Edwards promises to save middle class

[JohnLocke]

Edwards promises to save middle class
By Foon Rhee--Boston Globe
Sunday, December 16, 2007
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In what his campaign billed as a major speech and in a new TV ad, John Edwards told Iowa Democrats that rising inequality threatens the middle class and the American dream.

"America was built on an idea – that all of us are equal," Edwards said today in a town hall in Ames, according to his campaign. "The idea that how hard you work, and what kind of choices you make will determine the kind of life you build, and what you pass onto your children -- but not the circumstances you're born into, never that. The greatness of America is that promise -- that every generation will leave its children a better life. That is our social compact with the middle class -- the promise that if you work hard and do what’s right, you’ll be able to build a better life for yourself and your family. But today, that compact is being threatened."

In the speech, and in the ad, unveiled on Saturday, Edwards said the culprits are corporate greed and a government that has sold out to big business.

"Corporate greed and influence in Washington are stealing our children's future," he says in the ad. "The moral test of our generation is whether we're going to allow this broken system to go on without a fight or take on corporate greed and stand up for the middle class and American jobs before it's too late. They aren't going to just give their power away."

"Saving the middle class is going to be an epic battle, and that’s a fight I was born for," Edwards pledges.

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2007/12/edwards_promise_1.html