.Dennis Kucinich's Issues
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Appointments aka. NO MATCHING TOPIC
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Commander in Chief 1 aka. NO MATCHING TOPIC
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Commander in Chief 2 aka. NO MATCHING TOPIC
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Election Day aka. NO MATCHING TOPIC
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Execution of Law aka. Privacy and Civil Rights
The "Patriot Act" is not what American patriots have fought and died for. To allow our Bill of Rights to be nullified without judicial supervision invites tyranny. The Attorney General has been handed unfettered power to wiretap, search, jail, and invade our most sacred right to privacy. The government must not be allowed, without probable cause or warrant, to snoop on our communications, medical records, library records, and student records. The recent disclosures of the President's refusal to follow the FISA law should worry all Americans concerned with the dangers posed by a too-powerful executive. We elect Presidents, not kings, and no president is above a clearly written law expressly curbing his powers. Far more worrisome, however, is the lap dog Congress that we currently have -- something even Republican Congress people are sheepishly admitting. For example, only eight members of Congress have been told ANYTHING about the FISA violations and they are sworn to secrecy. However, when they are asked if they have been told much, several have acknowledged that they have been pretty much left in the dark. That is not a Republic in action. No people should be frightened into giving up their precious rights. Recent refusals by the Attorney General to disclose whether similar programs are being used against purely domestic communications should send a chill down all our spines. The time to stop the erosion of our rights is now. All elected officials want terrorists to be listened to and caught. Does anyone seriously believe that terrorists feel they can talk freely on the phone? The misleading and duplicitous response that the government can't talk about its secret programs even in secret sessions of Congress is, frankly, ludicrous.
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Foreign Policy aka. Jobs and Withdrawal from NAFTA and WTO
Putting America Back to Work IN America: Our country is facing twin crises: high unemployment and a decrepit infrastructure. At the same time, millions of manufacturing and high-tech jobs are being shipped overseas. I have a plan that will turn our problems around and put Americans back to work in America. By pulling out of NAFTA, we can return jobs that have been lost, including high-wage jobs in the information technology field. By initiating a WPA-style jobs program that puts Americans back to work rebuilding America, we can create millions of jobs and simultaneously improve our quality of life. As a nation, we face a predicament of either buy American, or bye-bye America. Unless we cancel the WTO and pull out of NAFTA, corporations will continue to move jobs out of the country and produce goods in developing and third-world nations (with great costs to those countries' workers and environment). In order to buy American, we have to assure that goods are still being produced in America. That's why we must first cancel the WTO and pull out of NAFTA, which have lost us millions of jobs and spurred a soaring trade deficit. I have a Jobs Plan that will put 2 million Americans back to work at a living wage in such enterprises as rebuilding schools, designing roads, refurbishing environmental projects, and manufacturing steel for water systems. The Kucinich jobs plan will also increase the quality of life in America, by making highways safer, water cleaner, and schools more conducive to learning. Right now, unemployment stands at 6.2% nationally. Long-term unemployment has become a persistent problem. Nearly 2 million Americans have been looking for work unsuccessfully for over 6 months, while over 9 million Americans are unemployed. According to the Economic Policy Institute, there are three unemployed people for every job opening. Ironically, at the same time so many Americans can't find work, there is so much work to do. The crisis of our decaying infrastructure is something we see every day when we sit in traffic bound by orange barrels that line our highways. It is something that school children experience at their desks, crowded together under leaking roofs. In cities, municipal sewer systems overflow into rivers, streams, and estuaries. These events occur with increasing regularity as systems age. Infrastructure problems threaten our productivity, our economy, our environment, and our health. It is time to put America back to work. It is time to address the twin crises by putting unemployed Americans to work rebuilding America's neglected infrastructure. The Kucinich plan will make that happen.
The Kucinich Jobs Plan to Rebuild America: The Kucinich plan calls for the creation of a low-cost federal financing mechanism to administer $50 billion in zero-interest loans every year to localities for infrastructure projects for ten years. Twenty percent of these funds would be targeted for school construction and repair. The Kucinich plan also calls for a 15% reduction in the military budget, redirecting that $65 billion towards hometown security issues such as education, jobs, and health care for all. State and local governments would continue to issue bonds to finance infrastructure projects. But under the Kucinich plan, the federal government would be authorized to buy those bonds. States would have to repay the principal, but unlike normal municipal borrowing, these bonds would pay zero interest. So, the cost of borrowing for infrastructure improvement would be reduced by half. The federal government would hold these bonds in the Federal Bank for Infrastructure Modernization (FBIM). The bank, as an extension of the Federal Financing Bank under the Treasury, would administer the loans. The loans would bear a small fee of one-quarter of one percent of the loan principal to cover the administrative costs of the FBIM. In order to provide the money for the loans, the FBIM would hold a portion of the Treasury securities that the Federal Reserve normally holds. The Fed currently holds about $300 billion in Treasury securities. Transferring about $50 billion annually to the FBIM would still allow the Fed to operate as it does now to add liquidity to the system. The Fed, instead of buying securities, would buy the mortgage loans of the states. This way, the FBIM's finances would be integrated by the Federal Open Market Committee so as not to disrupt its ability to promote economic stability. This amount would be varied, so that the funds could be used as a tool to foster stable economic growth. During times of economic slowdown, the FBIM would make more loans available to spur investment. During times of economic boom, the FBIM would make fewer loans available. All of the jobs within this new system would be living-wage jobs, because I would raise the minimum wage to at least $8 an hour and create an index so that the minimum wage rises automatically with cost of living increases. If we establish both universal health care and universal pre-kindergarten, workers will no longer be plagued by the high costs of health care and child care. The net savings of these programs is enormous, and as result, I believe we will have a healthier society and a more resilient economy.
The Kucinich Plan to Keep Jobs in America: The exodus of jobs from our shores and the "race to the bottom" for workers around the world is an obvious result of NAFTA and the WTO, both of which make it impossible to place taxes or tariffs on outsourced work. The search for countries where workers are unrepresented and environmental rules are lax must end. NAFTA, WTO, "Fast Track" legislation, and the Free Trade Area of the Americas must be rejected and replaced with Fair Trade policies in which bilateral trade agreements are negotiated to provide for living wages for workers and environmental safeguards. Canceling NAFTA and the WTO will enable the U.S. to protect high-tech jobs from outsourcing. This, plus careful monitoring of H-1B visa practices, will slow the tide of outsourcing. The Bush Administration has embraced the concept of outsourcing American jobs overseas as a new form of international trade. Where is the patriotism in this? U.S. companies are expected to ship 200,000 jobs a year to India in the near future, in pursuit of lower wages, and we have already lost a significant fraction of our manufacturing jobs to countries overseas. In this continued loss of control over the development of our own technology and materials, and the continued loss of hundreds of thousands of American jobs, we are creating serious threats to our national and economic security. I am advocating a new policy to replace our current H-1B and L-1 visas, a policy that does not put skilled American workers in the high-tech industry at risk. There are many tech-industry jobs that could be done by Americans who are out of work, and often the immigrants who come to our country on H-1B visas find themselves in indentured servitude situations. We cannot continue to tolerate the loopholes and offshore profit shifting that corporations engage in to get out of paying their fair share of taxes. We must also take a much harder line on corporate crime, by increasing the roles of the FTC, the SEC, and the Justice Department in addressing it. We live in strange times when patriotism merely extends to unnecessary wars and not to protecting the lives and welfare of American families by keeping jobs here. It is necessary to promote a new corporate responsibility and sense of shared commitment, so that the race to minimize wages for workers and maximize shareholder profits in already profitable businesses is considered unpatriotic and punishable by tax policy. We must reject Bush's efforts to transfer more and more wealth upward, by creating an intelligent tax structure that promotes the public good. My entire mission is aimed at increasing the benefits to the public good. My campaigns are financed completely by ordinary individuals, not large corporations. I am not beholden to any corporate interests; there are no strings attached. My campaigns and my work represent all the people of our nation, not just the wealthy elite.
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Miscelanious 1 aka. Universal Health Care & Full Social Security Benefits at Age 65 & Right-to-Choose
Our health care system is broken, and H.R. 676, the Conyers-Kucinich bill, is the only comprehensive solution to the problem. It is also the system endorsed by more than 14,000 physicians from Physicians for a National Health Program. Nearly 46 million Americans have no health care and over 40 million more have only minimal coverage. In 2005 some 41% of moderate and middle income Americans went without health care for part of the year. Even more shocking is that 53% of those earning less than $20,000 went without insurance for all of 2005. In fact, the National Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine estimates that 18,000 Americans die each year because they have no health insurance. The American health system is quite sick. Pulitzer Prize journalists Donald Barlett and James Steele, in their stunning analysis of the health care industry, Critical Condition (2006 Broadway Books), insist that "... U.S. health care is second-rate at the start of the twenty-first century and destined to get a lot worse and much more expensive." Considering the following facts from Tom Daschle's article for the Center for American Progress: "Paying More but Getting Less: Myths and the Global Case for U.S. Health Reform": International Cooperation: US out of Iraq, UN in.
In the past three years, the U.S. has subjected the world community to a doctrine of preventive, unilateral, and illegal first strikes against "forces of evil" that have not attacked us. America has maintained into perpetuity an obsession with overwhelming U.S. military superiority. We have insisted that everyone else adhere to rules of international order that we have no intention of following ourselves. We have demonstrated a contempt for international organizations and any multilateral constraints whatsoever on the employment of American power. All of this has estranged and frightened our allies and provoked enduring enmity in the councils of other governments and the hearts of citizens around the world. George Bush's foreign policies have made us new foreign enemies. George Bush's defense policies have weakened our defenses. George Bush's responses to 9/11 have made future 9/11s more likely to occur. In the America of my dreams, the America I see taking root and flourishing under new administration, other nations will encounter an America that abides by Lincoln's precept: "The only lasting way to eliminate an enemy is to make him your friend." We will accommodate rather than alienate, make friends instead of enemies, and employ carrots far more often than sticks. We need an administration that will drain the swamps of hopelessness, exploitation, and humiliation that cause vulnerable individuals to head down the terrorist road. We need leaders who will be both tough on terror and tough on the causes of terror. We spend one-tenth of one percent of our Gross National Income on development aid -- the lowest of any developed country. Is this a formula for winning the hearts and minds of the next global generation? We must seek to re-engage the world by collaborating with the world's nations on our most intractable common challenges. The Bush Administration has squandered opportunities to cooperatively address environmental degradation, persistent hunger, ignorance and illiteracy, safe water, the AIDS pandemic, the degrading status of women in so many places, failed states, cultural obliteration, transnational governance of exploitative transnational corporations, and perhaps most important of all, the desperate grinding poverty of two billion souls -- fully one-third of the planet. We need leadership who will work to bridge the chasm between the rich and the poor -- around the block and around the world. We must work to replace the law of force on the world stage with the force of law. By showing such open disdain for the UN Charter and international law during the past three years, we have become in the eyes of many the primary outlaw on the world stage. If we disregard the law of nations, we're left with the law of the despot, where the only constraint on violence is the power and ruthlessness of those who would employ it. Rest assured, in that world we won't be the only ones to use it. We must immediately move for the United States to re-engage in the important treaties that the Bush Administration has abandoned. We must affirm and ratify treaties, beginning with: -- The Kyoto Treaty on Global Climate Change -- The Biodiversity Treaty -- The Forest Protection Treaty -- The Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty -- The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty -- The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty -- The Landmine Ban Treaty -- The Biological Weapons Convention -- The Chemical Weapons Convention -- The International Criminal Court
Our country and all nations must review and modify all treaties that reject national sovereignty in the cause of a global corporate ethic that does not respect human rights, workers' rights, and environmental quality standards. This means reviewing the practices and the practical impact of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank. I am working to create a Department of Peace to stand alongside the Department of Defense. If our country must spend hundreds of billions of dollars every year preparing for war, we can spend at least one percent of that amount for a department aimed at preventing war. The Department of Peace will seek to make nonviolence an organizing principle of society. It will present a wider range of alternatives within the councils of our government. It will offer a new clear vision of people working out their differences without resort to primitive violence, of peaceful coexistence in a tolerant world, of peace as a higher evolution of the human psyche. Millions of citizens of the world have taken to their streets this past year to bravely protest our country's launching a foolish and dangerous war whose consequences we can still only dimly foresee. But the Department of Peace idea aspires to do more than just prevent particular wars. With a Department of Peace, we can articulate a vision of the future where humanity has abolished war itself.
I see a new vision for American seniors. I see a country where all citizens can retire with full benefits at age 65, where social security will never become privatized, and where retirement years won't land in the hands of the stock market. I see an America where equal access and equal rights are obtained by all; where health care is regarded as a human right; and where the people who have lived to see this country grow can continue to grow old with it in peace. I encourage programs that support the public good, such as community-based senior services and home care. We must stop the predatory lending practices that have victimized so many American seniors, while simultaneously establishing a federal Office of Elder Justice. Rights for the disabled are fundamental rights, for which I continue to fight. By establishing a universal single-payer health plan, we can ensure that seniors never again resort to splitting pills or skipping medication to save costs, because they will already be covered. This plan, "Enhanced Medicare for All," provides comprehensive health coverage including prescription drugs, dental care, and complementary or alternative medicine. By removing the profit from health care coverage, patients and doctors will be put in charge of health care, instead of HMOs. My plan will cost employers, on average, less than they now pay -- those that provide coverage at all. Corporations don't heal people; people do.
Social Security: My platform is centered upon a non-negotiable commitment to preserve Social Security against all assaults. I stand to return full Social Security benefits to senior citizens at age 65 -- a rollback from the present age of 67. In addition, I staunchly oppose all efforts to privatize Social Security, thus diverting payroll tax dollars into individual accounts. I am against raising the retirement age, against raising the cap on taxable wages, and against means-testing for benefits. There is no question that America can afford to uphold its social compact with its senior citizens. The finances of the Social Security system are more secure now than ever. America is wealthier than at any previous point in Social Security's history, and the fund is solid through 2042 with no changes whatsoever. I believe the interest rate on the Social Security trust fund is too low. It is much less than the average interest rate for U.S. Treasury-backed securities. If Congress changed the law to credit the trust fund with the average interest rate, we could reduce long-term financing problems by 30%.
Medicare and Prescription Drugs: The compact with America's seniors to provide them with health care is now at risk, because the new Medicare bill passed just before Thanksgiving is not reforming Medicare, it is dismantling it. It is a windfall for HMOs and big insurance companies and obscenely profitable drug companies -- but a debacle for America's senior citizens. This bill does nothing to restrain the skyrocketing escalation of drug prices. The Republican refusal to confront the pricing power of the drug companies is the #1 cause of the bill's exorbitant price tag -- $400 billion -- for American taxpayers. Several studies indicate that my plan for universal, single-payer health care would save at least $200 billion annually -- more than enough to provide health care and prescription drugs to all those currently left out. I have a long record of addressing issues related to Medicare and prescription drugs in the U.S. Congress. Recently, I co-sponsored legislation to provide for a voluntary prescription benefit, to provide greater access to affordable pharmaceuticals, to negotiate fair prices with pharmaceutical manufacturers, to provide for accelerated generic drug competition, and to allow for the importation of prescription drugs from Canada after meeting strict guidelines for safety and effectiveness. Our government must be empowered to lower prices and impose windfall profits taxes on the exorbitant pricing of an out-of-control drug industry. We need a new Prescription for America, a regulatory structure that puts a ceiling on drug company profits, the same way credit laws establish what constitutes usury and the way utility rates are controlled. We're already paying for national health insurance that could include prescription drug benefits. The only problem is, we're not getting it. The Kucinich plan for Universal Health Care is "Enhanced Medicare for All": non-profit, universal, single-payer national health insurance. It would be publicly funded health care, privately delivered -- similar to that used in most of the other developed countries of the world. It will decrease total health care spending, while providing more treatment and services. It will remove private insurance companies from the system, along with their bloated bureaucracies, blizzards of paperwork, excessive executive salaries, mammoth advertising budgets -- and, above all, profits. Since Medicare was enacted in 1965, seniors went from being the group least likely to have health insurance to the group most likely -- because of Medicare. Medicare has achieved goals that Congress has not been able to accomplish for the rest of our population, by keeping millions out of poverty, increasing access to health care, improving quality of life, and even extending life expectancy by 20%. The new Medicare bill just passed will eliminate guaranteed health care for the only part of our population that has it. American seniors, however, are concerned not only with their own health care, but with the health care of their children, grandchildren, and all Americans. There is no more comprehensive solution to the nightmare that is American health care today than the one I propose and will stand by 'til the end. I was one of the leading voices in the U.S. Congress trying to prevent the disgraceful new Medicare bill from becoming law. Medicare privatization is bad for seniors, bad for retirees, bad for employers, and bad for the economy. The only ones who benefit from this plan are the pharmaceutical companies and insurance giants, who seek to continue health care for profit in this country. I am fighting to reverse this shameful bill and to make Medicare a solemn contract with America's seniors again. Eventually, we should extend the essentials of the Medicare social contract not just to seniors, but to all. I believe that health care should be a public good, rather than a private commodity. Health care is not just a privilege for those who happen to have the right job. Health care is a human right.
Older Americans Act and Elder Justice: Throughout my career in public service, I have been a strong supporter of seniors' issues. In advocating for the amended Older Americans Act, I have shown my support for older Americans' need for adequate income in retirement, the best possible physical and mental health, suitable housing, long-term care services (with special attention to those who wish to stay in their homes and for their caregivers), help for grandparents raising children, and efficient community services. There are few greater moral transgressions than abusing the trust of our elders. That is why I have co-sponsored in Congress H.R. 2490, a bill that would establish an Office of Elder Justice. Such an office would help prevent elder abuse, neglect, and exploitation. It would significantly expand elder care research, training, and clinical practice, nationwide. It would aspire to create models for optimal elder care and services. And it would encourage non-profit organizations to establish volunteer programs in support of elder justice.
Pensions: The American dream -- to work hard, develop a career, be successful, get ahead, and save for retirement with a decent and secure pension -- is being diminished and destroyed every day in this country by corporate executives who are cheating ordinary Americans out of their hard earned retirement benefits. As the nation watched gargantuan corporate bankruptcies unfold at Enron and Global Crossing -- and the people of my 10th District of Ohio watched Chapter 11 proceedings at LTV Steel -- we all learned to our great surprise that there are two sets of rules in this arena. Corporate executives play by one set of rules. And employees play by another. Executives, it turns out, often get very special treatment with their pension plans: more investment choices, no lock-down restrictions, generous deferred compensation plans without requirements that they be disclosed, guaranteed rates of return, and "golden parachutes" when a company begins to get in trouble. Employees, on the other hand, are treated very differently. The most egregious disparity is that during a bankruptcy, executive pension plans are totally protected from creditors. Employees, however, stand at the end of the line and must wait behind other creditors -- to claim what rightfully belongs to them for compensation that they have already earned! All of this must change.
Housing: Seniors on fixed incomes often have financial problems meeting rising property taxes and maintenance costs and must have supportive communities to help them live in dignity. I believe that decent housing is a fundamental human right and a basic right of citizenship for all Americans, young and old. In recent years, the cost of housing has risen, while incomes for working Americans have stagnated. The result has been an affordable housing crisis that must be urgently addressed by federal, state, and local governments. The first step towards housing security is passage of the National Housing Trust Fund Act, which I co-sponsored. The goal of this plan is the creation of 1.5 million new housing units over the next decade, especially for low-income renters and owners, using the profits generated by the Federal Housing Administration and other federal housing agencies. These funds would be used for the production of new housing, preservation of existing federally assisted housing, and rehabilitation of existing private-market affordable housing. New housing units would be primarily rental units, and the focus would be on low-income households in mixed-income neighborhoods. The widely heralded success of state and local housing trust funds shows this to be a proven method of addressing the affordable housing crisis while stimulating the economy.
Why have a Republican House and Senate never even offered one vote proposing a Constitutional Amendment banning abortion? If the issue were truly important to them as anything but a wedge issue, they would have. The truth is that Republicans have hidden from an honest up or down vote on abortion and will never allow one to take place in the Congress. Instead, they will continue fooling well-intentioned voters who feel strongly about abortion that they "feel their pain," when clearly they do not. Even if the Supreme Court were to do the unlikely and return abortion to the states, it would merely mean that the rich could travel to blue states for abortion, while the poor would have less access to terminating their pregnancies. The fact is that most Americans, including myself, are uncomfortable with abortions and feel there are too many of them. At the same time, the vast majority of Americans recognize that there are circumstances in which a woman and her doctor should be allowed to make this most difficult decision without government intervention. To return to the days when woman could self-abort without penalty, but to imprison doctors who would help them, seems senseless, especially recognizing that a new abortion law would likely become known as "The Abortions for the Rich-Only Bill." I have a plan to reduce abortions by encouraging family planning, including abstinance training, combined with a full economic and health care plan that would clearly alleviate the number of abortions. Voters have a choice: Choose Republican rhetoric that will never allow the issue to come to a vote or a real plan to reduce the number of abortions with a program of economic justice. Factually, all the Republican rhetoric and phony issues surrounding abortion have never directly addressed the legality of abortion and have had no or negilible impact on the number of abortions.
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Miscelanious 2 aka. NO MATCHING TOPIC
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National Defence aka. NO MATCHING TOPIC
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State of the Union 1 aka. Balance Between Workers and Corporations
The hopes and dreams of the men and women who sent me to Congress are the stars by which I journey. Whenever there is an organizing campaign, a picket line to walk, jobs to save, working conditions to improve, laws to champion, I'm there. This is my purpose: To stand up and to speak out on behalf of those who have built this country and who want to rebuild this country. This is my passion: To raise up the rights of working people. Workers' rights are the key to protecting our democracy. Workers' rights embody spiritual principles that sustain families, nourish the soul, and create peace. Workers' rights are human rights. Labor has stood almost alone while corporations have cut wages and benefits, slashed working hours, tried to undermine wage and hour provisions, reneged on contracts, and jettisoned retirements through bankruptcy strategies. The current clamor for corporate accountability calls for honesty in stating the numbers, and faithful custody of shareholders money. There needs to be equal concern for those who created the wealth through their labor, because the attacks on unions are a means of redistributing the wealth upwards. As union membership has declined, the disparity of wealth has increased. Since 1973, union membership has dropped from 24% to 14%. And the share of aggregate income of the poor, the middle class, and the upper middle class has declined. Congress has not passed an increase in the $5.15 minimum wage, even though the inflation-adjusted minimum wage is 21% lower today than in 1979. Since 1981, the share of income of the richest 5% of this country has increased more than 40%, while that of the lowest fifth has decreased more than 20%. An even starker contrast arises. According to Business Week, the average CEO made 42 times the average worker's pay in 1980, 85 times in 1990 and 531 times in 2000. Forbes Magazine points out that the number of billionaires increased from 13 in 1982 to 149 in 1996.
People have a right to: -- Have a job. -- Have a safe workplace. -- Get decent wages and benefits. -- Organize and be represented. -- Grieve about working conditions. -- Strike. -- Get fair compensation for injuries on the job. -- Sue if injured by negligent employers. -- Have secure pension and retirement benefits. -- Participate in the political process.
These basic rights ought to be inviolate in a democratic society. There can be no true corporate accountability unless corporations are accountable to workers. There can be no accountability to workers unless workers' rights are protected. And workers' rights cannot be protected unless the Democratic party makes it the centerpiece of its legislative program. The Democratic Party must be challenged by Labor to truly be the party of all the people. When the Democratic Party rises, it must be with the ranks, not from the ranks. "The future of labor is the future of America," said John L. Lewis. Labor cannot afford to settle for half-hearted nominees or half measures that keep in place a system that is destroying our democracy through trade agreements that transfer sovereign power to the World Trade Organization, undermine our economy, and devastate workers' ability to defend themselves. It is the restoration of the rights of workers that will put us at the dawn of a new political age. The rights of workers are core principles of an American Restoration. These aren't mere political principles. These are timeless moral principles, about fairness, about equality, about justice.
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State of the Union 2 aka. Guaranteed Quality Education, Pre-K Through College & Environmental Renewal and Clean Energy
The right of every American child to a high-quality free public education is one of America's most treasured principles. We must improve the quality of public education in those schools that are struggling and expand public education to include pre-kindergarten beginning at age 3 for any families that want it, as well as tuition-free college for millions of students. I am here to act on my view that the education and well-being of our nation's children is a collective responsibility that all Americans share, and that education is a life-long process beginning long before a child enters kindergarten. Studies have shown that the most critical cognitive development occurs in the years from birth to age 3. That is one reason I have been a leading advocate for early childhood education, with a special emphasis on the support and care of low-income infants and toddlers. I am a strong supporter of the keystone federal educational program for poor children, Head Start. In the House Education Committee, I have offered an amendment that would vastly expand Head Start by allowing all centers to run for a full day and by increasing the number of children who qualify for the program, raising family eligibility thresholds to twice the federal poverty line. By tripling the Head Start budget, we could bring an additional 1.5 million children into the program. In the 107th and 108th Congresses, I introduced the Universal Pre-Kindergarten Act, a bill to create a free, universal, and voluntary pre-kindergarten program for 3- to 5-year-old children across the county. Universal pre-kindergarten would revolutionize America's commitment to early childhood education and change the nature of child care provision for the better. The cost of this program is $60 billion per year, which I plan to pay for by cutting the bloated Pentagon budget by 15%. Pre-kindergarten programs prepare children to meet the challenges of school. Studies show that young children who have access to a quality education benefit with higher academic achievements, increased graduation rates and decreased juvenile delinquency. Nationwide, there's a severe shortage of affordable, quality education programs. By providing universal pre-kindergarten, we are ensuring that all of our children are ready for school. The Universal Pre-Kindergarten Act will provide funding to states to establish universal pre-kindergarten programs that build on existing federal and state pre-kindergarten initiatives. The program is voluntary and will be available free of charge to all families who choose to participate. The legislation requires pre-kindergarten programs to meet quality standards of early education and provides resources for the professional development of teachers. For grades K through 12, my priorities are based on the bedrock principle of a free, universal, and high quality public education for every child in America. I strongly oppose initiatives that seek to undermine that commitment and have established a strong anti-voucher voting record. I believe that we cannot improve education by draining funding from our public schools. In Congress, I have proposed a constitutional amendment to codify the right of all citizens to equal, high-quality public education. To achieve that goal, I support a substantial reinvestment in the infrastructure of our nation's public schools. I co-sponsored the Better Classroom Act and the Expand and Build America's Schools Act, two bills to help communities make needed school repairs and expansions. I have supported additional funding for teacher training. I - was also an original co-sponsor of HR 935, the most comprehensive child care and education bill in the U.S. Congress, encompassing 33 federal programs to improve child well-being and education in America. In addition to universal pre-kindergarten, I have a plan to provide tuition-free higher education to millions of students in state universities. There are 12 million young Americans who attend public institutions, colleges, and universities. They now pay, on average, over $10,000 a year. That adds up to $120 billion a year. That's less than the President's most recent tax cut for the wealthy. Even allowing for an increase in the cost per student and in the number of students enrolled, this remains a question of shifting priorities, not a need for new resources. Education is the only solution proven to reduce poverty levels. This conclusion is backed by thousands of national studies. Given the opportunity, education and training pave a path out of poverty for many families. Five years ago when welfare was reformed, recipients were discouraged and even prevented from earning a higher degree. Since 1996, the City University of New York experienced annual declines in the number of students who were welfare recipients, from a high of 22,000 students in 1996 to only 5,000 welfare students in 2000. As soon as welfare reform passed, some recipients were even kicked out of school, some only a few months from graduation. What improved condition worthy of the name of reform would create barriers to a college degree? Congress should allow and encourage people to obtain career training; work toward a college degree, GED, or other degree; or learn English. It should create exemptions from time limits so welfare recipients aren't prevented from earning a college degree. If an individual has a bachelor's degree, the average yearly wage is $30,730, nearly three times as much as the $11,432 that non-degree employees earn. A college degree translates to a living-wage job that allows people to live self-sufficiently and move from welfare programs for good. I believe Congress should allow home child care to count as an allowable work activity. For women on welfare, child care during evening and weekend hours is notoriously difficult to find and is too costly for a welfare recipient. In 1998, 43 states reported waiting lists for child care, and only 12% of those eligible for child care are getting it. Not only does it make practical sense to allow mothers to take care of their own children; it makes sense for families to stay together. The current Administration wants to box our young people in with standardized tests and a limited focus on math and science. These days, American students are tested to an extent that is unprecedented in American history and unparalleled anywhere in the world. Education must emphasize creative and critical thinking, not just test taking. I believe we can take our children and society in a new direction by challenging this notion that education should be so limited. We ought to be encouraging art, music, and creative writing in our schools. In doing so, we recognize and fuel the wide range of talents our children possess. Also See: Vouchers Floor Statements, 109th Congress: Reporting of School Bus RR Crossings Funded H.R. 609 Will Not Help Students Don't Let the War on Drugs Become a War on Children Students Pay for Tax Cuts for the Rich
The EPA under the Bush Administration has stood for Every Polluter's Ally. The air and the water and the land are viewed by this administration as just another commodity to be used for private profit. We as a nation must turn our efforts towards the great work of restoring our air and our water and our land. We must view our natural resources as the common property of all humanity -- even more, as the commonwealth of all humanity. And so my candidacy arises from a philosophy of interdependence and interconnection, which respects the environment as a precondition for our survival. I am not tied to any corporate interests that would strip our forests or pollute our air or water. Throughout my career, I have worked for structures of law that protect the environment, and the principles that animate my campaign are principles of sustainability. The principles that animate my life are principles of sustainability. I have a long and consistent record of working for protecting the environment. I was active in helping draft the first environmental law protecting the air, as a member of the Cleveland City Council 30 years ago. I led the effort in Ohio challenging nuclear power as being unsafe, unreliable, and unsustainable, and I'm still leading the effort in challenging it. And, most recently, I was at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, advocating a plan with Mikhail Gorbachev for a Global Green Deal that would enable the introduction of $50 billion of new solar projects around the world. It will be a major initiative to use our country's leadership in sustainable energy production to provide jobs to Americans, to reduce energy use here at home, and to partner with developing nations to provide their people with inexpensive, local renewable-energy technologies. As a peace advocate, I hope to launch a major renewables effort so that Middle East oil fields do not loom so large as strategic or military targets. There has to be a renewable energy portfolio of 20% by 2010. And that means introducing wind, solar, hydrogen, geothermal, biomass, and all of the options that must be available and need incentivizing. That also means withdrawing incentives for the production of nonrenewable energy. I'm not talking about building new hydro dams; I'm not talking about damming up more rivers and streams. We need to subsidize the development of new energy technologies. And I'm willing to do that through NASA, which has been of singular importance to our economy by developing technologies for propulsion, for aerospace, for materials, for medicines, and for communication. We need to fund NASA in, among other areas, a mission to planet Earth. The United States should lead the way in protecting our oceans, rivers and rural environments -- and I have been speaking out on these issues across America. I will also continue to lead in fighting for clean, affordable, and accessible drinking water -- which is an emerging global concern. Over the years, I have worked hand in hand with the environmental movement on many battles, from thwarting a nuclear waste dump to boosting organics to demanding labels on genetically-engineered products. I've won honors from the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, and the League of Conservation Voters. In the summer of 2002, I was one of the few U.S. officials at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. To repair the earth, America must lead. We must reverse course on most Bush Administration policies and support the Kyoto Treaty that Bush rejected. We must strengthen environmental laws and increase penalties on polluters. We should provide tax and other incentives to businesses that conserve energy, retrofit pollution prevention technologies, and redesign toxins out of their manufacturing processes. Nontoxic, safe substitutes for hazardous chemicals must become permanent. I would initiate a "Global Green Deal" to use our country's leadership in sustainable energy production to provide jobs at home, increase our independence from foreign oil, and aid developing nations with cheap, dependable, renewable energy technologies like wind and solar. A clean environment, a sustainable economy, and an intact ozone layer are not luxuries, but necessities for our planet's future.
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State of the Union 3 aka. Jobs and Withdrawal from NAFTA and WTO & Restored Rural Communities and Family Farms
Putting America Back to Work IN America: Our country is facing twin crises: high unemployment and a decrepit infrastructure. At the same time, millions of manufacturing and high-tech jobs are being shipped overseas. I have a plan that will turn our problems around and put Americans back to work in America. By pulling out of NAFTA, we can return jobs that have been lost, including high-wage jobs in the information technology field. By initiating a WPA-style jobs program that puts Americans back to work rebuilding America, we can create millions of jobs and simultaneously improve our quality of life. As a nation, we face a predicament of either buy American, or bye-bye America. Unless we cancel the WTO and pull out of NAFTA, corporations will continue to move jobs out of the country and produce goods in developing and third-world nations (with great costs to those countries' workers and environment). In order to buy American, we have to assure that goods are still being produced in America. That's why we must first cancel the WTO and pull out of NAFTA, which have lost us millions of jobs and spurred a soaring trade deficit. I have a Jobs Plan that will put 2 million Americans back to work at a living wage in such enterprises as rebuilding schools, designing roads, refurbishing environmental projects, and manufacturing steel for water systems. The Kucinich jobs plan will also increase the quality of life in America, by making highways safer, water cleaner, and schools more conducive to learning. Right now, unemployment stands at 6.2% nationally. Long-term unemployment has become a persistent problem. Nearly 2 million Americans have been looking for work unsuccessfully for over 6 months, while over 9 million Americans are unemployed. According to the Economic Policy Institute, there are three unemployed people for every job opening. Ironically, at the same time so many Americans can't find work, there is so much work to do. The crisis of our decaying infrastructure is something we see every day when we sit in traffic bound by orange barrels that line our highways. It is something that school children experience at their desks, crowded together under leaking roofs. In cities, municipal sewer systems overflow into rivers, streams, and estuaries. These events occur with increasing regularity as systems age. Infrastructure problems threaten our productivity, our economy, our environment, and our health. It is time to put America back to work. It is time to address the twin crises by putting unemployed Americans to work rebuilding America's neglected infrastructure. The Kucinich plan will make that happen.
The Kucinich Jobs Plan to Rebuild America: The Kucinich plan calls for the creation of a low-cost federal financing mechanism to administer $50 billion in zero-interest loans every year to localities for infrastructure projects for ten years. Twenty percent of these funds would be targeted for school construction and repair. The Kucinich plan also calls for a 15% reduction in the military budget, redirecting that $65 billion towards hometown security issues such as education, jobs, and health care for all. State and local governments would continue to issue bonds to finance infrastructure projects. But under the Kucinich plan, the federal government would be authorized to buy those bonds. States would have to repay the principal, but unlike normal municipal borrowing, these bonds would pay zero interest. So, the cost of borrowing for infrastructure improvement would be reduced by half. The federal government would hold these bonds in the Federal Bank for Infrastructure Modernization (FBIM). The bank, as an extension of the Federal Financing Bank under the Treasury, would administer the loans. The loans would bear a small fee of one-quarter of one percent of the loan principal to cover the administrative costs of the FBIM. In order to provide the money for the loans, the FBIM would hold a portion of the Treasury securities that the Federal Reserve normally holds. The Fed currently holds about $300 billion in Treasury securities. Transferring about $50 billion annually to the FBIM would still allow the Fed to operate as it does now to add liquidity to the system. The Fed, instead of buying securities, would buy the mortgage loans of the states. This way, the FBIM's finances would be integrated by the Federal Open Market Committee so as not to disrupt its ability to promote economic stability. This amount would be varied, so that the funds could be used as a tool to foster stable economic growth. During times of economic slowdown, the FBIM would make more loans available to spur investment. During times of economic boom, the FBIM would make fewer loans available. All of the jobs within this new system would be living-wage jobs, because I would raise the minimum wage to at least $8 an hour and create an index so that the minimum wage rises automatically with cost of living increases. If we establish both universal health care and universal pre-kindergarten, workers will no longer be plagued by the high costs of health care and child care. The net savings of these programs is enormous, and as result, I believe we will have a healthier society and a more resilient economy.
The Kucinich Plan to Keep Jobs in America: The exodus of jobs from our shores and the "race to the bottom" for workers around the world is an obvious result of NAFTA and the WTO, both of which make it impossible to place taxes or tariffs on outsourced work. The search for countries where workers are unrepresented and environmental rules are lax must end. NAFTA, WTO, "Fast Track" legislation, and the Free Trade Area of the Americas must be rejected and replaced with Fair Trade policies in which bilateral trade agreements are negotiated to provide for living wages for workers and environmental safeguards. Canceling NAFTA and the WTO will enable the U.S. to protect high-tech jobs from outsourcing. This, plus careful monitoring of H-1B visa practices, will slow the tide of outsourcing. The Bush Administration has embraced the concept of outsourcing American jobs overseas as a new form of international trade. Where is the patriotism in this? U.S. companies are expected to ship 200,000 jobs a year to India in the near future, in pursuit of lower wages, and we have already lost a significant fraction of our manufacturing jobs to countries overseas. In this continued loss of control over the development of our own technology and materials, and the continued loss of hundreds of thousands of American jobs, we are creating serious threats to our national and economic security. I am advocating a new policy to replace our current H-1B and L-1 visas, a policy that does not put skilled American workers in the high-tech industry at risk. There are many tech-industry jobs that could be done by Americans who are out of work, and often the immigrants who come to our country on H-1B visas find themselves in indentured servitude situations. We cannot continue to tolerate the loopholes and offshore profit shifting that corporations engage in to get out of paying their fair share of taxes. We must also take a much harder line on corporate crime, by increasing the roles of the FTC, the SEC, and the Justice Department in addressing it. We live in strange times when patriotism merely extends to unnecessary wars and not to protecting the lives and welfare of American families by keeping jobs here. It is necessary to promote a new corporate responsibility and sense of shared commitment, so that the race to minimize wages for workers and maximize shareholder profits in already profitable businesses is considered unpatriotic and punishable by tax policy. We must reject Bush's efforts to transfer more and more wealth upward, by creating an intelligent tax structure that promotes the public good. My entire mission is aimed at increasing the benefits to the public good. My campaigns are financed completely by ordinary individuals, not large corporations. I am not beholden to any corporate interests; there are no strings attached. My campaigns and my work represent all the people of our nation, not just the wealthy elite.
Something is wrong when profits of agribusiness corporations skyrocket, but farmers must find off-farm jobs or sell their farms to survive. I believe the United States must implement the following farm policies to benefit farmers, provide our nation with wholesome food, protect our natural resources, and restore our rural communities:
Fair Price and Fair Markets: Cancel NAFTA and the WTO, replacing them with bilateral trade agreements designed to benefit family farmers and workers while protecting the health of communities and the environment. Country-of-origin labeling would be required. Empower farmers in the marketplace by providing incentives to join a collective bargaining unit -- with voluntary membership open only to active producers and the right to bring suit in federal court if an agribusiness doesn't bargain in good faith.
Market Concentration: Create new markets by actively enforcing existing anti-trust laws and proposing new laws to force divestiture in concentrated markets, breaking apart monopolistic agribusiness companies and shifting farm economics towards higher commodity prices for farmers. To increase competition in the livestock industry, support a national ban on packer ownership of livestock.
Biotechnology and GM Seeds: Advocate only for responsible farm sector biotechnology, creating an indemnity fund -- financed by the corporations responsible for the technology -- for farmers who incur losses caused by genetically modified organisms (GMOs). To protect farmers, labeling GMO seeds with disclosure and liability information must be required. To protect consumers, food containing GMOs also requires labeling.
Local Food Systems: Shift USDA funding and focus away from the promotion of concentrated intensive and industrial agribusiness. The new focus must benefit family farmers, rural communities, the environment, and consumers, with policies crafted to enable farmers to earn a fair price and to provide safe, nutritious food to all people. Increase funding for regional food processing facilities, marketing assistance, farm-to-school programs, on-farm renewable energy, and the Farmers Market Nutrition Program. Agricultural research and development institutions must be given funding priority to help family farmers make a transition to profitable and sustainable agriculture.
Conservation and Environmental Protection: Strengthen and enforce air and water quality laws to safeguard rural communities from factory farm pollution. The number of animal units per site would be limited to a level that allows for on-site manure management, and local communities would be given control over the siting of industrial livestock operations. Programs that reward family farmers for protecting the environment would be expanded, and funding to help small independent farmers qualify for organic certification would be increased.
Food Industry Workers and Food Safety: Implement new safety standards in meatpacking and food processing. Worker health and safety protections would be expanded through increased inspections and fines, with criminal charges for employers who cause injury or death to agricultural industry workers. Backing meatpacking unions will help to bring wages and benefits in line with the risks of the job, and funding for smaller, regional packing plants will create better economic opportunities for family farmers, better conditions for workers, and safer meat for consumers.
Rural Communities: Initiate a major new program of investment in rural America, putting thousands to work rebuilding invaluable public assets such as schools, hospitals, libraries, swimming pools, and parks. Teachers, doctors, veterinarians, and other important service providers would be offered incentives to work in under-served areas. A variety of support mechanisms and financial incentives would be given to local businesses, so that locally owned businesses have a fair chance to compete.
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Treaties aka. NO MATCHING TOPIC
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