Hillary Clinton | Standing strong for you

One of the most rewarding parts of running for president is meeting the young, smart and passionate people across this country. You are standing up and taking part in our nation's history.

We all saw your activism on display after September 11. President Bush called on Americans to draw on our wallets and go shopping. But you had other ideas - to draw on a reserve of compassion and hard work to serve this country. And we saw huge increases in applications for service opportunities like Teach for America, AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps.

We need your activism now more than ever. Our nation faces tremendous challenges here at home and around the world. A war in Iraq to end. An economy to rebuild. A climate crisis to tackle. A health care crisis to solve. And that's only the beginning.

Unfortunately, for eight years we've had a president who hasn't been much of a partner in your work. If anything, he's actually created more work. He's undermined women's rights and gay rights and appointed Supreme Court justices who chipped away at reproductive rights, undermined equal pay and turned back the clock on school integration, decisions that will affect you and your children for decades to come.

He's continued to wage a war in Iraq that has taken more than 4,000 of our best and most dedicated young men and women and costs us hundreds of billions of dollars - a bill that you and your children will be paying unless we reverse course.

He's run up our national debt to $9 trillion. So every baby born today starts life with $30,000 of debt on his or her tiny shoulders, a birth tax that will only increase for your children and grandchildren if we don't end this reckless spending.

And he's waged a war on science, cutting off promising stem-cell research, banning his own surgeon general from talking about contraception and failing to address the threat of global warming. To paraphrase a great philosopher, Stephen Colbert, this administration doesn't make decisions based on facts, it makes facts based on decisions.

As a result, my generation is in danger of being the first ever to leave America worse off than how we found it. And whether you are a Democrat, Republican, Independent, or you don't even follow politics, I think we can all agree that your generation, my daughter's generation, deserves better than that.

And so I'm running for president to deliver solutions to these big challenges.

Solutions like making college affordable again. I have proposed a new college tax credit and have helped pass a Student Borrower's Bill of Rights to safeguard college students against abusive loan practices and unaffordable rates.

Solutions like tackling the climate crisis and energy challenge. I have proposed a $50 billion strategic energy fund to invest in clean, renewable technologies by taking away the tax subsidies from the oil companies. As president I will create 5 million new, "green" jobs.

And solutions like a health-care system that provides quality, affordable health care for every single American - no exceptions, no excuses. I do not believe health insurance companies should decide who lives and who dies. And I am proud to be the only candidate in this race to have a truly universal health-care plan.

And we know that our challenges are not just here at home. After nearly seven years of a stubborn, preemptive, go-it-alone foreign policy, we have our work cut out for us to restore our leadership around the world.

That starts with bringing our troops home from Iraq as responsibly and quickly as we can. There is no military solution, and we should not be asking our brave young men and women to serve as referees in Iraq's civil war.

And as president, I will help restore America's leadership in the world. We'll work to end the genocide in Darfur. We'll fight the AIDS epidemic and extreme poverty. We'll stand up for women's rights and human rights. And we'll help bring opportunity to the 100 million children in the developing world who don't attend school.

We stand on the cusp of a new beginning for America. But it won't be easy. We need a commander-in-chief who is ready on day one to end the war in Iraq. A president ready to steward this economy. A leader who can deliver on the promises - and help renew the promise of America.

Benjamin Franklin, your illustrious founder, once said, "Well done is better than well said." And I could not agree more.

You deserve a president who will stand strong for you, deliver for you and be your champion. If you give me that chance, I will be that president.

Hillary Clinton is a Senator from New York and a Democratic candidate for President.

This is part two in a four-part series. On Monday, we had a piece by Senator John McCain. On Wednesday, we had a guest piece by Senator Barack Obama. And on Thursday, we released our endorsements for the Republican and Democratic presidential nominees for the April 22nd Pennsylvania Primary.

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