Sherrod Brown 2024
Rebuild America.
Announcement Speech
"It's great to be back home in Mansfield!
Y'know, there was a lot of people telling me to host this speech in Iowa or New Hampshire, or even Cleveland, but there's no place I'd rather make such an important announcement than in my birthtown, the 'Fun Center of Ohio,' as it's nicknamed.
Today, here in my birth city, Mansfield, and in the great state of Ohio – the buckeye state, the mother of Presidents, the birthplace of aviation, the heart of it all – I am proud to announce my candidacy for President of the United States of America.'Equality of opportunity… Jobs for those who can work… Security for those who need it… The ending of special privilege for the few… The preservation of civil liberties for all… a wider and constantly rising standard of living.' That is the promise of America. It's America's basic bargain, it was President Roosevelt's testament to our nation's unmatched aspiration. His legacy lifted up a nation and inspired presidents who followed.
And so, we embark on this journey together; to reclaim the basic bargain that built the largest middle class and the most prosperous nation on Earth. We come together because we believe that in America, your success shouldn’t be determined by the circumstances of your birth. If you’re willing to work hard, you should be able to have and maintain a good-paying job. If you’re willing to meet your responsibilities, you should be able to own a home, maybe start a business, give your children the chance to do even better - no matter who you are, or where you come from, or what you look like: that is the basic dignity of work.
We come together because our country had strayed from these basic values. Too many small businesses have shut down. Wages have stayed stagnant. Manufacturing has left our shores. A shrinking number of Americans did fantastically well, while most people struggled with falling incomes, rising costs, and slower job growth. It's time we took the mantle and begun the work of rebuilding America. Tonight, we create a vision for our country.
And we begin our message on one simple vision: rebuild America. To understand how we can do that, we have to realize who built America to begin with; and we built it together. We built railroads and highways, the Hoover Dam, the Golden Gate Bridge together. We instituted a minimum wage and worker safety laws together. Together, we touched the surface of the moon, unlocked the mystery of the atom, connected the world through our own science and imagination. We did these things together, not because they benefited any particular individual or group, but because they made us all richer. Because they gave us all opportunity. Because they moved us forward together, as one people, as one nation.
It's because I've seen the promise of America in my own life. My parents would have never dreamed that their son would be a U.S. Senator, let alone run for president. But for too many of our fellow Americans, the dream of progress and opportunity is being denied by the grind of an economy that funnels all the wealth to the top. During periods of great depressions and recessions, the middle class has continued to be beaten down repeatedly. Massive tax breaks given to the wealthy, borrowing money to pay for two endless wars, and falling incomes for middle class families. Wealth trickled up from the middle class to the rich. You know where we ended up.
But, as we have since our founding, Americans made a new beginning. You worked extra shifts, took second jobs, postponed home repairs… you figured out how to make it work. And now people are beginning to think about their future again – going to college, starting a business, buying a house, finally being able to put away something for retirement. Now is the time for millions of middle class working families to come together to revive that dream, to revitalize American democracy, to end the collapse of the American middle class and to make certain that our children and grandchildren are able to enjoy a quality of life that brings them health, prosperity, security and joy – and that once again makes the United States the leader in the world in economic prosperity for it's middle class.
We can live in a country where:
- we keep American jobs and industry here in America.
- the minimum wage is one people can live on.
- voting rights are extensively protected.
- workers have the freedom to organize for fair wages by repealing Taft- Hartley.
- childcare and college is affordable and universal.
- billionaires and millionaires don't control our democracy with tougher campaign finance laws.
- civil liberties are protected by repealing the so-called 'PATRIOT Act.'
- big banks cannot gamble with your money by re-implementing Glass- Steagall
- our infrastructure is no longer crumbling and re-invested in.
That is the nation we can build together, and I ask you to join me in this campaign to build a future that works for the hard working middle and lower class families. Today, I ask you on this wonderful day in Mansfield, Ohio, to join me on this journey. Thank you, Ohio, and god bless our country."
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