NOTES FOR THE INAUGURAL SPEECH

Barry, My Liege :

With trepidation, this space has created suggestions and ideas for an Inaugural speech, which are offered below. Use what you find appropriate.

Your faithful servant.


My Fellow Americans :

Words cannot express the humility and gratitude I feel this morning as I stand here before you to describe where the United States of America is headed for the next few years.

We are a great and a good nation and we are grateful that we are Americans at the beginning of the 21st Century.

We know in our hearts that our greatness follows from our goodness. This goodness of Americans is not an abstract or frivolous concept.

It is as real as the Americans who died protecting our freedoms in our many wars. It is as real as the thousands of men and women in harms' way at this moment.

And, it is just as real as the Americans who immediately help when a disaster like Hurricane Sandy hurts their neighbors.

We honor and respect those Americans who serve in our Armed Forces in countries far away or who serve in their neighborhoods every day and we are more grateful than we can say for their sacrifice and good will.

From this outpouring of American generosity and good will in the years since 1776, we have created a great and powerful country. A country where every person can live the American Dream of working hard and doing well for their families.

I am happy to report that the American Spirit is alive and well and that because of the spirit we can look forward to a bright and challenging future.

We are a family - a large American family. We are a family regardless of our origins, our gender, our religion, our political party or any other artificial divide.

And, like families everywhere, we have differences about issues both trivial and large. But, at the end of the day, we come together and agree on an action which makes our country stronger.

I will not lie to you - sometimes it takes too long to get that agreement. But, we do find the common ground eventually.

And that is what you ask of your leaders : You ask that we find the common ground and move forward.

And that is what we will do in the years ahead. We will find that common ground and we will move ahead.

Make no mistake, some folks will not have their wishes granted when we come together as Americans on a policy or action. And, some of those folks who feel left out will harbor bitter feelings. As your President, I extend a hand of friendship to all Americans including those who feel left out. I hope that they can overcome their grief and help us move forward on other issues.

One of the pressing issues faced by the United States of America is that some forces in the world wish us ill and seek to kill our people. We stand resolute against our enemies and we will defend our country with our greatest efforts. Having said that, my Admistration will bring forward some proposals to modify the legal system in place to conduct those efforts.

It is important to our values that we do not violate our Constitutional principles in conducting actions to secure our country. We can and we will do both - protect our country and our Constitution.

There are some trends inside our country which need some minor adjustments in the near future in order to provide our grandchildren with better lives.

We need to take better care of the planet. My administration has a number of specific programs to ensure that our resources and environment are secure. We will bring those forward soon.

These policies may harm some people financially by the actions we take to preserve our future.

We honor the rich among us for they have demonstrated great diligence in amassing their fortunes. The issue we face today is that some of those folks can use their wealth to manipulate the political system to their advantage and by so doing block the way forward for others in our family.

Now is the time for them to demonstrate that they too have the American Spirit of being willing to help their neighbors when disasters happen.

That is what we need to preserve our greatness - we need goodness and sacrifice from everyone in our family. We ask the fortunate among us to lead the way. The United States of America cannot move forward without their cooperation. I will be asking them for their cooperation soon.

We know that middle class and working class families have suffered financial setbacks in recent years and we are determined to improve the lives of all individual families in our great American family.

Our American political system needs some tweaking in order to ensure that the way forward for average families is not blocked.

Tweaking this system requires that we alter our method of financing political campaigns and that we modify some of our capital and consumer good markets to ensure more competition among our business enterprises. It may require also that we provide some additional negotiating strength to our labor folks while providing their employers some protection from lower cost competitors. We will bring forward specific policies to accomplish those tasks.

We recognize our familial obligation to assist those among us who cannot help themselves or who have worked their entire lives and want to live out their days secure from want and illness. We will protect existing programs and bring forth new policies to ensure that we meet those obligations.

We also recognize that America's future greatness lies in our ability to make our economy sound and growing. A fundamental requirement for that economic growth is a sound and healthy public education system.

Our future new products and services depend on an educated population. We know that limiting schooling to those who can afford a private education is a road to disaster for our grandchildren. Our economy works well when all of us can produce at our highest levels. We cannot afford to limit the potential of any of our family; we need their contributions for our future.

Let me assure the American people - we will find that common ground and we will make the right decisions for our children and grandchildren.

Thank you and may God bless the United States of America.