Cory Booker at DNC: Paying Your Fair Share isn’t Class Warfare, It’s Patriotism

Last updated on September 5th, 2012 at 09:35 pm

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Newark NJ Mayor Cory Booker fired up the DNC tonight with a rousing speech that more than made up for his faux pas regarding private equity, getting huge cheers with this, “And when your country is in a costly war, with our soldiers sacrificing abroad and our nation facing a debt crisis at home, being asked to pay your fair share isn’t class warfare—it’s patriotism!”

Watch here:

Selected quotes from Cory Booker’s prepared remarks for his speech tonight (emphasis mine):

“We also must pull from our highest ideals of justice and protect against those ills that destabilized our economy—like predatory lending, over-leveraged financial institutions and the unchecked avarice of the past that trumped fairness and common sense. Our platform calls for significant cuts in federal spending. Our platform calls for a balanced deficit reduction plan where the wealthy pay their fair share.

And when your country is in a costly war, with our soldiers sacrificing abroad and our nation facing a debt crisis at home, being asked to pay your fair share isn’t class warfare—it’s patriotism. But we all know—it’s common sense—that for an economy built to last we must invest in what will fuel us for generations to come. This is our history—from the Transcontinental Railroad to the Hoover Dam, to the dredging of our ports and building of our most historic bridges—our American ancestors prioritized growth and investment in our nation’s infrastructure.

And today our businesses, industries, entrepreneurs and economy realize a return on those investments. Let us not fall prey to rhetoric that seeks to gut investment and starve our nation of critical, common-sense building for our future. And investment must include the real engine of job growth in America: the American small business.

That is why I’m proud that our president has made a profound difference for people and businesses in Newark, New Jersey and our nation by cutting taxes for 100 percent of working families and giving small businesses 18 different tax cuts.

For President Obama, “home of the brave” are not just the last words of our national anthem, but also a call to action. This is why the president’s policies and our platform include incentives to train and hire our troops returning home. Not only because of our moral responsibility, but because it makes for a stronger, more secure American economy.”

Cory ended with this rousing call, “This is our platform. This is our American mission. These are the dreams of our fathers and mothers. This is the demand from the next generation, who call to our conscience in a chorus of conviction, in classrooms from north to south, from sea to shining sea, when they proudly proclaim with those sacred words from our most profound pledge, that we are a nation with liberty and justice for all.”

Booker’s speech was a must-see event, in which he passionately made the case for economic justice, and did so from the big tent philosophy of one who is inclusive of big business, but not at the expense of the people.

Let us not forget that Cory did mea culpa his Meet the Press trip:

They had good conversations with me and after having conversations with them, especially after hearing the president’s remarks on this issue where he was not condemning all of private equity. He was not condemning any particular firms. He was focusing in on a guy who’s bragging about his job creation record. To me, I think that’s fair game. All of those things make me say you know what? I need to go on and clarify, because obviously I did things in the Meet The Press interview as I told you that did not land the points that I was trying to make.

And in some ways, frustratingly, I think I conflated the attacks that the Republicans were making with Jeremiah Wright with some of the attacks on the left, and those can’t even be equated. The noxious nature of some of the attacks that we’ve seen to be going on our president, where you poll many people in the GOP who still believe he is a secret Muslim and these other things. It’s gotten so ridiculous. You can’t even equate the negativity on the right with what’s happening by some sectors on the left.

Cory Booker summed up the values of the Democratic Platform in an important way; he spoke of the party’s platform as American values, making the point that when we ask all to pay their fair share, it’s not class warfare, especially not when we are at war. It’s patriotism.

The RNC started their convention with lies and just rolled on until they were yelling at an empty chair and blaming Obama for the closure of a GM plant that closed in 2008.

In contrast, the Democrats are getting fired up over their inclusive, all-American platform and cheering for the middle class, women, Dreamers, equal rights for all Americans, and patriotism.

Sarah Jones

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