They have a free are looking for ideas but it is a broad incentive for colleges to counsel students how much they borrow. Right now the action makes the hard for colleges. So the federal government is a but for that unemployment ruled that is but this is the mandate applied to all colleges a and universities. They dont have to do principate but tennessee has 13 Community Colleges and two are dropping some of and broaden there he was. But what kind of a response did you get . To with that accreditation more than anything else just to give them more flexibility maybe that is true but i can tell you about a student aid and then i can tell about the regulation. To provide students and is there any advance on that . A good reaction the problem i have been authorized eight times since 1965 with the of wellmeaning senators and bureaucrats here is the clause is regulations and stack them up stack of up the stack was already as tall as i was it the new would double the stack that is why we need of good writer for someone to take a bunch of stuff to press it into the language that we do understand. The federal government does not do that very well. Day university of texas has a terrific website to find out all sorts of things are a college costed job placement and what you will make if you borrow this much but the goal is to simplify to make it clear that they understand what theyre getting into. Key has a point but the pell grant you can keep so keep that clear. I have talked to Elizabeth Warren a few times she said her goal was a one page because that 22 pages it doesnt do anything for the consumer because you signed the bottom of every page without knowing what it is. So a lot of good clear one pages. The administration is on track to do its own College System you said i believe the attempt will fall. I dont think they have the capacity. I used to work there. [laughter] we have 6,000 colleges and universities each now has a different name than harvard i dont care what they think there are facts and figures that consumers can find out about to make their own judgments. I think theyre likely to be misleading. But i am pretty the appropriations bill into the department. We need to do a very simple calendar of every rule that they were expected to follow so you can said that college to say january 4th, a generator fit the have to do this they have been working seven years. If they do would you try . Yes. I dont take there will be able to do what theyre receptive go cry such as the outcry a. Now the senators are reading to take amendments. So they have many opportunities. [laughter] spread the Higher Education act youre also critical of employment regulations which is one of a the Court Challenges to stay on track this summer will you try to block those and wide you object . Because it is horrendously complicated and only applies to one sector of the Education Sector to take that broad incentive to encourage a institutions to keep costs down so it is a much better tool to allow institutions to adapt their own methods. 9 to go to for profits. So will you try to block this . More than i expected from the stage today. Shes one of the democratic legislators talking about the idea of a debtfree public Higher Education that they should be altered within a Public Institution and emerge debtfree. No specifics yet they wouldve brought the discussion. Is the next debtfree from harvard in torch down. Thats what i was talking about a minute ago. They are ordinarily free, the average grant is 30 to 60 and the average tuition is 3,300. In california, texas and florida the average grant is more than the average tuition so its already free. So i would like to see the politicians. The governor noticed that Community College already was essentially free. So he found a way to say that Community College is very for every high school graduate. That was such a surprise to students to learn that it was free. So when we have all this talk a lot of people stay home and we say did you know that two years is essentially free. And did you know if you want to go to georgetown for us to find out what your family can pay and benefits and borrow as much as you want for a car you can go to georgetown . We dont say that to people and i think that every political season politicians run around saying youre going to solve your student loan problem hoping they get the votes. I would like to say weve made it easier than most people think, and we have politicians who are making it harder. You dont hear many people saying what im saying now. We have time for one question if we have anybody that needs a microphone or i will ask you. Move yourself to the microphone quickly please. The chairman has to go yield the gavel. Im a student at American University and this is actually a question for both of you and the undersecretary that is here. You mentioned how the department of education is most reliant on for information. Other times they are also the people that are giving us loans. The u. S. Will earn about 107 billion from financing Student Loans. Is there any effort to make sure that it goes back into our education and future or is it too soon to know . There is an interesting difference of opinion about that there are two ways that the Congressional Budget Office decides what Student Loans cost and the proper way to do it they said is fair market accounting but you may not pay back your loan and that doesnt sound like a logical thing to do. If you look at it the way that i just described then the taxpayers are subsidizing the students with the student loan reform that is needed in 2013. The way the law says it is the way it was a bit sad. So the right way to do that i think is the way that i described that it would be revenue neutral and that the money that the students borrow from the taxpayers is as natural as we can get it based on the system. Sometimes you hear the senators say they loan money to banks at 1 . Why dont they do that for students . The federal money loans the money overnight you probably want to student loan for a day. Its a typically it is ten years what would we try to do but we look at the student loan and we did this in 2013. The president was very effective in pointing this out. We asked the Congressional Budget Office please tell us what our language will do in terms of making it written in a journal so the taxpayers are not subsidizing the students and the students are not subsidizing the taxpayers and we try to come as close to that as we could. If i can ask you real quick on the reauthorization when the expect that . I hope its there before the end of the month or early next month. But we give credit to patty murray for being able to work with her on the secondary education act has been good. We just had partisan bills and she suggested that we do a bipartisan bill and we did that. The short answer is by the end of the month or sometime in july if we are able to pass it the house house will be able to pass one, too. The president doesnt agree with everything weve been doing but hes been very constructive and we try to accommodate suggestions hes made as well so its a good process. Thank you. [applause] please welcome the association of colleges and universities the city college in chicago, director on Higher Education reform and the Strategic Advisory and cofounder and the moderator staff Correspondent National journal. Its great to be here today. Thank you so much for coming. Weve had a great conversation so far and i have a million questions to ask. But we dont have a lot of time and we have a lot to talk about so i thought we could dive right in. And i wanted to start with you. I hope thats okay because i think weve been talking a lot about the things the federal legislation and the government can do to enable innovation at the College Level and i know that the city colleges of chicago you look over a whole lot of innovation over the past few years. So i think that from what ive gathered basically in about three years youve been able to double the graduation rate. Is it about 14 or 15 . Which is high at the Community College and theyve managed to do that by doing things that seem like pretty commonsense innovation making it easy for the students to select courses etc. So, do you think that there is anything that the federal government could do to encourage that kind of innovation at the College Level . Yes but i will translate that in a different way. I think that theres a lot the federal government can and should do to hold institutions accountable for those types of outcomes and whining by that i think that there should be more performancebased outcomes. I think Community Colleges and Higher Educational institutions and the federal government should look at how they measure success, and it shouldnt be measured by enrollment which has been the traditional way that Higher Educational institutions in particular Community Colleges have measured themselves. I think the starting point should be how many are completing their area of study which is very much different than many institutions. 90 of students were employed. 80 employed before so are they employed in the area of study . I think i heard them talk that the accrediting bodies. I think that the federal government should look at how institutions are credited very differently and employers should be a part of the Accreditation Process and then last week i think Higher Educational institutions have been divorced from the real world for too long and that they need to be relevant. Their programs need to be relevant and the department of education can support and empower them to become more dynamic institutions that respond to the marketplace and the city colleges that are very datadriven. We have a fiveyear plan with measurable outcomes that we hold everybody accountable to and i think that should be the focus now. There needs to be a cultural shift in Higher Education. I want to skip down because the work with State College president s of the time. Do you agree that there needs to be more accountability, more of a connection in the market or is that something thats more unique to the Community Colleges and the role that they play . As a state institution we are a Public College and university and weve actually been engaged in accountability in a number of different ways, certainly at the state level in the performance funding where they are requiring the the colleges indian diversities to report outcomes. And that the American Association of State Colleges and universities, we have now over a decade of data because we have over 200 of our campuses that actually voluntarily participate in something called a voluntary system of accountability where not only do they report out specific Demographic Data that will help inform students, help inform political leaders, Community Leaders and Business Leaders about the institution but we also look at some of the learning outcomes but we are beginning to look at not just a onesizefitsall in the colleges and universities in defining their outcomes so its something that weve been quite engaged in. I would say that when youre trying to match the educational degree. If you are a liberal arts major perhaps you may major in english which could kick you into a number of provisions but it is teaching or journalism or working for a Corporate Company so some of them are focused on the liberal arts or soft sciences there may not be a quick track. It was a sociology major if we really wanted to go in and on a specific professional degree area. We do offer a lot of professional degrees of course. Cheryls analogy lines right up with nursing. The profession for example some of the degree professions but it is engineering or whatever. We have to be a little bit open because you are moving into a lot of brass divvied co breath and depth in the majors and the arts and sciences. I want to move forward. We dont have a lot of time and i have a lot of questions. You touched on two points i want to go back to later. One is the value of collecting data on outcomes and publicizing and number two, the fact that there is incredible diversity in the College System in the u. S. I do have a couple of questions about the strategy for using federal aid. When i first hear that there are some very concrete strategies the government could use to take on some of the risk. Can you walk us through a couple of the ways that they could structure the Risk Sharing Program . I think that its important to start by acknowledging the status quo and the incentives. We hear this from campuses around the country. They tend to be islands of innovation and progress the reason that the cases because the incentives are not therefore the average typical college necessarily to focus. It is the measure of what default and as long as you push people over the threeyear window its a less meaningful measure for other protections. So one of the people including chairman alexander is that they would put people on for the risk of default or the lack of payment. And the beauty of this is that it sets up an outcome based sort of framework and says to the colleges you should get there however you want to if it isnt a top down here are the indications you have to implement that says heres what we are going to look at accountable for. You do your best to meet those and one is to improve the incentives for the colleges and learn learn a lot more from successful colleges about how that will institute a success since holding the coaches financially responsible for the loans that go unpaid by the graduates. At if the cost is a major issue is there any sort of risk share this promising to you or does the whole approach to seem to be enough where we are going . We should start by acknowledging some of the big news in the last couple of days and when we talk took that risk sharing or accountability more broadly heres an interesting example where students really led the charge for accountability and we were happy to see the department of education step in and provide some relief. Obviously we should preserve those protections are found at the gainful employment. But as we think more broadly or Congress Sharing we very much agree that is an important part of any kind of Higher Education reform is thinking about how schools have some skin in the game and is one of the things weve looked at is based on. Co work in the repayment rates. It should be as if not better than when they graduated from high school we should be able to show some advantage from that and keep in mind the risk is already being borne by taxpayers and by our country when we have schools that fail to do their job as far as giving kids a decent education. So we think we are interested in looking broadly at the repayment. We think any kind of risk sharing should take into account not just tuition but the broader cost of going to school which we know are very dramatic and finally any proposal to do risk sharing which would in part depend on the data being able to better understand command we will talk more about it but eliminating the band of the record is important but also we shouldnt undermine the protections that we already have, so things like in full employment the 9010 rule that we can see are already starting to work. That we need something that goes beyond that. I want to get back to that fought at first i have a question for you. I know in the conversations that ive had its been very clear that the organization has been very interested in making sure that students have good information in general but in terms of what institutions are doing to serve the more diverse student body. When we are talking about the questions of accountability and student making sure they are getting a degree thats going to help in the work force what kind of information do students really need to make the decisions and how much money they are going to be taking out. What kind of information do they need and what are we getting right all of the different private and federal vehicles and getting the students information in that . It needs to be very practical and very real but for the senators comments but i think any student regardless of where they live should have the means to not only believe that act on the college as affordable and too many students in the term that we like to use as posttraditional students are still left navigating a catalog of materials for an institution where loans and grants and scholarships. So thats something thats very plainspoken about the difference between the loan and grant. Its quite different in ive been doing this long enough that i do remember when we use to talk used to talk about Financial Aid to come and it was a. For the population that they focus on over the course of the years that weve been setting up sometimes it looks like for good reason because when you graduate with that kind of loan debt life is very challenging. And we are now talking about it universally so i think at the very least, the information that the federal government and any large entity provides needs to look at what does this mean when the student graduates and one of the practical ways i used to do this when i was a recruiter i used to look at the entry salary because i was looking at the doctoral education and i used to say what is the potential of firstyear salary as an assistant professor asked that the most your loan debt should be when you graduate because if its anything greater than that youre talking about buying a car, having a mortgage, having a family and all those things become difficult. 20 years later as a country thats what we are talking about one of the things i found interesting is that hes passionate about the idea that college is affordable and misleading students. But on the other hand i think that its very real. This is a question for the whole panel. Do you think that the college is affordable . I do think that college is very affordable. I think that Community Colleges in particular are extremely affordable. Thats where i got my start. I graduated from one of the Community Colleges and now i am responsible for it. However, i think any investment in time and money students should know what that their return on that investment would be. So i have a degree from a Community College but i have two advanced degrees from the tradition that was very expensive but i do belief that it obviously paid off and so i think that transparency and keeping education affordable but also having transparency so that students can understand exactly the investment that they are making. Well thats a degree or that credential from that institution pay off for me . Are you able to figure that out in the information that is available to you or do we need Something Like a student record system . I think that will help however i dont want city colleges off that hook because it doesnt exist. I have a team of researchers who do nothing but study data. Theres enough data in the world the problem is that its so spread out that its confusing for the students to put it all together so institutions have to take the responsibility to put the information together show exactly if you go to the colleges website you can see the Southern Industries that will dominate the region over the next decade and the credentials needed and the places that are hiring. Your starting salaries and how our classes and credentials aligned with that and we create structure by structure pathways to make that easy so they need to understand what their opportunities are and have institutions like ours to act on so that they can understand where they should make that investment and where it will pay off. And this gets a big question that to the big question that we were touching on in the green room earlier. The Higher Education act is a very important piece of legislation that there is so much that can be done at the local level and state level to make sure that the colleges are serving the population that we are concerned about well. Do you have a thought about that . This isnt an academic debate. Just go talk to the American People students borrowers. Theres a recent poll that shows cost of college was the number one worry for parents. Sono, obviously colleges not affordable and you can look at the way in which it has spiraled. There is a reason why nearly 15 of graduates are default on their Student Loans because they are not able to come out with a degree that can hold them succeed. That is a twosided issue at the College Expense and also the folks going to college are less well off. I think the data will be helpful in that but when we look at the way the states have consistently cut funding and since the recession of the 47 of the 50 states still have not returned to pre recession level. They are effectively privatizing the system of Higher Education and i think that the idea of a federal state partnership could do a lot to help incentivize the states to continue to make the investment. We need to go to questions but i think that is screwed up the elephant in the room so if anybody wants to comment on that in the program we propose the matching Incentive Program to help address that because the states do need help. They are not just saying we dont want to help in Higher Education and support, they really do need help. Quickly on the Student Loan Repayment issues and whatnot i also think if we think about the rules, we have to make sure that everything is included. For example we dont know about private loans to students take. We dont have access to that information. You can go out and take it private loans. We dont have that information in the database and so we dont know if theyve done that and that does happen quite a bit. So i do think that we need to take into account and also keep in touch with students when they sign up for the loans. We dont have any way to kind of hold that students. They may or may not give us their address and we are chasing them round and default rates are going up and we are not able to inform them. When students get into a challenge often times the only thing they know how to do is just walk away. So when we think about putting these kind of guidelines into place we need to look at it from everybodys perspective including the institutions perspective as well. Did he want to add you want to add something quick i think the question is if College Affordable for you. We are having the conversation but who is making that determination and i think that the students are the ones that ultimately their families are the ones that are going to make the decision if it is affordable for them and in this conversation about both the federal role and also the societal influence i definitely think that as we are moving towards a more vocational way of framing the impact of Higher Education business sector has to be in because they are the beneficiaries of the success and i think that as it begins to become aspirational i do think that the business sector has to take up its leadership role in investment because they are not only accepting of the graduates. So far its been critical in the isolated institutions in terms of the leadership role thats where i think that right now in this congress and this h. E. A weenie to Higher Education be talking about the business roles involve the tantrums of investors. We focused on price as the key definition but what matters is whether what youre paying for pays off. So credential he you are studying for it and its not worth anything that youve lost the opportunity. So its just changing peoples minds. Peoples minds. Its an odd conversation we are having a rare talking about how great Higher Education is for the economy. More people should go into the same time we are having a conversation about how bad it is for the economy. So the fact that we have a lot more student that means a lot more people have gone to college. So the notion that that is somehow the economy of strikes me as being i dont think its the notion that theres more student debt so theres more people thats going to college. I agree thats true but i think what you said is what i try to emphasize. If more people go to college and got credentials are relevant, we have more employers at the table and we can guarantee them some sort of a success for that investment that im not so sure the student debt should be going up as much as it is. I question whether we have more people going to college and graduating with credentials that are not relevant, meaning are they finding jobs are they transferring to institutions where they are continuing on to that advanced degree, how well his college paying off for them . That is my big concern and that is what i push at the city colleges and thats what i think we should be Holding Institution is accountable to. How do you guarantee that for a student . So i get a little concerned that we have about four people going to college. But the projection of the skills gap is continuing to rise and that concerns me. Because people are not studying the things that would close the fiscal gap. They can study what we dont offer. Is it being offered in a way that is structured enough so that they can go on and get that education and still juggle family work and everything else. The structure of the institution matters as well. All of that matters. That was touched on in the earlier panels about making sure they had access to college and also making sure the colleges were serving students while and that shows up when we are talking about performancebased funding of the state level at the state level because basically if you were saying two coaches you need to reach they would say we are going to become more selective in our admission in order to meet that. Do you see that as a big concern . Do you think there is any way that federal dollars can be used as a lever to make sure that access is maintained even as we go forward in the states go forward thinking more about the account of the . I think that it has to stay and play to continue to make sure that its still there as an important tool. That was so important we only had one year with that and we saw a great return from that one year so that would be wonderful if we could get that wraparound back. So i think other than that a lot of the responsibility to release that part of the tension lies with the institutions but i think the federal government could help us be consistent dont be afraid to raise it and make it available yearround. Part of the issue here is that we provided a lot of colleges access, we provide access on the ability to pay it back and i think we need to ask questions of whether thats what we meant by access when we first passed the higher end act. Weve spent a couple of years now on the fact that forprofit colleges were not enrolling people that were likely to be successful and so that strikes me as a problem across the board if we are numbingly leading people to go into debt that our unlikely to be successful the system is hurting a nontrivial proportion of people then we should rethink the way that we do it. We have a question from the audience. My question i thought it was interesting earlier have been mentioned the Higher Education act on the desk. Since then we know that the tuition costs have been rising and we know that college is more expensive for students. My question, luckily i go to a private university with an organization that sponsors it. My question is are we going to be be able to put ourselves through colleges that over four is that a possibility in the future . There seems to be an assumption that loans are necessary. Sometimes theres a disconnect with elected officials who believe you can just work a summer and not pay for your college tuition. I dont think that the days of working while in college are over. We have a program that weve proposed expanding it dramatically and improving how its targeted to switch targeting the right students. Weve supported expanding sort of Career Pathways to connect the students between colleges and education afterwards. I think workplace a huge role because its one of the things thats going to help you have a successful career after you leave. But i think that the way the costs are going its increasingly becoming unrealistic to think that you could just pay for it over the summer like maybe my dad did. A lot of people might say we have an opposite problem where students are only attending parttime because they have to work to pay for that. That would be my population. The days of working and going to school are very much here but i dont think that many of my students are working to pay for school. They are working to feed their families and many of them because of that have to go to school part time which takes them way too long to complete a twoyear degree so that is another reason why weve taken a very structured approach of the city code which is what our structured pathways predicted scheduling so that now students can actually know exactly what time they are going. Their classes are picked for them and they can work now and go to school but you touched on a very important point. Is providing Financial Aid yearround simpler and will that help pay for some of this . But also theres a lot more skin in the game institutions can have. Im always putting accountability on the institution to help students. We paid for the summer classes of students enrolled in the 15 credit hours because that helps them get to the twoyear degree quicker. And we have over 3,000 students doing that right now and we are one of the states that do offer the free two years which will be starting in june and so programs like that to me paper themselves and i think theres just more skin in the game as an institution. I think students are working i just dont think they can afford to work and see their family and pay for college. The majority of students in america work or go to school. That is a fact to ask the question if its possible, students are doing it every day. Youre talking about the tension. The tension i find in these discussions as we are talking about the anomaly. That is what is happening. And the question with any leadership moment is how are we going to recognize that reality cracks i know that part of the data and how we respond to that opportunity to say they are pursuing Higher Education how are we enabling them thats the opportunity in a discussion like this and in the discussions we have before us and in that respect, i find students are navigating in a very unjust railway. Often times we talk about them not getting it right. If i have a bone to pick with the Obama Administration on this discussion about under matching i think that yes its very important students go to the best institutions they can be admitted to but honestly they are pursuing Higher Education in every way that its presented to them. You asked if loans are now necessary, just an assumption and that is a really good question and i think weve limited ourselves in thinking about how would we get to the place where they are no longer necessary. There is lots of different ways to think about bringing the cost of college down and they are not just sort of declaring it free and moving on. There is what we would ideally have is where they would compete with one another on what really matters which is the value of the credential so places are inexpensive where you could work your way through but delivered a huge returning huge return into those would be popular for that reason. There wouldnt be this place of last resort like they often are now. I think we are operating on a deficit model when we think about this experience in the colleges or universities and i think that weve got to take all of these issues and try to figure out what its going to be in a model of prosperity. How do we take all the shortcomings, held we take off the attributes, how do we bring innovation to the table so that we can begin to say to the americans to go to college it is possible and here are the ways that it can happen to you. We really have to stop thinking and i am saying this from a Public Institution point of view i think we still have to work our way through that and figure out and bring the foundations to the table like everyone said we have to bring all of those and bring in the right policies to help us think about the prosperity mark. This country needs people to get a College Education and weve got to figure out how to we help them move to that model and understand that it is possible and doable . We are running out of time but i want to ask one last question to get to the root of whats next america is all about. We hear a lot about the nontraditional and posttraditional end of this idea that the more diverse student body is heading to college than ever before and i was wondering particular the folks that work at colleges or work closely with students today, what are some of the things about the students are going to college now and the struggles they face the people in washington just do not get because i think the conversations operate on a level of assumption about what college should be which is based on the four years of his tedious school and then you go on but that isnt the reality for most. Just going back to the issue of cost they think it is just tuition and cost and its not. Youve got transportation youve got to be able to purchase your books and supplies that support the experience depending on what the profession requires either you have to be out in the field for internships or externships. You have to have a way to get there and get back. You do have to be able to in many cases support your family. So thats not a narrow focus that is just the cost of tuition and everything is all set. So students know that and thats what they run into. We also have to understand when students say they dont have to enter the dollars thats the one thing thats keeping them out its real to them and if you dont have the 200, youre not going. So i think trying to understand the reality that students are certainly facing. So this whole idea of going to college is hard work. Its a job and its not just something you go in and we put the information in your head and we walk out. We are not doing brain surgery yet. I still think when we think about innovation, we need to make sure that we are designing experiences that lead students along a Clear Pathway. And im really happy to see colleges and universities coming back and laying out Clear Pathway is to the degree. I think that is going to make a huge difference whether you are an Adult Learner or a 17 or 18yearold. Knowing where you are going and how long its been to taking and what its going to cost. I would agree with the point that its hard for policymakers to understand the range of economic challenges facing students in part because they dont understand how diverse the student body population is. We just did some research on the number of young parents. About 25 of students are actually parents. So thinking about things like child care becomes a huge concern. We have a proposal to expand child care and schools which could alleviate some of the challenges and then finally, students are going to college for cupcake of reasons partially to get a job and get ahead but also to become more knowledgeable and become a responsible citizen. So i think sort of how we balance those two concerns is something students are going to focus on a lot as we think about Higher Education. Thank you so much. I think we are out of time. We went a little bit over but that is because we had such a great panel and a lot of folks and not a lot of time to talk about all the things we wanted to talk about. [applause] thank you so much to the panelists. A very special thank you to the bill and Melinda Gates foundation. We will be sending a survey in the next couple of days and we would like your feedback as we like to improve the National Journal events. Thanks so much and have a great rest of your day. [inaudible conversations] next, Hillary Clinton opens her president ial campaign with a rally in new york city. Live at 7 00 a. M. , your questions and comments on washington journal. The new congressional directory is a handy guide to the 114th congress with color photos of every senator and house member, plus Contact Information and twitter handles. Also, district maps, a foldout map of capitol hill, and a look at congressional committees, the president s cabinet, federal agencies and state governors. Order your copy today. It is 13. 95 plus shipping and handling to the cspan store at cspan. Org. Hillary clinton officially launched her campaign with a rally in new york city. It is her first Major Campaign speech since announcing her run for president last april. The event was held at the franklin d. Roosevelt four freedom park on roosevelt island. Following this rally, she is headed to iowa followed by several dates of campaigning in new hampshire, south carolina. I want to see you be brave [cheering] [cheering] [cheering] [crowd chanting hillary ] Hillary Clinton thank you. Thank you so very, very much. It is wonderful to be here with all of you, to be in new york with my family, so many friends, including so many new yorkers who gave me the honor of serving them in the senate for eight years. To be right across the water from the headquarters of the United Nations where i represented our country many times. To be here in this beautiful park dedicated to Franklin Roosevelt vision enduring vision of america. In a place with absolutely no ceilings. [cheering] Hillary Clinton president roosevelt four freedoms are testament to our nations unmatched aspirations and reminder of our unfinished work at home and abroad. His legacy lifted up a nation and inspired president to followed. One is a man i served as secretary of state, barack obama. [cheering] Hillary Clinton another is my husband, bill clinton. Two democrats that will make him so happy. They are two democrats guided by the fundamental american belief that real and lasting prosperity must be built by all and shared by all. President roosevelt called on every american to do his or her part in every american answered. He said, there is no mystery about what it takes to build a strong and prosperous america. Equality of opportunity, jobs for those who can work, security for those who need it, the ending of special privilege for the few [cheering] the preservation of Civil Liberties for all, a wider and constantly rising standard of living. That still sounds good to me. It is americas basic bargain, if you do your part, you ought to be able to get ahead. When everybody does their part america gets ahead, too. That bargain inspired generations of families, including my own. It is what kept my grandfather going to work in the same scranton mill every day for 50 years. It is what led my father to believe that he scrimped and saved, his Small Business printing drapery fabric in chicago would provide us with a middleclass life. And it did. When president clinton honored the bargain, we had the longest peacetime expansion in history a balanced budget, and for the first time in decades, we all grew together with the bottom 20 of workers increasing their incomes by the same percentage as the top 5 . When president obama honored the bargain, we pulled back from the brink of depression, saved the auto industry, provided health care to 16 million working people and replaced the jobs we lost faster than the historical average after a financial crash. It is not 1941 or 1993 or even 2009. We face new challenges in our economy and our democracy. We are still working our way back from a crisis that happened because timetested values were replaced by false promises. Instead of an economy built by every american, for every american, we were told that if we let those at the top pay lower taxes and bend the rules their success would trickle down to everyone else. What happened . Well, instead of a balanced budget would surpluses that could have eventually paid off our national debt, the republicans twice cut taxes for the wealthiest, borrowed money from other countries to pay for two wars, and family incomes dropped. You know where we ended up. Except it was not the end. 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. 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. We are standing again, but we all know we are not yet running the way america should. You see corporations making record profits with ceos making record pay, but your paychecks have barely budged. Many of your working multiple jobs to make ends meet, you see the top 25 Hedge Fund Managers making more than all of americas kindergarten teachers combined and often paying a lower tax rate. You have to wonder. When does my hard work pay off . When does my family get ahead. I say now. [cheering] prosperity cannot just before ceos and Hedge Fund Managers. Democracy cannot just before billionaires and corporations. Prosperity and democracy are part of your basic bargain, too. You brought our country back and now it is time, your time, to secure the gains and move ahead. You know what . America cannot succeed unless you succeed. That is why i am running for president of the united states. [cheering] here on roosevelt island, i believe we have a continuing rendezvous with destiny, each american and the country we cherish our running to make our economy work for you and for every american. For the successful and the struggling, for the innovators and adventures inventors, for those breaking barriers and technology and discovering cures for diseases, for the factory workers and food servers who stand on their feet all day. For the nurses who work the night shift. For the truckers who drive for hours and the farmers who feed us. For the veterans who served our country. For the Small Business owners who took a risk, for everyone who has ever been knocked down but refused to be knocked out. I am not running for some americans. I am running for all americans. Our countrys challenges did not begin with the Great Recession and they will not end with the recovery. Americans have been buffeted by powerful currents, advances in technology and the rise of global trade have created whole new areas of Economic Activity and opens new markets for exports, but they have also displaced jobs and undercut wages for millions of americans. The financial industry and many multinational corporations have created huge wealth for a few by focusing too much on shortterm profit and too little on longterm values. Too much on complex trading schemes and stock buybacks, too little on investments in new businesses, jobs, and fair compensation. [cheering] our political system is so paralyzed by gridlock and dysfunction that most americans have lost confidence that anything can actually get done. They have lost trust in the ability of both government and big business to change course. We can blame historic forces beyond our control for some of this, but the choices we have made as a nation, leaders and citizens alike, have also played a big role. Our next president must work with congress and every other willing partner across the entire country and i will do just that. [cheering] to turn the tide so these currents start working for us more than against us. At our best, that is what americans do. We are problem solvers, not deniers. We do not hide from change, we harness it. We cannot do that if we go back to the top down economic policies that failed us before. Americans have come too far to see our progress ripped away. There may be some new voices in the president ial republican choir. [laughter] but they are all singing the same old song, a song called yesterday. You know the one, all our troubles look as though they are here to stay and we need a place to hide away. They believe in yesterday. You are lucky i did not try singing that, too. Republicans trip over themselves promising lower taxes for the wealthy and fewer rules for the biggest corporations without regard for how that will make income inequality even worse. We have heard this tune before and we know how it turns out. Ask many of these candidates about climate change, one of the defining threats of our time and they will say, i am not a scientist. [laughter] well, why dont they start listening to those who are . [cheering] they pledge to wipe out rules on wall street rather than rain in the banks that are still too risky, according future failures in a case that can only be considered mass amnesia. They want to take away Health Insurance for more than 16 million americans without credible alternatives. They shame and blame women rather than respect our right to make our own decisions. [cheering] they want to put immigrants who work hard and pay taxes at risk of deportation and they turn their backs on gay people who love each other. Fundamentally