companies must end.
This election is about the leadership we need to pass comprehensive
immigration reform and repair a broken criminal justice system. It’s about
making sure that young people in this country are in good schools and at
good jobs, not in jail cells. Hillary Clinton understands that we have to
invest in education and jobs for our young people, not more jails or
incarceration.
In these stressful times for our country, this election must be about
bringing our people together, not dividing us up. While Donald Trump is busy
insulting one group after another, Hillary Clinton understands that our
diversity is one of our greatest strengths. Yes. We become stronger when
black and white, Latino, Asian-American, Native American – all of us –
stand together. Yes. We become stronger when men and women, young and old,
gay and straight, native born and immigrant fight to create the kind of
country we all know we can become.
It is no secret that Hillary Clinton and I disagree on a number of issues.
That’s what this campaign has been about. That’s what democracy is about.
But I am happy to tell you that at the Democratic Platform Committee there
was a significant coming together between the two campaigns and we produced,
by far, the most progressive platform in the history of the Democratic
Party. Among many other strong provisions, the Democratic Party now calls
for breaking up the major financial institutions on Wall Street and the
passage of a 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act. It also calls for strong
opposition to job-killing free trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific
Partnership.
Our job now is to see that platform implemented by a Democratic Senate, a
Democratic House and a Hillary Clinton presidency – and I am going to do
everything I can to make that happen.
I have known Hillary Clinton for 25 years. I remember her as a great first
lady who broke precedent in terms of the role that a first lady was supposed
to play as she helped lead the fight for universal health care. I served
with her in the United States Senate and know her as a fierce advocate for
the rights of children.
Hillary Clinton will make an outstanding president and I am proud to stand
with her here tonight.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/full-bernie-sanders-dnc-speech-226187#ixzz4FTpbU8tj
Follow us: @politico on Twitter | Politico on Facebook | l**********3
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