and she didn't change her life
although oh my gosh incredible to be
here I want I want you to reflect a
little bit how on what brought you here
tonight because I was thinking about
what brought me here tonight
and the Democratic Party of the United
States of America is the greatest hope
and force for progress in our country
today and and you all are going to
determine its future it is not an
exaggeration at all to say that the
future of the country rests in your
hands
and thank you all the incredible work
that you do leading us every day and
fighting the fight I know it's been hard
this last couple of years but help is on
the way
now I'm not from here as you may may
have gathered my parents immigrated to
this country in the 1960s they met at
graduate school I was born in a town
called Stu connected in New York my
father worked for GE and then IBM my
father's a physicists my mother's an
artists my brother's a psychology
professor and I became an entrepreneur
and CEO I built an education company
that was sold to a public company in
2009 and I looked at the nation's
problems at that point I made a little
money and so I thought to myself well
what are the biggest problems that I see
and the biggest problems that I saw were
that so much money and energy and talent
was heading to the coasts and not to
places like Iowa including people who
were from places like Iowa many many
times they thought they had to leave for
better opportunities and so that was the
problem that I saw and I said we can do
something about that
so I donated 120,000 my own money he
started calling rich friends and said do
you love America and then the savvy
among them said what does it mean if I
say yes to that question
and then I said at least $10,000 and
then enough of them said I love America
where we launched with a budget of about
a quarter million today our budgets
about 25 times larger thousands of young
people have joined MIT or applied to
venture for America and hundreds have
headed to cities around the country to
help create businesses and help
businesses grow so that's what I've been
up to for the last seven years I'm an
entrepreneur and a problem solver who
likes math and I say that because people
have told me that the opposite of Donald
Trump is an Asian man who likes math
now I'm here tonight to tell you all a
story in numbers in part and I'm going
to answer a question that you have been
grappling with for the last two years
and it may be perhaps the most important
question of our time and that question
is this why did Donald Trump win in Iowa
by nearly 10 points in 2016 for that
matter why did he win Michigan why did
he win Ohio why did he win Pennsylvania
why did he win Missouri why did he even
win Wisconsin now that is the question
of our time and the answer is in the
numbers because again I love numbers so
I dug in and the most direct correlation
I found was that the more manufacturing
jobs were lost in a voting district due
to automation
the more blue turned to red in that
district the reason why Donald Trump is
our president today is that we've
automated away 4 million manufacturing
jobs in Michigan Ohio Pennsylvania
Missouri Wisconsin and nearly 40,000
right here in Iowa how many of you
personally know someone who has lost his
or her job in manufacturing over the
last number of years I'm sure a number
of you do and I've been in the in these
communities in the aftermath of the
plant closing I heard from Mitch right
here an old wine in Northeast Iowa what
happened there when jobs disappeared
that's when despair takes its place and
that's when blue turns to red so I have
some bad news I was just in Silicon
Valley last month and this is going to
get worse before it gets better
the engineers and scientists of Silicon
Valley are working on solving the
problems of today the business problems
of today but as they succeed in solving
these problems their solutions are not
going to improve your lives or our lives
together what they're going to do is
they're going to make human labor your
labor our labor less and less central to
the economy and more and more obsolete
now this may seem far-fetched are
futuristic to someone
you but it's the hard truth and if you
look around you
Iowa has lost 12,000 retail jobs since
2001 how many of you have noticed store
is closing in your neighborhoods or area
there are another one hundred seventy
eight thousand hard-working Iowans and
retail and trade right now and three of
your seventeen malls are in danger of
closing this is going to get worse there
are another over 30,000 Iowans who drive
a truck for a living and this is the
most common job in 29 states my friends
in Silicon Valley and I am friends with
some of them please don't hold against
me but my friends in Silicon Valley are
working on trucks that can drive
themselves they say that there are 98%
of the way there and these trucks will
start hitting the highways in five to
ten years so the question is what's
going to happen to the drivers at that
point there are thousands of call center
workers in Iowa how many of you saw that
Google recently demonstrated software
that can do the job of a call center
worker someone's not in here how many of
you saw that well you can google it you
know and it's there but these changes
are real artificial intelligence is real
autonomous vehicles are real this is the
greatest economic and technological
transition in the history of mankind
Donald Trump is the manifestation of
this transition and our government has
been decades behind in being honest
about it and addressing it
now before I deciding to run for
president I decided to try and talk to
various political leaders about the fact
that this is the core set of issues and
what do you think their responses to me
were go ahead and shout them out was it
be fun sorry go ahead
wha-wha
it sounds like you were in the room so
the the solutions I heard were these one
we cannot talk about that too we should
study that further and three we must
educate and retrain Americans for the
jobs of the future
now that third one sounds great I'm a
Democrat I love education
I love retraining but again I looked at
the numbers and we know what happens in
the aftermath of losing these
manufacturing jobs that only less than
10 percent of manufacturing workers
qualified for federally funded
retraining programs and if they did
participate the success rate was less
than 20 percent we know that almost half
of manufacturing workers that lost their
jobs left the workforce and did not work
again and that nearly 1/4 of
manufacturing jobs that lost their jobs
left the workforce and never worked
again so those are the numbers that is
the story the numbers are telling us and
this is the challenge of our era now the
question is what are we going to do
about it the problem is this big and the
answer is as John alluded to we must
fundamentally shift the way we perceive
work and value in our society and I have
a three-part plan to make this happen
and solve for the greatest issue that
threatens our way of life today now the
first is the freedom dividend where
every American adult would receive
$1,000 free and clear no questions asked
every month to pay your bills invest in
your families start new businesses and
do what you want to do because you know
how best you would use that money
already right now 31% of Iowans are
working full time and cannot make ends
meet and 59% of our fellow Americans
cannot pay an unexpected $500 bill they
are living paycheck to paycheck week to
week and you know that is the reality
for many of your friends and neighbors
and we can change that we can give
Americans a raise so that so many of you
might think wow that sounds phenomenal
too good to be true but I want to give
you some background in history a law
almost exactly like this past the
of Representatives in 1971 under Richard
Nixon Martin Luther King was for it a
thousand economists signed a letter
saying this would be great for the
economy and society and a plan just like
this has been in effect in one state for
36 years where it has created thousands
of jobs helped improve children's
nutrition and lowered income inequality
and what state is that you may or man I
know yeah it's on Alaska and they use
oil money and I'm going to ask you all
today Democrats of Iowa what is the oil
of today technology that's right that is
the oil of today so my plan the freedom
dividend would put 16 billion dollars
into the hands of Iowans every year so
that you could pay your bills and do
everything that you would do with a
thousand dollars more per month and
would create over 40,000 jobs in Iowa
immediately now this is a very very big
plan and a big move but it's something
that we can achieve because again you
determine the future of this country and
we need to build an economy that
actually puts human goals and values
front and center invest in our people
and build a trickle up economy the
Republicans have been selling that
triple down trickle down garbage for
decades and we know it doesn't work at
all
they even know it doesn't work they know
it's nonsense so we're going to build a
trickle up economy from our from our
people up our families up and our
communities up and that's the first big
move
I'll make as president the second is
that we need to get healthcare costs off
the backs of American families and
businesses I've been an entrepreneur and
CEO and I know it's harder to expand
your business it's harder to hire it's
harder to start a business it's even
harder to switch jobs we spent twice as
much as other industrialized countries
on our healthcare than other countries
because our system rewards activity and
not healthfulness and as president I
will move us towards Medicare for all
and get the incentives right and the
third thing is that we have to change
the way we measure progress in our
economy GDP is something we invented
less than a hundred years ago during the
Great Depression and even the inventor
said this is a terrible measurement for
national well-being so of course what do
we do we start using it as a measurement
for national well-being it's a smart man
he's smarter than the people that have
been using it now I'm running for
president right now and my wife is
working much harder than I am and those
of you who have kids at home raise your
hand if you have kids at home most of
you got to be more parents than that my
wife is at home with our young boys who
were five and two one of whom has
special needs and she's working much
much harder than I do
what does GDP value her work at right
now zero and we all know that's nonsense
we know that she's contributing much
more value than the average hedge fund
investor or a Silicon Valley programmer
we need to
we need to shift to new measurements for
our economic progress things that matter
to us like childhood success rates
mental health and freedom from substance
abuse environmental quality median
income and wealth proportion of elderly
in quality care that can actually retire
with dignity these are the measurements
that would actually tell us how we're
doing and as president and I will
establish the American scorecard and
present on how we are doing every year
at the State of the Union so these are
the three big ideas to get us through
the greatest economic shift in human
history and I'm going to close with a
conversation I had in Washington DC that
will be familiar to some of you so I was
going through these issues and saying
look this is a giant technology shift
and the American people are being
devastated through no fault of their own
what are we going to do about it and
this is what someone said to me he said
to me you are in the wrong town that
this town is not a town of leaders this
is a town of laggards and followers we
will be the last people to figure this
out
and what you must do Andrew is you must
create a wave in other parts of the
country and bring it crashing down on
our heads and only then will we
understand and that is why I'm with you
here tonight Democrats of Iowa I need
your help to create this wave to build
an economy from the ground up to show
that we still in the democracy and that
America needs your leadership right now
America needs your leadership your
courage your vision your compassion your
faith in your fellowship to light the
way
now I've got to say that I've been
looking forward to this this occasion
for a long time because I know the power
you have in your hands even though you
don't always feel it day to day because
you are fighting the fight but I'm going
to tell you that you are some of the
most powerful people in this country and
that we are all going to come to you and
ask you for your support and that's what
I'm doing here tonight but together if
we work our hearts out we can show our
fellow Americans that we still live in a
democracy that people matter more than
money that our values are more powerful
than any lobbyists and that we put
everything we have into it we can still
build a country that we are proud of to
leave for our children
thank you very much Democrats in Iowa
for a night god bless you all
god bless the United States of America
thank you all
you