Thank you, thank you. It was wonderful to be back in South Carolina, back to the place where where I was born. I want to say first everyone here that I my wife Elizabeth her love to all of you and thank you for all your support for her. I want to begin today talking about an issue that I think is enormously important for America, and particularly important in South Carolina and North Carolina, where I live now. An issue that I was actually disappointed did not get discussed at any depth at the debate on Thursday night. And that's the issue of race and inequality in America. We have so much work to do, to try to bridge the gap between the two Americas that all of you have heard me talk about it in the past; those two Americas are alive and well today. On the day of the debate, when I came to South Carolina, I want to Allendale, walked the community, he is the living breathing example of the two Americas that I've talked about in the past, people who are struggling, people who are having a difficult time, good people with good will and good heart who want to do the right thing, who want to live in a world where they'll have the chance and their children have a real chance. And it is a fantasy to believe that race has not played a role in the two Americas we live in today because we all know that it has. All those decades of slavery, segregation and discrimination they've had in effect, they've had an impact. And we have work to do going forward to try to bridge this gap of inequity that exist in America today, but we can do it we can do it together, I am completely optimistic about what's possible even if in when I was in Allendale, the incredible spirit there, the belief in the communities, there's nothing they can't do if they don't try to do it together and work together with the inequality that exists in America though is not just based on race. Last year the top 300,000 income earners in America made more than the bottom 150 million. This is not okay, this is not healthy for America, this is not healthy for our democracy. We have got to bridge that gap and create one America where every one has a real chance. When people say to me why are you running from President of the United States I can say it one sentence, "I am running from President of the United States because I want everyone in America to have the same chances that I have had." It's pretty much that simple and that's the work that we have in front of us. So what do we do? First of all, we have 37 million people in this country who live in poverty everyday. Thirty-seven million people who wake up every single day worried about feeding and clothing their children. And no place understands that better than South Carolina. No place understands that better than this state where people have struggled, where communities have struggled, where jobs have left and communities have been devastated as a result. I did by the way, I didn't have to read this in a book, I didn't have to get told about it, I was here. I saw that happen, I saw the factories leaving, I saw the textile mills closing, I saw the impact that it had on communities here in South Carolina and in North Carolina and all across the South. And there is so much left to be done, but to those who say there is nothing we can do about millions of Americans who live in poverty, its not the truth, it's the great lie, it's the great myth. There is a great deal which can be done. And it says something about the character of our country, how we treat millions of our own people who wake up everyday literally, worried about survival. Let me talk about a few thing we can do. First of all, why don't we end the embarrassment of our national minimum wage and raise the minimum wage in America so that people who are working can support their families. How about if we make it easier, not harder for workers to organize themselves into unions so they have a voice, so that they can get decent pay, decent benefits? This is part of the path the strengthening and growing of the middle class in this country and lifting families out of poverty. How about if we make it easier not harder for kids to be able to go to college? We've seen billions of dollars taken out of the Federal Budget for financial aid for kids to be able to go to college, this is insanity, this makes absolutely no sense. What we've done is we've started in North Carolina - Eastern North Carolina in a relatively poor community, a plan called "College for everyone." And this is what we have said to the kids in that community. Graduate from school, qualify to go to college, commit that you work when you're in college, and we will help you pay for your tuition and books, very simple very straightforward. We want kids and we, by the way, it has been enormously successful, knocking down bureaucratic barriers, making it easier for kids to go to college. Now we've raised the money, I've raised the money privately to put this college for everyone into place. But this is something we could do every single place in America. Don't tell me there is nothing we can do about families living in poverty in this country. There is a great deal that we can do. And there is also a great deal that we can do to strengthen the middle class in America. We have a dysfunctional health care system in this country, completely dysfunctional. And I am I am proud of the fact that the- the other democratic candidates are talking about Universal Health Care, but I am also proud of the fact that I have a specific Universal Health Care Plan to actually put health care Universal Health Care in place in this country, this is what we do. This is what I believe America needs to do. We ought to say to our employers, you have to either cover your employees or you have to pay into a fund to provide for coverage. We are going to say to every single American, you can go into a health care market and choose the health care you want. You can get a private plan, or you can choose a government plan, Medicare Plus basically. We are going to subsidize the cost of heath insurance premiums for families up to just under a $100,000 of income a year. We are going to cover all the gaps in our health care system beginning with outlawing the idea of preexisting conditions; no pre-existing conditions in our health care system. We are going to cover the cracks in our health care system, mental health will be treated exactly the same as physical health, mental health parity. Chronic care, preventative care, long-term care, all covered. We are going to bring down the cost of health care for every single American, we are going to do it by making sure that people are covered from the time they are born until the time they die, they get on-going preventative care making use to mandate the use of technology, electronic record keeping, we got to bring down the administrative cost, $0.30 to $0.40 on every health care dollar in America doesn't go to health care. It goes to administrative cost. That has to change, we have bring those cost down. We're going to make it possible for you to take your health care plan with you from job to job to job, or if you get laid off, no more job law. And I am going to tell you the truth about everything I believe we need to do in this country. This plan costs 90 to a 100 and $20 billion a year and I'll pay for it by getting rid of Bush's tax cuts for people who make over $200,000 a year. But America has to be an example for good again. Do you think when they only ones who saw those pictures coming out on the Ninth Ward of New Orleans when the hurricane hit. The entire world saw it. The world needs to see America as an example for good again, as a force for good again. And that means we've got to deal with the great moral issues of our time; addressing poverty, ending poverty, I believe we can end poverty in the next 30 years in America. Making Universal Health Care available to every single man, woman and child in this country. And America needs to lead the way toward energy conservation, energy transformation and battling the issue of climate change, global warming. We can't keep waiting for somebody else to do this. We are four percent of the world's population; we emit 25 percent of the world's green house e gases. It's time to change. America has to be a force for good on all these issues. Here is what we are to do about energy and climate change. We ought to cap carbondioxide emissions in United States of America, we ought to ratchet that cap down, we ought to auction off below the cap, the right to emit any green house gases, that auction would generate $30-$40 billion, that money ought to be used to transform the way we use energy in America. Investment in clean renewable sources of energy, wind, solar, bio fuels. A billion dollars ought to go into developing clean technology, clean coal technology, carbon sequestration technology, a billion dollars ought to go to our auto makers so that America builds the most fuel efficient vehicles on the planet not having build somewhere else. Its not that we don't know what needs to be done, to lift families out of poverty, to strengthen the middle class in this country, we know what needs to be done. We need economic fairness, we need everybody in America to have a chance and I will tell you, I am proud of the fact that I grew up in small town rural America, small town rural Southern towns mill towns basically. And when I was in Allendale yesterday, I couldn't help but thank I am the candidate who has a real plan to restore and energize rural America. We cannot lose our rural way of life in this country, it's crucial that we have our ideas to build broad band technology out into the rural areas, to get capital into rural areas, to get our best teachers in to rural areas, we need a President of the United States who will stand up for economic fairness, who will stand up not just for urban America, which is very important because there are struggles going on everyday in urban America, but who also understands what's happening in rural America. The plight and the struggle that so many our small towns have with factories closing, with farmers family farmers having a difficult time and by the way the other thing we ought to do is we ought to stand up for family farmers, I guess this big multi national farming operations that are trying to take over farming in America so while we are doing all these things, changing the way we use energy, fighting climate change, standing up for the poor in America, strengthening the middle class in America, it's also important to for us to show the world who we are? To show the world needs to say our better angles because they have not seen that from us. What they believe and we all know what their perception is, is that America is a bully. And the only thing we care about is our own short term selfish interest. That has to change. We cannot be a leader in the world again unless the world sees us as a force for good. Our example at home matters, but also what we do in the other parts of the world matter. And the starting place the starting place is to end the bleeding sword that is the war in Iraq. America needs to be leaving Iraq. We need to withdraw 40 to 50,000 troops out of Iraq right now. We ought to continue the draw down combat troops out of Iraq over the course of the next slightly less than a year. We ought to be engaged into the Iranians and Syrians directly. And to helping stabilize Iraq to have an interest in the stable Iraq. But I want to say one word about what's happening right now. This is a historic moment; the congress has passed a Spending Bill to be set to the president with a time table for withdrawal from Iraq. The President of United States has said I am going to veto that bill. Listen, the leaders in the congress are following the will of the American people. Elections have consequences, the American people said loudly and clearly in this last election and this is what they said. They said we want a different course in Iraq. Our congressional leaders are mapping out a different course in Iraq. If the president of United States vetoes this Spending Bill it is George Bush who is now supporting the troops in Iraq. And if this President vetoes the bill if this President vetoes the bill I will tell you what the congress ought to do. They have to send him another bill with the time table to withdrawal and then they ought to send him another bill with the time table to withdrawal. They have to stand up strong, courageously and firm against this President this is not this is not about politics. This is about life and death. This is about war. And we need our leaders to show strength and courage at this point in our country's history. But it's not just Iraq. There is so much more than America needs to be doing. To demonstrate not only our strength and our strength is important, we have to stay strong economically, militarily, politically and there will always be and there are today, dangerous people and dangerous leaders in the world. But what we want to do is we want to isolate these people. We want to isolate them. We want to have the world rally around the United States of America as a leader. In order for that to happen we have to demonstrate our commitment to humanity. The world needs to see that we understand our responsibility. There are so many ways for us to do it. Today there is a genocide going on in Sudan, western Sudan in Darfur. 100s of 1000s of people have died at the hands of the Janjaweed militia supported by the Sudanese government, Sudanese governments engaged in genocide. Now just for a moment, think about this through the eyes of the world instead of through our eyes. You are the rest of the world, this is what you say. The most powerful nation on the planet has declared that a genocide is occurring. And then step back and watched it continue. What would you think of us? Today there will be 1000s of children born in Africa with AIDS. Why? Because their mother can't pay $4 for a dose medicine - $4. And the richest nation on the planet stands by and watches this happen. What would you think of us? We are better than this. The United States of America is better than this. We are not the country of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. The world needs to see who we really are. They need to see our humanity. And there is so much we can do. For example, one of things I suggested, suppose instead of spending $500 billion and counting in Iraq, America led an international effort to make primary school available to a 100 million children in the world who have no education whatsoever. In Africa, in the Muslim world, in Latin America, transformation it could literally change the way the world operates. Hope would be restored to so many of these young people. We could lead an effort to make clean drinking water, sanitation available, economic development in the third world, through macro finance. There are so many things that America could do to be a force for good. But the world needs to see that from us. They do. You know, we have made obviously Elizabeth and I have made a decision about what we want to spend our lives doing? We love this country. We love this country more than you can ever imagine. We have decided how we want to serve America. The problem is that we can't change America alone. We can't. To bring about the bold transformational change that this country needs is going to require you all of you. To strengthen America is not just in the Oval offices, to strengthen America is in this room right now, it's the American people, the incredible capacity of the American people company to do great things and we need you. Your country needs you, and it's time for the President of the United States to ask Americans to be patriotic about something other than war. It is time for all of us to join hands and make America what we are capable of being is what the greatest generation did. They didn't stay home and wait for their President to solve all their problems, they went out with strength and backbone and courage and they made America the country of the 20th century. Here is the question for all of us. Will we make America the country of the 21st century? That depends on all of us, every single one of us. The question I would ask you to ask yourselves is what are you willing to do? What are you willing to do? How much do you love this country? How much are you willing to serve her? Because if you want to live in a moral and just America and if you want to see America leading in moral and just world it's going to require you. And I want to say one last thing to all of you because the people in this room have worked tirelessly and courageously to strengthen the Democratic Party in the great state of South Carolina and while you are looking at a group of extraordinary candidates running for the democratic nomination for President, these are good people, really good people and I have enormous respect for the others who are running for president. But you got to be looking for differences. You have to look for differences. That's your responsibility. It's your responsibility in helping strengthen the Democratic Party here in the state of South Carolina. While you are looking for differences, I want to make a pledge to you today. Today personally to every single one of you, when I am the democratic nominee for the President of United States I will be back to South Carolina, I will campaign in South Carolina, I will compete in South Carolina and we will win the State of South Carolina for the Democratic Party in 2008 and we will win states all across the South. God bless you all, thank you for what you are doing and thank you for having been with me here today. Thank you all very much.
member. 
