Our challenge now is to convince George Bush that there is a better way ahead in Iraq instead of continuing to sink deeper into the quagmire.
Here at home, but also for the sake of our future, in this rapidly globalizing world I strongly believe that our highest priority must be a world-class education for every American.
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As Democrats, we seek a future where America competes with others, not by lowering people's pay and outsourcing their jobs, but by raising their skills.
We must open new doors and new avenues for all Americans, make the most of their God-given talents and rekindle the fires of innovation in our society.
Universities and school boards cannot master the challenge alone. We need a national education strategy to assure that America can advance, not retreat, in the global economy in the years ahead.
I welcome the president's remarks today on improving our high schools, but it's clear that unless we fund the reforms under the No Child Left Behind Act for earlier grades and younger children, what we do in high school will matter far less.
We are past the point where we can afford only to talk the talk without walking the walk. It's time for the White House to realize that America cannot expand opportunity and embrace the future on a tin cup education budget.
The No Child Left Behind Act was a start, but only a start. We need to do more, much more to see that students are ready for college, can afford college and can graduate from college.
I propose that every child in America, upon reaching the eighth grade, be offered a contract. Let students sign it along with their parents and Uncle Sam.
The contract will state that, If you work hard, if you finish high school, are admitted to college, we will guarantee you the cost of earning a degree. Surely we have reached a stage in America where we can say it and mean it. Cost must never again be a bar to a college education.
We must also inspire renaissance in the study of math and science, because America today is losing out in these essential disciplines. Two major studies last month ranked America's students 29th in math among leading industrial nations. Over the last 30 years we have fallen from third to 15th in producing scientists and engineers. Incredibly, more than half of all graduate students in science and engineering in American colleges today are foreign students.
National standards in math and science have existed for more than a decade. We need to raise those standards to be competitive again with the international norms and work with every school to apply them in every classroom. We should encourage many more students to pursue advanced degrees in math and science. We should make tuition and graduate school free for needy students in those disciplines. And we should make undergraduate tuition free for any young person willing to serve as a math or science teacher in a public school for at least four years.
We need an economy that values work fairly, that puts the needs of families ahead of excess profits, an economy whose goal is growth with full employment and good jobs and good benefits for all.
To create good jobs for both today and tomorrow's economy, the private and public sector must work together toward specific goals.
We should reduce our dependence on foreign oil, not by drilling in the priceless Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, but by investing in clean energy.
We should invest in new schools and modernize old ones to make schools the pride of their communities again.
We should invest in research and development to pave the way for innovation and growth.
We should invest in broadband technology so that every home, every school, every business in America has easy and comprehensive access to the Internet.
We should invest in mass transit to reduce the pollution in our air and the congestion on our roads.
We should stop the non-scientific, pseudo-scientific, anti- scientific nonsense emanating from the right wing and start demanding immediate action to reduce global warming and prevent the catastrophic climate change that may be on our horizon now.
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We must not let the administration distort science and rewrite and manipulate scientific reports in other areas. We must not let it turn the Environmental Protection Agency into the Environmental Pollution Agency.
A progressive economy also recognize that Americans don't just want more, they want more of what matters in life, which is the American dream.
They want greater flexibility on the job, with more time for their families, more time for their children's schools, more time to volunteer in their communities and churches and synagogues and mosques. They want jobs that pay fairly and don't force them to work excessive hours without extra pay.
They want safe workplaces and the right to join with fellow employees to bargain for a fair workplace.
They want companies to stop marketing cigarettes and unhealthy foods to young Americans.
They want workplaces free from all forms of bigotry and discrimination, including discrimination against gay and lesbian Americans.
For too many Americans, an illness means a cruel choice between losing their job or neglecting their sick child or sick spouse at home.
I intend to introduce legislation early in the next Congress to end that cruelty. And I urge the Republican leadership to bring it to a vote on the Senate and House.
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I also propose that companies which create good jobs with good benefits should receive new tax advantages, because their mission is so important to our cause. But companies that choose not to do so, that ship jobs overseas, should be denied those new incentives.
In addition, we must act at long last to raise the federal minimum wage. Overwhelming numbers of our citizens in Nevada and Florida showed the way last November by voting for a higher minimum wage in their states. It's time for the Republican Party to stop obstructing action by Congress and raise the minimum wage for all employees across the nation.
We must do more to reduce poverty. It is shameful that in America today, the richest and the most powerful nation on Earth, nearly a fifth of all children go to bed hungry at night, because their parents are working full time and still can't make ends meet.
For the millions who can't find work and the millions more unable to work at all we need a strong safety net.
Social Security is fundamental to the integrity of that safety net. Never before, until now, has any president, Republican or Democrat, attacked the basic guarantee of Social Security.
Yet President Bush is talking, not just about a cut, but an incredible 33 percent cut.
We must oppose it, and we will defeat it. We will not let any president turn the American dream into a nightmare for senior citizens and a bonanza for Wall Street.
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The biggest threat to Social Security today is not the retirement of the baby boomers, it's George Bush and the Republican Party.
