When George Washington first took the oath I have just sworn to uphold, news
travelled slowly across the land by horseback, and across the ocean by boat.
Now the sights and sounds of this ceremony are broadcast instantaneously to
billions around the world. Communications and commerce are global.
Investment is mobile. Technology is almost magical, and ambition for
a better life is now universal.

We earn our livelihood in America today in peaceful competition with people
all across the Earth. Profound and powerful forces are shaking and remaking
our world, and the URGENT question of our time is whether we can make change
our friend and not our enemy. This new world has already enriched the lives
of MILLIONS of Americans who are able to compete and win in it. But when
most people are working harder for less, when others cannot work at all,
when the cost of health care devastates families and threatens to bankrupt
our enterprises, great and small; when the fear of crime robs law abiding
citizens of their freedom; and when millions of poor children cannot
even imagine the lives we are calling them to lead, we have not made
change our friend.

We know we have to face hard truths and take strong steps,
but we have not done so. Instead we have drifted, and that
drifting has eroded our resources, fractured our economy,
and shaken our confidence. Though our challenges are fearsome,
so are our strengths. Americans have ever been a restless, questing,
hopeful people, and we must bring to our task today the vision
and will of those who came before us. From our Revolution to the
Civil War, to the Great Depression, to the Civil Rights movement,
our people have always mustered the determination to construct from
these crises the pillars of our history. Thomas Jefferson believed
that to preserve the very foundations of our nation we would need