I tell you, my fellow Americans, that if we learned anything from the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the fall of the governments in Eastern Europe, even a totally controlled society cannot resist the winds of change that economics and technology and information flow have imposed in this world of ours. That is not an option. Our only realistic option is to embrace these changes and create the jobs of tomorrow.

To build a twenty-first-century economy, America must revive a nineteenth-century habit--investing in the common, national economic resources that enable every person and every firm to create wealth and value.

President Obama has offered a plan with 4 trillion dollars in debt reduction over a decade, with two and a half dollars of spending reductions for every one dollar of revenue increases, and tight controls on future spending. It's the kind of balanced approach proposed by the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles commission.

We Democrats think the country works better with a strong middle class, real opportunities for poor people to work their way into it and a relentless focus on the future, with business and government working together to promote growth and broadly shared prosperity. We think "we're all in this together" is a better philosophy than "you're on your own."

What you earn depends on what you learn.

Strength and wisdom are not opposing values.

I've gained first hand knowledge of the challenges faced by people with disabilities. It's made me understand that those of us who have full use of our physical faculties owe an enormous amount of respect and sensitivity to people who don't.