It's time for America to resume its glorious journey. Time to reject shrinking jobs and wages, disappearing savings and rights. Time to reject the detour towards fear and greed. Time to look out upon the world for friends, not enemies. Time to counter the control of corporations over our politics, our economy, our resources, and mass media. Time for those who have much to help those who have little by maintaining a progressive tax structure. Time to tell the world that we wish to be their partner in peace, not their leader in war. Most of all, it is time for America to again be the land where dreams come true because the government is on the side of its people.
Unfortunately, America now leads the world in categories we should not be proud of. America is now the world's leading jailer with an incarceration rate higher than China. We lead the industrialized world in poverty and in the growing gap between rich and poor. And we are the only industrial nation not to provide national health care.
[1] Universal Health Care with a Single Payer Plan
Over 40 million Americans have no health care and 30 million more have only minimal coverage. Those with coverage often pay exorbitant amounts. The current profit-driven system, dominated by private insurance firms and their bureaucracies, has failed.
Establish streamlined national health insurance, Enhanced Medicare for All. It would be publicly-financed health care, privately delivered. It would provide affordable prescription drugs, thanks to bulk purchasing. The General Accounting Office of Congress has concluded:
"If the U.S. were to shift to a system of universal coverage and a single payer, as in Canada, the savings in administrative costs would be more than enough to offset the cost."
[2] Full Social Security Benefits at Age 65
Social security is the basic covenant our society has with workers who have built our economy. At a time when CEOs earn 240 times the pay of the average worker, it is unconscionable not to return full retirement benefits to age 65.
A progressive tax structure and reordered national priorities. Social Security must not be privatized. Retirement years cannot be dependent on the rise and fall of the stock market.
[3] Withdrawal from NAFTA and WTO
The global trade regime of NAFTA and WTO has enriched multinational corporations. But for workers, family farmers, and the environment, it has meant a global race to the bottom. Companies leave the U.S. in search of low wages, low commodity prices, anti-union climates, and lax environmental laws. NAFTA has been used to whipsaw workers at the negotiation table, forcing wages and benefit concessions under threat of moving jobs overseas. Trade treaties must be conditioned on workers? rights, human rights, and environmental principles.
Among the first actions will be withdrawal from NAFTA and the WTO?to be replaced by fair trade agreements.
[4] Repeal of the "Patriot Act"
The "Patriot Act" is not what American patriots have fought and died for. To allow our Bill of Rights to be nullified without judicial supervision invites tyranny. The Attorney General has been handed unfettered power to wiretap, search, jail, and invade our most sacred right to privacy. The government must not be allowed, without probable cause or warrant, to snoop on our communications, medical records, library records, and student records.
[5] Right-to-Choose, Privacy, and Civil Rights
In a Kucinich administration, a woman?s right-to-choose will be protected as essential to personal privacy and gender equality. Only those who agree to uphold Roe v. Wade will be nominated for the Supreme Court. Civil rights (and voting rights) enforcement will be intensified. Lesbians and gays will be afforded complete equality throughout society. Affirmative action will be maintained as a tool for racial and gender equality. Drug policy will emphasize treatment over criminalization, and not a rampaging war that erodes Constitutional freedoms, privacy, and law enforcement resources. An end to capital punishment will be sought.
[6] Balance Between Workers and Corporations
American workers are working longer and harder for less pay than 20 years ago. What?s needed is a resurgence of organized labor, and a Kucinich administration will tenaciously defend the rights of workers to organize and bargain collectively. Since the purchasing power of the minimum wage has dropped 21% in two decades, it?s time for living wages, not minimum wages. And it?s time to reverse tax cuts that benefit the already well-to-do, and retain an estate tax. Investing $500 billion to rebuild schools, roads, bridges, ports, and sewage, water and environmental systems will do more to stimulate our economy than tax breaks for the wealthy.
[7] Guaranteed Quality Education, Pre-K through College
Since education is the only proven way to reduce poverty, it is unacceptable that a child?s education be dependent on where they are born or the financial status of their family. The federal government spends only 2.9% of its budget on education. That will change under a Kucinich administration, because quality education is a core American right and value.
Education must emphasize creative and critical thinking, not just test-taking. Schools need money to decrease class size, increase teachers? salaries, renovate decaying facilities, and include hands-on job training for those not going to college. Pre-K and after-school programs will get increased funding, and the soaring costs of college will be reversed.
[8] A Renewed Commitment to Peace and Diplomacy
America will return to its role as the most admired?not hated?nation. The doctrine of "pre-emption" will be retired, as will an aggressive, unilateralist foreign policy that makes our homeland less secure, not more. Our security will be enhanced by working with other nations and the U.N. instead of acting like an Empire, arrogantly undermining international agreements such as the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the Biological and Chemical Weapons Conventions, the Small Arms Treaty, the International Criminal Court, and the Kyoto Climate Treaty. Work to implement two measures he sponsored in Congress: the Space Preservation Treaty, which bans space-based weapons, and a cabinet-level Department of Peace, to establish non-violence as an organizing principle in both domestic and international affairs.
Cut bloated and unneeded weaponry from a military budget that now almost equals the military spending of all other countries combined. A peace dividend will be invested in education, health care, environmental clean-up, urban infrastructure, Social Security, veterans? benefits, and other pressing domestic needs.
[9] Restored Rural Communities and Family Farms
Agriculture, trade, and economic policies that favor agribusiness conglomerates have devastated family farmers, rural communities, and the environment. While the number of family farmers has plummeted, profits have soared for a handful of agribusiness giants that increas-ingly control everything from seed to shelf.
A Kucinich administration will break up agricultural monopolies and restore a strong, independent family farm system with fair prices for farmers and healthy food for consumers. A Kucinich Administration will monitor and reduce contamination of our air, water, and food from factory farms, with strong USDA enforcement of tough new food safety laws.
[10] Environmental Renewal and Clean Energy
Clean air and water, as well as an intact ozone layer, are not luxuries, but necessities for our children's future.
Toughen environmental enforcement, support the Kyoto Treaty on global climate change, reduce oil dependence, and spur investment in alternative energy sources, including hydrogen, solar, wind, and ocean. Clean energy technologies will produce new jobs. Tax and other incentives will favor sustainable businesses that conserve energy, retrofit pollution prevention technologies, and redesign toxins out of their manufacturing processes. The right to know (for example, when food is genetically engineered) will supercede corporate secrecy. Globally, the U.S. will become a leader in sustainable energy production and a partner with developing nations in providing inexpensive, local, renewable energy technologies.