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KENNEDY
Thank you. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. It is an absolute privilege to join you all tonight. We are here in Fall River, Massachusetts, a proud American city.
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KENNEDY
An American city built by immigrants.
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KENNEDY
From textiles to robots, this is a place that knows how to make great things.
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KENNEDY
The students are with us here this evening in the auto tech program at Diman Regional Technical School, carry on that rich legacy.
The sole education reference in the State Of The Union address was to “great vocational schools.” Rep. Joe Kennedy’s rebuttal takes place at Diman Regional Vocational Technical High School in Massachusetts, which has programs ranging from car repair to dental assistant as well as a college prep curriculum.
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KENNEDY
Like many American hometowns, Fall River has faced its share of storms. But the people here are tough. They fight for each other, they pull for their city.
It is a fitting place to gather as our nation reflects on the state of our union. This is a difficult task. Many have spent the last year anxious, angry, afraid. We all feel the fractured fault lines across our country.
We hear the voices of Americans who are forgotten and feel forsaken. We see an economy that makes stocks soar, investor portfolios bulge and corporate profits climb but fails to give workers their fair share of the reward. A government that struggles to keep itself open. Russia, knee deep in our democracy. An all out war on environmental protection. A justice department rolling back civil rights by the day. Hatred and supremacy proudly marching in our streets. Bullets tearing through our classrooms, concerts and congregations, targeting our safest sacred places.
This stands as a counterpoint to President Trump’s usual rhetoric connecting himself to climbing stocks. Kennedy pointedly does not connect Trump to the stock market, which has generally been strong during the first year of Trump’s presidency. But while Trump can’t claim all the credit for it, analysts believe that his agenda of deregulation and tax cuts, particularly for corporations, plays a part in strong equity performance, as NPR’s Jim Zarroli has reported.
Kennedy is right that the amount that workers have benefited from growth has fallen off. Labor’s share of GDP in the U.S. has fallen off from its higher levels in the 1960s and ‘70s. This isn’t unique to the U.S.; other advanced economies have experienced this phenomenon, too.
This is an apparent reference to Russian interference in the 2016 elections, something that Trump has at times dismissed as a hoax. However, in his address, the president referred to “rivals like China and Russia that challenge our interests, our economy and our values.” His administration has also been working with state and local election officials to bolster election security and warns that Russia is likely to try to interfere in future elections.
And this nagging, sinking feeling, no matter your political beliefs, that this is not right, this is not who we are.
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KENNEDY
Folks, it would be easy to dismiss this past years as chaos. Partisanship as politics, but it is far, far bigger than that.
This administration isn’t just targeting the laws that protect us, they are targeting the very idea that we are all worthy of protection.
For them, dignity isn’t something you are born with, but something you measure by your net worth, your celebrity, your headlines, your crowd size. Not to mention, the gender of your spouse, the country of your birth, the color of your skin, the God of your prayers.
Their record is a rebuke to our highest American ideal - the belief that we are all worthy, that we are all equal, that we all count in the eyes of our law and our leaders, our God and our government. That is the American promise.
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KENNEDY
But today, ladies and gentlemen, today that promise is being broken by an administration that callously appraises our worthiness and decides who makes the cut and who can be bargained away.
They are turning American life into a zero-sum game. Where for one to win, another must lose. Where we can guarantee America's safety, if we slash our safety net. Where we can extend health care in Mississippi, if we gut it in Massachusetts. We can cut taxes for corporations today if we raise them on families tomorrow.
To achieve a deep cut in corporate taxes and stay within their self-imposed limit of an additional $1.5 trillion in deficit spending, Republicans opted to phase out most of the individual tax cuts by 2025. Supporters of the GOP plan argue that a future Congress will very likely extend those individual cuts. But as written, the new tax law does raise taxes on families in the future to minimize taxes for corporations today.
Where we can take care of sick kids if we sacrifice Dreamers. We are bombarded with one false choice after another. Coal miners or single moms, rural communities or inner cities. The coast or the heartland.
As if the mechanic in Pittsburgh, a teacher in Tulsa, and a day care worker in Birmingham are bitter rivals, rather than mutual casualties of a system forcefully rigged towards those at the top.
As if, the parent who lies awake terrified that their transgender son or daughter will be beaten and bullied at school is any more or less legitimate than a parent whose heart is shattered by a daughter in the grips of an opioid addiction. So here is an answer that Democrats offer tonight. We choose both.
In February last year, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos rolled back Obama-era guidance safeguarding transgender student rights under the Title IX federal education law.
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KENNEDY
We fight for both, because the greatest, strongest, richest nation in the world should not have to leave anyone behind.
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KENNEDY
We choose a better deal for all who call our country home. We choose a living wage and a paid leave, and affordable child care your family needs to survive, which is pensions that are solvent, trade pacts that are fair, roads and bridges that won’t rust away.
A good education that you can afford. We choose a health care system that offers you mercy, whether you suffer from cancer, or depression, or addiction. We choose an economy strong enough to boast record stock prices and brave enough to admit that top CEOs making 300 times their average worker is not right.
Even as public university tuition continues to rise, free-tuition programs have also been growing at the state and local level. New York state became the largest state to announce one, the Excelsior Scholarship, last April.
In a 2015 fact check of Hillary Clinton, who also used this figure on the campaign trail, the Washington Post traced this figure to the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. That Post fact check pointed out that calculations by the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg found ratios closer to 200 to 1.
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KENNEDY
We choose Fall River. We choose the thousands of American communities whose roads aren’t paved with power or privilege, but with an honest effort, with good faith and the resolve to build something better for your kids.
That, that is our story. It began the day our founding fathers and mothers set sail for a new world, fleeing oppression and intolerance. It continued with every word of our independence, the audacity to declare that all men are created equal. An imperfect promise for a nation struggling to become a more perfect union.
It grew with every suffragette’s step, every Freedom Rider’s voice, with every weary soul we welcome to our shores. And to all the Dreamers out there watching tonight, let me be absolutely clear.
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You are part of our story. We will fight for you and we will not walk away.
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KENNEDY
America, we carry that story on our shoulders. You swarmed to Washington last year to ensure that no parent has to worry if they can afford to save their child's life.
You probably marched together last weekend, thousands deep, on the streets of Las Vegas and Philadelphia and Nashville. You sat high atop your mom's shoulders and held a sign that read "Build a wall and my generation will tear it down."
For the one-year mark of Trump’s inauguration — and the massive women’s marches that happened the day after that inauguration — women marched nationwide to continue to protest the administration. While Washington, D.C., was the main focus of the protests in 2017, Las Vegas was where the headline women’s march and rally took place in 2018.
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KENNEDY
You bravely say, "Me too." You steadfastly say, "Black lives matter."
You wade through flood waters, battle hurricanes, brave wildfires and mudslides to save a stranger.
You battle your own quiet battles every single day. You drag your weary bodies to that extra shift so that your families won’t feel the sting of scarcity. You leave loved ones at home to defend our country overseas, patrol our neighborhoods at night.
You serve, you rescue, you help, you heal. That, more than any law or leader, debate or disagreement, that is what drives us towards progress.
Bullies may land a punch, they may leave a mark, but they have never, not once, in the history of our United States, managed to match the strength and spirit of a people united in defense of their future.
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KENNEDY
Politicians can be cheered for the promises they make. Our country will be judged by the promises we keep.
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KENNEDY
That is the measure of our character. That is who we are. Out of many, one.
Ladies and gentlemen, have faith. Have faith.
The state of our union is hopeful, resilient and enduring.
God bless you. God bless your families. And may God bless the United States of America. Thank you.
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