Over the past 7 years, we’ve tried to modernize the economy, and today what we’re doing is modernizing the financial services industry, tearing down these antiquated walls, and granting banks significant new authority.
We should stay on the right track to the 21st century. Opportunity alone is not enough. I want to build an America in the 21st century in which all Americans take personal responsibility for themselves, their families, their communities and their country.
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.
Forget what you may have heard about a digital divide or worries that the world is splintering into ‘info haves’ and ‘info have-nots.’ The fact is, technology fosters equality, and it’s often the relatively cheap and mundane devices that do the most good.
I think what breaks people is not adversity; what breaks people is thinking that tomorrow is going to be just like yesterday. That’s what’s numbing – if you think you can’t change, you can’t be better. And I didn’t like that.
In our hearts and in our laws, we must treat all our people with fairness and dignity, regardless of their race, religion, gender or sexual orientation. . . .
American and Israel share a special bond. Our relationship is unique among all nations. Like America, Israel is a strong democracy, a symbol of freedom, and an oasis of liberty, a home to the oppressed and persecuted.
We must all be profoundly grateful for the magnificent achievements of our forbearers in this century. Yet perhaps in the daily press of events, in the clash of controversy, we don’t see our own time for what it truly is – a new dawn for America.
We must continue to deepen our ties to the Americas and the Caribbean, our common work to educate children, fight drugs, strengthen democracy, and increase trade.
Citizenship in the 21st century requires more than paying your taxes and voting and occasionally running for office. That even if you’re never in political office, you have political responsibilities. You can make your society stronger and better.
