Hillary Clinton Transcript of Opening Statement at CNN Las Vegas Debate

Hillary Clinton: ‘At the Center of My Campaign Is How We’re Going to Raise Wages’
 
Tonight, in her opening statement at the first Democratic presidential primary debate, Hillary Clinton told Americans that she would fight for them as president – to raise their incomes, to create good-paying jobs, to cut middle class taxes, to ensure equal pay and paid leave, and more.
 
A full transcript of her opening statement, as delivered, is below:
 
“Well thank you, and thanks to everyone hosting this first of the Democratic debates.
 
“I’m Hillary Clinton. I have been proud and privileged to serve as First Lady, as a Senator from New York, and as Secretary of State. I’m the granddaughter of a factory worker and the grandmother of a wonderful one-year-old child. And every day I think about what we need to do to make sure that opportunity is available, not just for her, but for all of our children.
 
“I have spent a very long time, my entire adult life, looking for ways to even the odds, to help people have a chance to get ahead. And in particular, to find the ways for each child to live up to his or her God-given potential.
 
“I’ve traveled across our country over the last months listening, and learning, and I’ve put forward specific plans about how we’re going to create more good-paying jobs by investing in infrastructure and clean energy, by making it possible once again to invest in science and research and taking the opportunity posed by climate change to grow our economy.
 
“At the center of my campaign is how we’re going to raise wages. Yes, of course, raise the minimum wage but we have to do so much more. Including finding ways so that companies share profits with the workers that helped to make them.
 
“And then we have to figure out how we’re going to make the tax system a fairer one. Right now the wealthy pay too little and the middle class pays too much. So I have specific recommendations about how we’re going to close those loopholes, make it clear that the wealthy have to pay their fair share and have a series of tax cuts for middle class families.
 
“And I want to do more to help us balance family and work. I believe in equal pay for equal work for women, but I also feel it’s about time for paid family leaves for American families and joined the rest of the world.
 
“During the course of the evening tonight, I’ll have a chance to lay out all of my plans and the work that I’ve done behind them. But for me this is about bringing our country together again. And I will do everything I can to heal the divides – the divides economically because there’s too much inequality, the racial divides, the continuing discrimination of the LGBT community, so that we will work together and yes, finally, fathers will be able to say to their daughters, ‘You too can grow up to be President.’”