Kerry

If you're like me, you've known you'll be voting for Kerry for a long time. Some of you might have known you'll be voting for Bush for a long time. (If you disagree with my politics, I hope you'll still read my blog - I like to think that people can disagree and still have interesting conversations). Supposedly there are people out there in America who are still undecided...

I realized yesterday when talking to a friend about volunteering for the campaign that because I know that I don't like many of President Bush's policies, and therefore will be voting for Kerry, I have been a little bit lazy about researching exactly what Kerry has in mind for our country. I mean, I know roughly what he stands for - but what about specific policies? Some people are quick to say there are no meaningful differences between Bush and Kerry. Others say the differences between them are so great that this is the most significant election this century. I decided to go to the candidates' websites and research their actual campaign promises. (NB: I am not analyzing whether they will or can fulfill their promises).

Today, I give you my summary of the Kerry-Edwards "Plan for America." Bush I will do another day. All of this information comes straight from the Kerry-Edwards website. I started by clicking on the issues listed under "Plan for America" in the left-hand sidebar, reading the (very vague) summaries, then looking at some of the more specific plans and speeches located in the right-hand sidebar. If my summaries are incorrect, feel free to point out problems in the comments - or add detail.

Economy

• Cut taxes for businesses that create jobs here in the US.
• Enforce trade agreements to protect American jobs.
• Cut middle class taxes.
• Cut the deficit in half.
• Invest in the "jobs of tomorrow" - industries that are likely to grow in the next few decades.

Energy Independence

• Explore/develop new energy sources.
• Provide tax credits to encourage the use of more fuel efficient cars.
• Develop new technology and production methods to promote cleaner use of coal and natural gas. Develop natural gas resources within the US - one example is building a pipeline across Alaska to transport natural gas.
• Create a hydrogen institute to study and promote the use of hydrogen fuel cells.
• Increase fuel efficiency by 20% in the federal government and provide incentives for states and local municipalities to do the same.

Homeland Security

• Create a new position - Director of National Intelligence - and generally increase coordination between the FBI, CIA, and other intelligence agencies.
• Tighten shipping container security and increase efficiency in that area.
• Increase security at chemical and nuclear facilities.
• Increase domestic readiness.
• Appoint an attorney general who values and protects civil liberties.
• End indefinite retention without access to a lawyer.
• Make adjustments to the Patriot Act.

Military

• Recruit 40,000 new soldiers - not necessarily to serve in Iraq.
• Increase the special forces, civil affairs personnel, military police.
• Modernize equipment and invest in non-lethal weapons that can be used against terrorists in populous areas without killing civilians.
• Improve training of the National Guard and station them in their home communities with a homeland security mission.

Health

Cut premiums by $1000/family.

• Reimburse qualifying plans for catastrophic costs greater than $30,000. To qualify, plans must cover all employees and must promote disease management and prevention.

Cut waste and inefficiency.

• Reduce unmerited lawsuits without strictly capping damages.
• Provide incentives to improve quality. They cite a statistic that if the postal service had the same error rate as hospital ICUs, 16,000 pieces of mail would be lost every hour. Better quality means fewer lawsuits. Specifically, hospitals and pharmacies should be using computerized systems to help diagnose illnesses and prescribe safe combinations of drugs.

Make prescription drugs affordable.

• Disclose financial incentives that drug companies provide pharmacies; pressure pharmacies to pass on these savings/incentives to customers.
• End loopholes that keep generic drugs off the market.
• Extend discounts (such as buying prescriptions in bulk) to greater numbers of people.

Cover all Americans with quality care.

• States agree to enroll all children in Child Health Plus from families with incomes up to 3 times the poverty line. They enroll the whole family in state-provided health care up to 2 times the poverty line. And they enroll everyone - even single adults - who are below the poverty line. In exchange, and to ease the burden on the states, the federal government pays the costs of all the children insured under this new system.
• Create new pools in the federal government's health plan - what members of Congress belong to - so that more businesses and individuals can choose that health plan and afford it.
• Invest in the "safety net" - school-based health clinics, community health clinics, etc.
• Promote disease prevention strategies, nutrition, exercise, etc.

Education

• Create a National Education Trust Fund to guarantee funding for all Congressional mandates in education. Specifically, increase funding for NCLB by $10 billion.
• Provide financial incentives for schools and teachers to reward improvement.
• Change assessments of schools and students to make them more sophisticated, and admit publicly if a school was incorrectly assessed in a previous year under NCLB.
• Increase rates of high school graduation and provide greater access to college. Specifically, provide a college opportunity tax credit for up to $4000 of tuition yearly.
• Provide high quality after school programs for more students - "School's Open 'Til Six"
• Provide a $5000 raise for teachers in high-need areas or teaching shortage subjects.*
• Improve training and mentoring of new teachers, create rigorous new tests for teachers, and institute fast but fair methods for removing poor teachers - in exchange for new pay structures for teachers including some form of merit pay to reward successful teaching.
• Provide $25 billion to modernize school buildings.

Environment

• Reinstate the "polluter pays" principle to fund Superfund clean-ups - and prioritize clean-up of Superfund sites in poor and minority communities. Include community revitalization and the creation of "Environmental Empowerment Zones" as part of the Superfund clean-up process.
• Protect communities from exposure to toxins and clean up toxins already released into the environment.
• Make sure every child has access to a clean, safe park.
• Return profits from use of resources found on public lands to conservation.
• Require that users of public land must return it to its original state.
• End logging of old-growth forests.
• Ban snowmobiles and jet skis from national parks.
• Enforce and fund the endangered species act.
• Strengthen and enforce the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act, and roll back the changes the Bush administration made that loosen these regulations.

*I qualify for both.... do I get $10,000?! ;-)