Dear ----,
Yesterday, I delivered a speech in New Hampshire where I laid out a transformational change agenda to guarantee universal health care, stop global warming, close the education gap, end poverty at home, and make America more secure through an historic effort to reduce poverty across the globe.
Today, I'm turning to you to help make that happen.
If you support this call for transformational change, I need your help to spread the word. I'm asking you to contribute whatever you can to help our campaign bring this message to voters in every corner of this nation and build a movement strong enough to get the job done:
http://johnedwards.com/r/7788/776654/Everything we do at home ripples around the world. And everything we do around the world affects us here at home. There is no such thing as just foreign policy anymore. In this new world the old incremental approach just doesn't cut it—we need to bold, daring, boundary-pushing change.
We need transformational change because there are still two Americas —one for the powerful and one for everybody else. Millions of middle class families are struggling and 37 million Americans are left in poverty. Yesterday, my call for change began with my plan to end poverty in America and secure the middle class by creating what I call the Working Society.
In the Working Society, we will reward work with a higher minimum wage, stronger labor laws, and tax credits for working families. We will offer affordable housing near good jobs and good schools, and create a million stepping-stone jobs for people who cannot find work on their own. We will help workers save for the future with new work bonds and affordable savings accounts. And we will end the scourge of poverty in America within 30 years.
We need transformational change to address the health care crisis that leaves 47 million Americans without any health insurance, and millions more with spiraling costs and dwindling coverage. So my plan guarantees truly universal health insurance to every American, while making it cheaper and easier for businesses to cover their employees and establishing the basic responsibility of every individual to get the coverage they need.
We need transformational change to address the education crisis that half a century after Brown v. Board of Education still yields an intolerable gap between the races and the rich and the poor. So I proposed a real investment to recruit, train, and support our national teacher corps. And I outlined a plan I call "College for Everyone" that will pay for the first year of college for any student in America who needs it and is willing to work part-time.
We need transformational change to stop global warming and create a new energy economy that helps fuel the growth of a secure middle class in the 21st century. By changing our energy infrastructure and investing in research, development and deployment of alternative energy technologies, we can create more than a million new jobs in America. We must set an example for the world by implementing a cap on carbon emissions and through dramatically increasing our national and individual energy efficiency.
This week, I announced our campaign will take the first step toward reducing our impact on global warming by going carbon neutral.
There's one other subject I talked about yesterday that is very important to me personally—and to the security of America. And that's global poverty.
Tackling global poverty is the right and moral thing to do. And it's also the smart thing to do for our security.
A great portion of a generation is being educated in madrassas run by militant extremists rather than in public schools. And as a result, thousands and thousands of young people who might once have aspired to be educated in America are being taught to hate America.
When you understand that, it suddenly becomes clear: Global poverty is not only a moral issue for the United States—it is a national security issue for the United States. If we solve it, we begin to create a world in which the ideologies of radical terrorism are overwhelmed by the values of education, democracy, and opportunity. Now that's transformational.
So yesterday I outlined my plan to tackle global poverty head on. We will launch a worldwide effort to bring primary education to every corner of the globe. We will invest in preventive health care through clean water and sanitation systems to give poor families a chance at healthy lives. We will provide the tools of local entrepreneurship and active citizenry that are the cornerstones of stable prosperity. And we will create a cabinet level position in the White House to elevate all our national efforts at eradicating poverty worldwide.
These plans may sound very big—and that's because they are. But we are a country built on our commitment to the biggest of ideas. We have never turned our back on progress, no matter how daunting. And we're not about to start.
Transformational change of this magnitude can happen, but it cannot come from one candidate or one president adopting a big vision. It only happens when an entire generation decides they are ready to fully realize their potential for greatness. It happened at our nation's founding. It happened when our parents and grandparents overcame the Great Depression and defeated the fascist-totalitarian juggernaut. And if you are willing to step forward, it can happen today.
http://johnedwards.com/r/7790/776654/Thank you,
John Edwards
Friday, March 16th, 2006
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