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In fact, I will extend the Medicare Trust Fund by at least two decades.
I will not raise taxes on anyone making under $400,000 a year. And I will pay for the ideas I’ve talked about tonight by making the wealthy and big corporations begin to pay their fair share.
Look, here’s the deal. Big corporations aren’t just taking advantage of the tax code. They’re taking advantage of you, the American consumer.
Here’s my message to all of you out there: I have your back. We’re already preventing insurance companies from sending surprise medical bills, stopping 1 million surprise bills a month.
We’re protecting seniors’ lives and life savings by cracking down on nursing homes that commit fraud, endanger patient safety, or prescribe drugs they don’t need.
Millions of Americans can now save thousands of dollars because they can finally get hearing aids over-the-counter without a prescription.
Capitalism without competition is not capitalism. It is exploitation.
Last year I cracked down on foreign shipping companies that were making you pay higher prices for everyday goods coming into our country.
I signed a bipartisan bill that cut shipping costs by 90%, helping American farmers, businesses, and consumers.
Let’s finish the job.
Pass bipartisan legislation to strengthen antitrust enforcement and prevent big online platforms from giving their own products an unfair advantage.
My administration is also taking on “junk” fees, those hidden surcharges too many businesses use to make you pay more.
For example, we’re making airlines show you the full ticket price upfront and refund your money if your flight is cancelled or delayed.
We’ve reduced exorbitant bank overdraft fees, saving consumers more than $1 billion a year.
We’re cutting credit card late fees by 75%, from $30 to $8.
Junk fees may not matter to the very wealthy, but they matter to most folks in homes like the one I grew up in. They add up to hundreds of dollars a month.
They make it harder for you to pay the bills or afford that family trip.
I know how unfair it feels when a company overcharges you and gets away with it.
Not anymore.
We’ve written a bill to stop all that. It’s called the Junk Fee Prevention Act.
We’ll ban surprise “resort fees” that hotels tack on to your bill. These fees can cost you up to $90 a night at hotels that aren’t even resorts.
We’ll make cable internet and cellphone companies stop charging you up to $200 or more when you decide to switch to another provider.
We’ll cap service fees on tickets to concerts and sporting events and make companies disclose all fees upfront.
And we’ll prohibit airlines from charging up to $50 roundtrip for families just to sit together.
Baggage fees are bad enough – they can’t just treat your child like a piece of luggage.
Americans are tired of being played for suckers.
Pass the Junk Fee Prevention Act so companies stop ripping us off.
For too long, workers have been getting stiffed.
Not anymore.
We’re beginning to restore the dignity of work.
For example, 30 million workers had to sign non-compete agreements when they took a job. So a cashier at a burger place can’t cross the street to take the same job at another burger place to make a couple bucks more.
Not anymore.
We’re banning those agreements so companies have to compete for workers and pay them what they’re worth.
I’m so sick and tired of companies breaking the law by preventing workers from organizing.
Pass the PRO Act because workers have a right to form a union. And let’s guarantee all workers a living wage.
Let’s also make sure working parents can afford to raise a family with sick days, paid family and medical leave, and affordable child care that will enable millions more people to go to work.
Let’s also restore the full Child Tax Credit, which gave tens of millions of parents some breathing room and cut child poverty in half, to the lowest level in history.
And by the way, when we do all of these things, we increase productivity. We increase economic growth.
Let’s also finish the job and get more families access to affordable and quality housing.
Let’s get seniors who want to stay in their homes the care they need to do so. And give a little more breathing room to millions of family caregivers looking after their loved ones.
Pass my plan so we get seniors and people with disabilities the home care services they need and support the workers who are doing God’s work.
These plans are fully paid for and we can afford to do them.
Restoring the dignity of work also means making education an affordable ticket to the middle class.
When we made 12 years of public education universal in the last century, it made us the best-educated, best-prepared nation in the world.
But the world has caught up.
Jill, who teaches full-time, has an expression: “Any nation that out-educates us will out-compete us.”
Folks, you all know 12 years is not enough to win the economic competition for the 21st Century.
If you want America to have the best-educated workforce, let’s finish the job by providing access to pre-school for 3- and 4-year-olds.
Studies show that children who go to pre-school are nearly 50% more likely to finish high school and go on to earn a 2- or 4-year degree, no matter their background.
Let’s give public school teachers a raise.