*Previously in this blog
I've tried to highlight the achievements of one Barack
Obama. I have detailed his accomplishments in the Illinois State
Senate and the Us Senate. Now I would like to highlight his plan for
America and how this country would be better off, under his bold
vision. It would be long and nearly impossible to read if I simply
repeated his plan as posted on his website.
But feel free to go over and read it all yourself in detail. I highly
recommend you download each of his PDFs
and see for yourself the great stuff he's got planned. The only way
its going to happen though is if we stop Hillary and Obama receives
the Democratic nomination. Edwards
dropped
out this morning so now it's down to two.
Super
Tuesday is
next week and if you live in one of the ST states I hope you will be
voting and letting your voice be heard. Change is possible if you
have hope-the man says.
What I can do is give those of you too lazy to read
for yourself a slight overview of the plan and highlight the major
talking points. There are some truly radical things included, like
fixing the Drug Code1
and ending the disparity between crack and powdered cocaine
sentencing, and reforming mandatory minimums. That's mainly for us
colored folks though. There's tons of stuff on equal rights and
increasing opportunities for women and minorities. But lets start at
the beginning. This weeks hot topic-the economy. Now, I now most of
you don't own your own hoe or have mortgages but there are bigger
things at stake than whether suburban dads can keep their credit
scores up. I've put together a quick run down of what could be, if
you have the courage to elect the only candidate ready for real
change. What we don't need are more typical empty promises. Barack
has a practical plan, and not just hallow rhetoric like some other
candidate.
On economy; Obama plans to cut income taxes by $1000, for
working families. Unlike the Bush tax cuts which gave cuts only to
individuals earning over $1 million a year. Obama will provide over
150 million workers (like you and me), the tax relief we need.
Obama wants to create a
“Making Work Pay”
tax credit. Similar to the $100 million Earned Income Tax Credit,
he passed while in the Illinois Senate. The bill provided each
individual taxpayer a credit against the Illinois Tax Act in an
amount equal to 5% of the federal income tax credit allowed.
Increasing the Earned Income Tax Credit, will make sure that
full-time workers earn a living wage that allows us to raise our
families and pay for basic needs. Along side of that Obama plans to
raise the minimum wage, and index it to inflation. He stated
November 10, during a speech in Des Moines, Iowa that; “I'm
in this race to take those tax breaks away from companies that are
moving jobs overseas and put them in the pockets of hard working
Americans who deserve it. And I won't raise the minimum wage every
en years-I will raise it to keep pace so that workers don't fall
behind. That is why I am in it. To protect the American worker. To
fight for the American worker.” This applies to the rest
of us, for those of us lower on the totem pole. Barack also plans
to ensure our freedom to unionize., fight attacks on workers rights
to organize, and protect striking workers. Obama co-sponsored the
Employee
Free Choice Act,
a bipartisan effort to assure that workers can exercise their right
to organize. Obama has fought the Bush Administrations National
Labor Relations Board
, and their efforts to strip workers of their right to organize.
Obama also plans to expand the Family
and Medical Leave Act.
This will provide low-income families with a refundable tax
credit to help with their child-care expenses, and encourage
flexible work schedules. Strengthening the economy only begins with
the worker it also extends to trade, technology, bankruptcy reform,
credit cards and this weeks buzz topic home ownership. Obama plans
to fight for fair trade not just free trade. He plans for a trade
policy that opens up foreign markets to support American jobs. He
will use trade agreements to spread positive labor and environmental
standards around the world. He stands firm against bad agreements
like the Central
American Free Trade Agreement,
that failed at these important standards. Obama believes that 2
and it's potential were oversold to the American public and he will
work to fix NAFTA so that it works for American workers. Obama
also wants to improve transition assistance by extending it to the
service industries where I work. Creating flexible education
accounts to help workers retrain before they lose their jobs.
Barack Obama also suports job creation, he plans to double federal
funding for basic research. And make the research and development
tax credit permanent, to help create high-paying, secure jobs. Obama
plans to make long term investments in education, training, and
workforce development. He wishes to invest in US. Manufacturing,
create new job training programs for clean technologies, boost the
renewable energy sector and create new jobs. Obama genuinely wants
to restore strength to our ailing economy. The current hot topic in
the media is housing crisis. Obama plans to create a universal
mortgage credit. A 10% credit to provide tax relief to homeowners
who do not itemize. This credit will provide an average of $500 to
10 million homeowners, the majority of whom earn less than $50,000 a
year. This is more than the band-aide currently being attempted. The
current bill in debate calls for one-time tax rebates to go
primarily to individuals making less than $75,000 and to married
couples making less than $150,000. It does not as Obama would have
call for accountability in the sub-prime mortgage industry. He has
introduced comprehensive legislation over a year ago to fight
mortgage fraud, and protect consumers against abusive lending
practices. His Stop
Fraud Act
provided the first federal definition of mortgage fraud, increasing
funding for federal and state law enforcement programs. He's created
new criminal penalties for mortgage professionals found guilty of
fraud, and requires industry insiders to report any suspicious
activity. Obama also plans to close the bankruptcy loopholes for
mortgage companies, create funds to help homeowners avoid
foreclosures, and mandate accurate loan disclosures.On Health Care; Now I admit to me this
is one of the most important topics. I haven't been to a doctor
since I was in prison, and much of that is due to the fact that I
simply can not afford it. Health care comes at a price that most of
us can not afford. Health insurance premiums have risen four times
faster than wages in the past six years. Nearly 11 million of those
with insurance , last year ended up spending a quarter of their
salary on health care. The increasing co-pays and deductibles
threaten acces to health care for any but the wealthy. Over half of
all personal bankruptcies are caused by rising medical bills.
There's a lot of hype surrounding the issue, and as the two
candidates slug it out over their respective plans. I've broken down
the talking points of Senator Obama's and stood them next to
Hillary's so you be the judge. First just how “universal”
can we expect either of their health-care plans to be? Obama's plan
creates various mechanisms to make sure that both private and public
insurance is more available. Clinton's plan sort of does the same
thing, but it also creates a “individual mandate”. She
would require that every one buy health insurance. Obama also
creates a mandate, but only for children. Under Obama's plan we
would remain free to buy insurance or not. The main argument here is
that how would one enforce a insurance mandate. Would not having
insurance be punishable by jail time? Or would you get a ticket for
walking with out insurance (much like driving with out it)? Obama's
resistance to the “individual mandate” makes perfect
sense. Hillary has no outline for how she would even enforce her
mandate, which in itself make s me both nervous and suspicious as to
how committed she actually is. There is a lot of debate as to
whether the government can mandate that you have health-care.
Forcing people to pay for health care will be hard enough. The most
obvious and logical solution is to make health insurance a function
of the government, as it is for the poor and elderly. There's
nothing odd about the government collecting insurance premiums in
the form of taxes for Medicare or Medicaid. Yet this presents
Republicans with the argument that “Big Government”
will steal your wages if you don't buy insurance! And they would be
right, but what's more important here is the question. Public health
is an issue that effects us all. There's nothing I hate more than
being on the bus with people sneezing and coughing all around me, or
riding the train touching poles that good knows what has been wiped
on. Clinton and Obama both have plans that would steadily enlarge
the role of government in health insurance. These are accommodations
to the political reality. Senator Clinton advocates incremental
reform. The best argument there is that it probably won't work and
that's when the federal government would step in and take over. Her
plan consist not of one big idea but several small ones, most of
them familiar. Hillary purposes a competition between private plans
and a public plan. Senator Obama would establish a National
Health Insurance Exchange that would create “rules
and standards for participating insurance plans”. Meaning that
anyone could buy private health insurance through the NHIE, and be
guaranteed a certain price (on a sliding scale) with a certain bit
of coverage. The participating insurers would not be permitted to
exclude customers with pre-existing medical conditions. Oddly enough
this is based partly on the Massachusetts health-care plan that was
signed into law by former Governor
Mitt Romney, himself on the presidential trail. The hazard,
however, with regulatory services in general is that the more
complex they are the more they are susceptible to pressure from
lobbyist. The cost of Hillary's plan is around $110 billion while
Barack's stands at $50 to$65 billion. Which is the biggest
difference between the two. Both Senators plan to pay for their
respective plans by allocating the funds from the Bush tax cuts that
expire at the end of 2010. Obama would also invest $50 billion over
five years to accelerate the adoption of electronic health records,
a vital and necessary reform that would reduce medical errors and
hopefully save lives. It would also save money by avoiding needless
duplication. Such as blood test that are preformed more than once
because of lost paper work. Obama and Hillary both cite a Rand
Corporation study that predicts saving up to $77 billion a year. A
similar proposal from the two would allow Medicare to negotiate
prescription drug prices, producing savings as high as $30 billion
annually. Implementing Obama's plan though would cost employers only
if they refused to provide health-care for their workers. It would
require them to contribute a percentage of payroll to the new public
health plan. Obama would however limit the liability of small
businesses for “catastrophic” care expenses. Obama care
would be great for employers because the public insurance part
would take care of providing care to their employees. Obama also
wants to invest in prevention, support disease management programs,
coordinate and integrate care, and require full transparency about
quality and cost. The most important and least talked about part of
Obama's plan is the public insurance part, because it's portable.
You can remain in the plan even if you change jobs.
I'm going to have to save my third talking point
the Iraq situation! For another time I'm running long and have to get
to work. Pray I don't get hit by a bus I still don't have health
care!
1The
'National Drug Code' (NDC) is a universal product identifier used in
the United
States
for drugs intended for human
use. The Drug Listing Act of 1972[1]
requires registered drug establishments to provide the Food
and Drug Administration
(FDA) with a current list of all drugs manufactured, prepared,
propagated, compounded, or processed by it for commercial
distribution. Drug products are identified and reported using the
NDC
2The
North American Free Trade Agreement
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
eliminated the majority of tariffs on products traded among the
Canada,
United
States
and Mexico,
and gradually phases out other tariffs
over a 10-year period. Restrictions were to be removed from many
categories, including motor
vehicles,
computers,
textiles,
and agriculture.
The treaty
also protects intellectual
property rights
(patents, copyrights, and trademarks), and outlines the removal of
investment
restrictions
among the three countries. The agreement is trilateral in nature
(that is, the terms apply equally to all countries) in all areas
except agriculture,
in which stipulations, tariff reduction phase-out periods and
protection of selected industries, were negotiated on a bilateral
basis. Provisions regarding worker and environmental protection were
added later as a result of supplemental agreements signed in 1992.
NAFTA was an expansion of the earlier Canada-US.
Free Trade Agreement
of 1988. NAFTA is a treaty under international law, though under
United States law it is classed as a congressional-executive
agreement
rather than a treaty.
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