Rules for florida debate on a resolution to impeach donald trump for abuse of power and obstruction of congress which the full house is expected to take up on wednesday. Colorado senator and democratic president ial candidate Michael Bennett visited the Edward M Kennedy institute for the u. S. Senate in boston to talk about his campaign and take questions from a noddy and of mostly High School Students. [inaudible conversations] hi, senator, how are you . Very nice to meet you, thank you for coming, nice to meet you. Come on in. Senator bennett will be joining us. Great. So. Have you had a chance . I have been next door. We have a school fullscale replica of the Senate Chamber which is where we will be today. We will walk you this way. A lot of our programs, we have a Senate Emerging module, an English High School students coming for the program today. A little hot water. That is the plan. A little reminder. This is dedicated. Can i have 99 people come up here, that would be useful. It traces the history of the senate and the nation, students coming in and learning about that. How the senate operates and down here we explain what the senate does or what separation of powers are. And the senate over time which has changed with the country in terms of additional states and everything and really unique to see the spaces the change, everyone loves to deck out when the first woman was elected. So it starts with the first every two years. Here we are. Senator kennedy right ovary there. So happy you are here. I was reading my memo. So excited. You honor us by being here. It is great. Absolutely. Thank you. [applause] good morning. I am so happy you all got here in the weather. I am vicki kennedy. On behalf of our executive director and the board of directors im so pleased to welcome you all to the Edward M Kennedy institute for the United States senate. This morning, special getting to the point program. It is always meaningful to have a United States senator visit us here and join us in our replica of the Senate Chamber here on Columbia Point in boston. It is especially meaningful to be joined by a candidate for the president ial nomination of his party and especially significant to have a United States senator here when such historic actions are taking place today on capitol hill. With a special shout out to the students, thank you for being here. When my late husband senator Edward Kennedy first contemplated the creation of this institute, more than 15 years ago, he had a list of things he wanted to accomplish. And the senate that he loved so much. Wanted to do in a handson experiential way. This replica of the United StatesSenate Chamber. And to walk onto the senate floor and feel what it was to be a senator, to feel the are and majesty in place and to remember the hard work and dedication of the men and women of goodwill, of both parties who came together to address the great challenges facing our nation. Even though he couldnt have anticipated at the time how much we would need it, he wanted this place to be a center that encouraged civil discourse. A place where citizens can come together to discuss tough issues and find a way when necessary to reach compromise and wanted this to be a place that we could hear and learn from and question our nations leaders about the most important issues of the day. He wanted to encourage active position in the democracy. And in the process to consider the next generation of leaders. Our featured speaker, senator Michael Bennet of colorado is one of our nations inspirational leaders and trust me when i say there is no greater complement that i could pay to everyone, that he is cut from the same cloth as ted kennedy. In 2009, my husband passed away in 2009, the service in the senate could overlap very briefly. In that short time, ted recognized Michael Bennetts leadership qualities, his pragmatism, his independence, his drive to create opportunity for the next generation. During the past ten years in the Senate Senator bennett has built a reputation, to take on dysfunction in dc. Like all great senators in history, he has reached across the aisle. Working with republicans and democrats to address our nations greatest challenges and developed a reputation, staff and colleagues, as someone who knows what he is talking about. A4 gracious reader who immerses himself in the issue, who prepares, who studies, who is constantly expanding his knowledge. Drawing on that knowledge senator bennett has offered innovative proposals to make education, healthcare, childcare and housing more affordable and accessible for working families. He has made Climate Change a top priority, helping farmers, ranchers and Rural Communities become more resilient to changing weather and investing in clean energy. As a member of the bipartisan gang of 8 he helped create comprehensive Immigration Reform that overwhelmingly passed the senate. It got stuck in the house. He worked to dramatically reform no child left behind, fasttrack the fda approval process for breakthrough medical treatment, conserve iconic public land, promote clean energy and crackdown on the illicit prescription of opioids. He also was central in crafting and passing the bipartisan farm bills in 20142018 which provided stability for farmers and ranchers. Before representing colorado in the senate Michael Bennett was a successful businessman and as superintendent of the Denver Public school, he led one of the most extensive Reform Efforts in the country resulting in substantial sustained academic improvement for denvers children. As anyone who has seen him in action as a senator or candidate can attest, he has a passion for issues relating to quality education and opportunity for young people and a drive to continue to make things better. As a president ial candidate he has been passionate and eloquent about providing opportunity to everyone to participate in the American Dream and restoring integrity to the government. I know you cant wait to hear him. I cant either. Please welcome him now to his seat. Colorado senator and candidate for the democratic nomination for president Michael Bennett. Please welcome Stephanie Murray from politico in massachusetts who will be here talking to him. Thank you for being here. Get to our conversation shortly, i will give senator bennett a chance to give some remarks and thank you for being here. I will be brief because i want to have a conversation with all of you. My name is Michael Bennett. I have been in the senate for ten years. You are sitting there, where i sit. Senator kennedys desk is right next to it. Thank you for having me. I cant tell you what it means to be here. I didnt know what it would mean to be here until i came into this room. Your husband was still on the senate. You were talking about it earlier, sitting at the desk, i had no idea what i was doing. I was sitting at the desk presiding over the United States senate. I had this huge commotion coming from this door, and to settle down, i was unsure of what i was doing. I looked over and what did i see but ted kennedy come through that door, and had cancer from it and came back for appear go for a vote. Dont remember what it was. His colleagues streamed across the floor to welcome him back. Never have i been glad her that i restrained myself. If i was gambling ted kennedy i would not be will to live with it. I will say by way of introduction i spent a lot of my life outside politics. The superintendent of Denver Public schools which is 95,000 kids in colorado, mostly kids in poverty. If i were to summarize the last 10 years of my townhall in colorado, a state that is one third republican, one third democratic and one third independent, people coming to visit my meetings and saying we are working really hard but we cant afford housing, cant afford healthcare, cant afford Higher Education for ourselves or our kids, Early Childhood education, we cant afford what we used to think of and i still think of as middleclass life. We cant say we are worried our kids are going to live a more diminished life than we lived. If i think about families in Denver Public schools not coming to my townhall because a lot of them are working 2 or 3 jobs to get by, if they did come what they would say as we are killing ourselves that no matter what we do we cant seem to get our kids out of poverty and that is an anecdotal reflection of an economy that the last 50 years or so has worked well for the people at the top. Sometimes we call them the top 10 . We have an Education System in America Today that is reinforcing that it incumbent equality instead of liberating children from it because the best predictor of the quality of the kidnapped education is their parents income. That is not the way this is supposed to work, it is not what ted kennedy fought for when he was in the senate. This is supposed to be country that if you work hard which almost everybody does you can lift your family and you can grow economically. I decided to run for president because i was really worried that if we spent another 10 years like the last 10 years my generation of americans would be the first generation of americans to leave less opportunity, not more, to the people coming after us. That is what ted kennedy fought for. That is what kennedys family fought for and that is what it means to be an american. You fight no matter what your job is, if you are a teacher or student or senator of the United States senate our job is to make sure the next generation has more opportunity than we had. I believe strongly that if we can pull ourselves together, unify our country, there is no reason we cant be the generation that leaves more opportunity than list of people coming after us and that is why im running for president. Im grateful youre here today. I look forward to your questions. I often say please ask me the questions you might not ask another politician because you are worried you might hurt their feelings. I was an urban School Superintendent for 5 years, you cannot they have been beaten out of me a long time ago. Please thanks for being here. Lets get started right away talking about something on the mind of a lot of americans which is impeachment. Seems like the impeachment trial will happen in the senate in january and im curious about your thinking on impeachment and how it might impact your candidacy, you might guess pulled off the trail before some early states. Whether i get pulled off the trail or not is not important because we have a constitutional obligation, the seats were occupying this morning is the jury in an impeachment trial, a vote to acquit or convict the president , it takes two thirds, the house has an impeachment proceeding that referred to the senate. It will be interesting to see if the majority leader, mitch mcconnell, who sits at that desk, it will be interesting to see whether he wants us there for a short time or long time. That is up to him and if he wants to put a lot of pain on the president ial candidate we will be there for a long time. Have you studied watergate . A little bit . Not in school, that is when we had the impeachment of Richard Nixon. I was a little younger than you are when that happened but i remembered really well and it was a dark time in American History with the vietnam war going on. We had a lot of divisions like we have political divisions today and that experience of having that impeachment actually was a victory in the end for the rule of law and a victory for the idea that nobody is above the law including the president of the United States in that case Richard Nixon and in this case donald trump has done some things that brought this on himself and we have to see as the process goes forward with the results are going to be but i hope it becomes an opportunity for us to reestablish to the American People why the rule of law is so important. It is a fancy way of saying no one is above the law. We are a nation of laws, not a nation of men or of women. It doesnt matter who you are, you are the same in the eyes of the law. That is the aspect of moving in a democracy like ours. Spend t days in New Hampshire and i will go place to place to place answering every question, taking whatever criticism anybody hasnt staying until the last question is answered. That is a style of campaigning i love. It is the way i am a senator at home and when we were passing the Affordable Care act ted kennedy and others in 20092010 when president obama was president were telling people dont have a townhall meeting because the tea party was going crazy and stuff. And sometimes it works in New Hampshire. Ted kennedys friend john mccain had a lot of success showing up in meeting after meeting after meeting and im trying to replicate that. You mentioned colorado. Do you see colorado as a swing state . I absolutely do. It is a purple state. Democrat or republican, it is challenging to be a senator from a state like that and i noticed it puts me in a different place than other people running for president. When you represent a state, a third, third, a third, you learn quickly that you need to say the same thing in the primary that you said in the general election and the same thing in urban parts of the state that you say in rural parts of the state because people are listening for whether you are pandering to them or not or if you are not sure about what to say. I noticed with other folks from very blue states they dont have to have the same discipline and a view that you can take one position to try to win the primary and another position to win the general election. It is fascinating to see that and it has taught me a little more about my colleagues in the senate and why we have differences because we do have differences based on the states we are from and the politics of the state. I would love to hear you talk more about that. Almost a year or so that folks have been in the race, a lot of conversations and on healthcare, medicare for all. Do you think a candidate espousing medicare for all can beat donald trump . I think it is going to be very hard. I wouldnt say they couldnt beat him but it creates a real challenge because medicare for all makes it illegal all insurance across the country, private insurance except for cosmetic insurance and it raises taxes by 31 trillion which is the equivalent of 70 of all revenue the federal government will collect over the next ten years so that is almost double the amount of taxes we are going to collect to take peoples private insurance away. I dont think that is going to happen. I believe really strongly that we should have a goal of ending poverty in this generation. That is a goal ted kennedy would have shared. I have a proposal called the American Family act that would cut childhood poverty in america in one year by 40 . It would end the 2 a day policy for kids and it would cost just 3 of what medicare would cost. My concern about medicare for all is less that we might lose the president ial election which i worry about, but that we could spend the next ten years fighting a losing battle for medicare for all instead of fighting a winning battle to end childhood poverty and deal with Climate Change both of which we have to do. Youve been in this race for quite some time. I was looking at photos i had on my computer, the first time i covered you in New Hampshire was back in march. That is the first time i won. Feel like a lifetime ago. What is missing in this race . What has been left out of the conversation that you feel democrats should have been talking about . The next generation of americans is what this race should be about. If we refocused on the next generation of americans, as a former School Superintendent i dont think the Democratic Party would be standing for free college for example. We would be standing for free preschool. We would be standing for what are we doing for the 70 of kids the graduate from high school and dont go to college so they can earn a living wage when they graduate from high school, not just a minimum wage. We would be standing to end childhood poverty instead of medicare for all. That is why i stayed in the race. I think we will be judged properly so on what we do for you guys. I was i can say it here. Former president of harvard not that long ago and i asked tell me about the political activity on her campus. She is not there anymore but she was there and she said everybody hates politics and everybody hates politicians and i said i know some of these guys and i dont like some of them myself but then i said tell me about what political activity was like when you were a student and she was a student during the 60s, the vietnam war and she said we thought our country needed us to survive. We thought our country would fail without us. That is what i think about all of you. We need you to survive. We will fail without you and we need you involved in this today. My generation is not doing the job we should do for all of you in terms of the debt on the balance sheet, this country, the lack of investment we are making in our infrastructure. The fact that we havent gotten to universal healthcare, universal preschool or end childhood poverty or addressing climate in the way it needs to be addressed. All of those things need to get worked on and if we dont start working on them now we may be handing you something you will not be able to fix which is why is so important for you to be involved in this. You dont need to wait until you are 18 when you have a chance to vote. Even now you could make sure everybody in your community that is eligible to vote does cast a vote in november. That is an important thing to do and you can get involved in your community. I think that is what has been missing in the campaign and i have been pleased to have a chance to make this case. I will ask one more question and we will turn it over to the audience, we are gearing up for another democratic debate. Do you think the debates matter . Most americans havent watched the paid attention to the debate. They are unwatchable, that is why. I was talking to somebody in New Hampshire who was saying to me the debates have become a lose lose proposition. You make it on the debate stage and that is the good news, the bad news is you have to be on the debate stage. If you dont make it on. I have been on and the bad news is you are not on in the good news is you are on. We have to revisit this. It is not useful to the American People to watch politicians stand up and try to figure out how to Say Something witty in 30 seconds. Thats not what i want to know about the next president. I want to know if they understand the challenges we are facing of the country and the challenges we are facing in this world and ideas how to fix it. That is what im interested in knowing. If anyone has a question we have some microphones around the audience, raise your hand. Im happy to take questions on any topic. Dont feel the need to restrict yourself to anything we have been talking about. Im happy to talk about whatever you want to talk about. Not quite sure the seat you are in but i know what seat you are in, abercrombie and fitch, that is my friend Lamar Alexander who is a republican from tennessee and chairman of the Education Committee and is a wonderful man. He is not wearing the abercrombie and fitch sweatshirt. Can you tell me your name . My name is teagan. What are your honest personal tangible aspirations in the scope of your life . It is to make your life better. In your own personal life, what goals do you want to reach in your own standing . I think, i read once i think i am living that life. We were asked to line up in my classroom in order of whose family was here the longest and whose family was here the shortest period of time. And my family turned out to be the answer to both of those questions. So on my dads side they could trace it all the way back to the mayflower. And on my moms side that were polish jews who would survive the holocaust code who would really, really recently my mom and her parents would only ones survived and he lived in warsaw for a couple of years and then they went to stockholm, sweden, for your, mexico city for your and then they came here the only place in the world where they could rebuild their shattered lives. They started an art gallery in warsaw. They started that art gallery again in new york, and jack kennedy was a frequent patron of theirs. In fact, i have a book at home that a photograph book of john f. Kennedy, the president , and insight it theres a note that says to Michael Bennet, thats me, president ginny thought about you and your generation. Signed Robert F Robert f. Kenn. Thats what i think its all about. My dad was a Public Servant his whole life and he taught his Public Service was noble, and so im proud to have the chance to be that. I traveled the country broadly and ive never met anybody that has a stronger accent than my grandparents. I never met anybody who were greater patriots than my grandparents were. They believed this country had done everything for them and they thought they had given back to the country, and thats how its all supposed to work. Im a very lucky person because i think i have fulfilled the goals that they had set for me and i continued to try to do it everyday. I just try to get better at it. John kennedy was asked once what the most important attribute of a Public Servant was, politician. He said its very unusual for a politician, which he said, curiosity. I agree with that. As long as you are trying to learn everything you can about the world in which you live, you are going to find Something Interesting to do and you will be good at it. I wish that for you. So knowing that your mom or your mother was a holocaust survivor and my mom, thats okay, yes. And your father is a former u. S. Diplomat, how would you say your parents experiences shaped you as a person today . They really did. My dads experience was again company worked for the senate for a lot of his life. He was what we now call chief of staff or then called an Administrative Assistant for several senators and he worked for one of the Senate Committees and then he went and worked in the state department. It really was the idea that Public Service is noble and that we have an obligation to help other people. I was in business for a while which is something he would never have been interested in but i will say having been in business, it has really helped me be a better Public Servant. You can do a range of different things, and one of the things he told me was find something you are really passionate about and do it as well as you can. And then when its time to do something else, that other option will present itself to you. Thats how i handled my life. It was pretty good advice. I pass that along to his will. I dont think it matters what you pick, private sector, public sector, nonprofit, as long as it is something youre passionate about. From my moms experience the was to not take any of this for granted. I dont think we can take any of this for granted today. The democracy something we build everything they of our lives. Middle school kids come to see me sometime in washington which i i love, or high school kids, because i i used to be a School Superintendent, they rarely get to see this. In fact, it almost never get to see this, every rarely but they will come to my office after theyve been, they seen the Washington Monument have any of you been to washington before . A couple. You have seen pictures of it so you know theres like the Lincoln Memorial and the white house and the supreme court, and theres a tendency for them to think it was all just here. And, of course, none of it was just here. 230 years ago none of it was here. This wasnt here. Theres some people we call the founders, you know, who did two incredible things in the generation. They led an armed insurrection that was successful against a colonial power. We call that the revolutionary war. A lot of those people or so most people were from your hometown, i guarantee you that. And some of them were your age when it happened. They were involved in that. Its an amazing thing to think about. The other thing they did that was incredible was they wrote the constitution that would be ratified by the people that would live under that constitution. That had never happened before in human history. They also did something really terrible, which is a perpetrated human slavery. He didnt have to do that but they did. It took other americans to end that, and i think, i took its about Frederick Douglass in particular. Abraham lincoln was the president when we ended slavery, but Frederick Douglass was a human being in america who was born a slave, and enslaved human. This was like 100 years before i was born. It wasnt a million years before. He went to massachusetts where we are today and ended up i think on Marthas Vineyard with a bunch of abolitionists who were leading the movement against slavery. The abolitionists were arguing the constitution was a proslavery document. Frederick douglas said, you have this exactly wrong. Frederick douglass is completely selftaught by the way. He said you have this completely wrong. The constitution is an antislavery document. We are just not living up to the words in the constitution. Which is exactly the same thing that dr. King said the night before he was killed in memphis, tennessee, when he was there. For the striking garbage workers, and he said i am here to force america to keep the promise you wrote down on the page. And in my mind Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther king are as much founders as the people who wrote the constitution. And the women, mostly that fought so my women would have the right to vote, they are founders as much as the men who wrote the constitution. And my mom and her grandparents i think are founders as well, and i think every Single Person in this room is one. You have to think about your responsibility as a citizen in a democratic republic as that elevated sense of responsibility. This place is going to rise or fall. It is going to live or die taste on what you do. And how seriously you take that responsibility. And thats what i learned from my parents, so im now passing that on to you. Thank you for that question. We have time for a couple more. Maybe from this side of the room. How are you . What your name . I didnt ask your name. [inaudible] thank you. So most of us here are High School Seniors and we are on our way to college. I just want to know if you have a plan, how are you going to help us, like our generation and future generations tackle college debt he does its a big problem. Its a huge problem and it didnt have to be this way. Theres no law written up in the sky somewhere that says that we should have, for shoe into having to pay back 25 years worth of Student Loans just for the privilege of going to college. But we have made college very expensive and we are no longer Funding College the way we used to when i was your age, and thats why your generation is having to bear this expense, and it is deeply unfair. The most important thing we can do is reduce the cost of college. If i am elected president , its something i will lead a discussion in with all 50 governors of the states and say, this is ridiculous, and we have to find a a way to do something other than just raise the price of college every year and then have the federal loan program just land into the increasing expense. Thats not going to do you very much good because you are going to college next year, and its going to take some years are uo get this under control. What i propose is we reduce the amount of money you have to pay as part of your income when you graduate from college on Student Loans. You should also be able to renegotiate the rates to get them as low as possible and that the federal government help you do that. And i think that i guess thats basically it. There are some people that have run, are running for president saying they are for forgetting everybodys student loan. I have not taken that position because there are a lot of people in this country who dont have any chance to go to college or say wait a minute, if youre going to forgive Student Loans, why are you not for giving me my mortgage, or other loan that i have . I wish i had the chance to go to college. Why dont you pay for me to go to college . These are things you need to take in your mind when you are thinking about whether these are good ideas or not but thats what i would do. Thanks. One more. [inaudible] sure. If thats all right. Is that all right . Is it all right . So i want to know your thoughts whats your name . Ashley. I want to know your thoughts about Climate Change, because i know theres some pants on plastic bags and some states are changing Plastic Straws to paper straws. I just want to know, like your thoughts on what you hope to accomplish at the end . What i believe is we really have to do with Climate Change urgently, and, because the climate is warming, and some things could become irreversible and then we cant fix it anymore. There was an article yesterday about whats happening in the arctic with whats called permafrost, which is stuff that supposed to be frozen forever, which is now not frozen and is leaching co2, which is the bad, you know, Greenhouse Gas that we dont want to have. But its a really quick question because you are sitting in this Senate Chamber and that was asked a question the other day by somebody on the campaign trail whether democracy could solve Climate Change. And it is an incredible question because its not just about acting urgently. I just said we had to act urgently. We also have to create a solution that will last a generation. If you accept our current politics in washington where i put my ideas in for two years, the other side rips them out, i put them in for two years, the other side grips them out, you cant solve climate two years at a time. We need a generational answer to Climate Change. Which means we need a durable solution not just an urgent solution. We are going to have to have something that we think of ultimately as american climate policy, like we used at something called American Foreign policy, and when we had American Foreign policy even though we elected a democrat or republican, the the president w what their job was with respect to the soviet union, or the cold war, or the transatlantic alliance. We have to get there on climate which means we have to recreate our political system because we have to create a system where we can create Durable Solutions again, things that will last ten, 20, 30 years. Ted kennedy work on that stuff all the time when he was in the city. That wasnt ancient history. Thats what we have to get back to. The Current Situation isnt going to yield a solution to climate, and this is the one, are so many reasons why you guys should be upset at my generation that this is one you will really get as for because i think a lot of you think correctly that if we dont start working on climate now, you might not have a chance to actually address it, and thats why we have to address it. Another place where you can be involved today, theres a reason for you to wait. You need to let your elected representatives know this is an issue you care about at every level. At the local level thats probably where you have two debate about plastic bags which is an important one to have. And then at the National Level we will have a debate about how to control Greenhouse Gases, and your voice can be really important to whether we have that debate, but the nature of the debate is and whether we create that durable solution that im talking about. Hello, good morning. My name is brandon, and i have a question for you. If you became president , what are your plans for immigration . Thank you very much for that question. I mentioned earlier about my own families immigrant history, and thats one of the reasons im interested in this. The other reason im interested in is my old School DistrictDenver Public schools was 57 hispanic, 20 africanamerican and 20 white, and of the 57 the kids who were hispanic, a lot of the kids were dreamers, kids who came here through no fault of their own, no, no notf the country but the United States. I was really, really lucky in 2013. I was part of the gang of eight that wrote the immigration bill in the senate. Four democrats, or mac republicans, we spent seven months working together behind closed doors. Pat create an immigration bill then went to the judiciary committee, that it over 100 amendments were adopted or considered editing baby 150 altogether considered. Then it came right here to the floor of the senate. We had more amendments that were adopted here, and we passed it with 68 votes. That bill had a pathway to citizenship for the 11 Million People who live in this country who are undocumented. It at the most progressive dream act that it ever been conceived, much less passed, and something donald trump cant remember, it had 46 billion of order secured in it. Not 6 billion for the wall that mexico was supposed to pay for, 46 46 billion so we could see every single inch of the border and we knew who came here lawfully under visas but overstayed their visas. Thats what we should be doing, and if i were president that is what we would be doing. The only reason it is not the law of the land is a house of representatives killed it through something called the hastert rule, thats what is called, the hastert rule, was a rule that said for you to pass a bill in the house, which is over there in the capital building, you go walk to the other end of the hallway and theres another chamber much larger than this chamber. It takes majority to vote through a bill which meant that there was a group of people there. They call themselves the Freedom Caucus for the tea party its about 40 people who represent a minority view in this country. They are not the majority view and they said were not going to give you the votes. They kill the legislation. It was there at the democratic, small d democratic. I think thats what we have to resurrect and this is one the reasons in my mind donald trump should be a oneterm president because weve never had a president in my lifetime as antiimmigrant as donald trump. Weve never had a president in my lifetime as antirefugee as donald trump. Thats what america is supposed to be. So we almost got it done and ai think if im elected president will pass a bill along the same lines only this time we will get it to the house of representatives. My name is helena how do you spell it . [inaudible] so my grandmothers name is helena. Shes my polish jewish grandmother and my second daughter name is helena. Its very unusual to meet a helena. So my question is what are your views on raising taxes on the rich and capitalism . My view on capitalism is that it has done a lot of good in the world. Its lifted a lot of people out of poverty in the world. It has not worked very well the last 50 years in america. We need to recognize that fact. When youre living in a country where for 50 years the bottom 90 of americans have had their income the completely flat and the top. 1 , the top 1 , the top 5 , the top 10 have all seen the income go like that, there something wrong, especially went as i said earlier you have an Education System that is reinforcing that inequality. We do have the greatest income inequality weve had since 1928. We have to address it. Democracy cannot survive without shared prosperity. Without everybody benefiting when the economy grows, and we have to get back to that. I think we can get back to that by investing again in america, which we havent been doing for the last 20 years. Since 2001 we have cut taxes by 5 trillion on the wealthiest people in america. Since 2001 we spent 5. 6 trillion fighting these 20 year long wars in the middle east that started for you were born. Thats what weve been spending money on. By the way, we didnt pay for any of it. We borrow that money from china so you have to pay it back if we dont get our act together. Thats 12 or 13 trillion we could have invested in our Education System, and her infrastructure, to drive Economic Growth for everybody. That is when we drive Economic Growth for it but it is when you make these investments. Number two, we do need to tax the wealthiest people in this country and were not doing it. If i were present i would reverse the trump context billo back to where we were in the taxes for the wealthiest people. I would make sure that investors were treated the same way as working people in terms of the taxes they paid. Working people pay this rate, and if you own stocks and bonds you pay this rate. Thats ridiculous. We should bring this rate up to this rate. We are living at a time when there are these massive estates that are being passed from one wealthy generation to the next generation. We never was supposed to live in a country, and an aristocracy that just passed its wealth down to the next generation. We should be passing those as well. That would be big step to getting us back to where we need to be. I think think we will leave it there. How about one last one and then we are done wax i will get out of your hair. I know you guys have important work to do. I just wanted to ask about, i was sitting here, the muslims in concentration camps in china, so if youre elected president how do you plan to work with foreign leaders on human rights policy . Thank you for that question. That group of people, those of you dont know, is called the uighurs. What the chinese have been doing is absolutely devastating. We need an american president who will stand up for our values around the world. Thats going on in the world. The saudi arabia murdered a journalist that was living in america named khashoggi, and they lured them from america to turkey to kill them. The the president didnt stand o that either. What we are learning right now is that if america doesnt stand up, nobody else will. Thats why we have to. I am the first person, i will say, the first person to say that weve not set a perfect example of the rest of the world. We never have. Remember what i said at the very beginning . We had these people that sounded the country saying, doing the two incredible things, but but also perpetrating human slavery. Its never been a story of perfection. Thats not the point. What it is been a story of is constant struggle to overcome adversity, and to make our country or democratic, small d democratic, more fair and more free. Thats what generation after generation after generation americans have done, never perfectly and never completely, which is why you guys all have a ton of work to do. We dont live in a just society today. But the point of that is not to give up. Its to fight injustice. Thats what you guys need to do. And even though we are not a perfect example, we are the best example that the world has. We are the best example, and i know from my mom and her parents how important that example is to people around the rest of the world who are trying to be free and are hoping for Something Better for their kids and for their grandkids. And its that example i would have to restore, and really i think thats what this whole project is all about, ill bet, when Teddy Kennedy wanted this as his legacy, was to remind people of the genius of our democracy. The genius of our democracy is not that it always works. It often doesnt work. Its often really inefficient and its often really unfair. The genius of it is when we figure out how to make it work, and we figure out how to reflect the pluralism, the diversity of ideas that exist in our society. Theres people that founded this country, did not found leaving we would agree with each other. That wasnt the point. The point of being in a republic what they call a republic, what we call democracy, was that we would disagree with each other. And they believed out of this disagreement, its not we would create some lazy moderate compromise its that out of those disagreements we would create more imaginative and more Durable Solutions that any king or tyrant could come up with on their own. That was the whole idea. When you think about in your own life it makes perfect sense. The worst decisions i make are the ones i made by myself at home. The best decisions i make are the ones i make when 90 was some elses point of view or perspective or knowledge. And their position into account. Thats what this chamber is all about. These people, these 100 people that have the good fortune to represent 339 people in this tiny, tiny chamber, they come from states that bear almost no resemblance to each other. Political parties that have disagreements, personal experiences that are totally different from one another. But the reason this whole thing was created by the founding fathers, and that is who created this, is so we can have that disagreement and we can come to a result and never a perfect one. And the whole world watches what happens here. And thats why i think standing up for our values, whether its china or anybody else, is really, really important. And every do we dont do it, those values erode more. Because every single gear just like we are found in the country every year, we are renewing our commitment to those values every single year in what we do. Whether we are High School Students or sanded or, doesnt matter. We have exactly the same responsibility. I want to thank you, guys for having me today. I really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Thank you for being here as well. Its great to see. I wish you luck today. [applause] we will invite the students up to take photos. And thank you for your great questions. Really great questions. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] all right, everybody. Keep smiling. Great. Last one. Up here. Got it. Thank you, guys. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] heres a a look at our live coverage tuesday. State holds itl primary february 11. [applause] next, president of candidate senator warren talks about the economy picture also created support and then spoke briefly to the media at st. Anselm college in manchester, new