iNTELLiBOOK.net - Reclaiming the American Dream

Barack Obama

Reclaiming the American Dream - Unique document
[ABSTRACT by because]

It is a vision of America that's been exploited and encouraged by pundits and politicians who need this division to score points and win elections. But it is a vision of America that I am running for President to fundamentally reject - not because of a blind optimism I hold, but because of a story I've lived.

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I am standing here today because that dream was realized - because my grandfather got the chance to go to school on the GI Bill, buy a house through the Federal Housing Authority, and move his family west - all the way to Hawaii - where my mother would go to college and one day fall in love with a young student from Kenya.

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I am here because that dream made my parents' love possible, even then; because it meant that after my father left, when my mother struggled as a single parent, and even turned to food stamps for a time, she was still able to send my sister and me to the best schools in the country.

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And I'm here because years later, when I found my own love in a place far away called Chicago, she told me of a similar dream. Michelle grew up in a working-class family on the South Side during the 1960s. Her father had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at just thirty years old. And yet, every day of his life, even when he had to rely on a walker to get him there, Fraser Robinson went to work at the local water filtration plant while his wife stayed home with the children. And on that single salary, he was able to send Michelle and her brother to Princeton.

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That's why I can stand here and talk about how this country is more than a collection of Red States and Blue States - because my story could only happen in the United States.

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That's why I believe that we are not as divided as our politics suggests; that the dream we share is more powerful than the differences we have - because I am living proof of that ideal.

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When I am President, we'll stop giving tax breaks to companies who ship our jobs overseas, and I'll put a middle-class tax cut into the pockets of working families. This tax cut will be worth up to $1000 for a working family. We'll provide struggling homeowners some relief by giving them a tax credit that would cover ten percent of a family's mortgage interest payment every year. And we're also going to give seniors a break by eliminating income taxes for any retiree making less than $50,000 a year, because every single American should be able to retire with dignity and respect.

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In the face of war and depression; through great struggle and tremendous sacrifice, that is the future that my grandparents' generation forged for their children. It is why that little girl who was born at Fort Leavenworth could dream as big as the Kansas sky. And it is why I stand before you today - because there are two little girls I tuck in at night who deserve a world in which they can dream those same big dreams; in which they can have the same chances as any other child living any other place. It is a dream I share for your children and all of our children, and that is why it's American - always hoping, always reaching, always striving for that better day ahead. I hope you'll join me on that journey, and I thank you for welcoming me back to the place my family called home.

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