President Roosevelt assumed the presidency at a time when wealth in the United States was becoming more and more concentrated in the hands of a few robber barons, railroad tycoons and oil magnates.
It was the Gilded Age and it was made possible by a government that was willing to play along. But then President Roosevelt came along and devoted his presidency to busting trusts, breaking up monopolies, and doing everything in his power to give the American people a shot at the American dream again.
During Barack's formal remarks today, he laid out a vision for serious reform in our government.
We're more than a century after President Roosevelt went to great lengths to put government back in the hands of regular people, and, after six years of the current administration, we again need a president who sees government not as a tool to enrich well-connected friends and high-priced lobbyists, but as the defender of fairness and opportunity for everybody.
Barack's speech was incredibly well-received by the standing room only crowd. You can read the speech's full text by clicking here.
Among the crowd today was Robin, a Cedar Rapids resident who is fully convinced that Barack is the person our country needs at this important time in history. For her, he is the candidate who can get elected and bring significant change to Washington.
And to show her support, she's designed some t-shirts on her own! Check it out.
Once again, we've got more pictures from the event in our Flickr account. Also, there's an Iowa section on Flickr that has all our pictures from across the state. It's updated frequently so check back often!
You can read today's government reform speech after the jump.
It’s a pleasure to be here today. And it’s also fitting. Because I want to talk with you about an issue that was the life’s work of the man this school is named after.
When Theodore Roosevelt took office over a hundred years ago, he looked out on a country where wealth was becoming more concentrated in the hands of a few robber barons, railroad tycoons and oil magnates.
It was an era known as the Gilded Age, and it was made possible by a government that played along. From the politicians in Washington to the big city machines, it was a system that kept power and money and influence in the hands of the few while working folks found it harder and harder to earn a decent wage or work in a safe environment or get a day off once in awhile.
But Teddy Roosevelt wouldn’t play along. He devoted his presidency to busting trusts, breaking up monopolies, and doing his best to give the American people a shot at the American dream once more.
Over a century later, America needs this kind of leadership more than ever. We need a President who sees government not as a tool to enrich well-connected friends and high-priced lobbyists, but as the defender of fairness and opportunity for every American. That’s what this country has always been about, and that’s the kind of President I intend to be.
We cannot settle for a second Gilded Age in America. But that’s what we’re seeing. We’re seeing a new economy where more wealth is in danger of falling into fewer hands; where the average CEO now earns more in one day than an average worker earns in an entire year; where Americans are struggling like never before to pay their medical bills, or their kids’ tuition, or high gas prices, all while the profits of the drug and insurance and oil industries have never been higher.
And once again, we are faced with a politics that makes all of this possible. In the last six years, our leaders have thrown open the doors of Congress and the White House to an army of Washington lobbyists who have turned our government into a game only they can afford to play – a game played on a field that’s no longer level, but rigged to always favor their own narrow agendas. Year after year after year, they stand in the way of our progress as a country. They stop us from addressing the issues that matter to people most.
Take health care. Over the last decade, the drug and insurance industries spent $1 billion in lobbying. And they got what they paid for – because their friends in Congress broke the rules and twisted arms to push through a prescription drug bill that actually made it illegal for our own government to negotiate with the pharmaceutical companies for cheaper drug prices. As a result, seniors on Medicare here in Iowa are paying 71 percent more for their drugs than veterans who get their prescriptions at the VA, and 47 percent more than those who buy drugs at Canadian pharmacies.
We’ve got to change that. It’s time we had a President who stood up to the drug and insurance industry and said enough is enough. When I am President, I will sign a universal health care bill by the end of my first term in office. It will cover every American, cut the cost of a typical family’s premiums by up to $2,500 a year, and finally make it legal for Medicare to bargain down the price of prescription drugs. We can do that.
But we all know that it’s not just the health care lobbyists we have to worry about. We’ve also got lobbyists in Washington who are blocking the rural reforms that you need here in Iowa. And their work is paying off. Rather than investing in family farms, our government is handing out subsidies to corporate mega-farms. Over the past decade, our government has handed out $1.3 billion in federal farm money to people who aren’t even farmers. We’ve got farm money going to Fortune 500 companies. And get this – we even have the Department of Agriculture paying more than a billion dollars to nearly 173,000 people who aren’t even alive.
That’s not just crazy, it’s wrong. It’s wrong when it’s become harder for family farms to turn a profit and easier for corporate mega-farms to buy them out. That’s wrong. We lose something that’s distinctly American when we lose our family farms. It’s time to turn the page and make the rural agenda America’s agenda. It’s time we had a government that understood it was the Department of Agriculture, not the Department of Agribusiness.
And when it comes to energy, it’s more of the same. When Dick Cheney was crafting our energy policy, he met with environmental groups once. He met with renewable energy folks once. And then he met with oil and gas companies 40 times. That’s wrong. We are at a moment when our economy, our security, and the very future of our planet depend on an energy policy that frees us from a dependence on oil. And yet, instead of having a government that stands up to the big oil companies, we have one that’s acting like one of their corporate subsidiaries.
It’s time to turn the page on this kind of politics. We have to start investing now in renewable energies like biofuels so we can wean ourselves off foreign oil and clean up our planet. That’s why I joined Senator Harkin this year in introducing a bill to increase biofuels in our national fuel supply and get half of all gas stations and all consumer vehicles to be E-85 compatible within a decade. And that’s why I’ve fought to enact the Renewable Fuels Standard so we can add more than 7 billion gallons of ethanol to our national gasoline pool
We can do these things. But if we are serious about having real change in this country, then we have to start putting America’s interests ahead of the special interests. We have to break the stranglehold that the lobbyists and special interests have on our democracy.
That’s why I have offered the most far-reaching ethics and lobbying reform plan of any candidate in this race. It’s a set of proposals that I will begin enacting on my very first day as President – a plan to make the White House the people’s house and send the Washington lobbyists back to K Street.
Now I know you’ve heard politicians make these promises before. And then they get to Washington and nothing happens. So it’s easy to be cynical.
But this isn’t just the rhetoric of a campaign for me, this has been the cause of my life. I’ve done it before, and I’ll do it again.
When I arrived in Springfield a decade ago as a state Senator, people said it was too hard to take on the issue of money in politics. Illinois actually had a law that allowed politicians to pocket the money in their campaign accounts for personal use; that allowed any lobbyist or special interest to shower lawmakers with unlimited gifts.
I knew that taking on this issue wouldn’t make me the most popular guy in town – or even in my own party. But I found folks on both sides of the aisle who were willing to listen, and we were finally able to pass the first major ethics reform in twenty-five years.
When I arrived in Washington eight years later, my party made me the point person on ethics, and I was determined to pass the strongest reform possible. The first time around, Congress came up with a watered-down version. And I was proud to vote against it.
So we came back the second time, and in our bill, we banned gifts and meals and put an end to subsidized travel on corporate jets. We made sure that the American people could see all the pet projects that lawmakers were trying to pass before they were voted on.
And we did something more. Over the objections of powerful voices in both parties, we made sure those lobbyists will have to disclose who they’re raising campaign money from, and who in Congress they’re funneling it to.
And as a candidate for President, I’ve tried to lead by example, and I’ve decided to run this race by turning down all contributions from federal lobbyists and the political action committees that the special interests use to pass out campaign money.
So I’ve done this before, and I will do it again when I become your President.
From the first day I take office, I will make it absolutely clear that working in an Obama Administration is not about serving your former employer, your future employer, or your bank account – it’s about serving your country, and that’s what comes first. When you walk into my administration, you will not be able to work on regulations or contracts directly related to your former employer for two years. And when you leave, you will not be able to lobby the Administration throughout the remainder of my term in office.
When it comes to hiring people in my administration, the litmus test we’ll apply will not be based on party or ideology or who’s traded the most favors, but on qualification and experience.
Under an Obama administration, we will also end the abuse of no-bid contracts. When our government gives Halliburton $7 billion in taxpayer dollars to put out Iraqi oil fires that don’t exist; when we hand over Katrina contracts to more of George Bush’s FEMA friends, it doesn’t just violate the American people’s trust, it takes away the tax dollars they’ve earned and the valuable services they need. It’s wrong, and when I am President, it will end.
We will return government to the people by bringing government to the people – by making it open and transparent so that anyone can see that our business is the people’s business. If there’s a bill waiting for my signature – or a meeting taking place with lobbyists – you’ll be able to go online and find out what it’s all about. Because the more transparency we can bring to how decisions are made, the less likely it is that those decisions will be hijacked by lobbyists and special interests.
Early in his presidency, Teddy Roosevelt gave a famous speech before farmers and factory workers that laid out his vision of what government at its best should be. He said, “The welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally upon the welfare of all of us, and therefore in public life, that man is the best representative...whose endeavor it is not to represent any special class or interest, but to represent all...by working for our common country.”
It’s time to get to work once more for our common country. It’s time we had a politics that reflected that commitment. And it’s time we had a President who can get it done. I look forward to being that President, and working with all of you to make this America happen. Thank you.
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