All of us, wherever we happen to stand on the marriage equality issue, can agree that all our children deserve the opportunity to live in a loving, caring, committed, and stable home, protected equally under the law.Collection: Equality
We have now under President Obama's leadership had 29 months in a row of private sector job growth. That stretch of positive private sector job growth hasn't happened since 2005. We still have a long way to go, but we are moving in the right direction.Collection: Leadership
Public trust is essential to public safety.Collection: Trust
Justice must be done in investigating the tragic death of Mr. Freddie Gray. His family deserves our deepest sympathy and respect for their loss, and our admiration for their courage in calling us, as a city, to act as our better selves.Collection: Sympathy
The right to vote gives every eligible American a voice in our electoral politics. There's too much at stake to stay silent as this right is eroded.Collection: Politics
The attitude in Baltimore in 1999 was almost one of resignation, that our problems were bigger than our capacity to handle them.Collection: Attitude
Leadership is about making the right decision and the best decision before, sometimes, it becomes entirely popular.Collection: Leadership
Doing difficult things like passing marriage equality, passing the Dream Act, doing common sense things that allow new American immigrants to fully participate, pay their taxes, play by the rules and take care of their families. That's the inclusive America that I believe all of us want to move to.Collection: Equality
When you create an economy where you subsidize corporate profits through a welfare program and food stamps in order to keep wages low in some perverse pursuit of 'competiveness,' than you reap the fruits of the anger that you sow.Collection: Anger
The most valuable investment we can make is in our children's education. When we make education a priority, we give our children opportunity. Opportunity to learn at higher levels than their parents were able to learn; to earn at higher levels than we were able to earn.Collection: Education
We live in a very different world than the one that we inherited from our parents and from our grandparents. Times are changing, and states must adapt to win.
Let's talk about policing and public safety. Let's debate what works and what does not. We must abandon practices that do not work, and do more of the things that actually do work to save lives.
The most fearless hearts, the audacious dreamers, have always maintained a sense of optimism that often flies in the face of the available evidence.
God doesn't make mistakes and has made each of us in his own image. God is simply love. There should be no fear in love.
Facts are facts: No president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the Great Depression inherited a worse economy, bigger job losses or deeper problems from his predecessor. But President Obama is moving America forward, not back.
We are a people of many different religions and many different faiths. The only way forward in a pluralistic society of diverse faiths such as ours is to have laws that protect and respect the freedom of all, equally.
Roads do not upgrade or maintain themselves. Bridges do not repair themselves or rebuild themselves.
So, look, in order to move our country forward, we have to do the things our parents and grandparents did. They believed enough in our country to invest in our country, to create jobs, to make modern investments. And those are the things that we need to get back to with a balanced approach.
But we should not lose sight of how far we are coming and what a big hole we were left by George W. Bush.
I am not surprised that this is a longer bit of work than many of us would have hoped. It is not where any of us would have hoped it is. And I think we need to give credit to the Republicans in Congress who have done everything they can to defeat every jobs bill and slow down the economy.
We have not recovered all that we lost in the Bush recession. That's why we need to continue to move forward.
Romney economics would spell disaster for America's middle class. In this economy there are shipbuilders and ship wreckers.
In times of adversity - for the country we love - Maryland always chooses to move forward. Progress is a choice. Job creation is a choice. Whether we move forward or back: this too is a choice.
Our parents and grandparents understood this truth deeply. They believed - as we do - that to create jobs, a modern economy requires modern investments: educating, innovating and rebuilding for our children's future. Building an economy to last, from the middle class up, not from the billionaires down.
Progress is a choice. Job creation is a choice. Whether we give our children a future of more or a future of less - this, too, is a choice.
We have concentrated wealth and capital to such a degree that the vast majority of us don't have the discretionary dollars to make our economy go and grow.
The Republican Party is doubling down on this trickle-down theory that says, 'Thou shalt concentrate wealth at the very top of our society. Thou shalt remove regulation from wherever you find it, even on Wall Street. And thou shalt keep wages low for American workers so that we can be more competitive.'
I think former President Clinton and even Newt Gingrich have said it was a mistake to repeal Glass Steagall.
We do ourselves a disservice when some of us cave to the myth that Social Security somehow drives the deficit.
The answers to feeding hungry children is not fewer dollars to feed hungry children, it's to do more. It is to raise the minimum wage. It is to increase, not dismantle, the earned income tax credit. It is to make college more affordable for more middle class families, not more expensive. These are the things that grow our middle class.
If workers have less money in their pockets to put food on the table, they will be spending less money; your economy will suffer.
Oh, you know what, it's an honor to be mentioned in the company of those that might lead our country forward after President Obama.
The Republicans have kind of painted themselves into a kind of a real demographic corner, if you will.
I think it would be an extreme poverty indeed if there weren't more than one person willing to compete for the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party.
I was motivated to go into public life because of the great chasm that exists between justice and injustice in our country. Nowhere is that divide greater than in America's cities.
Some people might look at Baltimore, from afar, and see nothing but hopelessness. I see, in Baltimore, tremendously good and compassionate people, and a tremendous opportunity to save a lot a lives.
Civil rights was not an impossible dream. Thousands of brave African Americans stepped forward to make it happen.