SEN. HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
NO MORE GOVERNMENT BY THE FEW AND FOR THE FEW

Sen. Clinton is running for president to help the United States “renew our greatness at home and abroad” and make us a nation that sets common goals and has a sense of a shared mission.

“It is time that we begin to focus on the vast majority of the people in this country instead of having a government of the few, by the few and for the few, which is what we’ve had the last six years,” Clinton said.

Strong—enforceable—labor laws are one plank of Clinton’s platform to shift the nation’s policy agenda in the direction of the vast majority of people in this country.

“I’m a big believer in the balance of power,” Clinton said. “You’ve got to have a balance of power in your government, that’s why we have checks and balances and separation of powers. And you have to have a balance of power in the workplace between the employers and the employees. The only way to do that is to have strong, enforceable labor laws.”

Universal healthcare, retirement security and making college more affordable are other goals; and Clinton noted that more attention needs to be paid to kids who are not going to college. “We have basically decimated vocational education and we haven’t substituted anything for it.”

Energy dependence, she said, undermines our security, our environment and our economy. “I’ve proposed a strategic energy fund to look at clean, renewable energy and come up with alternatives,” Clinton said, “and I would fund it by taking the tax subsidies away from the oil companies. They should be part of the solution instead of continuing to be part of the problem.”

Money is needed to accomplish these goals and others, Clinton noted. And one place to find some of that money is by ending the war in Iraq and drastically reducing the U.S. military presence there. While the United States will still need to spend substantial amounts in the region to promote national security and defend its interests, she said, ending the war would free up resources to devote to other domestic priorities.

Clinton also said “government reform” is in order to “end the culture of corruption and cronyism” in Washington. “We need to get back to more transparency in government, and we need to have an end to no-bid contracts and the outsourcing of so much of our government.”