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Newsline: October 2004
Where the Presidential Candidates Stand on Domestic Issues
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| JOBS |
Plans to create millions of new jobs by the end of his first four-year term. The plan includes a new jobs tax credit to help create manufacturing jobs and a proposal to end tax breaks that encourage companies to move jobs overseas and invest in the nation’s infrastructure to create good jobs building and repairing the nation’s roads, transit and water systems, schools and other vital projects. Also pledged to restore confidence and boost the American manufacturing sector by cutting the nation’s record budget deficit of more than $400 billion in half while investing in health care and education. Kerry will fight for America’s workers by enforcing U.S. trade agreements. Co-Sponsored legislation to stop the Bush administration from issuing new overtime regulations that cuts overtime pay for millions of workers. Senate Amendment 1580, 2003 will reform the federal unemployment insurance program to cover more workers and provide sufficient benefits and job training. (www.johnkerry.com) |
Has presided over the worst loss of U.S. jobs since Herbert Hoover during the Great Depression. He has supported tax breaks for companies that move jobs overseas and refused to enforce U.S. trade agreements to protect American jobs. (Economic Report of the President, 2004) Workers making as little as $23,600 could lose overtime pay under new overtime pay cut regulations issued by the Bush administration. (The Federal Register, 4/23/04. (www.epinet.org) Wants to expand NAFTA. The proposed agreement does not contain strong worker, environmental or human rights protections. (www.ftaa-alca.org/ALCA_e.asp) Wants to cut funds for dislocated workers and job training — his fiscal year 2005 budget for job training and employment programs is $1 billion less than 2001 levels, despite the loss of 1.8 million jobs since 2001. (Bush Admin. Fiscal year 2005 budget; Bureau of Labor Statistics.)
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FREEDOM TO
JOIN A
UNION |
Supports the rights of workers to join a union. Kerry is a co-sponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act, which would ensure that when a majority of employees in a workplace decides to form a union they can do so free from employer intimidation, harassment and threats, and sets stronger penalties for employers that violate workers’ rights to form a union. (S. 1925, 2003)
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Does not support the Employee Free Choice Act, which allows workers to join a union free from employer intimidation and harassment. He has taken away the collective bargaining rights of 170,000 workers in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 60,000 Transportation Security Administration airport screeners, 1,300 workers in the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, since renamed the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and several hundred more in various U.S. Department of Justice agencies and offices. (www.govexec.com) The Washington Post, 1/20/02)
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EXPORTING
AMERICA |
Will fight to keep good jobs in America. He will stop tax breaks to companies that send U.S. jobs overseas and create tax incentives to keep good U.S. jobs at home. Kerry will ensure companies that move offshore do not receive government contracts. (Associated Press, 3/25/04; www.johnkerry.com)
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Supports giving $60 billion in tax breaks to companies that lay off workers and move overseas. Since taking office, each of Bush’s federal budget proposals included tax breaks for companies that export jobs overseas. Says exporting jobs is good for America. According to The Economic Report of the President, 2004, “When a good or service is produced more cheaply abroad, it makes more sense to import it than to provide it domestically.” (H.R. 2896, 2004; The Washington Post, 10/23/03; Bush fiscal years 2002-2005 budget proposals; Economic Report of the President, 2004)
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HEALTH
CARE |
Will provide a health care plan that covers every child in the U.S. by providing aid to states to automatically enroll every eligible child in the State Children’s Health Insurance Program and by expanding eligibility for Medicaid health coverage. Will also extend affordable health care coverage to 95 percent of Americans so they get the same health coverage as members of Congress. Kerry’s plan will lower private health insurance costs and expand the number of people with health insurance. (Reuters Health 5/16/03; “The Impact of Sen. John Kerry’s Health Care Proposal on Health Care Costs,” Kenneth Thorp, June 2004) Supports a strong bill of rights that allows patients to visit the specialist they need, choose their own doctors and hold HMO’s accountable when they make mistakes that hurt patients. (S. 1052 R.C. 220.
6/29/01)
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Proposed 30 percent cut in funds for children’s hospitals in his 2004 budget, and in 2001 proposed slashing $11 billion from the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. (Bush 2004 budget; Center on Budget and Policy Priorities) By proposing that individuals pay the first $1,000 of annual health care costs, Bush’s proposal will make health care more expensive for working families, and his plan will not stop health care costs from rising. (“Federal Costs and Newly Insured Under President Bush’s Health Insurance Proposal,” Kenneth Thorp 5/5/04) Opposes a strong patients’ bill of rights. When HMOs sought to overturn state law that hold HMOs accountable, the Bush administration supported the HMOs when the case went to the Supreme Court. (The New York Times 3/22/02; the Washington Post 6/18/04)
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SOCIAL
SECURITY |
Supports strengthening Social Security by rolling back President Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans — which have created record national budget deficits — and investing some of the funds in Social Security. He also consistently opposed efforts to privatize Social Security. (www.johnkerry.com; Senate roll call votes 56 and 77 on S. Con. Res. 86, 4/1/ &4/298)
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Supports a privatization plan to hand over Social Security funds to Wall Street investment firms. He also supports making his tax cuts for the wealthy permanent, which Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan said would require cuts in Social Security benefits. (Presidential debate, 10/3/00; House Budget Committee hearing, 2/25/04)
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RETIREMENT
ACCOUNTS |
Supports protecting the retirement pensions of America’s workers by strengthening and enforcing rules to guard pension funds from raids by unscrupulous employers, creating new protections for pension funds invested in the mutual fund market and issuing new rules to protect older workers whose employers try to convert traditional defined-benefit plans to cash-balance plans. He also backs new efforts to prevent pension abuses such as those at Enron Corp., where employees lost their retirement savings when company stock plummeted. As president, Kerry would appoint a director of personal economic security to protect workers’ pensions and retirement benefits. (www.johnkerry.com; The Union Leader, 1/7/04)
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Supports repeal of current protections for workers’ retirement security and would allow mutual funds and other investment managers to give workers investment advice on their 401(k) accounts even though such advice could represent a conflict of interest. (H.R. 2269, 6/21/01)
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PUBLIC
EDUCATION |
Supports the creation of a new National Education Trust Fund to ensure the government meets its public schools’ priorities. He opposes draining taxpayer dollars from public schools to pay for private education. Will fully fund the No Child Left Behind Act, a federal law intended to ensure students meet high academic standards and teachers meet high professional standards. Supports changes in the law to judge achievement and school performance on more than test scores, including graduation rates, teacher-student attendance and parent satisfaction. (www.johnkerry.com; roll call vote 102; H.R. 2646, 4/23/98) Supports using federal dollars to modernize and repair crumbling schools — some 14 million children attend substandard schools in need of major repair and renovation. Introduced legislation to allow the federal government to issue $24.8 billion in school modernization bonds. (AFL-CIO questionnaire, 2003)
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Has shortchanged education in his federal budgets and refused to fully fund the No Child Left Behind Act, forcing the nation’s schools to scramble or shift funds from other vital education priorities to meet the act’s requirements. His fiscal year (FY) 2005 budget proposal was $9.4 billion below congressional authorization levels. (President Bush FY 2005 budget proposal) Also supports draining taxpayer dollars from public education and schools to pay for private education. (The Washington Post, 2/8/03) Opposes using federal funds to modernize and repair the crumbling, substandard schools some 14 million children attend. (Scripps Howard News Service, 4/24/00)
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WORKERS'
SAFETY |
Supports strong, enforceable workplace safety standards. More than 60,000 workers die from job-related injuries or illness every year and another 4.7 million are injured, according to government statistics. Backs increasing the number of Occupational Safety and Health Administration inspections, prosecuting employers that are the worst violators of the nation’s safety standards and reinstating the ergonomics standard, repealed by the Bush administration, to prevent repetitive stress injuries. Voted against the Bush administration repeal of the ergonomics standard. (AFL-CIO questionnaire 2003; Senate roll call vote on S.J.R. 33, 3/7/01)
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Signed legislation that supported the drive by Big Business to overturn the nation’s first ergonomics standard, which was designed to prevent the two million repetitive stress injuries U.S. workers suffer each year. Administration suppressed vital information about the toxic fallout and air quality after the World Trade Center attacks, killed a rule to protect health care workers and patients from contracting tuberculosis and blocked funds to monitor the health of Sept. 11 rescue and recovery workers. (www.ombwatch.org, 8/25/03)
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PRIVATIZING
FEDERAL
JOBS |
Believes that vital public-sector jobs, including Homeland Security jobs, should be performed by public employees. Repeatedly has opposed efforts to privatize these jobs, including those in Defense Department, the Veterans Affairs and the U.S. Postal Service. Also supports restoring the civil service and collective bargaining rights of federal workers whose rights were taken away by Bush administration policies and backs other pro-worker changes in federal workplace rules. (Roll call vote 162 on S. 2514, 6/25/02; AFL-CIO questionnaire 2003)
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Wants to privatize 850,000 federal jobs. His plan would give companies the advantage over federal workers in a public/private competition for jobs, from the nation’s air traffic control system to the U.S. Postal Service. Has denied collective bargaining rights to 60,000 airport screeners and 170,000
Homeland Security Department workers. (President’s Management Agenda, www.whitehouse.gov/omb; www.govexec.com, 11/12/03)
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| Source: The AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education -- Political Contributions Committee, with voluntary contributions from union members and their families, and is not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.
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