- Why should working people support you for president?
I have a 100% labor voting record. I am a member of local 600 of the IATSE, an affiliate of the AFL-CIO. I am the leading candidate in this race when it comes to having consistently brought economic issues of importance to workers to the table, including trade policies; universal single payer not-for-profit healthcare, universal pre-Kindergarten, universal college education.
Throughout my service in public life, I have been the voice of working people, fighting for their right to organize, their right to collective bargaining, the right to strike, the right to decent wages and benefits, the right to a secure retirement, the right to a safe work place, the right to be able to sue an employer if injured on the job, the right to participate in the political process.
I have personally led efforts that have saved thousands of good paying union jobs in Northern Ohio, for example, in 1978 I saved 300 jobs of IBEW local 39, in the 1990s I saved jobs of autoworkers who were faced with the closing of an aerospace factory, I saved 2,000 steelworkers jobs when most of the community had given up. I have saved the jobs of more than 600 jobs of hospital workers by exposing corruption in a bankruptcy. I saved thousands of jobs at NASA and at DFAS. I personally helped block the decertification of a Teamster local and participated in supporting countless organizing drives and strikes with my physical presence.
When I am elected President it will truly be a victory for workers.
- How will you work to create good jobs and lift living standards in the United States and around the world?
I will bring a new manufacturing and trade policy to the Oval Office. Our manufacturing policy will state that the maintenance of steel, automotive, aerospace and shipping is vital to our national economic security and our national defense.
I will rescue America’s manufacturing position by cancelling NAFTA, CAFTA and the WTO and institute a new trade structure that establishes workers rights, human rights and environmental quality principles as necessary preconditions for trade.
Other candidates falsely state that they will change trade policies without cancelling NAFTA and the WTO. However what they fail to disclose is that any attempt to change the conditions of trade to include these principles is deemed illegal by WTO and therefore doomed to failure.
Once we have a new structure of trade we can save the jobs that we have, and create new jobs and keep them, lifting living standards everywhere.
Here are three specific areas where I will rebuild the economy:
i. WPA – we will create millions of new good paying union jobs rebuilding America’s infrastructure in much the same was as FDR did
ii. WGA (Works Green Administration) – will create millions of new jobs in energy development and conservation, we will manufacture green technologies for the placement of solar and wind technologies in millions of homes, and the insulation of homes and buildings across America saving energy and helping to combat climate change
iii. I intend to dedicate great effort to transform the debt-based monetary system that locks the world into poverty and destroys the environment.
- What are your ideas for solving the U.S. health care crisis and guaranteeing affordable, quality health care to all?
I am the co-author if HR 676 which is a plan to create a universal single payer not-for-profit health care system: Medicare for all. This legislation has the support of hundreds of union locals, 72 members of congress and tens of thousands of physicians, and has been recognized by Michael Moore, following his documentary SiCKO, as being the only viable healthcare proposal of any Presidential candidate.
Why do not-for-profit healthcare systems work globally and for-profit systems fail? Private health insurers make money by not providing healthcare. Americans already spend $2.2 trillion a year for health, at least twice the per capita spending of any other nation. However 31 cents of every dollar goes for activities of the for-profit system: corporate profits, stock options, executive salaries, the cost of paperwork (15-30 percent as opposed to Medicare’s 3 percent) advertising, marketing, etc. If all that money was used instead to provide care for people in a not-for-profit system, we would have enough money to provide health care for all Americans, including dental care, mental health care, vision care, long-term care and prescription drug coverage.
In this Presidential election, other candidates are talking about “universal health care”. Beware. They are calling for the mandatory purchase of private insurance with increased government subsidies which will weaken Medicare and lock people in to a never-ending cycle of either increases in premiums, co-pays and deductibles, or cuts in benefits, or both. These policies are already leading to the privatization of Medicare. Their proposed plans call for increased health care costs to the American taxpayer, through government subsidy and the payment from pockets of American families by making mandatory the purchase of health insurance. Why should the tax payers pay to subsidize the profits of private insurers? Wouldn’t it be better for working families and retirees to have more discretionary income through a not-for-profit system?
One Democratic candidate has a $25 million stock portfolio in a hedge fund that is heavily invested in the privatization of health care, a blatant conflict of interest. The Democratic Party has not been clean on this issue. In the 2000 election, the Democratic platform committee rejected my proposal for a not-for-profit health care system (the same principles embodied in HR 676). I was told directly by top officials of the Gore campaign that such a proposal ran counter to their fundraising efforts. My Presidential candidacy in 2004 was based on a universal healthcare program, I took the proposal to the Democratic platform committee and it was again rejected by the Kerry-Edwards ticket.
In this campaign, Senators Clinton, Edwards and Obama have already said that they are unwilling to propose to Congress to approve a not-for-profit healthcare system because they don’t feel it would pass. You need only to look at the transformation that occurred in the campaign of 1932 when Franklin D. Roosevelt asked the American people to give him a Congress that would help deliver the New Deal. Well, I tell you, with your help you can elect a President who will make the health of the nation a defining purpose, who will deliver a not-for-profit health care system by rallying the American people to elect a Congress who will pass it.
My plan recognizes that health care benefits are a major bargaining tool which have put workers at a great disadvantage in trying to forestall increasing premiums, co-pays and deductibles. Some of our largest industries are in trouble because they can no longer afford to pay the cost of benefits for workers and for retirees.
- Do you believe corporate interests have too much power today and, if so, how will you work to restore workers’ rights, re-balance power between corporations and working families and ensure that our nation’s prosperity is shared?
Who workers choose as President will determine the degree of power that workers have in the economy. At this point, I am the leading candidate in this race in terms of the independence of judgment, unfettered by corporate contributions, personal investments, business ties or obligations. The very corporate interests who are being solicited to contribute to most of the Democratic candidates are investing in the same type of economics that characterized the Bush Administration.
My election as President will mean restoring the economic and social rights and voice of workers to a preeminent role in the conduct of governance.
Because of my strong support for labor and my political independence, I am in a position to help business to shift its policies to ones that are socially responsible; to show business the value and profit of sustainability; to show business the value of a national health care plan that covers everyone; to use the resources of government to work with business in creating high-technology jobs, to create a renewed infrastructure in our country which will create jobs, facilitate the economy and create new dynamic markets for which the world has been crying out.
- What role to you believe unions play in our economy and society, and what will you do to restore the freedom of all working people to join together in unions to bargain for a better life? Do you support the Employee Free Choice Act that passed the U.S. House of Representatives on March 1 and is being considered in the U.S. Senate and will you make it law?
Unions are essential to our economy and our society. Their very existence recognizes that workers rights are human rights and that standing for workers rights is an economic, social and spiritual imperative in a Democratic society.
Working people must be free to organize. The National Labor Relations Board should exist to facilitate, not frustrate, union organizing efforts. I voted for the Employee Free Choice Act because I recognized that card check is the most practical means for workers to express their right to join a union.
As President, my policies will work to restore unions and their membership to a full and equal role in the decision making process.
- How will you approach helping low-income individuals and families secure living wage jobs, health care, housing and other basic needs to escape the trap of poverty?
Peace – Security – Prosperity as opposed to War – Fear – Poverty
As President I will work to establish a Federal Living Wage law. I believe in a full employment economy where workers have living wages, health care, housing and education for their children. My proposal for a not-for-profit healthcare system, Medicare for all, would accelerate the movement of millions of people out of poverty. My proposal to build millions of units of green housing will enable the poor to benefit from reduced utility costs through home insulation and advanced technology.
I intend to enforce the CRA, Community Reinvestment Act, to encourage banks to invest in inner cities. I will put an end to predatory lending that ruins poor people’s aspirations for a better life, particularly people of color. Indeed, it has been the subject of inquiry of many of my hearings as the chairman of the Government Oversight Subcommittee on Domestic Policy.
- What solutions do you propose to help workers handle their work and family responsibilities?
My Presidency will focus on creating new possibilities for families with increased wages, a shorter work week an d longer vacations, as in the rest of the world, so that families can spend quality time together.
My plan for universal not-for profit healthcare will reduce healthcare costs for American business and put thousands of dollars back into the pockets of American families, this together with the cancelling of NAFTA and the WTO and the rewriting of trade agreements to include workers rights, human rights and environmental quality principles, will enable the use of trade to facilitate the prosperity of people in all nations and will create a level playing field for American businesses and workers in the global economy.
I have written legislation to create a non-mandatory universal pre-kindergarten program where children ages 3, 4, and 5 will have access to year-round quality day care. This environment will teach children reading, social skills, music, arts and languages and give them an extraordinary start for their elementary education. I also have a plan for universal two- or four-year public college education.
Finally, I will block any attempts to privatize social security. Social Security is rock solid through 2042 without any changes whatsoever. I will move quickly to protect pension funds of America’s workers. We need effective oversight of hedge funds and other Wall Street financial activity, criminal penalties for corporate pension fund managers who do not abide by their fiduciary responsibility to protect the funds, and changes in bankruptcy law which put workers pension funds first among creditors.
- What will you do to revitalize our manufacturing sector, stop the export of our best jobs and reform our trade policy so it supports good jobs at home and contributes to a healthy environment and equitable development here and abroad?
This question has been answered in my statement for question 2.
I will bring a new manufacturing and trade policy to the Oval Office. Our manufacturing policy will state that the maintenance of steel, automotive, aerospace and shipping is vital to our national economic security and our national defense.
I will rescue America’s manufacturing position by cancelling NAFTA and the WTO and institute a new trade structure that establishes workers rights, human rights and environmental quality principles as necessary preconditions for trade.
Other candidates falsely state that they will change trade policies without cancelling NAFTA and the WTO. However what they fail to disclose is that any attempt to change the conditions of trade to include these principles is deemed WTO illegal and therefore doomed to failure.
Once we have a new structure of trade we can save the jobs that we have, and create new jobs and keep them, lifting living standards everywhere.
Here are three specific areas where I will rebuild the economy:
i. WPA – we will create millions of new good paying union jobs rebuilding America’s infrastructure in much the same was as FDR did
ii. WGA (Works Green Administration) – will create millions of new jobs in energy development and conservation, we will manufacture green technologies for the placement of solar and wind technologies in millions of homes, and the insulation of homes and buildings across America saving energy and helping to combat climate change
iii. I intend to dedicate great effort to transform the debt-based monetary system that locks the world into poverty and destroys the environment.
- What are your ideas to develop a reasonable immigration system that protects the rights of all workers and provides a path toward citizenship for hard-working, tax-paying immigrants who come to our nation seeking a better life?
I have endorsed the Unity Immigration Reform Proposal together with the DREAM (Development Relief & Education for Alien Minors) Act
There is a direct connection between accelerated immigration across our southern boarder and the passage of NAFTA. NAFTA promised workers in America and Mexico that their wages would go up. Iinstead wages declined, the value of the peso dropped and Mexican workers fled the poverty that ensued in their native homeland. Now they risk their lives to cross the border only to find themselves victims a second time.
Corporations have exploited a ready and willing supply of cheap labor as desperate Mexican workers are forced to work for slave labor wages without any rights or benefits. If they complain they are reported to the ICE and returned to their country of origin.
This system of slave labor is a disgrace and requires a rational and humane immigration policy. Immigrant workers who have contributed to the economy, who have worked hard and paid their taxes must have a path to legalization. Their children must have access to full health and education benefits.
People who have been here for years should not be required to return, abandoning their homes and families. They should not be required to pay fines, nor should they be subject to a predatory guest worker program that would lock them into the same predatory system without access to workers rights.
Of course America should have a reasonable immigration policy that regulates the flow of immigrants to our country. As President I shall take a major step towards correcting the conditions that gave rise to the rapid influx of immigrants by cancelling NAFTA and CAFTA and renegotiating a trade relationship with Mexico, Central and South America which establishes at its center piece, workers rights (including the right to a living wage), human rights and environmental quality principles.
As Chairman of the Government Oversight Subcommittee on Domestic Policy I have held hearings enquiring into the abuse of immigrant labor in Louisiana and discovered how this labor force is being used to undermine job prospects for African-Americans who live in the Katrina-affected areas. So there are two classes of people who are being exploited here. We also discovered immigrant workers were not being paid by contractors and when they demanded pay, they were turned in to ICE. This makes the federal government complicit in inhumane and unlawful policies which violate human rights.
As President I will help America remember who we are. We are a nation of immigrants. Except for our native brothers and sisters, all of us have roots in other countries. The attack on immigrants is an attack on ourselves.
- What will you do to make America a leader again in respecting human rights and civil rights at home and around the world?
Strength through Peace
As President I will introduce a new National Security Doctrine “Strength through Peace”. This doctrine will have as its core a commitment to international law, international cooperation, participation in international treaties, and diplomacy. As President I will play a personal role in creating diplomatic breakthroughs with Syria, Iran, North Korea, China and Russia. I will make peace in the Middle East the central foreign policy work of my administration.
I can claim all this because I already have participated in many serious efforts for diplomatic breakthroughs and am well respected in the international diplomatic community.
Strength through peace will change America’s inflection in the world. No more unilateralism, first strike, preemption. We will achieve security through cooperation with the nations of the world and we will meet security challenges collectively. I have no hesitation to defend the united states of America, indeed I voted in favor of a response to the 9-11 attacks, but the neo-conservative doctrine of recent decades “Peace through Strength” has been an unmitigated disaster, weakening our national defense, weakening our military, weakening our economy and weakening our standing in the world.
This doctrine has made America less safe through attacking nations that did not attack us, killing as many as one million innocent Iraqi civilians, wasting trillions of dollars of our nation’s treasure, weakening our nation’s economy, weakening our nation’s ability to protect itself against natural as well as man-made disasters, and sacrificing the lives of more than 3,600 of our brave women and men.
I was the leader in Congress in the effort against going to war in Iraq. No other candidate has voted 100 percent of the time against reauthorizing the war by continuing to fund it. I am the leader for peace among the Presidential candidates in putting forth a workable peace plan, embodied in HR 1234, that does not involve privatizing Iraq’s oil.
The neo-conservative ‘Peace through Strength’ doctrine has been adopted by Senators Clinton, Edwards and Obama, who have all supported funding the war and have said of Iran “all options are on the table”. Their unwillingness to hold the Vice President accountable for taking America into an illegal war based on lies raises questions about their standards.
The Kucinich doctrine of Strength through Peace will cause America to lead the way in getting rid of nuclear weapons. We will participate in and enforce the biological weapons convention, the chemical weapons convention, the small arms treaty, the landmine treaty. America will join the International Criminal Court. We will participate fully with the international community in meeting the challenges of global climate change.
I understand the connection between global warring and global warming. The connection is oil.
Strength through Peace means the end to resource wars, the end of wars for control of oil. It means no more attempts to subvert the governments of other countries. It means the end of assassination as U.S. policy. It means working to affirm the human rights of people all over the world by the United States standing for human rights. It means that the United States will close the School of the Americas, which is responsible for training terrorists who commit human rights abuses in their own countries of origin.
It means no more foreign aid for regimes that commit human rights abuses. It means supporting those governments who are attempting to raise the standards of democratic governance, environmental sustainability and living standards with nonviolent assistance.
As President I will end the fear that has brought about the militarization of our society and the destructive undermining of civil liberties. One of my first acts in office will seek to overturn the Patriot Act.
Finally, I have authored legislation whose intention it is to create a shift in our own American society away from war, fear and poverty, and towards peace, security and prosperity. The Strength through Peace doctrine will be fully integrated in a cabinet-level Department of Peace and Nonviolence. We will make peace and nonviolence an organizing principal in our society. We will focus on those challenges which confront the American family: domestic abuse, child abuse, spousal abuse. We will focus on those challenges which confront the American community: gun violence, racial violence, violence against gays, police-community relations clashes. And we will create programs to alleviate violence against animals both institutionalized and domestic.
The Department of Peace and Nonviolence will have an international application as well. A trained Peace Force will keep our nation alert to conditions internationally which may give rise to future conflicts, be they due to poverty, resources, trade issues, or interests of power. The Secretary of Peace will in turn advise the President as to matters of concern before they degenerate into violence. In this way we can develop workable strategies with the international community to address concerns while preserving the peace.
Members of the Department of Peace and Nonviolence will also assist Congress in providing commentary and analysis on proposed legislation to determine its impact on peaceful relations.
- What is your position on the U.S. involvement in Iraq?
My 2004 Presidential Campaign focused on two defining issues:
Domestic: HR 676 Universal Single-Payer Not-For-Profit Healthcare - Medicare for All;
International: An end to the war in Iraq.
I took the brunt of criticism, being accused of being unpatriotic and weak, for opposing the war in Iraq. Why did I take such as stand? Because I did my job and read all available information about Iraq and based on my study, I concluded that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, with Al Qaeda’s role in 9/11, and that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction and was not attempting to create such weapons. Nor was it trying to acquire uranium from Niger.
Two of the Presidential candidates, Senator Clinton and Senator Edwards, gained popular support in 2003 for their votes in favor of the war and then, when public opinion turned against the war, so did they. Now they position themselves as virtuously against this corrupt and illegal war. The question here is one of judgment. We already had an audition for the presidency. The most important decision a President will ever make is whether to commit the lives of our young men and women into battle. Their decision to go to war had a devastating affect upon on the US and on Iraq. The US has lost 3,600 brave women and men, tens of thousands return home permanently injured. The long-term cost of this war will go into trillions of dollars. America has been isolated in the international community because of this war. Our leaders have been responsible for the deaths of more than one million innocent Iraqis and the total destruction of that nation. There is no way to sugar coat this. Senator Clinton and Senator Edwards, by their single action in voting for this war based on lies, whether they were misled or politically inspired, have disqualified themselves from the level of trust that people have the right to expect in the Chief Executive of this nation.
And what have I done during this time? In October 2002 I wrote a comprehensive analysis of the Bush Administration’s War Resolution, an analysis that proved to be 100 percent correct (available at www.Kucinich.us/Iraq). I distributed this every member of Congress. In 2003 I organized 125 Democrats to vote against the war resolution. In the ensuing period I have given more thanr 150 speeches on the floor of the House of Representatives challenging the war in Iraq and calling for its end. In contrast to every single Senator running for President, I have voted 100 percent of the time not to fund the war, because I understand the legalities behind every voting action; that each vote to fund the war is a vote to reauthorize the war all over again. I have travelled the country giving thousands of speeches on the topic of the war in Iraq and the far-reaching implications of America’s flawed national security doctrines.
I have consistently offered workable approaches to national security, international relations and conflict resolution. I am the only candidate for President with a workable peace plan, embodied in HR 1234 a plan crafted with consultation from United Nations experts in security and peace keeping. This plan is the only plan that does not involve privatizing Iraq’s oil.
The Democratic Congress has the power and the obligation to end the war now. It does not matter whether we have the votes or not. We simply can refuse to bring a war appropriations spending bill to the floor of the house. We must notify the Administration that the $97 billion appropriated last month represents the final installment for the war in Iraq. The Administration must use the money that is in the pipeline to bring the troops and all contractors home safely. The failure to do so would be a cause for impeachment.
HR 1234 includes the following points:
1. The US announces it will end the occupation, close military bases
2. US announces that it will use existing funds to bring the troops and necessary equipment home
3. Order a simultaneous return of all US contractors to the United States and turn over all contracting work to the Iraqi government
4. Convene a regional conference for the purpose of developing a security and stabilization force for Iraq
5. Prepare an international security and peacekeeping force to move in, replacing US troops who then return home
6. Develop and fund a process of national reconciliation
7. An honest reconstruction program with jobs for the Iraqi people
8. Reparations for loss of life, injuries and damage to property
9. Political sovereignty – Abandon efforts to change Iraqi law and halt the privatization of their oil
10. Iraq economy – stabilize food and energy costs
11. Economic Sovereignty – restore fiscal integrity without IMF and World Bank imposed structural adjustments
12. International truth and reconciliation between the people of America and the people of Iraq
- Will you change our nation’s tax and budget priorities? If so, how?
As President, I will fund tremendous improvements in education and infrastructure from military waste and double the tax relief given to the beleaguered middle class by simply returning the tax rates for those earning the top one percent to the tax rates of the 1990s. {Returning top rates to some 34 percent brings them no where near the top rate of 70 percent in the 80s and the 91 percent rate in the late 1940s.}
Keep in mind returning those rates to those of the 1990s, when we created 22 million new jobs and shifting all of that money to the middle class, will spur dramatic economic growth. Factually, the major weakness of our economy is a lack of money on the part of consumers. The national savings rate has gone negative for the first time since the Depression. The myth that the rich will stop creating jobs if their taxes are increased by a small amount is specious an economic argument as any that has been offered.
Corporate taxes only amounted to 7.4 percent of fiscal 2003 U.S. tax receipts. With the exception of 1983, when Reagan was in office, this is the lowest portion of our tax receipts that corporations have paid since 1933. If corporations and the wealthy aren't paying their fair share, who must take up the slack? Working Americans.
Some want to keep the taxation rate on dividends at 15 percent, or to eliminate it altogether. This shows a lack of respect for hard work.
The campaign to eliminate the estate tax is being largely pushed by 18 super-wealthy American families, who would save approximately $71.6 billion in taxes if the estate tax is eliminated. If the inheritance tax is eliminated, the average American will have to come up with about $7,500 more in taxes over a ten-year period.
Clearly, middle class taxpayers pay too much in taxes and are paid too little in the workplace. And the super-rich and corporations pay too little. In fact, the Bush administration forced the American people to borrow money for massive tax cuts for those earning, on average, $1.26 million a year. The top one percent will receive some $641 billion over that time period. The bottom 80 percent will receive $636 billion in tax cuts. So the administration statements that the poor and middle class received most of the tax cuts is not an issue for debate. It is a lie.
The 1990s-period tax rates for the most affluent should be returned, while the tax cuts for those earning less than $418,000 a year should be maintained, for now, until we see how the economy fares.
Keep in mind that the government borrows all the Social Security surplus each year and doesn't even report the borrowing as part of the yearly deficit. After borrowing more than $800 billion from the trust fund, the President has declared several times that the Trust Fund simply doesn't exist. Such a repudiation of the Trust Fund would result in a windfall of $800,000 for the top one percent of taxpayers and a loss of $10,000 for the average family.
Today NAFTA, the WTO, the lack of health care, out-sourcing, union busting and deregulation have crippled American working-class families. The social contracts have been broken, the infrastructure is gone. A Kucinich presidency will put fairness back in our tax system, put justice back in our economic system, and put America back to work.
- What do you propose to do to strengthen Social Security and private pensions to ensure that America’s workers can retire with a secure income?
I have already proposed to return the age of full retirement benefit to age 65 which would, of course, increase the age 62 benefit.
When the Bush Administration tried to privatize Social Security, I spent more than 200 hours studying every facet of the issue with a number of experts. Out of that work came a slide presentation that is on my web site at www.Kucinich.us. In giving the 90-minute presentation many times to crowds up to 500, I learned a great deal of how Americans view Social Security.
When the President faced the American public and insisted that Social Security was facing a financial crisis, it was interesting to note that he didn't also reveal that his tax cuts, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, were five times the anticipated shortfall. In fact, merely returning the tax rates for those in the top one percent of income would nearly eliminate the guessed-at shortfall for the next 75 years.
Any shortfall of Social Security is easily handled if the government merely has the courage to face the special interests and say “No.”
As you study the privatization plan more carefully and the possible repudiation of the Trust Fund, the elements of an elaborate con game have become apparent. Missouri University economist Michael Hudson explains that it has all the elements of a "pump and dump" scheme to prop up stock prices for the most privileged and then to leave ordinary Americans holding the bag.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that Social Security will pay out 100 percent of all currently promised benefits until 2046. That is hardly a crisis and certainly not when compared to the financial problems of the national debt, health care, Medicare, wages, and trade deficits. As with Iraq, the Republicans have manufactured a crisis. In fact, in 2046 Social Security will able to pay out 80 percent of promised benefits if the pessimistic projections are true. But 80 percent of those projected benefits is actually a far larger basket of goods than today's retirees receive. Each successive year, retirees with the same income receive a larger basket of goods to reflect the growing prosperity of the country.
While it is entirely unclear if there is a shortfall within Social Security, “fixes” are relatively easy. For example, if we accept the CBO numbers, it is likely that the full 75-year shortfall could be eliminated with plenty left over by simply having the top one percent of American taxpayers return to the tax rates of the 1990s when the economy was booming. Leaving Iraq would also likely save more than enough to meet the CBO projected shortfall, as would keeping the estate tax for individuals leaving more than $3 million.
It the stock market always produces better results, as the Bush administration intimates, why do all CEOs of the top 100 companies have defined benefit pension plans? What do they know that the Bush administration does not? One of the country's leading stock market researchers, Robert J. Shiller of Yale, estimates that nearly three out of every four Americans would fare more poorly under a privatization plan than the current system. Notice the deliciously misleading rhetoric the administration employs in discussing private accounts. They say that they wish “to give you the opportunity to earn more on your money.” Of course, left unsaid is that you can certainly earn less, much less. It's just that privateers rarely get around to that necessary disclaimer. And any financial planner worth her or his salt knows that the first investments one should make for retirement are in safe vehicles like treasury securities, so the absolute necessities of life are covered. Stocks are risky and are placed higher up the risk scale in the investment pyramid. Currently, all investments in Social Security are made into treasury securities earning, on average, about 5 to 6 percent. Statements that Social Security only earns one percent are just plain wrong and meant to mislead.
Social Security is both a social safety net and an economic covenant between generations and financial groups. To allow the current administration to pit one group or one age group against another is cynical and destructive to the ties that bind us together as a compassionate society. Those who call for “strengthening” Social Security with private accounts are clearly not uniters, they are dividers. They know full well when Social Security is split into different age groups and benefits are no longer directly related to earnings – as they are now – the system will lose favor with many. It will only be a matter of time before the system that we universally back today will die because so many will no longer feel connected to it.
I will protect Social Security and the legacy that it brings from the days of FDR. It is a defining purpose of government to promote the general welfare. Social security is one of the reasons why our government exists. Labor should be very concerned about candidates with deep connections and investments in Wall Street that would profit mightily from the privatization of social security. These candidates are Republicans and they are also Democrats supported by the Democratic Leadership Council.
I am the one person in this race who has the courage and the integrity to stand up to powerful financial interests who are trying to build a case for the privatization of Social Security.
With respect to private pensions, as I mentioned in my answer to question 8, I will move quickly to protect pension funds of America’s workers. We need effective oversight of hedge funds and other Wall Street financial activity, criminal penalties for corporate pension fund managers who do not abide by their fiduciary responsibility to protect the funds, and changes in bankruptcy law that put workers’ pension funds first among creditors.
We need to constantly monitor the health of all pension funds to make sure the promises that were made to all participants are kept. I think that this is an appropriate role for the U.S. Justice Department because if pension liabilities are not being adequately funded, that is fraud.
- What do you believe are the opportunities and challenges facing public education, and how would your administration deal with each? What policies would you support to help close the achievement gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students, including making college more accessible and affordable?
No Child Left Behind has been an immense failure. It is underfunded. It takes the wrong approach. It treats education as a factory line where graduation rates are the equivalent to production quotas.
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.
If we build better schools, offer better pay and elevate the role of teachers in our schools and society, the best and brightest will come in search of the noblest profession.
The financial pressures on schools across this country is staggering. The narrowing of opportunities is shocking. For example, many schools now charge to play sports at the high school level. Many simply cut back on their sports and activities. Too many children never have their chance to step on the field because of financial constraints both at the school and at home. Something is upside down about a society that will spend any amount of money to put a gun in a young person’s hands but skimps over putting a baseball bat there.
Because I understand the essential role of education, I am not reluctant to make the tough decisions to adequately fund it. 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.
I have been the clear leader among the Presidential candidates in advocating for pre-K education.
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 percent.
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 supported 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, more than $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 certainly a key to reducing poverty. However, education alone will not eliminate poverty. That will only be done by a comprehensive revamping of our trade, tax and economic policy that I have addressed earlier. While Administration officials like to discuss personal responsibility and to blame people for being out of work, they are merely choosing a handy guilt-engendering tool.
Nearly everyone feels they could have a better education and can be made to feel they should be working harder. That sort of “blame the worker” rhetoric was used during the Depression by Hoover administration officials who would have you believe that an epidemic of sloth and stupidity descended on American workers to drive unemployment figures to 25 percent. In fact, the challenges facing workers during the Depression and those facing workers today are endemic to the system. Only leaders of vision, compassion and courage who wish to work cooperatively with others will solve these problems.
Many of the most educated and skilled in our society cannot find employment at a living wage. The AFL-CIO department of professional employees estimates that since 2000 “corporations have shipped more than 525,000 white-collar [jobs] overseas.” They correctly note that any job that can be exported by our economic elites to improve their bottom line – sometimes only marginally – will be. In the midst of the computer revolution, for example, thousands of very qualified software and hardware engineers have seen their jobs transferred to India and China. We have seen the specter of computer engineers being “over qualified” and able to secure higher paying jobs as technicians.
Many college graduates now face a job market where lower level skills fixing something are far more prized than designing or building something. Do not misunderstand this phenomena. It is the logical last step of the “hollowing out” of manufacturing from the American economy. Only a government focused on revitalizing American manufacturing can pull the American worker off this downward slope.
Today, graduates of some of America’s finest engineering schools face a tightening job market. Told that their years of hard work and costly tuition payments would secure a better future for them and their families, they too often see bleak job prospects. Mechanical and electrical engineers in India can be secured for one fifth the cost in some cases. As the AFL-CIO professional employees department notes, X-ray readings are now being done in India. Surgery flights to other countries will soon be standard fare. As all of us have discovered that the bulk of service calls they make to larger companies are being handled off-shore. The AFL-CIO cites estimates indicating some 14 million middle-class jobs will be sent overseas in the next 10 years.
Clearly, the transfer of high-tech, good-paying jobs is just beginning. The war on the middle class does not have a truce in sight. However, a President and policy makers guided by a sense of fairness towards workers everywhere can bring order and worker equality to this growing nightmare.
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.
Congress should allow home child care to count as an allowable work activity. For those 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 percent 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. By nurturing the inherent individual talents of each child, we can create adults that are independent thinkers and highly skilled American workers.
- How do you propose to move our nation toward energy sufficiency, stop global warming and protect our environment?
National Security Directive 54
Access to Persian Gulf oil and the security of key friendly states in the area are vital to U.S. national security. Consistent with NSD 26 of October 2, 1989, and NSD 45 of August 20, 1990, and as a matter of long-standing policy, the United States remains committed to defending its vital interests in the region, if necessary through the use of military force, against any power with interests inimical to our own.
– President George H. W. Bush, Jan. 15, 1991
Unless the United States and the world develops new sources of energy, conserves what we have, and develops greater efficiency in its use, we will remain a world at war. The National Security Directive written by President George H. W. Bush made clear our long-standing policy 16 years ago that remains in force today. Iraq, at its core, was not about bringing Democracy or about weapons of mass destruction. It was about $21 trillion dollars of oil that are indispensable to our economy. Global warring and global warming are well connected.
Note that it not just my opinion that the Iraq War is about oil. It is the stated – and never rejected – policy of this government to fight for oil.
For that reason, the Apollo Alliance is not just a key to protecting America’s environment and promoting energy sufficiency that I wholeheartedly endorse, but a key to securing world peace.
Environmental policy under the current administration has reached all time low. The EPA now stands 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 am still leading the effort in challenging it.
I participated in 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.
I have a major initiative to create a Works Green Administration, modeled after the Works Progress Administration instituted by FDR. This initiative would create millions of new jobs designing, building, installing and maintaining alternative energy projects to assure America is energy self sufficient using renewable resources. The WGA will create an America where Middle East oil fields do not loom large as strategic or military targets. There has to be a renewable energy portfolio of 20 percent by 2010. And that means conservation, as well as wind, solar, hydrogen, geothermal, biomass, and all other sustainable and renewable options must be available. That also means withdrawing incentives for the production of nonrenewable energy. The Blue-Green Alliance formed by the United Steelworkers of America and the Sierra Club is forerunner of cooperation between labor and environmental groups which will protect the environment and create new manufacturing jobs.
We should not build more large hydro-electric dams. While hydro-electric power may appear to be a renewable resource, we must be mindful of the environmental implications of how we harvest the power of water. The ecological impact of building more large dams far outweighs the energy benefits it produces. In their place, tidal, run-of-river and low-head small-scale hydro can diversify the county’s energy mix.
We need to subsidize the development of new energy technologies. NASA, which has been of singular importance to our economy by developing technologies for propulsion, for aerospace, for materials, for medicines, and for communication, may be the vehicle by which we conduct such research. 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.
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. A clean environment, a sustainable economy, and an intact ozone layer are not luxuries, but necessities for our planet's future.
Global climate change is a global problem which requires the international community to come together and act. Though climate change, the protection of and cleaning up of our environment is a challenge, it too should be seen as an incredible opportunity for creativity and growth through the reevaluation of our current systems. What ever we choose, we must redesign the way we do things to ensure the survival of all children of all species for all time.
The planet is one whole system and we must recognize the functions of each aspect of Earth as a living organism. In this way, we too must prepare for the tens of millions of people who are likely to find themselves climate refugees in the coming decades. It is not too late to change the course of the future, but we must act quickly and decisively.
The rainforests are the lungs of the earth and we must work with all nations to ensure their protection. I industrialized nations should ensure the economic survival of those who live in environmentally sensitive areas that need to be protected. I propose a domestic and international subsidy paid by governments and industry which would provide communities who live in or near to rainforests and other areas of natural significance, to ensure their own economic wellbeing without having to encroach on these life supporting ecosystems.
The Works Green Administration will connect all government departments and all governments around the world in the cause of sustainability and prosperity. We in the United States must recognize that we are destroying natural habitats, forests and prime farm land and replacing them with sterile concreted areas. There is only a limited amount of prime farm land in the world, the elimination of it for other purposes necessitates others around the world to use substandard land such as that from rainforests for farming, which has devastating effects locally and globally.
We must institute green building design and technology, legislate land use and protection, incentivize the redevelopment of reclamation of brownfield sites and incentivize the production of advanced truly green energy technology, such as wind and solar, abandoning fossil fuels and nuclear. Global warming and global warring are inextricably linked to a backward thinking out-dated energy policy which under a Kucinich administration will be transformed for security and prosperity.
As John F. Kennedy inspired a generation of Americans to reach for the stars, by encouraging the pursuit of educational excellence in science and technology for the space program, I intend to call forth the creativity and inventive genius of Americans to set us on a path of sustaining our planet and conserving life and our natural resources. As outlined in question 3, the WGA (Works Green Administration) will create millions of new jobs in energy development and conservation, we will manufacture green technologies for the placement of solar and wind technologies in millions of homes, and the insulation of homes and buildings across America saving energy and helping to combat climate change.
There are endless opportunities for government and business to work together. I will appeal to businesses large and small in this effort to embrace green markets and green economic practices. This will lead to new jobs and great prosperity for people and the planet.
- What would you do to curb outsourcing of public service jobs to the private sector, which can result in reducing the pay and benefits of workers who perform such services?
When I was mayor of Cleveland, I put my career on the line to save Cleveland's Municipal electric system from a take over by a utility monopoly. I understand that privatization is a racket where corporations make their profits by cutting wages and benefits of workers and then reducing services and promoting tax increases solely for their own profit.
Moving public jobs to the private sector causes long-term damage to our public infrastructure and raises serious issues of public safety.
The responsibility of government is to create and maintain the public infrastructure needed for our economy to flourish. Without government control, there is less assurance these institutions will be safe, and will be looking ahead to long-term goals for the good of the country, rather than at the short-term balance sheet for the good of a few stockholders.
The first victims of this kind of cost-cutting are the workers. Only after the work force has been degraded do the taxpayers see the mistake. But the time the problems are discovered, the citizens learn they have little recourse, as they have given up fiscal and management control, and are now subject to the whims of the marketplace. And they have little recourse when the American company that got the outsourcing sells itself to a foreign corporation.
As President I will support programs that mandate public safety responsibilities stay in the public sector, so profit will never trump safety. I also reject the concept that private enterprise can always do a better job at public service than public employees, and I will oppose the out-sourcing of public sector jobs. I will work towards a strong federal/state/local partnership to see that state and local governments have the resources they need to continue to provide quality service through public employment. This includes passage of HR 676 to provide single-payer universal health care for all residents of the United States, so health care can come off the bargaining table and not be used as an excuse to outsource jobs.
I will support legislation to require that public sector employees displaced by any outsourcing have first-refusal rights to their job with the private company—at full wages and benefits over the same contract period as their public employment. And I believe no public service job should be privatized unless the private employer agrees to voluntarily follow the provisions of the Employee Free Choice Act, if it is not enacted into law.
I am dedicated to increasing the benefits to the public good, specifically by keeping American jobs in America, and public jobs in the public sector.
- What would you do to improve job safety and health protections for workers? What is your view on the appropriate balance between mandatory standards/enforcement vs. voluntary approaches? How would you address the issue of ergonomic hazards, which are responsible for one-third of all workplace injuries?
There is no room for voluntary compliance of critical worker safety issues. Once best-practice standards are established for worker safety they should be enforced and adhered to. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration must be provided with more inspectors who carefully regard conditions in the workplace. Citations, fines and other enforcement mechanisms must be available to protect workers.
Workers have a fundamental right to a safe workplace. OSHA has a fundamental responsibility to enforce the law. Workers should have legal recourse to being able to sue an employer who consistently maintains unsafe working conditions.
As safety rules decrease the amount of accident-caused injuries and ergonomic injuries are clearly becoming more common. Whether an injury results from an accident or from poor ergonomics, it is still an injury, a costly incident for both management and worker. The goal must continue to be zero-injury workplaces.
Accordingly, rules must be put in place to protect both production-line and office workers from ergonomic injuries. Much of this will come through additional training—how to lift, how to sit, how to work machinery controls, keyboards and other computer input devices. The federal government should require this training and help companies provide it.
As for ergonomic devices such as back supports, wrist supports, and other items, these must be considered preventative care devices and covered by health care plans. HR 676 would provide preventive care.
