posted
I decided to actually compare what the political websites are currently saying about Bush and Kerry's proposed policies.
I will post the paragraph blurbs and lists from Bush and the same from Kerry and links to where the info came from so you can compare from the source. Please note that these lists always contained paragraphs of information with numbers and such, so if you want to know more, please follow the links.
For the sake of brevity, I'll keep only three issues per topic.
Job Opportunities
Kerry:
quote:Create Good-Paying Jobs As president, John Kerry will cut taxes for businesses that create jobs here in America instead of moving them overseas. John Kerry and John Edwards will also stand up for workers by enforcing our trade agreements. http://www.johnkerry.com/issues/economy/
Create a New Jobs Tax Credit
Ensure Equal Pay for Men and Women
Raise the Minimum Wage
Help All Americans Balance Work and Family (note: the paragraph following this header talks about increasing tax credits for child care)
quote: Opening Foreign Markets, Enforcing the Trade Laws, and Promoting Global Growth President Bush rejects economic isolationism because he understands that free and fair trade and global economic growth means more jobs, higher wages, and greater prosperity for Americans. The objectives of his trade and international economic agenda are to:
Open foreign markets for American manufactured goods, farm products, services, and intellectual property.
Ensure a level playing field for American workers and farmers.
Provide American families with greater choices and the ability to stretch their budget through lower prices.
Promote the freedom and prosperity that comes from the opening of markets around the world.
Provide training and assistance to help American workers enhance their skills and remain the best in the world.
Encourage countries around the world to move to a system of free and fair trade, free capital flows, and flexible market-based exchange rates.
Creating Opportunity Zones to Help Communities in NeedPresident Bush recognizes the need to provide assistance to communities that have lost a significant portion of their job base and workforce in the past decade. President Bush will provide assistance to communities in transition by:
Creating Opportunity Zones - The President's Opportunity Zones initiative encourages private and public investment within needy communities. In exchange for reducing local barriers to growth and development, these Opportunity Zones would receive tax benefits to encourage businesses to locate, invest, and hire new workers in the community. The plan includes incentives to spur the development of residential construction. These areas will also receive priority consideration for Federal education, job training, and housing funding.
quote: Keeping Taxes Low and Reforming the System In 2000, George W. Bush ran for President on a promise of lowering taxes, allowing the American people to keep more of what they earn. President Bush believes that our economy grows when families and businesses have more of their own money to spend and invest. President Bush has delivered on his promise, passing three major tax cuts. As a result, 111 million Americans will see lower taxes: a typical family of four earning $40,000 a year will receive more than $1,900 in tax relief this year. … In a second term, the President has made it a priority to lock in these gains by:
Making the Tax Relief Permanent
Making the Tax Code Fairer, Simpler, and Pro-Growth
quote: Cut Middle-Class Taxes To Raise Middle-Class Incomes When John Kerry is president, middle-class taxes will go down. Ninety-eight percent of all Americans and 99 percent of American businesses will get a tax cut under the Kerry-Edwards plan. http://www.johnkerry.com/issues/economy/ Propose At Least $250 Billion In Tax Cuts For Health Care, Child Care, and Education - Without Increasing the Deficit By One Dime.
A tax credit on up to $4,000 of college tuition
A tax credit to help small businesses and vulnerable workers pay for health care and buy into John Kerry's new Congressional Health Plan.
quote: In the last three years, funding for No Child Left Behind has fallen $27 billion below its promised levels. This has left inadequate support for the priorities we all share, like smaller classes, more textbooks, and more after-school opportunities. At the same time, Washington has had a rigid, top-down mentality that dooms reform to failure. John Kerry and John Edwards believe we can do better. They will offer the resources and implement the reforms to make our schools work for all our children.
Create A National Education Trust Fund.
Make Reform Work for Our Students
Put a Great Teacher in Every Classroom.
Raise High School Graduation Rates.
Invest in School Construction and Modernization.
Expand Preschool Opportunities.
Offer 3.5 Million Children Afterschool Opportunities Through "School's Open 'Til Six".
quote: Three days after taking office, President Bush submitted as his first legislative proposal the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Less than a year later, a bipartisan coalition in Congress passed the most comprehensive restructuring of K-12 education since 1965 - and the first education bill to demand results for every child.
Since President Bush signed NCLB into law, every state has developed a specific plan to ensure that its schools improve. We are already seeing hopeful results. Fourth graders in urban schools are showing strong gains in both reading and math. And from Georgia, North Carolina, and Maryland, to Illinois, Wisconsin, and New Mexico, minority children are showing improved test scores and they are narrowing the achievement gap. President Bush will continue to demand accountability so that every student is proficient in reading and math by 2014, as promised by NCLB.
Strengthen Head Start
Promote Literacy Continue to Fund Research
Expand the Reach Out and Read Program
Expand Healthy Start, Grow Smart
Engage Faith and Community-Based Organizations
Increase Minority Outreach
Improve High School Assessments
Require Twelfth Grade NAEP
Support Early Intervention
Expand Funding for the Striving Readers Initiative
Expand the Mathematics and Science Partnership
Improve Advanced Placement
Encourage Students to Take More Rigorous Courses
Strengthen and Modernize Vocational Education
Provide Extra Incentives for Teachers
Expand Loan Forgiveness for Teachers
Promote the Adjunct Teacher Corps
Increase Student Financial Aid to Help More Students Afford College
Reform Student Loans to Better Serve Students
Encourage Dual Enrollment (note: high school students earning college credit)
Reform Federal Job-Training Programs to Double the Number of Workers Trained
Eliminate Restrictions That Prevent Adult or Part-Time Students From Receiving Federal Student Aid
Improving Adult Literacy
Providing Workers with Additional Flexibility for Selecting Services to Help Them Return to Work
quote: Propose At Least $250 Billion In Tax Cuts For Health Care, Child Care, and Education - Without Increasing the Deficit By One Dime.
I wonder what will be lost in order to accomplish this, or will it just be decreased spending in some areas.
Posts: 6367 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
Wait, I'm a little confused--is Bush saying that he *has* strengthened Head Start, or that he will do so?
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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quote:"The Bush Administration is waging a budget war against poor children. This country has the resources to give every child the health care he or she needs, and to give every eligible child a Head Start if we make the right choices," said Children's Defense Fund President Marian Wright Edelman. "Instead, the President chooses to give an average of $89,000 in tax cuts to each millionaire this year while dismantling Head Start and Medicaid, both of which have proven track records for helping to keep poor children healthy and getting them ready for school."
The President's new spending plan proposes to merge Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) funding to form a block grant that could threaten health care services for children, the elderly, and the disabled. The Administration's budget also proposes to radically alter Head Start, the premier early childhood program for poor children, which has worked successfully for decades to prepare children to enter school ready to learn. About 600,000 children will also lose child care and after school services under the President's 2004 budget.
...
Medicaid and CHIP provide essential services to nearly 30 million children in America. Administration plans to block grant Medicaid and CHIP funds will force some of these children to compete with seniors and people with disabilities for already inadequate resources and give states the authority to take needed health services away from children.
A quick look for Kerry and "Head Start" shows that Kerry, while in COngress in 1986, helped co-sponsor "A bill to reauthorize the Head Start Act, the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Act of 1981, the Community Services Block Grant Act, the dependent care State grant program, and for other purposes."
They seem pretty even-handed from a "first read." And I've got to say, for the most part, I like what Kerry has stood for--and I'm completely discounting anything on that list with the year 2004 on it, and putting a 50% discount on anything from the last half of 2003. And I still like what this guy's supporting!
I'm going to go look for GWB's political record from before he was elected President...
Yep; it's as I thought. I really don't like this guy, and for good reason. Don't forget when you read Bush's statements--he wasn't "voting" for bills with most of his statements. He was just making promises. You can tell right away that a lot of those promises he failed to keep (and with a Republican Congress for the most part, too).
posted
Dismantle? But in his speech, if I am not mistaken, didn't the say he was going to strengthen it and that he cared about the education and well being of little kids? Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
I think Bush said he will make sure that children who are eligible for Head Start will receive it. I guess he is talking about some kind of outreach program but not necessarily expanding the benefits or dramatically increasing funding.
Posts: 4116 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Beren -- actually, I'm pretty sure what he really said was "I'm more likely to get elected if I seem to support Head Start. Really I'm going to keep trying to cut it, same as before." Of course, it could be he's cut a deal with Schwarzenegger, who actually does support such programs and put a good deal of his personal time before becoming governor into supporting them.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
Amazing. Amka goes to the trouble of starting an election thread with actual real comparisons between the agendas of the two major candidates, guaranteeing a wealth of actual substantive debate over their priorities and ideologies, and it STILL disintegrates into snarkiness in a half a page.
The thing that strikes me about the Job Opportunities section is that the Kerry priorities (I hesitate to call it a plan, since I haven't read up on the details) tend to deal with giving the workers of the U.S. a better shot at a decent working environment and fair compensation. However, his attempt to raise the minimum wage will actually result in a job LOSS, if my economics is working right. Nevertheless, I really like the idea of the new job tax credit, and the closing of the outsourcing loopholes.
Bush on the other hand, doesn't appear to have any job plan other than about five synonyms for opening foreign markets, and allowing people who have lost their jobs to get training. To me, the whole thing about opening foreign markets doesn't make much sense, for the same reason that outsourcing is a problem to begin with. Opening foreign markets presupposes that goods manufactured in the U.S. will sell well overseas. The truth is, goods made in the US aren't even selling that great in the US! When you have nations that export T-Shirts stitched together by four year old girls working 14 hour days for two dollars a week, they will ALWAYS be able to undersell American goods, whose production is not only governed by a minimum wage, but also increased expenses from complying with OSHA and environmental impact regulations. The only way to "Ensure a level playing field for American workers and farmers" is to get rid of the minimum wage entirely and go back to the days when sweat shops were the norm. That being said, I did like the idea of job training and Opportunity zones. In the long run, this may be necessary because globalisation isn't a force you can stop, and the only permanent solution is further specialization of entire nations. Job training will move people from dying industries (or rather moving industries) into growth industries where America can still compete, like pharmaceutical manufacturing etc. Nevertheless, I don't see anything in Bush's plan to actually curb job loss, only to cope with it when it happens.
On the other hand, the only thing in Kerry's plan to actually curb job loss is the new jobs tax credit. Anybody know if he stands by his primaries promise to institute a 100 day review of all of our trade agreements immediately after taking office? I haven't seen anything about that for a while and it seems enforcement is sorely lacking thereabouts. I wouldn't believe Bush when he says he wants to increase enforcement because... well he hasn't. Kerry seemed serious about it during the primaries, but then he was also running against people who wanted to cancel them entirely.
Overall, I tend to favor Kerry on the Job issue as listed here, simply because of the tax credit and Bush's failure to come up with anything but a band-aid for the problem.
posted
But, for some reason this seems to go right over people's head... He said he'd increase funding for Americorps. He decreased it by 90% and they had to eliminated the education award temporarily. There are other instances, but again, people don't seem to notice them!
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote: Three days after taking office, President Bush submitted as his first legislative proposal the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).
This was his first and by far the worst mistake any president has ever mad, besides Monica of course.
Posts: 1094 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
"This was his first and by far the worst mistake any president has ever mad (sic)."
Wow. Are you SURE? I mean, yeah, it's a screw-up, but I think of NCLB, as big a mistake as it is, as not even BUSH'S worst mistake, much less the worst mistake made by any president ever.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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