Far more than they realize. Sadly, frequently, much more than they ever get a chance to fulfill. And so if everyone in the world has godgiven gifts and everyone in the world has potential, why is it that this country is so special . Why is it that more things have been more possible for more people for more places here than anywhere else in the face of the earth . I think it is because our founders knew what my mother taught me. Our founders knew that everybody has godgiven gifts. Our founders knew that everyone has potential, and so they founded a nation on what was quite a radical idea at the time. It is a visionary idea still and the idea was that here, you have a right to fulfillpotential. That is what they meant when they said life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. You have the right to fulfill your potential in this nation, they said, and they said, that right and this was the radical pie part, that right comes from god and should not be taken away by manner government. Man or government. [applause] there is no other nation on the face of the planet that was founded on that kind of idea. And of course, we have worked hard through our history to be a more perfect union, to make sure that that idea applied to everyone. I started my Business Career as a secretary. I started out in a nine person Real Estate Firm typing in filing and answering the phones. And i have lived and worked and traveled all over the world and i know with certainty that it is only in this nation that the young woman can start out typing in filing for a nine person Real Estate Firm and go on to become the chief executive of the Largest Technology company in the world and run for the presidency of the United States. That is only possible here. A number of you are here from pennsylvania. That is where my husband, frank, is front. Evan mitty we have been married 30 years. I started as an entrylevel salesperson after i got out of the secretarial pool at at t. My husband frank started out as a tow truck driver in a family owned auto body shop in pennsylvania pittsburgh pennsylvania. All you guys who love cars. I made my way up in at t and western electric and then hewlettpackard. It is one of the reasons i appreciate my toobrief tour of turbocam. What a fantastic company this is. I love manufacturing force because i spent a lot of time on them. You know what i find so invigorating about turbocams manufacturing force, it is not just this incredibly missed sophisticated machinery, not just the innovation that is going on here, it is that every single employee that i talked to really genuinely likes working here. Everyone of them talked about the opportunity they had been given, the fact this company treats them like family, that is what it is supposed to be about. Here is the truth. The truth is, we have come to a place in our nation where the things that have always given people the opportunity to fulfill their potential, those things are getting crushed. We have come to a place in our nation where the potential of the people of this nation is being crushed by the government of this nation. If you think that is a harsh statement, and it is, consider a couple of examples. A couple facts. Today, we tangle peoples lives up in webs of dependence. I have seen these people. I do not care what peoples circumstances are. Everyone has gifts, everybody has potential. Everybody wants to live a life of dignity and purpose and meaning. I can i have seen moms with kids, they did not lack godgiven gifts. They did not lack a desire to live a life of dignity or purpose or meaning. And yet, we have tangled their lives up in these webs of dependence and instead of encouraging them to move forward, we at we discourage them from doing so. The harder you work, the more you strive, the less you get from the government in a way that makes it really risky for you to say, let me go for that 40 hour a week job. The truth is, if you are a single mom, youre going to earn less making 55,000 year than if you make 20,000 a year and up and on the government. What kind of incentive is that . We are sending people all the wrong way. I talked about the fact that i started in a small business. They started in a garage like hewlettpackard did. My husband started in a family body shop. It is the Small Businesses, the familyowned businesses, the new businesses that create opportunity for people. Those Family Businesses create two thirds of the new jobs and the employee half the people. It has always been an entrepreneurial innovative spirit of folks, just regular people trying to make a living by building a business that has given this economy its engine. And yet today, for the first time in u. S. History, we are now destroying more businesses than we are creating. And by the way, it is not the big as this is that are getting destroyed. It is the little ones. And you know why . Because only a really big business can deal with really big government. By the time i left hewlettpackard, it was a 90 billion company. I can tell you running a 90 billion company, you can deal with big government. That nine person Real Estate Firm cannot. What is that . That is called crony capitalism. Where government gets bigger and only big business and big labor and big influence and big money the wealthy the wellconnected, the powerful can deal with big government. That is where we have come to. You doubt that . A tax code is now 70,000 pages long. I cannot tell you how many Business Owners i met here in New Hampshire around tax time who said, my taxes are not going to be done on time because i do not understand the many more. My accountant does not understand them. This year, the irs told us they were not prepared to answer taxpayers questions because they did not have enough money. Have you ever noticed how the government always needs more money to do something important . Have you ever noticed that . How is it the government keeps spending more and more, debts and deficits keep rising but when it is important, we need more money. Securing the border, we name our money. Reporting repairing roads and bridges, we need more money. Why is that . I will come to that in a moment. One more example of crony capitalism. Two of them, actually. Dodd frank. The Community Tank had nothing to do with the financial crisis. When the financial crisis hit it was fannie mae, freddie mac them at the big wall street banks there were 25 rigo tory agencies that were supposed me minding the store and none of them apparently did their job. What happened . We passed obamacare. Dodd frank. I have been on vacation. All these big laws run together. What is the consequence of dodd frank . 10 banks too big to fail have become five banks too big to fail. Thousands of Community Banks have gone out of business. Why does that matter . Amenity banks are where Small Businesses get their start. It is where families get their start. It is where innovators and entrepreneurs who made be the the Community Bank knows get their start. We are crushing the Community Banks. Meanwhile the big wall street tanks are getting bigger. And have there been any reform of fannie mae and freddie mac question mark no. Has there been any reform of the. 5 regulatory agencies that existed before the financial crisis met financial crisis . We have the Community Consumer protection bureau. They are looking at millions of credit card receipts to figure out if someone is being defrauded. We worry about the nsa. Maybe we ought to worry about the cfpb. What is the consequence of obamacare . How many of you saw the merger between two Big Health Insurance companies . Obamacare is such a big long, obligated bill that only big business can do with that much big government. It is called crony capitalism. The Drug Companies helped write it and they are getting bigger. It is a failure. Whatever you thought of it originally, Health Insurance premiums are up over 35 , we keep putting people into medicare and medicaid your doctors are taking patients on medicare and medicaid. This is not serving people. It is serving the Insurance Companies and eight Drug Companies. Big Drug Companies. Why do i bring all these problems up . Theyre are kind of depressing. The truth is the weight of this government the ineptitude of this government, another strong word, ineptitude. How many of you read tsa fails 96 of the time . That is ineptitude. How long has the Veterans Administration been a stain, a shame on this nations honor . How long have we not been serving our veterans . How long has government been getting bigger . How long has every agency gotten more money every year . The truth is that has been going on for decades. Every Government Agency has gotten bigger every year for almost 50 years now. Under republicans and democrats alike. The Veterans Administration has been a stain on our nations honor for at least two decades. The irs has been a problem. How long has the border been insecure . How long have politicians been talking about it . How long, how often have we talked about tax reform and yet it never happens . The point is, 82 of the American People now believe that there is a professional, Political Class and washington d. C. Comprised of republicans and democrats alike people who have been in politics other lives were more interested in the preservation of their power to my position, and privileged than on getting the job done. I agree with them. [applause] i agree with them and that is why i i am why i am running for the presidency of the United States. When did we get used to the idea that only professional politicians can hold office in our Nations Capital . When did we settle for that idea . Ours was intended to be a citizen government by, for, the people. They have to step forward and serve in the Public Interest for time. A time. [applause] i think this election is going to be about anythings. Many things. This will be about lifting the weight of government off of the potential of the people of this nation. I think this election is going to be about making sure that we lead once again in the world which i will talk about in a moment. I think fundamentally, this election is about leadership. Let me define for you what leadership is. Leadership is not about position or power or title or prestige or the size of your office or the size of your airplane. Leadership is also not management. You know what managers are . Managers are people who do the best they can within the existing system. Managers do not challenge the status quo. They accept the status quo. Leaders challenge the status quo. In fact, it is leaderships most important job to challenge the status quote, not to accept what is there because it has been there for a long time and the highest calling of leadership is to unlock potential in others. Every leader makes enemies. It is why people do not need sometimes. When i was at hewlettpackard, i let that company through a very difficult time. Six years. Com bust. The nasdaq is only now recovering after all this time to the dotcom bust. Tough call center be made and yet in that six years, we doubled the size of the company from 44 billion to almost 90 billion. We quadrupled its growth rate. We tripled its innovation to 11 patent today. We could quadrupled the cash flow. We went from lagging behind in every market to leading in every product category. I got fired in a boardroom brawl, proving that when leaders challenge the status quo, you make enemies. It is what happens. Sometimes, for people who have been in politics all their lives, sometimes it is easier to go along to get along. To talk about things. Isnt it interesting however time and election season rolls around, suddenly all these great ideas come out . Let secure the border. Lets reform entitlements. All these great ideas and yet somehow, they do not ever happen because they will not happen. Unless the status quo truly gets challenged. Let me tell you one of the ways i would challenge the status quo and i think it is high time. I would go to the American People on a regular basis to engage citizens once again in the process of their government and ask you key questions. For example, i might go into the oval office and sake, do you think it is important where our money is being spent . Please take out your smart phone, press one for yes and two for no. [applause] before do you think it is ok that you can sit in a federal government job and watch pornography all day long and are in the same pay, pension and benefits as someone trying to do a good job . Press one for yes, two for no. You know why that kind of citizen pressure works . Because politicians respond to pressure. Remember when the scandal of the v. A. In arizona burst onto the front page because people were outraged area they was outraged. Within three short Weeks Congress had passed a bipartisan bill area the fastest timeframe they had ever done anything. You could fire the top 400 Senior Executives of the v. A. And president obama signed it into law like that. It was a tremendous breakthrough. The first time. Only one has been fired. I think that is kind of a good idea. Another question i might ask you , do you think we ought to be able to fire Senior Executives in the federal government who are not doing their jobs . Press one for yes, two for now. [applause] for no. Every problem we have can be solved. These are not Rocket Science problems. They require common sense. They require leadership. A require citizenship. We need to go to zerobased budgeting so we know where our money is being spent. We need to tactile fundamental reform at laces like the v. A. I would take 10 veterans and put them in a room and tell us how you want to be served. They would, with a better blueprint for the future of that agency than all the bureaucrats put together could. [applause] and nowhere is leadership more we need leadership to unlock the potential of this nation once again. We need readership to fundamentally reform the federal government so that it is no longer so inept, so wasteful, so abusive, so corrupt. Those are all very strong words. But every year, we get report after report after report of hundreds and hundreds of aliens of dollars of fraud, waste abuse, corruption in the federal government, and what happens . Nothing. We need leadership to change that. We need leadership in the world because the world is a very dangerous place. It is a tragic place when we are not leading. Let me tell you a couple things i would do. First of all, it is true that i know more World Leaders on the states today than Anyone Running with the possible exception of hillary clinton. Only i did not do photo ops. I had meetings. I had a meeting this close to Vladimir Putin. I have sat in bb netanyahus office or the chinese leadership or the saudi leadership, Africa Europe asia, the middle east, i have met these people. I have been in their countries. Our allies do not know whether they can count on us. Our adversaries know they do not need to Pay Attention to us. The first phone call would be to Bibi Netanyahu to let him know that the u. S. Will always stand with the state of israel. [applause] and that phone call is important in and of itself because i can remember sitting in his office five years ago in a private meeting while he talked to me about iran and their Nuclear Ambitions and then walking down the hall to speak to the head of mossad about the same. It also is a symbol. That phone call is a symbol to every ally we have is even our allies who disagree strongly with israel on many things wonder, when the u. S. Treats israel this way, how much is my friendship with the u. S. Worth . The second phone call would be the Supreme Leader of iran. He would arguably not take my phone call but he would get the message. I do not care what deal secretary john kerry cuts or what president obama signs. Until you open every new year facility, every uranium enrichment facility, we will make it as difficult as possible for you to move money around the Global Financial system. We can do that. We do not need anybodys permission to do that. [applause] i would not call Vladimir Putin. We have spent way too much time talking to Vladimir Putin and his foreign minister. I would begin rebuilding the sixth fleet and the Missile Defense shield programs, i would conduct aggressive military exercises in the baltic state and i would arm ukrainians and Vladimir Putin would get the message. [applause] in those phone calls and acts are important as well. Every adversary or wouldbe adversary we have, whether it is china or russia or iran or someone else would say, may be u. S. Is going to lead again. And make no mistake. We must have the strongest will it on the face of the planet and everybody has to know it which means we have to invest in our military. [applause] and finally, i would call a camp david summit, not to talk our air of allies into a bad deal with iran. I would call it to speak to our arab allies about what they need from us to fight isis. They know this is their fight. I do not know how