We adults must regain our moral bearing and teach our children that the most important things in life are not things but love, justice, respect, service and integrity. We must challenge ourselves, our families, religious, cultural, media and government leaders, and citizens to make our children’s health, safety, education, family and community life our overarching national purpose. Nations of the world have agreed on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to, among other things, reduce child and maternal mortality and end extreme global poverty by 2015. We hope the United States will lead in assuring their achievement and set and honor similar goals in our nation for our own poor, uninsured and poorly educated children. Every citizen must demand that our leaders commit, as a condition of our vote, to: 

1. Ensure every child and pregnant woman in America health insurance for all medically necessary services now. 
  

2. Lift every child from poverty by 2015; . 
  

3. Get every child ready for school through full funding of quality Early Head Start and Head Start, child care and new investments in quality preschool education for all. 
  

4. Protect all children from neglect, abuse and other violence and ensure them the permanent families they need when their families break down. 
  

5. Make sure every child can read by fourth grade and can graduate from school able to succeed at work and in life. 
  

6. Provide every child safe, quality after-school and summer programs so they can learn, serve, work and stay out of trouble. 
  

7. End child hunger through adequate child and family nutrition investments. 
  

8. Ensure every child a place called home and every family decent affordable housing. 
  

9. Ensure families the supports needed to be successful in the workplace, including health care, child care, education and training. 
  

10. Create jobs with a living wage.

All of these achievable goals will be costly but we can afford it. We do not have a money problem in America, we have a values problem.