Governor Martin O’Malley Remarks as Prepared for Delivery at the Wing Ding in Clear Lake, Iowa on August 14, 2015
CLEAR LAKE, IA—
His remarks, as prepared for delivery, are below:
INTRODUCTION
My name is Martin O’Malley.
I am a Democrat.
And I am running for President of the United States for one reason -- and one reason only -- and that is to rebuild the truth of the American Dream we share!
You and I are part of a living, self-creating mystery called the United States of America.
But the promise at the heart of that mystery is no abstraction.
It is the very real promise,...
It is the very real covenant between us as a people that wherever you start -- whatever your parent's zip code or income -- you start where you start, and through your own hard work, talent, and love of family, you can get ahead.
Call it an economy that works for all of us,...
Call it the American Dream.
Whatever you call it, the truth of the matter is that it worked well for most of our 240 years as a country,...
And it can work again!
Let me ask you a question -- how many of you firmly believe that you have enjoyed a better quality of life than your parents and grandparents?
Raise your hands....
Second question -- how many of you believe just as firmly that your children and grandchildren will enjoy a better quality of life than you have ....?
That is the most important question now at the center of our table of democracy.
From Clear Lake, Iowa to Manchester, New Hampshire, and all points in between – I hear the same concern voiced by American families everywhere.
Our economy should work for all of us, not just for a few us.
Wages should rise – not fall – with productivity.
No American child should go to bed every night hungry.
Earning a college degree shouldn't saddle a student -- or a whole generation of students -- with a life-time of crushing debt.
Our grandparents should live out their golden years in dignity, not in poverty.
These are all pillars of my 15 Goals to Rebuild the American Dream.
One by one.
Policy action, by policy action.
Each one reinforcing, and complementing the other.
Bold ideas.
Concrete plans.
Actions to make our country stronger.
To make the American Dream true again in the most important places in our country -- the kitchen tables of every American family.
How you campaign determines how you govern.
ACTION NOT WORDS
I am not the only candidate for President who holds progressive values,...
But I am the only candidate for President with fifteen years of executive experience -- as a big City Mayor and as a Governor -- turning those progressive values into actions.
Getting things done.
New leadership.
Action, not words.
In Baltimore, we saved lives by reducing record high violence to record lows; we fought to free thousands of our courageous neighbors from the scourge of drug addiction.
Actions, not words.
When I ran for Governor of Maryland, I set out bold goals. And I did something you’re not supposed to do in politics -- I put deadlines on those goals.
And I led my state forward to make nation-leading progress even in the face of a recession.
Instead of cutting public education funding, we increased funding for public education by 37%, and -- memo to Governor Branstad -- ...
We made our public schools the best public schools in America for five years in a row!
Actions, not words.
In Maryland, we defended the highest median income in the nation all through the recession and created jobs at a faster rate than our neighbors north and south.
Actions, not words.
We froze College tuition four years in a row to make college more affordable.
Actions, not words.
We passed a living wage, and we raised the minimum wage.
Actions, not words.
We expanded family leave and voting rights, we passed Driver’s licenses for New American immigrants, and we banned the sale of assault weapons.
Actions, not words.
We fought for the DREAM Act, we fought for Marriage Equality – and we won.
Actions, not words.
In tougher times than these, Franklin Roosevelt told us not to be afraid.
In changing times, John Kennedy told us to govern is to choose.
I say to you progress is choice.
Job creation is a choice.
Whether we give our children a future with less opportunity or a future of more opportunity, this, too, is a choice!
ECONOMY
As a nation, we have come a long way since the Wall Street crash and the Bush Recession of 2008.
As our country teetered on the brink of a second Great Depression, we elected Barack Obama to move our country forward, and that is exactly what he has done!
With 65 months in a row of positive job creation, our country is doing better; but most American families are not...
The hard truth of our times is this:
Seventy percent of us are now earning the same or less than we were 12 years ago – and that is the first time that has happened this side of World War II.
There is a growing injustice on our country -- an economic inequality that threatens to tear us apart.
Wealth and power have been so concentrated in the hands of so very few that it is actually taking opportunity out of the homes and the neighborhoods of the many.
This did not happen by accident.
Powerful, wealthy special interests have used our government to create -- in our own country -- an economy that is leaving a majority of our people behind.
The promise of the American Dream is on the ropes. Most days in this obstructionist Republican Congress, it's not even a fair fight.
My father went to college on the G.I. Bill because of a generous and far-seeing country.
Today, we are saddling our graduating kids and their families with more college debt than any developed nation on the planet.
Meanwhile -- as wages flatline or decline for most of us -- family-owned businesses and farms are finding it harder and harder to compete with the ever larger concentrations of corporate power and monopoly,....
Last year, Wall Street bonuses alone totaled twice what every American working at minimum wage earned combined.
Tell me how it is, that not a single Wall Street CEO was ever convicted of a single crime related to the 2008 economic meltdown. Not. A. Single. One.
What have we come to as a nation when you can get pulled over for a broken tail light in our country, but if you wreck the nation’s economy you are untouchable.
This is not the American Dream!
This is not how our economy is supposed to work!
This is not how our country is supposed to work!
THE AGENDA
We must return to our true selves.
And we must remember:
Our economy is not money, our economy is people – all our people.
A stronger middle class is not the consequence of economic growth – a stronger middle class is the cause of economic growth.
No American family who works hard and plays by the rules should have to raise their children in poverty?!
Therefore we must take action, together, to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour -- wherever and however we can!
We must return to the economic justice of paying overtime pay for overtime work!
We must make it easier – not harder -- for workers to join labor unions and collectively bargain for better wages for all of us!
We must advance the cause of paid family leave so that all women can participate more fully in the economic life of our nation -- because "when women succeed, America succeeds!"
This week, I put forward my 15 Goals to Rebuild the American Dream:
Improving the net median wealth of American families by at least $25,000 within ten years,..
Increasing wages by 4 percent a year within four years,
Cutting Youth Unemployment in half within 3 years,
Full employment for American veterans,
Instead of cutting Social Security, we must expand Social Security!
Do you want to make wages go up again for all Americans?
Then let's bring 11 million our neighbors out of the off-the-books, shaddow economy by passing comprehensive immigration reform!
The enduring symbol of our nation is not the barbed wire fence,... it is the Statue of Liberty.
Let's take the actions necessary to make a debt-free college degree a reality for every American family within five years!
Let's square our shoulders to the threat of Climate Change by moving America forward to a 100% clean electric energy supply by 2050, and create 5 million new jobs along the way!
We are standing on the threshold of a new era of American progress.
But together we must take the actions necessary to walk through that door!
To rebuild America’s cities and towns as places of justice and opportunity for all!
To invest in our infrastructure, rural broadband, and clean water!
To forge a new Foreign Policy of collaboration and engagement,...
New alliances with like-minded nations around the globe to reduce threats before our only options are military options,...
None of these things can be accomplished by words alone.
We must take action.
There are also a few things we need to stop doing -- as a Party and as a country -- … among them, giving a free pass to the bullies of Wall Street to work over Main Street.
We must reinstate Glass-Steagall; we must prosecute financial crimes.
And if a bank is too big to fail, too big to jail, and too big to manage, then it's too damn big, and it needs to be broken up before it breaks us up.
We must also stop sending American jobs and profits overseas with bad trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Many of us remember NAFTA. We traded away good manufacturing jobs like Maytag's in towns like Newton, and in return, we got back empty promises and empty pockets.
I am fundamentally and adamantly opposed -- as an American -- to secret trade deals that our Congress is forced to vote on before the rest of us are even allowed to read them!
It's not what other countries are doing to us. It is what we are not doing for ourselves!
We need to build up our own American economy!
THE REPUBLICAN PATH
Did you watch that Republican debate last week?
You didn’t hear one word about climate change. Or the minimum wage. Or voting rights. Not. One. Word.
You did hear talk of raising the retirement age for senior citizens while lowering taxes for billionaires.
You heard all sorts of hateful language about immigrants and denigrating language about women.
Your own Republican governor, Terry Branstad, has shown us the direction in which their party would take us. He cuts taxes for big corporations and then vetoes funding for public schools, saying your state can’t afford an investment in your own kids.
Welcome to today’s Republican Party.
Their party once had leaders and visionaries.
Lincoln asserted our unity and our common humanity.
Eisenhower liberated the world and built our nation’s highway system to connect us.
Now Republicans create traffic jams, denigrate New American immigrants and women, and dismiss everything from climate science to vaccines.
Give them a few more weeks and they’ll be shunning Copernicus,...
Our nation needs a new consensus, not new divisions.
Our country needs new leadership, not new hates.
And today -- for the progress of our nation -- that new leadership must come from the Democratic Party!
CONCLUSION
The poet laureate of the American Dream, Bruce Springsteen, once asked:
Is a dream a lie, if it don’t come true?…
Or is it something worse?
This election is not about the big banks.
It's not about big money taking over our politics.
It's about US -- U period. S period.
It is about whether we still have the goodness, the grit, the determination, and the compassion to forge a new consensus to rebuild the truth of the American Dream we share!
I believe we do, and I am betting you believe we do as well.
We are a good people,... We are a generous people.
We have only need of new leadership and a belief in one another to forge a new consensus for American progress.
You, here in Iowa, will all have a vital choice to make next year.
It is a choice that people will ask you about for years to come.
And so, after this election, when a child with a world of learning ahead asks who you voted for, I want you to tell them, “I voted for you.”
When you see a mom or dad sweating through another long shift in order to give their children a better future, I want you to tell them, “I voted for you.”
When you see a mom working away at two jobs to send her first son or daughter to college, I want you to tell her, “I voted for you.”
When you see a young mother or father searching for a decent job to feed their family and keep a roof over their children's head, I want you to tell them, I voted for you!
We are Democrats for good reasons.
Because ours is the party of the people.
Ours is the party of action.
Ours is the party for our children's better future.
And ours is the party that will rebuild the American Dream;
And make the promise real again for all Americans!
