An Essay by John Kerry

A Fresh Start for America
By John F. Kerry

--November 1, 2004
SHORTLY after Christopher Reeve passed away, his wife, Dana, stood
with me on a stage in Columbus, Ohio. She wanted to talk to America
about her gutsy, heroic husband and his dreams for the future. She
told us, "He imagined living in a world where politics would never get
in the way of hope."

Also with me that day was John Glenn, whose daring journey to explore
the heavens made us hopeful again.
In the closing days of this campaign, I ask Americans to choose the
vision John Glenn embodies and Christopher Reeve never abandoned.

On Tuesday, Americans face a fundamental choice: We can choose to
continue the failed policies of the past four years -- or we can vote
for a fresh start for America. For the past four years, George W. Bush
has made the wrong choices for America. Nowhere is this more clear
than in his catastrophic misjudgments in Iraq.

He took his eye off the ball -- diverting resources from destroying
the terrorists who attacked us on Sept. 11 to rush to war against
Saddam Hussein, who had no collaborative links to Al Qaeda and no
links to the Sept. 11 attacks.

The Bush administration now calls Iraq "a remarkable success story."
Americans know better. Iraq is a mess: We see kidnappings and
hostage-takings, cities too dangerous for our soldiers to enter, more
than 1,100 brave American troops killed, and now the incredible
failure to secure weapons and explosives -- at the Al Qaqaa complex
alone, 760,000 pounds of explosives have disappeared. It took just one
pound of these explosives to blow up Pan Am Flight 103.

And we see another set of Bush failures here at home. Bush has spent
four years fighting for the powerful and well-connected, but his
policies have squeezed our middle class and those struggling to join
it.

He's let companies outsource jobs to Asia and given them tax breaks
for doing so -- and he's the first president to lose jobs in 70 years.
Four million more Americans have fallen into poverty on his watch --
1.3 million of them children. He's ignored the runaway cost of
college, let healthcare costs soar out of control, and driven gas
prices up to $2 a gallon with an energy policy that punishes American
families -- and rewards the Saudi royal family. And after raiding the
Social Security trust fund, he's now vowed to privatize Social
Security with a plan that will cut benefits up to 45 percent.

If the president thinks we're doing just fine, then he must believe
that we shouldn't hope for something better.
It doesn't have to be this way. John Edwards and I will take this
country in a new direction.
First, we'll get healthcare costs under control. That means covering
all of our children and giving families access to the same private
health insurance that members of Congress give themselves. 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.

Second, we'll fight to raise middle-class incomes by keeping and
creating good-paying jobs in America. We'll roll back tax breaks for
those who make more than $200,000 a year and give middle-class
families tax credits to help pay for college, healthcare, and child
care.

Third, we'll work to save Social Security. I will not privatize Social
Security; I will not cut benefits; and I will not raise the retirement
age.

Fourth, we'll make America independent of Mideast oil within 10 years.
We'll do it by investing in technology and alternative energy sources
and in cars and SUVs you only have to fill up once a month, not every
week.

Finally, I will fight a smarter, tougher, and more effective war on
terror. I will stop at nothing to hunt down, capture, and kill the
terrorists. I will never give any nation or organization a veto over
our national security. And I will always build and lead strong
alliances so that America never has to go it alone.

If you join with me on Tuesday, we will both defend our country and
fight for America's 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 those struggling
to join it. We will never again allow the politics of fear to obscure
our hope for the future. And together, we will lift up this nation
with the confidence that our best days are still ahead.

Senator John F. Kerry is the Democratic candidate for president.