'It Is Time to Reach for the Next Dream'

We believe in the value of doing what's right for everyone in the American family. And that's the choice in this election.

We believe that what matters most is not narrow appeals masquerading as values, but the shared values that show the true face of America; not narrow values that divide us, but the shared values that unite us: family, faith, hard work, opportunity and responsibility for all, so that every child, every adult, every parent, every worker in America has an equal shot at living up to their God-given potential. That is the American dream and the American value.

What does it mean in America today when Dave McCune, a steelworker that I met in Canton, Ohio, saw his job sent overseas and the equipment in his factory was literally unbolted, crated up and shipped thousands of miles away, along with that job?

What does it mean when workers I've met have had to train their foreign replacements?

America can do better. And tonight we say: Help is on the way.

What does it mean when Mary Ann Knowles, a woman with breast cancer I met in New Hampshire, had to keep working day after day, right through her chemotherapy, no matter how sick she felt, because she was terrified of losing her family's health insurance?

America can do better, and help is on the way.

What does it mean when Deborah Kromins from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, works and she saves all her life, and finds out that her pension has disappeared into thin air and the executive who looted it has bailed out on a golden parachute?

America can do better, and help is on the way.

Help is on the way.

What does it mean when 25 percent of the children in Harlem have asthma because of air pollution?

We can do better, America can do better, and help is on the way.

What does it mean when people are huddled in blankets in the cold, sleeping in Lafayette Park, on the doorstep of the White House itself, and the number of families living in poverty has risen by 3 million in the last four years?

America can do better, and help is on the way.

So tonight we come here tonight to ask: Where is the conscience of our country?

I'll tell you where it is.

I'll tell you where it is. It's in rural and small-town America; it's in urban neighborhoods and the suburban main streets; it's alive in the people that I've met in every single part of this land. It's bursting in the hearts of Americans who are determined to give our values and our truth back to our country.

We value jobs that actually pay you more than the job that you lost. We value jobs where, when you put in a week's work, you can actually pay your bills, provide for your children, lift up the quality of your life.

We value an America where the middle class is not being squeezed, but doing better.

So here is our economic plan to build a stronger America: first, new incentives to revitalize manufacturing; second, investment in technology and innovation that will create the good-paying jobs of the future; third, close the tax loopholes that reward companies for shipping jobs overseas.

Instead, we will reward the companies that create and keep good-paying jobs right where they belong, in the good old U.S.A.

We value an America that exports products, not jobs. And we believe American workers should never have to subsidize the loss of their own job.

Next, we will trade, and we will compete in the world. But our plan calls for a fair playing field, because if you give the American worker a fair playing field, there's no one in the world that the American worker can't compete against.

And we're going to return to fiscal responsibility because it is the foundation of our economic strength. Our plan will cut the deficit in half in four years by ending tax giveaways that are nothing more than corporate welfare, and we will make government live by the rule that every family has to live by: Pay as you go.

And let me . . . Let me tell you what we won't do: We won't raise taxes on the middle class.

You've heard a lot of false charges about this in recent months. So let me say straight out what I will do as president: I will cut middle-class taxes. I will reduce the tax burden on small business. And I will roll back the tax cuts for the wealthiest individuals who make over $200,000 a year, so we can invest in health care, education and job creation.

Our education plan for a stronger America sets high standards and it demands accountability from parents, teachers and schools. It provides for smaller class sizes, and it treats teachers like the professionals that they are.

And it gives a tax credit to families for each and every year of college.

When I was a prosecutor, I met young kids who were in trouble, abandoned, all of them, by adults. And as president, I am determined that we stop being a nation content to spend $50,000 a year to send a young person to prison for the rest of their life, when we could invest $10,000 in Head Start, Early Start, Smart Start, a real start to the lives of our children.

And we value health care that's affordable and accessible for all Americans.

Since 2000, 4 million people have lost their health insurance. Millions more are struggling to afford it. You know what's happening.

Your premiums, your co-payments, your deductibles have all gone through the roof.

Our health care plan for a stronger America cracks down on the waste, and the greed and the abuse in our health care system, and it will save families $1,000 a year in premiums. You'll get to pick your own doctor. And patients and doctors, not insurance company bureaucrats, will make medical decisions.

Under our health care plan . . . Medicare will negotiate lower drug prices for seniors. And all Americans will be able to buy less expensive prescription drugs from countries like Canada.

The story of people struggling for health care is the story of so many Americans. But you know what? It's not the story of senators and members of Congress, because we give ourselves great health care, and you get the bill.