Americans everywhere are working harder for less and paying more for health care and college,” Senator Obama said. “For most folks, one income isn’t enough to raise a family and send your kids to college. Sometimes, two incomes aren’t enough. It’s harder to save. It’s harder to retire. You’re doing your part, you’re meeting your responsibilities, but it always seems like you’re treading water or falling behind. And whether we’re rich or poor, young or old, Democrat, or Republican, or Independent, the one thing we should all be able to agree on is that these stories and these hardships are a fundamental violation of the American Dream. This is not who we are. And this is not what America has to be."

Obama discussed his proposals to make college affordable, to reform our bankruptcy laws, to protect the balance between work and family, and to put a secure and dignified retirement within the reach of all Americans.

Obama continued, “This is what we must do to reclaim the American dream. We know it won’t be easy. We’ll hear from the can’t-do, won’t-do, won’t-even-try crowd in Washington; the special interests and their lobbyists; the conventional thinking that says this country is just too divided to make progress.

“Well I’m not running for President to conform to this conventional thinking – I’m running to challenge it. It’s the kind of change that I’ve been working for since I fought joblessness and poverty on the streets of Chicago two decades ago; the kind of change I fought for when I put $100 million worth of tax relief in the pockets of the working poor and expanded health care to 150,000 children and parents in Illinois."

Barack Obama’s comprehensive plan to help working families reclaim the American Dream will:
Provide a middle class tax cut of $500 for 150 million working Americans – $1,000 per working family – and eliminate the income tax for 7 million seniors making less than $50,000 per year.
Address the challenge of balancing work and family by guaranteeing workers paid sick days, expanding the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), supporting paid FMLA, and doubling funding for after-school programs.
Help Americans buy and keep their homes – including a tax credit to help more than 10 million American homeowners pay their mortgages, with an average of $500 in savings.
Protect American families by reforming bankruptcy laws, predatory credit card policies, and abusive payday lending practices.
Reduce health care costs by $2,500 for a typical family.
Strengthen retirement security by automatically enrolling workers in portable retirement accounts and providing additional incentives for Americans to save.
Put the cost of college in reach by providing a $4,000 refundable tax credit available at the time of enrollment, and create a Community College Partnership Program to strengthen this vital resource for American students.
Ease the financial hardship of rising home heating costs by releasing a portion of the Northeast Home Heating Oil Reserve to stabilize prices and funding and expanding the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program