Democratic presidential candidate Martin O’Malley is scheduled to address the Young Democrats of America National Convention Thursday night at the Millennium Biltmore.
The former Maryland governor will discuss his recently released “15 goals to rebuild the American dream” and “issues important to young people, including his plan for debt-free college,” an aide said.
Organizers of the four-day convention invited all five candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination to speak, with O’Malley the only one to commit to speaking in person, convention communications director Ryan Basham told City News Service.
The top two candidates in the polls, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, will send video messages, Basham said.
O’Malley’s 15 goals to rebuild the American dream are:
— increasing American families’ median net worth by $25,000 in 10 years;
— generating 100 percent of American electricity with renewable energy by 2050;
— cutting the unemployment rate among people ages 16 to 24 in half within three years;
— reaching full employment for American veterans by 2020;
— putting 11 million immigrants on a pathway to citizenship;
— ensuring all college students have the option to graduate debt-free within five years;
— improving college and career readiness and increasing the college completion rate by 25 percentage points within 10 years;
— ending childhood hunger in the nation by 2020;
— making changes to the criminal justice system “to save and redeem lives”;
— cutting deaths from gun violence — homicides, suicides and accidents — in half by 2025;
— reducing deaths from drug overdoses by 25 percent by 2020;
— reducing infant mortality by 10 percent by 2020;
— requiring banks to separate traditional banking and investment banking within five years;
— restoring the nation’s competition and antitrust laws, taking action within one year in office; and
— implementing public financing of congressional campaigns within five years.
The 52-year-old O’Malley declared his candidacy on May 30, saying “Our economic and political system is upside down and it is time to turn it around” and “we are allowing our land of opportunity to be turned into a land of inequality.”
O’Malley began his career in elective office by being elected to the Baltimore City Council in 1991 when he was 28. He was the city’s mayor from 1999-2007 and Maryland’s governor from 2007 until Jan. 21.
—City News Service