Transcript of a stump speech by Howard Dean at a fundraiser for PA Democratic Congressional Candidates Patrick Murphy and Chris Carney in Doylestown, PA October 12, 2006.
You know what is so fantastic, we really are gonna have change this time, you know 26 days is a lifetime in politics.
You have a lot of work to do and have gotta keep working and keep working.
One of the things that I am so proud of,is that we have, I think, after the primary season and all we have 20 veterans running for congress, All but one are Democrats. Let me tell you something about the new direction of the Democratic party and the new direction of this country. All but one of the veterans running, that have been in the military of course, running are Democrats.
I wanna just say a couple of things. You know, its easy to come here and talk about all the things that Republicans have done wrong-- and I will spend some time doing it-- but I really want to go over our our agenda. What can you expect from us if we win? Now if we win, which we are expecting we will, we are expecting to pick up some seats right here and get Allyson (Congress person Allyson Schwartz) a lot of seniority, not just a little seniority.
There will be some things that we want to do right away. We will still have a Republican president, frankly, not the most competent president we've ever had. But there are some things that we'll be able to do, one of them is some easy basic stuff. We ought to have an increase in minimum wage in this country. The Republicans have opposed it. The reason its important is because we value work in the Democratic party. But if you ask people to work really hard, they ought to be able to support their family with what they make.
One of the biggest problems with the Republicans in the administration is that they have no understanding of what it's like to work for a living. They really don't. Think of how hard people work and how much harder it is to get by. Every year that George Bush has been president, one million middle-class and working-class people have lost their health insurance every single year. We can't afford two more years without it because another two million people are gonna lose their health insurance. So by raising the minimum wage I know most people don't work-- live on minimum wage, but if we raise minimum wage that raises the wage scale for everybody and there is a imbalance in this country. People who contribute to the Republican have made millions of dollars in the past six years but the ordinary working people have seen their purchasing power erode by a thousand bucks. We are making less money today then we did than when george bush took office, we can change that by starting to raise the minimum wage.
The second thing is we need to clean up government, Washington is a mess. Jack abramoff, tom delay, now mark foley what these folks have done is put the interests of the Republican party ahead of the interests of the ordinary Americans and ahead of the interests of our kids.
To have a guy who is chasing around young kids is one thing, to have the Republican leadership decide that they ought to keep themselves quiet about that instead of protecting the kids, our first obligation is to be human beings and parents. Not to be congress people worried about our party. I give nancy calosy credit as soon as somebody was caught with their hand in the cookie jar she got him kicked off his committee and took a week to do it. I have yet to see even the president of the united states nobody takes responsibilty-- taking responsibility, taking responsibility is a military trait, and taking responsibility is something that politicians oughtta do in both parties and our party has done a far better job.(clapping)
We need real ethics legislation and the Democrats have said that they will pass. The other thing that I think we need to do, and we're not going to be able to everything, remember were going to have a Republican president who vetoed stem cell research who has run up this enormous deficit
the other thing I think we need to do is pass some kind of health care reform. I know that we are not going to have health care for every American with a Republican president, especially a rightwing Republican president, but there are some things we ought to do, I'd like to see us do what we did in my state id like to see the nation pass health care for everyone under 18 id like to make it 25.
It would be very inexpensive and easy to do because you could run it off the Medicaid program and would not have to invent a new fancy program for it . and I'd like to give george bush the opportunity to show that he really cares about our kids and young people and make sure that they all have health insurance. Now that doesn't doesn't solve the problem for everyone , but most of the people with no Health insurance are under 25 yrs old. If we could do that it would be fantastic.
I heard Joe seztak speak last night, an extraordinary story about his daughter who had brain cancer, and of course his dimwitted Republican opponent decided that meant he was a carpet bagger because he had her treated in Washington. To listen to Joe talk about this, he has universal health care because he is also in the military. Now this is something that military folks get because they serve are country, every American needs some sort of universal healthcare. The do it in thirty six other countries do , they ought to be doing it here. And the next two years, if we sin back the house and senate we ought to be able to put a bill like that on the presidents desk and challenge him to choose between his Republican interests and the interests of the ordinary American people.
There has been one president in the last forty years who has balanced the budget, only one, his name was William Jefferson Clinton he was a Democrat. You cannot trust the Republicans with your money. Borrow and spend, borrow and spend --the biggest deficits in the history of America. I saw a thing today the deficit is now 240 billion dollars. You know what it was when Bill Clinton was in office? There was no deficit. You cannot rely-- Republicans do not know how to handle money, it is just the honest truth. They've taken some, and put it in their own pocket. But you have got to have fiscally responsible people. And Patrick and Chris are fiscally responsible Democrats. They know that we are going to have to be tough on spending but they also know that balancing the budget in the long run leads to prosperity, it is not a coincidence that BC balanced the budget in the best ten years in our economy that we have had in the last century. Balancing the budget makes a difference we need fiscal responsibility we need to be fiscally conservative. The Democrats you can trust to do that, you can't trust the Republicans to do, it because they have been there for 6 years and they have spent us into oblivion, ten trillion dollars in national debt, we can do better then that in the strongest country on the face of the earth.
We need Jobs. We had jobs when Bill Clinton was president. We need to recreate those jobs and we can do that with new industry, energy independence, by creating jobs here in Pennsylvania using clean coal technologies of various kinds. By creating jobs all over the country in terms of solar and alternative energies of all kinds ethanol, and so forth and so on. The way to get jobs and keep jobs is to create industy that has to stay in America. Energy independence has to stay in America, we use 25% of the worlds energy and are only 5% of the worlds population.
We need an education system that works. You know they are running ads, I haven't seen the ads that they are running against you guys, but they are running ads saying that the Democrats will raise your taxes. The Republicans have already raised your property taxes more then you could ever imagine. No child left behind was an unfunded mandate that your schools have to pay for out of their property taxes. It is the Republicans that raise taxes.
You know what is so fantastic, we really are gonna have change this time, you know 26 days is a lifetime in politics.
You have a lot of work to do and have gotta keep working and keep working.
One of the things that I am so proud of,is that we have, I think, after the primary season and all we have 20 veterans running for congress, All but one are Democrats. Let me tell you something about the new direction of the Democratic party and the new direction of this country. All but one of the veterans running, that have been in the military of course, running are Democrats.
There will be some things that we want to do right away. We will still have a Republican president, frankly, not the most competent president we've ever had. But there are some things that we'll be able to do, one of them is some easy basic stuff. We ought to have an increase in minimum wage in this country. The Republicans have opposed it. The reason its important is because we value work in the Democratic party. But if you ask people to work really hard, they ought to be able to support their family with what they make.
One of the biggest problems with the Republicans in the administration is that they have no understanding of what it's like to work for a living. They really don't. Think of how hard people work and how much harder it is to get by. Every year that George Bush has been president, one million middle-class and working-class people have lost their health insurance every single year. We can't afford two more years without it because another two million people are gonna lose their health insurance. So by raising the minimum wage I know most people don't work-- live on minimum wage, but if we raise minimum wage that raises the wage scale for everybody and there is a imbalance in this country. People who contribute to the Republican have made millions of dollars in the past six years but the ordinary working people have seen their purchasing power erode by a thousand bucks. We are making less money today then we did than when george bush took office, we can change that by starting to raise the minimum wage.
The second thing is we need to clean up government, Washington is a mess. Jack abramoff, tom delay, now mark foley what these folks have done is put the interests of the Republican party ahead of the interests of the ordinary Americans and ahead of the interests of our kids.
To have a guy who is chasing around young kids is one thing, to have the Republican leadership decide that they ought to keep themselves quiet about that instead of protecting the kids, our first obligation is to be human beings and parents. Not to be congress people worried about our party. I give nancy calosy credit as soon as somebody was caught with their hand in the cookie jar she got him kicked off his committee and took a week to do it. I have yet to see even the president of the united states nobody takes responsibilty-- taking responsibility, taking responsibility is a military trait, and taking responsibility is something that politicians oughtta do in both parties and our party has done a far better job.(clapping)
We need real ethics legislation and the Democrats have said that they will pass. The other thing that I think we need to do, and we're not going to be able to everything, remember were going to have a Republican president who vetoed stem cell research who has run up this enormous deficit
the other thing I think we need to do is pass some kind of health care reform. I know that we are not going to have health care for every American with a Republican president, especially a rightwing Republican president, but there are some things we ought to do, I'd like to see us do what we did in my state id like to see the nation pass health care for everyone under 18 id like to make it 25.
It would be very inexpensive and easy to do because you could run it off the Medicaid program and would not have to invent a new fancy program for it . and I'd like to give george bush the opportunity to show that he really cares about our kids and young people and make sure that they all have health insurance. Now that doesn't doesn't solve the problem for everyone , but most of the people with no Health insurance are under 25 yrs old. If we could do that it would be fantastic.
I heard Joe seztak speak last night, an extraordinary story about his daughter who had brain cancer, and of course his dimwitted Republican opponent decided that meant he was a carpet bagger because he had her treated in Washington. To listen to Joe talk about this, he has universal health care because he is also in the military. Now this is something that military folks get because they serve are country, every American needs some sort of universal healthcare. The do it in thirty six other countries do , they ought to be doing it here. And the next two years, if we sin back the house and senate we ought to be able to put a bill like that on the presidents desk and challenge him to choose between his Republican interests and the interests of the ordinary American people.
There has been one president in the last forty years who has balanced the budget, only one, his name was William Jefferson Clinton he was a Democrat. You cannot trust the Republicans with your money. Borrow and spend, borrow and spend --the biggest deficits in the history of America. I saw a thing today the deficit is now 240 billion dollars. You know what it was when Bill Clinton was in office? There was no deficit. You cannot rely-- Republicans do not know how to handle money, it is just the honest truth. They've taken some, and put it in their own pocket. But you have got to have fiscally responsible people. And Patrick and Chris are fiscally responsible Democrats. They know that we are going to have to be tough on spending but they also know that balancing the budget in the long run leads to prosperity, it is not a coincidence that BC balanced the budget in the best ten years in our economy that we have had in the last century. Balancing the budget makes a difference we need fiscal responsibility we need to be fiscally conservative. The Democrats you can trust to do that, you can't trust the Republicans to do, it because they have been there for 6 years and they have spent us into oblivion, ten trillion dollars in national debt, we can do better then that in the strongest country on the face of the earth.
We need Jobs. We had jobs when Bill Clinton was president. We need to recreate those jobs and we can do that with new industry, energy independence, by creating jobs here in Pennsylvania using clean coal technologies of various kinds. By creating jobs all over the country in terms of solar and alternative energies of all kinds ethanol, and so forth and so on. The way to get jobs and keep jobs is to create industy that has to stay in America. Energy independence has to stay in America, we use 25% of the worlds energy and are only 5% of the worlds population.
We need an education system that works. You know they are running ads, I haven't seen the ads that they are running against you guys, but they are running ads saying that the Democrats will raise your taxes. The Republicans have already raised your property taxes more then you could ever imagine. No child left behind was an unfunded mandate that your schools have to pay for out of their property taxes. It is the Republicans that raise taxes.
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