The 2006 President's Dinner was last month in D.C. You can read all of President Bush's remarks
here, but there's one passage I'd like to highlight:
"I want to thank you for helping make sure that Denny Hastert and Bill Frist remain in their positions in the Senate and the House, and I assure you this, we will continue to lead this country with an optimistic, hopeful, positive vision that says to every American, opportunity belongs to you as much as your neighbor."
Now, I have a couple of problems with this statement. Let's start with the obvious. Even in the worst-case scenario, Bill Frist won't be the Senate Majority Leader next year. He's retiring when his current term ends, probably so that he can take a run at the White House in 2008. There's no way that anyone, anywhere can keep him in the Senate.
Aside from that rather silly gaff on the President's part I'd like to get down to the end of the sentence, where he says that Republicans have a vision that "opportunity belongs to you as much as your neighbor." That doesn't sit right with me. Here's why: it's backwards. That vision of America, the one where the mantra is "I deserve what everyone else has" is an ugly one. We should turn that phrase around, and say "opportunity belongs to your neighbor as much as to you."
That's just one difference between myself and Bush Republicans, like Ms. McMorris, who is running against my Candidate in this election. I don't think that "Me first!" is a valid political philosophy.
America is the greatest community in the world. We are united by history, by purpose and by values. What kind of community do you get when the people who ought to be leaders are telling everyone that greed is good? Because that's what this comes down to. The President told the nation that we should be focusing on getting what our neighbors have.
Let me offer a better vision of America. Imagine your town or your neighborhood. Think about what you have that no one else does. Is your home warm? Do you own it? Is your belly full? Are you safe where you sleep at night? Now think about your neighbors. Aren't there some people who don't have what you've got?
The President's vision of America is one where the poor, the disenfranchised and the lost don't matter. He wouldn't have you think about them, because they don't have anything you want. So the poor become poorer and the powerless more powerless because there's no one to help them. I don't mean that we ought to buy a Cadillac for everyone on welfare, just that we should make sure that they've got some good strong bootstraps to haul on.
A lot of things fall under the category of bootstraps. One bootstrap item is a free, high quality education for every American child, no matter how much their parents make, where they live or the color of their skin. The Republicans have cut the budget for public education and said that America's schools should compete with one another for less and less money. We should be giving every public school in America all the funding our students need.
In the same vein, everyone in America needs access to good healthcare at a price that they can afford. The Republicans tried to tell America that Health Savings Accounts would save us all money, but they failed to mention that anyone who couldn't afford to put any money into one an HSA wouldn't have any way to pay for healthcare at all. Letting hardworking people go broke because they can't cover their medical costs is wrong, and so is letting people go without healthcare they need.
All Americans deserve the chance to succeed, but not all Americans get that chance. We have a clear moral choice to make here. Either we help our brothers and sisters in our community or we turn a blind eye. Either we stand together and raise ourselves up, or we all fall.