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A Message from Jim Webb
Dear Friend,
I’d like to take a few minutes of your time to ask you to consider the most important question facing America today: Is it possible that our next President could actually lay out a vision for the country, and create an environment where leaders from both parties and from all philosophies would feel compelled to work together for the good of the country, despite all of the money and political pressure that now demands they disagree?
As one who spent four years in the Reagan Administration but who served in the Senate as a Democrat, I believe it is possible. It is also necessary. We desperately need to fix our country, and to reinforce the values that have sustained us, many of which have fallen by the wayside in the nasty debates of the last several years. I hope you will consider joining me in that effort.
Over the past few months thousands of concerned Americans from across the political spectrum have urged me to run for President. A constant theme runs through these requests. Americans want positive, visionary leadership that they can trust, at a time when our country is facing historic challenges. They’re worried about the state of our economy, the fairness of our complicated multicultural society, the manner in which we are addressing foreign policy and national security challenges, and the divisive, paralyzed nature of our government itself. They’re worried about the future. They want solutions, not rhetoric.
I share every one of these concerns.
I have proudly spent several periods in government but I’m not a career politician. I come from a family of “citizen soldiers.” My father served 26 years in the Air Force as a pilot and a pioneer in our missile programs. I learned early about the sacrifices a family makes when a member is repeatedly deployed, and also the fulfillment that comes from serving our country. My brother, my son and I all became Marines. I fought as an infantry Marine on one of the Vietnam War’s harshest battlefields. After leaving the Marine Corps I studied law and found a fulfilling career as an author and journalist. But again and again I came back to the personal fulfillment that can only come from public service.
I spent eight years on active duty in the military, four years as a committee counsel in the Congress working to help our veterans, five years in the Pentagon, one as a Marine and four as assistant secretary of defense and Secretary of the Navy. And I spent six years as a member of the United States Senate. Each time I served not with the expectation of making government a career, but to contribute to the good of the country during a period of crisis or great change.
In that spirit I have decided to launch an Exploratory Committee to examine whether I should run for President in 2016. I made this decision after reflecting on numerous political commentaries and listening to many knowledgeable people. I look forward to listening and talking with more people in the coming months as I decide whether or not to run.
A strong majority of Americans agree that we are at a serious crossroads. In my view the solutions are not simply political, but those of leadership. I learned long ago on the battlefields of Vietnam that in a crisis, there is no substitute for clear-eyed leadership. We are the greatest country on earth, overflowing with innovative thinkers. We need bold leadership that can tap into this talent, for the good of the country. We need people who will put the well-being of all of our citizens ahead of any special interest group, and who understand how to manage our complex federal system of government.
Americans are a complicated and unique people. For nearly 250 years, we have been a beacon of hope throughout the world. We are a country founded not by conquest but by the guarantee of freedom. Our Constitution established a government not to protect the dominance of an aristocratic elite, but under the principle that there should be no permanent aristocracy, that every single American should have equal protection under the law, and a fair opportunity to achieve at the very highest levels. Throughout the world, our insistence on individual freedom and opportunity has been at the bottom of what people think when they hear the very word “American.”
We haven’t been perfect and from time to time, as with today, we have drifted to the fringes of allowing the very inequalities that our Constitution was supposed to prevent. Walk into some of our inner cities if you dare, and see the stagnation, poverty, crime, and lack of opportunity that still affects so many African Americans. Or travel to the Appalachian Mountains, where my own ancestors settled and whose cultural values I still share, and view the poorest counties in America – who happen to be more than 90 percent White, and who live in the reality that “if you’re poor and White you’re out of sight.”
The Democratic Party used to be the place where people like these could come not for a handout but for an honest handshake, good full-time jobs, quality education, health care they can afford, and the vital, overriding belief that we’re all in this together and the system is not rigged.
We can get there again. The American Dream does survive. I see it every day in the journey of my wife Hong, who at the age of seven escaped with her extended family on a fishing boat when the Communists took over South Vietnam in 1975. Not knowing whether they would live or die, they were rescued at sea by the United States Navy, taken to refugee camps in Guam and Arkansas, later moving to New Orleans. Hong began working at the age of eleven. She learned English – something her parents were never able to do – and through her own determination became a graduate of Cornell Law School.
Everybody deserves that opportunity. In too many places it has been lost as our economy has changed its structural shape and whole communities have stagnated. But we can get it back again, for all of our people. And we must, for the greater good.
Forget the polls, the noise and the nasty TV ads. The challenge before us is far greater than the task of winning an election. It is how to govern, with foresight, fairness and administrative skill, once an election is over. We need to put our American house in order, to provide educational and working opportunities that meet the needs of the future, to rebuild our infrastructure and to reinforce our position as the economic engine and the greatest democracy on earth. We need to redefine and strengthen our national security obligations, while at the same time reducing ill-considered foreign ventures that have drained trillions from our economy and in some cases brought instability instead of deterrence.
With enough financial support to conduct a first-class campaign, I have no doubt that we can put these issues squarely before the American people and gain their support. The 2016 election is two years away, but serious campaigning will begin very soon. The first primaries are about a year away. Your early support will be crucial as I evaluate whether we might overcome what many commentators see as nearly impossible odds.
We are starting with very little funding and no full-time staff, but I’ve been here before. In February, 2006 I announced for the Senate only nine months before the election against an entrenched incumbent. We had no money and no staff. We were more than 30 points behind in the polls. I promised to work on the same themes I am putting before you now: reorient our national security policy, work toward true economic fairness and social justice, and demand good governance, including a proper balance between the Presidency and the Congress. We won. And despite the paralysis in our government, we delivered on these promises, in measurable, lasting ways.
In 2007, I gave the response to President Bush’s State of the Union address. I put economic fairness for our working people and small business owners at the front of my response, noting the immense and ever-growing disparities in income between corporate executives and those who do the hard work. When I graduated from college the average corporate CEO made twenty times what his workers made. Today that number is greater than 300 times. The inequalities between top and bottom in our country are greater than at any time in the last hundred years. And the disparities between those at the very top and the rest of our society have only grown larger since the economic crash of late 2008 and early 2009.
The stock market has nearly tripled during this so-called “recovery,” while ordinary income and loans to small business owners have actually decreased. I believe we can address these concerns while still supporting the American Dream of economic success for the risk-takers and visionaries who are at the forefront of the future. I’ve spent most of my professional life as a sole proprietor. I’ve lived under the load. We don’t need to overburden our economy with more government intrusion and additional piles of paperwork. We might begin by requiring an examination of all of the paperwork programs in our government. But we need to get going. And we need to fix these inequities in a fair way.
On my first day in the Senate I introduced a new GI Bill for those veterans who have served our country so faithfully and well since 9/11 – including my son, who left college and volunteered to fight as a Marine infantryman in Ramadi, Iraq, during some of the worst months of that war. I personally wrote this GI Bill along with legislative counsel. Within sixteen months we had guided the most important piece of veterans’ legislation since World War II through the Congress, gaining bipartisan support along the way. It is the best GI Bill in American history, covering a veteran’s tuition, books and fees and providing a monthly stipend. Today, more than a million Post- 9/11 veterans have been able to use it.
We also brought the need for criminal justice reform out of the shadows and into the national debate as a bipartisan issue of leadership rather than one of divisive politics. When we began this effort I was warned that it was political suicide to call for such reforms, but when others in the political process saw the support we received across philosophical lines, the need for criminal justice reform became a popular topic even for many conservative Republicans.
As soon as I was elected we began calling for America to strongly reengage in East Asia, with a special focus on Japan, Korea, and the ten countries of ASEAN, particularly Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore and Burma. I’ve spent a lot of time in Asia over the years. We put this issue on the table two years before President Obama came to office and three years before his Administration announced what they called a “pivot” toward this vital region. We led this change in policy.
With respect to accountability in government, I partnered with Senator Claire McCaskill to pass legislation creating the Wartime Contracting Commission, identifying and fixing large-scale fraud, waste and abuse in government contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan. This Commission has been credited with identifying as much as 60 billion misspent dollars in those places, and creating a process through which future contracts would become fully accountable.
True leadership makes a difference. Results can be obtained, even in a paralyzed political environment, and in fact I believe we can un-paralyze the environment and re-establish a transparent, functioning governmental system in our country. I invite you to learn more about my positions at www.jameswebb.com. I can assure you that we will be focusing not on petty politics or how to match a position with a poll, but on the future of our country and on solutions that will rebuild and unite us. In politics nobody owns me and I don’t owe anybody anything, except for the promise that I will work for the well-being of all Americans, and especially those who otherwise would have no voice in the corridors of power. All I ask is that you consider the record I am putting before you, and give me the opportunity to earn your trust.
Time is indeed of the essence. As I consider this effort I am asking that you support the exploratory committee with a donation and that you encourage other like-minded Americans to do the same. Visit our website at www.Webb2016.com to register your support. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you. Let’s fix our country. Together.
Jim Webb
Source: Webb 2016 Exploratory Committee
A Message from Jim Webb
Dear Friend,
I’d like to take a few minutes of your time to ask you to consider the most important question facing America today: Is it possible that our next President could actually lay out a vision for the country, and create an environment where leaders from both parties and from all philosophies would feel compelled to work together for the good of the country, despite all of the money and political pressure that now demands they disagree?
As one who spent four years in the Reagan Administration but who served in the Senate as a Democrat, I believe it is possible. It is also necessary. We desperately need to fix our country, and to reinforce the values that have sustained us, many of which have fallen by the wayside in the nasty debates of the last several years. I hope you will consider joining me in that effort.
Over the past few months thousands of concerned Americans from across the political spectrum have urged me to run for President. A constant theme runs through these requests. Americans want positive, visionary leadership that they can trust, at a time when our country is facing historic challenges. They’re worried about the state of our economy, the fairness of our complicated multicultural society, the manner in which we are addressing foreign policy and national security challenges, and the divisive, paralyzed nature of our government itself. They’re worried about the future. They want solutions, not rhetoric.
I share every one of these concerns.
I have proudly spent several periods in government but I’m not a career politician. I come from a family of “citizen soldiers.” My father served 26 years in the Air Force as a pilot and a pioneer in our missile programs. I learned early about the sacrifices a family makes when a member is repeatedly deployed, and also the fulfillment that comes from serving our country. My brother, my son and I all became Marines. I fought as an infantry Marine on one of the Vietnam War’s harshest battlefields. After leaving the Marine Corps I studied law and found a fulfilling career as an author and journalist. But again and again I came back to the personal fulfillment that can only come from public service.
I spent eight years on active duty in the military, four years as a committee counsel in the Congress working to help our veterans, five years in the Pentagon, one as a Marine and four as assistant secretary of defense and Secretary of the Navy. And I spent six years as a member of the United States Senate. Each time I served not with the expectation of making government a career, but to contribute to the good of the country during a period of crisis or great change.
In that spirit I have decided to launch an Exploratory Committee to examine whether I should run for President in 2016. I made this decision after reflecting on numerous political commentaries and listening to many knowledgeable people. I look forward to listening and talking with more people in the coming months as I decide whether or not to run.
A strong majority of Americans agree that we are at a serious crossroads. In my view the solutions are not simply political, but those of leadership. I learned long ago on the battlefields of Vietnam that in a crisis, there is no substitute for clear-eyed leadership. We are the greatest country on earth, overflowing with innovative thinkers. We need bold leadership that can tap into this talent, for the good of the country. We need people who will put the well-being of all of our citizens ahead of any special interest group, and who understand how to manage our complex federal system of government.
Americans are a complicated and unique people. For nearly 250 years, we have been a beacon of hope throughout the world. We are a country founded not by conquest but by the guarantee of freedom. Our Constitution established a government not to protect the dominance of an aristocratic elite, but under the principle that there should be no permanent aristocracy, that every single American should have equal protection under the law, and a fair opportunity to achieve at the very highest levels. Throughout the world, our insistence on individual freedom and opportunity has been at the bottom of what people think when they hear the very word “American.”
We haven’t been perfect and from time to time, as with today, we have drifted to the fringes of allowing the very inequalities that our Constitution was supposed to prevent. Walk into some of our inner cities if you dare, and see the stagnation, poverty, crime, and lack of opportunity that still affects so many African Americans. Or travel to the Appalachian Mountains, where my own ancestors settled and whose cultural values I still share, and view the poorest counties in America – who happen to be more than 90 percent White, and who live in the reality that “if you’re poor and White you’re out of sight.”
The Democratic Party used to be the place where people like these could come not for a handout but for an honest handshake, good full-time jobs, quality education, health care they can afford, and the vital, overriding belief that we’re all in this together and the system is not rigged.
We can get there again. The American Dream does survive. I see it every day in the journey of my wife Hong, who at the age of seven escaped with her extended family on a fishing boat when the Communists took over South Vietnam in 1975. Not knowing whether they would live or die, they were rescued at sea by the United States Navy, taken to refugee camps in Guam and Arkansas, later moving to New Orleans. Hong began working at the age of eleven. She learned English – something her parents were never able to do – and through her own determination became a graduate of Cornell Law School.
Everybody deserves that opportunity. In too many places it has been lost as our economy has changed its structural shape and whole communities have stagnated. But we can get it back again, for all of our people. And we must, for the greater good.
Forget the polls, the noise and the nasty TV ads. The challenge before us is far greater than the task of winning an election. It is how to govern, with foresight, fairness and administrative skill, once an election is over. We need to put our American house in order, to provide educational and working opportunities that meet the needs of the future, to rebuild our infrastructure and to reinforce our position as the economic engine and the greatest democracy on earth. We need to redefine and strengthen our national security obligations, while at the same time reducing ill-considered foreign ventures that have drained trillions from our economy and in some cases brought instability instead of deterrence.
With enough financial support to conduct a first-class campaign, I have no doubt that we can put these issues squarely before the American people and gain their support. The 2016 election is two years away, but serious campaigning will begin very soon. The first primaries are about a year away. Your early support will be crucial as I evaluate whether we might overcome what many commentators see as nearly impossible odds.
We are starting with very little funding and no full-time staff, but I’ve been here before. In February, 2006 I announced for the Senate only nine months before the election against an entrenched incumbent. We had no money and no staff. We were more than 30 points behind in the polls. I promised to work on the same themes I am putting before you now: reorient our national security policy, work toward true economic fairness and social justice, and demand good governance, including a proper balance between the Presidency and the Congress. We won. And despite the paralysis in our government, we delivered on these promises, in measurable, lasting ways.
In 2007, I gave the response to President Bush’s State of the Union address. I put economic fairness for our working people and small business owners at the front of my response, noting the immense and ever-growing disparities in income between corporate executives and those who do the hard work. When I graduated from college the average corporate CEO made twenty times what his workers made. Today that number is greater than 300 times. The inequalities between top and bottom in our country are greater than at any time in the last hundred years. And the disparities between those at the very top and the rest of our society have only grown larger since the economic crash of late 2008 and early 2009.
The stock market has nearly tripled during this so-called “recovery,” while ordinary income and loans to small business owners have actually decreased. I believe we can address these concerns while still supporting the American Dream of economic success for the risk-takers and visionaries who are at the forefront of the future. I’ve spent most of my professional life as a sole proprietor. I’ve lived under the load. We don’t need to overburden our economy with more government intrusion and additional piles of paperwork. We might begin by requiring an examination of all of the paperwork programs in our government. But we need to get going. And we need to fix these inequities in a fair way.
On my first day in the Senate I introduced a new GI Bill for those veterans who have served our country so faithfully and well since 9/11 – including my son, who left college and volunteered to fight as a Marine infantryman in Ramadi, Iraq, during some of the worst months of that war. I personally wrote this GI Bill along with legislative counsel. Within sixteen months we had guided the most important piece of veterans’ legislation since World War II through the Congress, gaining bipartisan support along the way. It is the best GI Bill in American history, covering a veteran’s tuition, books and fees and providing a monthly stipend. Today, more than a million Post- 9/11 veterans have been able to use it.
We also brought the need for criminal justice reform out of the shadows and into the national debate as a bipartisan issue of leadership rather than one of divisive politics. When we began this effort I was warned that it was political suicide to call for such reforms, but when others in the political process saw the support we received across philosophical lines, the need for criminal justice reform became a popular topic even for many conservative Republicans.
As soon as I was elected we began calling for America to strongly reengage in East Asia, with a special focus on Japan, Korea, and the ten countries of ASEAN, particularly Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore and Burma. I’ve spent a lot of time in Asia over the years. We put this issue on the table two years before President Obama came to office and three years before his Administration announced what they called a “pivot” toward this vital region. We led this change in policy.
With respect to accountability in government, I partnered with Senator Claire McCaskill to pass legislation creating the Wartime Contracting Commission, identifying and fixing large-scale fraud, waste and abuse in government contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan. This Commission has been credited with identifying as much as 60 billion misspent dollars in those places, and creating a process through which future contracts would become fully accountable.
True leadership makes a difference. Results can be obtained, even in a paralyzed political environment, and in fact I believe we can un-paralyze the environment and re-establish a transparent, functioning governmental system in our country. I invite you to learn more about my positions at www.jameswebb.com. I can assure you that we will be focusing not on petty politics or how to match a position with a poll, but on the future of our country and on solutions that will rebuild and unite us. In politics nobody owns me and I don’t owe anybody anything, except for the promise that I will work for the well-being of all Americans, and especially those who otherwise would have no voice in the corridors of power. All I ask is that you consider the record I am putting before you, and give me the opportunity to earn your trust.
Time is indeed of the essence. As I consider this effort I am asking that you support the exploratory committee with a donation and that you encourage other like-minded Americans to do the same. Visit our website at www.Webb2016.com to register your support. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you. Let’s fix our country. Together.
Jim Webb
Source: Webb 2016 Exploratory Committee
Welcome
I’d like to take a few minutes of your time to ask you to consider the most important question facing America today: Is it possible for us to return to a leadership environment where people from both political parties and from all philosophical points of view would feel compelled to work together for the common good, and to sort out their disagreements in a way that moves our country forward rather than tearing the fabric of this nation apart?
As one who spent four years in the Reagan Administration and then served in the Senate as a Democrat, I believe it is possible. It is also necessary. We desperately need to fix our country, and to reinforce the values that have sustained us for more than two centuries, many of which have fallen by the wayside in the nasty debates of the last several years. I hope you will consider joining me in that effort.
Over the past few months thousands of concerned Americans from across the political spectrum have urged me to run for President. A constant theme runs through these requests. Americans want positive, visionary leadership that they can trust. They’re worried about the state of our economy, the fairness of our complicated multicultural society, the manner in which we are addressing foreign policy and national security challenges, and the divisive, paralyzed nature of our government itself. In short, they’re worried about the future. They want solutions, not rhetoric.
I share every one of these concerns.
On The Issues
Forget the polls, the noise and the nasty TV ads. The challenge before us is far greater than the task of winning an election. It is how to govern, with foresight, fairness and administrative skill, once an election is over. We need to put our American house in order, to provide educational and working opportunities that meet the needs of the future, to rebuild our infrastructure and to reinforce our position as the economic engine and the greatest democracy on earth. We need to redefine and strengthen our national security obligations, while at the same time reducing ill-considered foreign ventures that have drained trillions from our economy and in some cases brought instability instead of deterrence.
Economic Fairness
Our working people have struggled following the collapse of the economy in the final months of the Bush administration, while those at the very top have continued to separate themselves from the rest of our society. As our economy has recovered from the Great Recession, the stock market has nearly tripled, from 6443 in March of 2009 to more than 17,000 as of today. At the same time, study after study shows that real income levels among working people have suffered a steady decline since January of 2009. And not only for our workers – according to the Wall Street Journal, loans to small business owners, who traditionally have been the backbone of the American success story, have decreased by 18 percent since 2008, while overall business loans have increased by 9 percent.
The growth of our economy has been increasingly reflected in capital gains rather than in the salaries of our working people. In many cases, the corporate headquarters and financial sectors are here, while the workers themselves are overseas. Many of our younger workers here in the United States are subject to complicated hiring arrangements that in many cases don’t even pay health care or retirement. Corporate success is measured by the increase in the value of the stocks, and corporate leaders are paid accordingly. When I graduated from the Naval Academy the average corporate CEO made 20 times the average worker’s pay. Now it’s closer to 350.
This is not a global phenomenon. In Germany – which has the highest balance of trade in the world – the average CEO makes about 11 times what an average worker makes. Many of our brightest economic analysts, high among them Ralph Gomory, point out that this disparity came about not because of globalization, but because executive compensation became linked with the value of a company’s stock rather than the company’s actual earnings. Investors would hardly complain. And our workers – the most productive work force in the world – have been the ones left behind.
If you make enough money to buy stocks, you’re probably doing OK these days. If you’re working in a successful company that provides stock options or bonuses in stocks, you’re probably doing pretty well. But it you’re spending all your income paying rent and putting food on the table and clothes on the backs of your kids, you’re probably living on the outer edge of the American Dream.
I would agree that we cannot tax ourselves into prosperity. But we do need to reconfigure the tax code so that our taxes fall in a fair way. It is possible to simplify the tax code, including reducing the corporate tax rate in exchange for eliminating numerous loopholes, and to examine shifting our tax policies away from income and more toward consumption. We did not even have a federal income tax in this country until 1913. The loopholes and exceptions that have evolved have made a mockery out of true economic fairness. I would never support raising taxes on ordinary earned income, whether it goes to a school teacher or a nurse or a doctor or a film star. But we need to find a better way.
Foreign Policy
First and foremost, if a President wishes to conduct offensive military operations, he – or she – should be able to explain clearly the threat to our national security, the specific objectives of the operations, and the end result he or she wishes to obtain.
Second, we will honor our treaty commitments. But we are not obligated to join a treaty partner if they elect to use force outside the direct boundaries of our commitment, as in Libya. Neither the United Nations nor NATO has the power to bring the United States into an elective war without the consent of our Congress.
Third, we will maintain superiority in our strategic systems. This includes not only nuclear weapons but also such areas as technology, space, and cyber warfare.
Fourth, we will preserve and exercise the right of self-defense as guaranteed under international law and the UN Charter.
Fifth, we have important allies around the world, especially in Asia and the Middle East, whom we will continue to support in many ways. This will not cease. In fact, as we clarify our other commitments, these relationships will be strengthened.
Sixth, with respect to the war against terrorism, we will act vigorously against terrorist organizations if they are international in nature and are a direct threat to our national security. This includes the right to conduct military operations in foreign countries if that country is unwilling or unable to address the threat. We maintain this right through international law, and through Article 51 of the United Nations Charter.
However, there is an important caveat to how our country should fight international terrorism. The violation of this principle has caused us a lot of trouble in the recent past. I can do no better than to quote from an article I wrote on September 12th, 2001, the day after the 9 / 11 attacks. “DO NOT OCCUPY TERRITORY. The terrorist armies make no claim to be members of any nation-state. Similarly, it would be militarily and politically dangerous for our military to operate from permanent or semi-permanent bases, or to declare that we are defending specific pieces of terrain in the regions where the terrorist armies live and train. We already have terrain to defend – the United States and our outposts overseas – and we cannot afford to expand this territory in a manner that would simply give the enemy more targets.”
And finally, a warning spurred by the actions of this Administration in places such as Libya. There is no such thing as the right of any President to unilaterally decide to use force in combat operations based on such vague concepts as “humanitarian intervention.” If a treaty does not obligate us, if American forces are not under attack or under threat of imminent attack, if no Americans are at risk, the President should come to the congress before he or she sends troops into Harm’s Way.
National Infrastructure
The technology revolution has pushed a lot of lower-skilled people into unemployment. And yet everywhere around us we see roads that need to be widened or repaired, bridges that are beginning to crumble and others that need to be built, traffic jams from clogged highways, schools that need to be built, expanded or repaired, inner city neighborhoods with cracked sidewalks, broken windows and people on the street. Franklin Roosevelt mobilized a nation whose unemployment rate had reached 25 percent. The Civilian Conservation Corps planted trees and cleared land. We built roads, put people to work, cleaned things up. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s vision brought us the Interstate Highway system – and the jobs it took to build it. There are people who need jobs and there is work to be done. And along the way, I believe it is possible to meld such a program with another one, featuring adult education for those who did lose their way when they were seventeen and now know how important it is, as a worker and as a parent, to get that diploma, earn some money, and be a role model for your kids.
Criminal Justice System
This is not a political issue; it is a leadership issue. The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Since I doubt we have the most evil people in the world, many now agree that we’re doing something wrong. Millions of our citizens are either in prison or under the supervision of the criminal justice system. During my time in the Senate we worked exhaustively to examine every component of this process, from point of apprehension to length of sentencing to the elements of life in prison, including prison administration, and to the challenge of re-entering society and hopefully living productive lives.
When one applies for a job, the stigma of having been in prison is like a tattoo on your forehead. In many cases, prison life itself creates scars and impediments that can only be remediated through structured re-entry programs. Millions of Americans are now in this situation, many of them non-violent offenders who went to prison due to drug use. To those who wonder whether we can or should put such programs into place, my answer is this: Do you want these former offenders back on the street coming after your money or your life, or do you want them in a job, making money and having a life?
Good Governance
Finally, let’s find a way to return to good governance. It will take time, but it is possible to rebalance the relationship between the executive and legislative branches, and to carefully manage the federal government, which is surely the most complex bureaucracy in the world. A lot of people running for President, and a lot of people covering those who are running for President, seem to skip past the realities of governing into the circus of the political debate. The federal bureaucracy is huge and Byzantine. I have seen many people come to public service from highly successful careers in the business world, only to be devoured and humiliated by the demands of moving policy through the bureaucracy and then the Congress.
-
The administration of our government needs to be fixed. With the right leadership and the right sense of priorities, it can be.
With enough financial support to conduct a first-class campaign, I have no doubt that we can put these issues squarely before the American people and gain their support. Serious campaigning will begin very soon. The first primaries are less than a year away. Your early support will be crucial as I evaluate whether we might overcome what many commentators see as nearly impossible odds.
True leadership makes a difference. Results can be obtained, even in a paralyzed political environment, and in fact I believe we can un-paralyze the environment and re-establish a transparent, functioning governmental system in our country. I can assure you that we will be focusing not on petty politics or how to match a position with a poll, but on the future of our country and on solutions that will rebuild and unite us. In politics nobody owns me and I don’t owe anybody anything, except for the promise that I will work for the well-being of all Americans, and especially those who otherwise would have no voice in the corridors of power. All I ask is that you consider the record I am putting before you, and give me the opportunity to earn your trust.
Jim Webb
Source: Webb 2016 Exploratory Committee
Jim Webb Announces Candidacy for President
Let's work together to make America an even better place.
Dear friends:
After many months of thought, deliberation and discussion, I have decided to seek the office of the Presidency of the United States.
I understand the odds, particularly in today’s political climate where fair debate is so often drowned out by huge sums of money. I know that more than one candidate in this process intends to raise at least a billion dollars – some estimates run as high as two billion dollars – in direct and indirect financial support. Highly paid political consultants are working to shape the “messaging” of every major candidate.
But our country needs a fresh approach to solving the problems that confront us and too often unnecessarily divide us. We need to shake the hold of these shadow elites on our political process. Our elected officials need to get back to the basics of good governance and to remember that their principal obligations are to protect our national interests abroad and to ensure a level playing field here at home, especially for those who otherwise have no voice in the corridors of power. And at the same time our fellow Americans need proven, experienced leadership that can be trusted to move us forward from a new President’s first days in office.
I believe I can offer both.
We all want the American dream – unending opportunity at the top if you put things together and you make it, absolute fairness along the way, and a safety net underneath you if you fall on hard times or suffer disability or as you reach your retirement years. That’s the American Trifecta -- opportunity, fairness, and security. It’s why people from all over the world do whatever they can to come here. And it’s why the rest of us love this country and our way of life.
More than anything else, Americans want their leaders to preserve that dream, for all of us and not for just a few.
We need a President who understands leadership, who has a proven record of actual accomplishments, who can bring about bipartisan solutions, who can bring people from both sides to the table to get things done. And that leader needs to gather the great minds of our society and bring them into a new Administration and give them direction and ask them to help us solve the monumental challenges that face us.
What should you ask for in your next President?
First, there is no greater responsibility for our President than the vital role of Commander in Chief.
I have spent my entire life in and around the American military. I grew up in a military family. I fought as a Marine rifle platoon and company commander on the battlefields of Vietnam. I spent five years in the Pentagon, four of them as an assistant secretary of defense and secretary of the navy. I covered our military on many journalistic assignments, including the Marine Corps deployment to Beirut in 1983 and as an “embed” reporter in Afghanistan in 2004. And while in the Senate I spent six years on both the Armed Services Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee.
Let me assure you, as President I would not have urged an invasion of Iraq, nor as a Senator would I have voted to authorize it. I warned in writing five months before that invasion that we do not belong as an occupying power in that part of the world, and that this invasion would be a strategic blunder of historic proportions, empowering Iran and in the long run China, unleashing sectarian violence inside Iraq and turning our troops into terrorist targets.
I would not have been the President who used military force in Libya during the Arab Spring. I warned repeatedly that this use of our military did not meet the test of a grave national security interest, that it would have negative implications for the entire region, and that no such action should take place without the approval of the Congress. The leadership in the Congress at that time not only failed to give us a vote; they did not even allow a formal debate, and the President acted unilaterally. The attack in Benghazi was inevitable in some form or another, as was the continuing chaos and the dissemination of large numbers of weapons from Qaddafi’s armories to terrorist units throughout the region.
And today I would not be the President to sign an executive order establishing a long-tem relationship with Iran if it accepts Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. This Administration and those in Congress should be looking very hard at the actual terms of this agreement, which we on the outside cannot yet see or evaluate. They should also be questioning whether it is appropriate for such an important agreement to be signed without the specific, prior approval of the Congress.
On the other hand, I would make it clear to our friends and our potential adversaries that we will retain vigorous relationships with our treaty partners and our allies, and that we will meet and defeat any international terrorist movement that threatens our national security. We will work with our NATO allies to restore stability in Europe, and with our friends in the Middle East, particularly Israel, our most stable partner and friend in the region, to reduce the cycle of violence and turmoil in that part of the world.
I have been warning for many years that the United States is the essential guarantor of stability in East and Southeast Asia, and that China’s increasingly aggressive military posture in that region threatens our own national security. If I am elected as your President I can promise you that we will not accept China’s continuing military expansion and intimidation in such areas as the South China Sea. Nor will we be so fearful of our economic reliance on trade with China that we fail to protect our citizens in such matters as cybersecurity, where it is becoming increasingly apparent that the personal information of millions of Americans have been penetrated and breached, apparently by Chinese intelligence agencies.
Second, on domestic issues I would ask you to look at the results we were able to obtain during my time in the Senate, when many were throwing their hands up in the air and lamenting that little could be done when the government had become so paralyzed.
I spoke loudly and consistently on the issue of economic fairness, and made this issue the principal focus when I was asked to deliver the Democratic response to President Bush’s State of the Union Address in 2007.
Despite the warnings of political advisers that being portrayed as soft on crime was political suicide in American politics, from the beginning of my campaign for the US Senate and throughout my tenure, I spoke long and loud about the need to fix our broken criminal justice system. We pushed this issue directly from my Senate office, meeting with more than 100 stake holders from across the political spectrum, taking the hits and the criticism along the way and eventually bringing the need for criminal justice reform out of the shadows and into the mainstream of political debate.
I wrote and introduced the Post-911 GI Bill on my first day in office. Some said I hadn’t earned the right to introduce such broad legislation as a brand-new freshman Senator. The Bush Administration opposed the bill until the day it was signed. But we built a bipartisan coalition – a prototype for how things can indeed be accomplished in Washington – and within 16 months we passed the finest, most comprehensive GI Bill in history, which now has allowed more than a million of our Post-911 veterans a first class shot at the future.
Third, once we have brought together many of the great minds and leaders of America, what else should we be asking them to do?
Let’s work to restore true economic fairness in this great country, starting with finding the right formula for growing our national economy while making our tax laws more balanced and increasing the negotiating leverage of our working people. Our doors will be open to everyone who wants to work with us to find real, lasting solutions, from either party and from all segments of the American economy. But our goal will be to increase the financial stability of the American work force.
Let’s work to rebuild the infrastructure of this country vigorously and thoroughly, including roads, bridges, water systems, schools, alternate energy systems, and, vitally, the electrical grid through which all of our energy sources flow. A better infrastructure guarantees the increase of our inherent national wealth – it’s a “capital” investment in all of us – and it brings jobs that cannot be exported.
Let’s put a priority on fixing our educational system, and in the process giving our young people the priorities in our society and the future that they deserve. Not long ago a high school senior made a comment that still gives me pause every time I think of it. She said, “I’m not afraid of fighting for a cause. I’m afraid I won’t find a cause worth fighting for.”
Let’s give our younger people a cause worth fighting for. Let’s clean out the manure-filled stables of a political system that has become characterized by greed. Let’s rebuild an educational system that gives everyone a fair chance. A democracy is only as strong as the promise it offers its young citizens through the public education system.
When it comes to education in America we are looking at three challenges, which could actually intersect and become opportunities. The first is the benefit we can get through Pre-K programs that would allow less-privileged children to begin socialization and education at an earlier age. The second is the huge student loan debt that is hanging over the heads of so many of our talented young people who must mortgage their futures in order to have one. And the third is the reality that about 25 percent of the young people in this country do not even finish high school.
During my time in the Senate we worked hard to create second-chance programs for those who had not finished high school, financed in part by employer tax credits combined with programs in local community colleges. If I am elected President we can make these programs happen. We could also find a way for those who have finished their education to complete a period of public service, with loan forgiveness as an incentive for that service.
Let’s work together to fix our broken criminal justice system. This isn’t a political issue, it’s a leadership issue. It’s costing us billions of dollars. It’s wasting lives, often beginning at a very early age, creating career criminals rather than curing them. It’s not making our neighborhoods safer. We can fix this, strengthen our country, and make our people safer in their own homes and communities. It won’t happen overnight, but it won’t ever happen if we don’t start.
And let’s work toward bringing the complex issue of immigration reform to a solution that respects the integrity of our legal traditions while also recognizing the practical realities of a system that has been paralyzed by partisan debate. The holistic leadership approach I instituted nine years ago regarding criminal justice reform offers a prototype that can be used on the multifaceted challenges of immigration reform.
With every one of these recommendations I can make you two promises. The first is that every endeavor will be based on the premise that has been the foundation of our society from the day the United States Constitution was signed: that we are a nation of laws, not of specially privileged people, and that our greatest strength comes from the power of our multicultural heritage. And the second is that I mean what I say, that if I make a promise I will keep it, and that outside my faith and my family, my greatest love will always be for this amazing country that for more than 200 years has given so many people the opportunity to have a good life, raise a family, live in freedom, and achieve their dreams.
Let’s work together to make America an even better place.
I am ready to fight on behalf of every one of these issues. Will you help me do that?
Jim Webb
Source: Jim Webb for President
Senator Jim Webb
National Press Club
20 October 2015
Several years ago Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s wife Elizabeth sent me a wooden chink that had been used to put together the old school house on the rural farm where he wrote his books. We’d been talking about the kinship I felt with Senator Moynihan for his thoughtful approach to governance, his willingness to put country ahead of party, and his search for solutions rather than political expediency. She wrote on it, “square pegs in a round hole.”
Some people say I am a Republican who became a Democrat, but that I often sound like a Republican in a room full of Democrats or a Democrat in a room full of Republicans. Actually I take that as a compliment. More people in this country call themselves political independents than either Republican or Democrat. I happen to agree with them. Our country is more important than a label. Democrats in years past like Sam Nunn, Scoop Jackson, Mike Mansfield and John F. Kennedy understood this.
Americans are disgusted by all this talk of Republicans and Democrats calling each other the enemy instead of reaching across the aisle and finding ways to work together. I know what an enemy really is, from hard personal experience in combat. The other party in America is not the enemy; they are the opposition. In our democracy we are lucky to have an opposition, in order to have honest debate. It’s creative. It’s healthy. There is no opposition party in China because there are no elections in China, or in other non-democratic, authoritarian societies.
Over the years, whether I’ve worked with Democrats or Republicans my basic beliefs, principles of leadership and love of country have never changed. I’ve proudly served for four years in the Reagan Administration, and I’ve proudly served as a Democrat in the Senate.
But we must be honest here, because the very nature of our democracy is under siege, due to the power structure and the money that finances both political parties. Our political candidates are being pulled to the extremes. They are increasingly out of step with the people they are supposed to serve. Poll after poll shows that a strong plurality of Americans is neither Republican nor Democrat. Overwhelmingly they’re independents. Americans don’t like the extremes to which both parties have moved in recent years, and I don’t blame them.
And I know I’m going to hear it, so let me be the first to say this: I fully accept that my views on many issues are not compatible with the power structure and the nominating base of the Democratic Party. That party is filled with millions of dedicated, hard-working Americans. But its hierarchy is not comfortable with many of the policies that I have laid forth, and frankly I am not that comfortable with many of theirs.
For this reason I am withdrawing from any consideration of being the Democratic Party’s nominee for the Presidency. This does not reduce in any way my concerns about the challenges facing our country, my belief that I can provide the best leadership in order to meet these challenges, or my intentions to remain fully engaged in the debates that are facing us. How I remain as a voice will depend on what kind of support I am shown in the coming days and weeks as I meet with people from all sides of America’s political landscape. And I intend to do that.
I hold strong views about where the country needs to go. I will never change these views in order to adapt to a party platform as a way to get nominated for the presidency. I feel strongly that if I were nominated for the Presidency I could win, and that if I were the President I could assemble an administration filled with great minds and capable leaders from all the sectors of our society who share my vision and could bring this country back to its revered position as a beacon of fairness at home and of principled common sense in its foreign policy abroad.
I am not going away. I am thinking through all of my options. 240 years ago the Declaration of Independence from our status as a colony from Great Britain was announced. It’s time for a new Declaration of Independence – not from an outside power but from the paralysis of a federal system that no longer serves the interests of the vast majority of the American people.
The Presidency has gained too much power. The Congress has grown weak and often irrelevant. The present-day Democratic and Republican parties are not providing the answers and the guarantees that we can rely on. The financial sector represented by the Wall Street bankers is caring less and less about the conditions of the average American worker for the simple reason that their well-being depends on the global economy, not the American economy.
Our political process is jammed up. It needs an honest broker who respects all sides, who understands the complicated nature of how our federal system works, who will communicate a vision for our country’s future here at home and in our foreign policy, and who has a proven record of getting things done.
I’ve worked with both sides, and I have a lot of respect for many people who are members of both parties. I know how broken our system really is. This country needs a totally new dynamic that respects and honors our history and our traditions but is not a slave to the power structures that are failing us.
I love this country, and all that it has allowed me to achieve over the span of my life. I always have and always will put country above political party or personal ambition.
-- Jim Webb
Source: Jim Webb for President