JOHN KERRY: "WHY YOU SHOULD VOTE FOR ME"

USA Today

JOHN KERRY: "WHY YOU SHOULD VOTE FOR ME"

First, we’ll create good-paying jobs and lower taxes for hardworking Americans. We’ll stop rewarding companies that ship jobs overseas and start rewarding ones that keep and create them here in America. And we’ll give families tax credits to help pay for college, health care and child care. We’ll cut the deficit in half and restore fiscal responsibility.

Second, we’ll ensure that health care is a right — not a privilege — for all Americans, affordable and accessible. That means covering all of our children and giving families access to the same private health insurance as members of Congress. It means allowing our seniors to import safe, FDA-approved prescription drugs from Canada. And it means lifting the ban on federal funding for stem cell research so that our scientists can pursue cures and treatments for Parkinson’s, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and other diseases.

Third, we’ll fight to save Social Security, because when you work hard and pay in for a lifetime, America owes you what you’ve earned. I will not privatize Social Security, I will not cut benefits, and I will not raise the retirement age.

Finally, we’ll make America independent of Middle East oil within 10 years. We’ll invest in alternative energy sources and in cars and SUVs you have to fill up only once a month, not every week. It’s high time America relied on its own ingenuity and innovation instead of the Saudi royal family.

If you join with me today, together we will protect our country and fight for America’s middle-class families. We will unite Democrats and Republicans to succeed in Iraq and restore America’s leadership in the world. We will once again stand up for the middle class and all of those struggling to join it. And together, we will lift up the nation we love with the confidence that our best days are still ahead.