(To be delivered today at a rally in front of Goldman Sachs in Manhattan)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

We are here today to give voice to the millions of people who are shouldering the cost—financial and psychological—of the unpatriotic and un-American behavior of those who run Goldman Sachs and the other banks and financial institutions who destroyed our economy. And we are here today to say: never again. We will not let the robbery of the American people happen again.

We are proud Americans. We are proud partly because our country was founded on important, progressive ideals. Our Constitution, in its preamble, calls upon us to “promote the general welfare”. That idea is pretty simple: share the wealth. Share the great prosperity of the richest nation in human history.

The people running Goldman Sachs, and many of the big banks and financial institutions, care only about promoting their own welfare. They line their pockets with tens of millions of dollars and build astonishing wealth, while they gamble with the rest of our lives and, then, say to the rest of America: let them eat cake. Because that is often what is left for Americans whose jobs have disappeared, whose wages have been cut, who enter their retirement years not with plans to kick back after years of contributing to society but with great fear and anxiety.

That is not the America that we believe in. This is not the America that we ask our young men and women to die for. This is not an America that can be a symbol for the rest of the world.

At a time of economic crisis, to give out massive bonuses to a very few, bonuses earned on the backs of hard-working Americans and made possible by our tax dollars, is un-American and unpatriotic.

This rally and our plea should not be motivated by revenge because revenge is fleeting and short-sited. We want real change and we need it now.

To have real change, we need to speak two important truths. First, the robbery that has bankrupted the American people is not one that began two or three years ago. The American people have put up with this for 30 years, working harder and harder and being more productive every year and, yet, watching as their wages flat-lined. That Audacity of Greed has brought not the promotion of the general welfare but the greatest divide between rich and poor in 100 years.

The second truth is that this crisis is a bi-partisan responsibility. The message of Massachusetts is that the people believe the system is broken, that it is dysfunctional, that too many people believe that their elected leaders are not doing the business of the people, that politicians think that they own the seats they occupy and can ignore the voters. And they are right.

I am proud to be a Democrat and I am running to strengthen and make our party better. To do so, Democrats must return to our roots—to be the voice of the working person, not the voice of Wall Street and the corporate elite.

So, how do we bring real change, end the dysfunction of our system and make sure this never happens again?

First, I call on my opponent, Kirsten Gillibrand, to stop taking the massive amounts of money she is receiving from Wall Street and the very corporate interests that are blocking real change and to give back every dollar she has taken from the Wall Street bankers who destroyed our economy. That money is legalized corruption and is hurting every New Yorker and the American people.

Second, I promise, if elected, to push for a permanent financial transactions tax on Wall Street. That tax would raise at least $200 billion a year. It would hold down speculation. But it should not be seen as a penalty or a punishment. It is the proper contribution to make sure that we have a decent society—a society that builds roads, schools, and all the systems that allow the people on Wall Street to make a living.

Third, we have to put the power back in the hands of the people. We need to support the building of a strong labor movement—the only force that can make sure big banks, the big corporations and the very powerful in America act—in a patriotic fashion—in the best interests of Americans.

In this crisis, there is a great opportunity. Peoples’ anger can be channeled in a positive direction because most people want the same things: to feel secure, to feel that justice guides the way in which we share the great wealth of our country and to be treated with dignity and respect.

But real change can’t wait.