My father loved to complain about big business and big government, but we had a solid middle class upbringing. We had good public schools. We had accessible health care. We had our little, you know, one-family house that, you know, he saved up his money, didn't believe in mortgages.
You just have to sort of figure out how to - getting back to that word, "balance" - how to balance the public and the private efforts that are necessary to be successful, politically, and that's not just a comment about today. That, I think, has probably been true for all of our history.
I believe in evidence-based decision making. I want to know what the facts are.
When you guys go into some kind of a deal, you know, are you going to do that development or not, are you going to do that renovation or not, you know, you look at the numbers. You try to figure out what's going to work and what's not going to work.
It's important to recognize the vital role that the financial markets play in our economy and that so many of you are contributing to. To function effectively those markets and the men and women who shape them have to command trust and confidence, because we all rely on the market's transparency and integrity. So even if it may not be 100 percent true, if the perception is that somehow the game is rigged, that should be a problem for all of us, and we have to be willing to make that absolutely clear.
Remember what Teddy Roosevelt did. Yes, he took on what he saw as the excesses in the economy, but he also stood against the excesses in politics. He didn't want to unleash a lot of nationalist, populistic reaction. He wanted to try to figure out how to get back into that balance that has served America so well over our entire nationhood.
People are looking back and trying to, you know, get compensation for bad mortgages and all the rest of it in some of the agreements that are being reached. There's nothing magic about regulations, too much is bad, too little is bad.
I think there has to be a recognition that, you know, there's so much at stake now, I mean, the business has changed so much and decisions are made so quickly, in nano seconds basically.
We spend trillions of dollars to travel around the world, but it's in everybody's interest that we have a better framework, and not just for the United States but for the entire world, in which to operate and trade.
Running for office in our country takes a lot of money, and candidates have to go out and raise it. New York is probably the leading site for contributions for fundraising for candidates on both sides of the aisle, and it's also our economic center. And there are a lot of people here who should ask some tough questions before handing over campaign contributions to people who were really playing chicken with our whole economy.
The American system is, in many ways, more difficult, certainly far more expensive and much longer than a parliamentary system, and I really admire the people who subject themselves to it. Even when I, you know, think they should not be elected president, I still think, well, you know, good for you I guess, you're out there promoting democracy and those crazy ideas of yours.
We're kind of in the wild west, and, you know, it would be very difficult to run for president without raising a huge amount of money and without having other people supporting you because your opponent will have their supporters.
I want to have a tax on people who are making a million dollars. It's called the Buffett rule. Yes, Warren Buffett is the one who's gone out and said somebody like him should not be paying a lower tax rate than his secretary. I want to have a surcharge on incomes above $5 million.
We should make sure that nobody, no corporation, and no individual can get away without paying his fair share to support America.
I've been in favor of getting rid of carried interest for years, starting when I was a senator from New York.
After 9/11, I went to work with Republican mayor, governor and president to rebuild New York and to get health care for our first responders who were suffering because they had run toward danger and gotten sickened by it. Hundreds of thousands of National Guard and Reserve members have health care because of work that I did, and children have safer medicines because I was able to pass a law that required the dosing to be more carefully done.
When I was secretary of state, I went around the world advocating for America, but also advocating for women's rights, to make sure that women had a decent chance to have a better life and negotiated a treaty with Russia to lower nuclear weapons. Four hundred pieces of legislation have my name on it as a sponsor or cosponsor when I was a senator for eight years.
As president, I will take that work, that bipartisan work, that finding common ground, because you have to be able to get along with people to get things done in Washington.
Russia hasn't paid any attention to ISIS. They're interested in keeping Assad in power.
We need some leverage with the Russians, because they are not going to come to the negotiating table for a diplomatic resolution, unless there is some leverage over them.
I've stood up to Russia. I've taken on Putin and others, and I would do that as president.
I do support the effort to investigate for crimes, war crimes committed by the Syrians and the Russians and try to hold them accountable.
I would not use American ground forces in Syria. I think that would be a very serious mistake. I don't think American troops should be holding territory, which is what they would have to do as an occupying force. I don't think that is a smart strategy.
I think when you look at the letters that I get, a lot of people are worried that maybe they wouldn't have a place in Donald Trump's America.
I do have investments, investments in new jobs, investments in education, skill training, and the opportunities for people to get ahead and stay ahead. That's the kind of approach that will work.
