HEALTH CARE AND MEDICAL CARE -
Our American health care system clearly has problems. Americans pay almost twice as much for health care as any other similar country, but the U.S. ranks only 37th in health care outcomes. Every year, 45,000 people die from lack of health insurance. Reform is clearly necessary.
But for decades, Republicans have disregarded these problems and obstructed every attempt to solve them. And now, the GOP has voted to destroy Medicare, even though that system is more efficient than private insurance companies. They claim it’s too expensive, but that’s only because costs in the entire health care system are out of control. The Republican plan would increase costs, and shift them from government onto older Americans.
Rather than destroy Medicare, we would do better to extend to every American the opportunity to join in Medicare Plus—using the Medicare structure but, unlike seniors, paying their own way without government subsidy. If private insurers really are superior, then they have nothing to be afraid of. But if not, then we could gradually turn the public option into a single-payer system providing universal coverage to every American at lower costs.
The results are in: our health care system delivers less bang for more bucks. It’s time for a new approach that provides quality service, saves money and saves lives.
PUTTING AMERICANS BACK TO WORK -
Unemployment hurts our neighbors, our families, and our communities. It drags down our economy, and it increases our federal budget deficit. With businesses and families in a defensive crouch, holding onto their money, we need strong government action to help put Americans back to work.
This can be accomplished by making changing the incentives for corporations now sending American jobs overseas, by renovating our crumbling infrastructure, and by providing job opportunities for our country’s youth. This need is urgent, but since the Republicans won control of the Congress in 2010, they have blocked every measure that would put Americans back to work.
I am running for Congress in order to fight so that all Americans have the opportunity to fulfill their potential and contribute to a strong, prosperous America.”
DEBT AND DEFICIT: WHEN TO DEAL WITH IT-
Despite what we hear, now is not the time to be focused on the deficit. Now is the time to be focusing on putting people back to work, and reviving America’s economy. Spending should be cut and revenues raised once the economy is strong again.
Here’s why the Republicans’ focus is dangerously counter-productive: it not only distracts us from the urgent task at hand, which is to get Americans back to work, but it also threatens to make that problem worse by damaging our still-fragile recovery.
DEBT AND DEFICIT: INCREASING REVENUES-
When the economy is healthy again, that will be the time to address the remaining deficit. Restoring prosperity is the crucial first stop toward closing the deficit. Part of the rest of the task of closing the deficit involves increasing federal revenues. The Republican refusal to consider the revenue side of the equation has no justification, in view of the facts about how the American distribution of wealth and taxation has become unbalanced and unjust in favor of the richest.
Measures that should be taken include: 1) closing inappropriate tax loopholes for corporations; 2) raising taxes on the richest Americans back to the level in the prosperous 1990s; and 3) creating various tiers for the richest Americans, so that billionaires are taxed at a higher marginal rate than a couple making $275,000.
DEBT AND DEFICIT: CUTTING SPENDING-
To the extent that spending cuts are needed in the coming years, we should focus on areas different from those the Republicans have been targeting. Instead of gutting Social Security, Medicare, and other vital government programs, we can best reduce the deficit by bringing health care costs under control and by cutting our excessive defense budget. Fiscal discipline need not dismantle the programs and institutions that make America a great and humane society, or be achieved at the expense of our country’s most vulnerable citizens.
97% of leading climate scientists agree that climate change is a serious, man-made problem that needs to be addressed. And yet, America is not taking action to deal with this challenge because one of our two major parties has embraced the skepticism of a tiny minority of scientists. It is not coincidence that the only place where American policy is ignoring an overwhelming scientific consensus is one where our richest corporations have a vested interest in our ignoring the science. And we cannot afford to gamble with the only planet we have, and with the future well-being of our children and grandchildren, because dishonesty has corrupted our discourse. As a candidate for Congress, one of my priorities is to bring honesty and responsibility to the politics of climate change.
There are problems that require urgent attention, but Social Security is not one of them.
The financing of Social Security needs only minor adjustments in the coming years. Nonetheless, the same forces that opposed the creation of Social Security are now trying to use our country’s economic woes as an excuse to dismantle one of America’s most popular and successful programs.
Social Security is a central part of what makes ours a humane and caring nation, one providing a degree of dignity and security to many millions of Americans in their older years. One of my priorities as a member of Congress will be to defend Social Security from those who cannot be trusted to deal with it honestly.
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