Presidential Candidate Policy Comparison

Written by: David Reiter on Jan 20, 2008 11:09 PM EST

We compiled specific information about some of the plans our Democratic front-runners have taken stands on. Links to their websites are provided if you would like to get more complete information. Information was gleaned form a variety of sources to identify specifics of their plans as opposed to broad outlines. Because of the volume of research to be sifted through, we only focused on the top 3 candidates. The candidates support many similar proposals, but we selected items where candidates seemed to differ in priority and scope…we hope you find it useful.

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Economy

Obama:

-Tax credit (cut) of $500 on first $8,000 of income

-Elimination of taxes on seniors with income less than $50,000

-Eliminate capital gains taxes on start-up businesses

-Close tax loopholes for offshore tax havens and enforce tax penalties

-Increase federal investments into transitional jobs

-Raise the minimum wage, index it to inflation and increase the Earned Income Tax Credit

-Provide specific tax assistance and loan guarantees to the domestic auto industry to ensure that new fuel-efficient cars and trucks are build in the U.S. with American workers.

-Expand the Small Business Administration's loan and micro-loan programs which provide start-up and long-term financing that small firms cannot receive through normal channels.

-Supports a trade policy that ensures our goods and services are treated fairly in foreign

markets and promote improved labor and environmental practices

-Reach out to China, EU, and other nations to help rebalance the US trade deficit

Clinton

-Extend the middle class tax cuts including child tax credit and marriage penalty relief, offering new tax cuts for healthcare, college and retirement, and expanding the EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit) and the childcare tax credit.

-Support a $50 billion Strategic Energy Fund and doubling investment in basic energy research to transform our economy from carbon-based to clean and energy efficient.

-Catalyze a thriving green building industry by investing in green collar jobs

-Pass the Employee Free Choice Act so that unions can organize for fair wages and safe working conditions.

-Double funding for (Trade Adjustment Assistance)TAA’s job training program to $440 million. (TAA provides job training, income support, and job placement assistance to those whose jobs have left the country)

-Develop a set of budget rules similar to those we had in the 90s which required us to fund new expenditures with new revenues or cuts in other areas.

-Double the Technology Innovation Program (TIP) in partnership with private sector to reward high-risk high reward R&D projects for small and medium size companies.

-Appoint a trade enforcement officer within the office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) and double the size of USTR’s enforcement unit.

-Cutting 500,000 government contractors and ending abuse of no-bid government contracts and posting all contracts online.

-Reform the AMT (Alternative Minimum Tax) –(no specific plan found)

Edwards

-Raise the minimum wage to at least $9.50 an hour by 2012 and then indexing it.

-Triple the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) for adults without children and cutting the EITC marriage penalty.

-Supports the Employee Free Choice Act to give workers a choice in whether to form a union without intimidation.

-Create a new Labor taskforce to target the industries with the worst abuses of minimum wage and overtime laws.

-Repeal the Bush tax cuts for the highest-income households and keep the tax on very large estates (above $4 million for couples).

-Close tax loopholes for offshore tax havens, hedge funds, and unlimited executive pensions.

-Raise the tax rate on capital gains from 15% to 28%

-Make sure any new trade agreements include strong labor and environmental standards and will vigorously enforce American workers' rights in existing agreements.

-Create Work Bonds, a new tax credit of up to $500, would help low and moderate-income, working Americans save for the future.

- On issues such as trade, climate change, and human rights, negotiate with China to commit to the rules that govern the conduct of nations.

Environment

Obama

-Cap-and-trade system (caps allowable pollutants (measured in credits) from a company and mandates if that cap is surpassed, they must buy the right to pollute more from another company that is under the pollutant cap—monetarily penalizes polluter, rewards non-polluter) that requires all pollution credits to be auctioned.

There are 4 more issues...click "Read More" (below) to see the whole document...

-Proceeds from the cap-and-trade auction program will be invested in job training and transition programs to help workers and industries adapt to clean technology development and production.

-Invest $150 billion over 10 years to advance the next generation of biofuels and fuel infrastructure.

-Double science and research funding for clean energy projects including those that make use of our biomass, solar and wind resources.

-Invest $50Billion to create a Clean Technologies Venture Capital Fund to fill a critical gap in U.S. technology development.

-Establish a 25 percent federal Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) to require that 25 percent of electricity consumed in the U.S. is derived from clean, sustainable energy sources.

-Double fuel economy standards within 18 years.

-Re-Engage with the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.

-Reduce oil consumption by at least 35 percent, or 10 million barrels per day, by 2030.

-Invest $150 billion over 10 years to advance the next generation of biofuels and fuel infrastructure, accelerate the commercialization of plug-in hybrids, promote development of commercial-scale renewable energy, invest in low-emissions coal plants, and begin the transition to a new digital electricity grid.

Clinton

-Cap-and-trade program that auctions 100 percent of permits (credits)

-Invest $50 Billion to create Strategic Energy Fund, paid for in part by oil companies, to fund investments in alternative energy.

-Increase fuel efficiency standards to 55 miles per gallon by 2030.

-Create a new "Connie Mae" program to make it easier for low and middle-income Americans to buy green homes and invest in green home improvements.

-A requirement that all federal buildings designed after January 20, 2009 will be zero emissions buildings.

-Reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent from 1990 levels by 2050

-Double federal investment in basic energy research, including funding for an ARPA-E, a new research agency modeled on the successful Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

-Invest $20 Billion in "Green Vehicle Bonds" for U.S. automakers to retool their plants to meet the standards new standards.

-Require that all publicly traded companies report financial risks due to climate change in annual reports filed with the SEC.

-Creation of a "National Energy Council" within the White House to ensure implementation of the energy and environmental plan across the Executive Branch.

Edwards

-Cap and trade system mandating 80% greenhouse gas reduction by 2050.

-Create the New Energy Economy Fund by auctioning off $10 billion in greenhouse pollution permits to support U.S. research and development in energy technology, help entrepreneurs start new businesses, invest in new carbon-capture and efficient automobile technology and help Americans conserve energy.

-Lead the world to a new climate treaty that commits other countries—including developing nations—to reduce their pollution.

-Offer to share new clean energy technology and, if necessary, using trade agreements to require binding greenhouse reductions.

-Repeal subsidies for big oil companies.

-Create a new energy economy and 1 million new jobs by investing in clean, renewable energy.

-Mandate 65 billion gallons (25% of our energy) of ethanol and other biofuel production a year by 2025.

-Double the Department of Energy research budget, to reduce the cost and accelerate the marketability of current technologies to put clean solar, wind, and biomass into more communities.

-Invest $1 billion a year to research ways to burn coal cleanly and recycle its carbon underground permanently.

-Provide $1 billion a year to help U.S. automakers advance and apply the latest technology, including biofuels, hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and electric cars, hydrogen fuel cells, ultra-light materials, and drive train improvements.

Health Care

Obama

-Create a new national health plan for all Americans, including the self-employed and small businesses, to buy affordable health coverage that is similar to the plan available to members of Congress (FEHBP).

-Individuals and families who do not qualify for Medicaid or SCHIP but still need financial assistance will receive an income-related federal subsidy to buy into the new public plan or purchase a private health care plan.

- Participants in the new public plan and the National Health Insurance Exchange (see below) will be able to move from job to job without changing or jeopardizing their health care coverage.

-Participating insurance companies in the new public program will be required to report data to ensure that standards for quality, health information technology and administration are being met.

-Creation of a National Health Insurance Exchange to act as a watchdog group and help reform the private insurance market by creating rules and standards for participating insurance plans to ensure fairness and to make individual coverage more affordable and accessible.

-Employers that do not offer or make a meaningful contribution to the cost of quality health coverage for their employees will be required to contribute a percentage of payroll toward the costs of the national plan.

-Require that all children have health care coverage.

-Health plans will be required to disclose the percentage of premiums that go to patient care as opposed to administrative costs.

-Provide rewards for achieving performance thresholds on outcome measures as opposed to volume of services.

-Repeal the ban that prevents the government from negotiating with drug companies and allow Americans to buy their medicines from other developed countries if the drugs are safe.

Clinton

-Americans can keep their existing private coverage or buy FEHBP.

-Mandate that no American is denied coverage, refused renewal, unfairly priced out of the market, or forced to pay excessive insurance company premiums.

-Mandate that insurance companies cannot deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions or expectations of illness.

-Large employers will be ‘expected’ to provide health insurance or contribute to the cost of coverage.

-Small businesses will receive a tax credit to continue or begin to offer coverage.

-Working families will receive a refundable tax credit, designed to prevent premiums from exceeding a percentage of family income, to help them afford high-quality health coverage.

-A new tax credit for qualifying private and public retiree health plans to offset a significant portion of catastrophic expenditures.

-A net tax cut for American taxpayers through anew tax credit to make premiums affordable.

-Create a level-playing field of insurance rules across states and markets.

-Protect the current exclusion from taxes of employer-provided health premiums, but limits the exclusion for the high-end portion of very generous plans for those making over $250,000.

Edwards

-Require businesses and other employers to either cover their employees or help finance their health insurance.

-Create regional Health Care Markets: non-profit purchasing pools that offer a choice of competing insurance plans.

-Create a new tax credit to subsidize insurance purchased through Health Care Markets.

-Edwards will require insurers to keep plans open to everyone and charge fair premiums, regardless of preexisting conditions, medical history, age, job, and other characteristics.

-Establish a non-profit or public organization – possibly within the Institute of Medicine --Research the best methods of providing care, drawing upon data from Medicare and the Health Care Markets and medical experts.

-Develop partnerships among academic medical centers, Medicare, and other federal agencies to make sure high-quality medicine is practiced everywhere.

-Establish public-private collaborations to reorganize patient care, improve internal communications, reduce errors through electronic prescribing, and establish basic quality benchmarks.

-Create a "Consumer Reports" for health care, a universal and easy-to-use report card to help Americans evaluate hospitals' effectiveness in treating injuries and diseases.

-Restrict direct-to-consumer advertising for new drugs to ensure that consumers are not misled about the potential dangers of newly marketed drugs

National Security/Foreign Policy

Obama

-Remove 1–2 combat brigades from Iraq every month until they are all out within 16 months.

-Launch an aggressive diplomatic effort to reach a new compact on the stability of Iraq and the Middle East.—the aim of the compact will be to secure Iraq's borders; keep neighboring countries from meddling inside Iraq; isolate al Qaeda; support reconciliation among Iraq's sectarian groups; and provide financial support for Iraq's reconstruction.

-Conduct direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions. If Iran continues its troubling behavior, he will step up economic pressure and political isolation of Iran.

-Make a sustained push – working with Israelis and Palestinians – to achieve the goal of two states, a Jewish state in Israel and a Palestinian state, living side by side in peace and security.

-Obama will negotiate a verifiable global ban on the production of new nuclear weapons material to deny terrorists the ability to steal or buy loose nuclear materials.

-Stop the development of new nuclear weapons; work with Russia to take U.S. and Russian ballistic missiles off hair trigger alert; seek dramatic reductions in U.S. and Russian stockpiles of nuclear weapons and material; and set a goal to expand the U.S.-Russian ban on intermediate- range missiles so that the agreement is global.

-Give our troops new equipment, armor, training, and skills--increase the size of ground forces, adding 65,000 soldiers to the Army and 27,000 Marines.

-Require chemical facilities to enhance security, including improving barriers, containment, mitigation, and safety training, and, where possible, using safer technology, such as less toxic chemicals.

-Establish guidelines for tracking, controlling, and accounting for spent fuel at nuclear power plants.

-Push legislation to legislation to provide $37.5 million over 5 years for drinking water systems to upgrade their monitoring and security efforts.

Clinton

-Will direct the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Secretary of Defense and her National Security Council to draw up a clear, viable plan to bring our troops home.

-Appoint of a high level U.N. representative to help broker peace among the parties in Iraq and work to convince Iraq's neighbors to refrain from getting involved in the civil war.

-Convene a regional stabilization group composed of key allies, other global powers, and all of the states bordering Iraq to develop and implement a strategy to create a stable Iraq.

-Fight for Israel's right to exist peacefully and to defend its people against terrorism.

-Create a policy of diplomacy backed by economic pressure to check Iran’s efforts to acquire a nuclear weapons program and stop its support of terrorism.

-Will support deploying new technology that can help stop the flow of undocumented immigrants into the country.

-Opposes the creation of permanent bases in Iraq.

-Create global coalitions to tackle global problems like climate change, poverty, AIDS, and terrorism.

-Start engaging our enemies with diplomacy.

-Put forth an aggressive plan to support public schools in developing countries in an effort to achieve universal primary education

Edwards

-Immediately draw down 40,000 to 50,000 combat troops and completely withdraw all combat troops from Iraq within nine to ten months.

-Prohibit permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq.

-Retain sufficient forces in Quick Reaction Forces located outside Iraq, in friendly countries like Kuwait, to prevent an Al Qaeda safe haven, a genocide, or regional spillover of a civil war.

-Ignite diplomatic efforts by engaging in direct talks with all the nations in the region, including Iran and Syria, to bring a political solution to the sectarian violence inside Iraq, including through a peace conference.

-Negotiate with Iranian leaders who have met a number of criteria, such as recognition of the international rule of law, recognition of the rights of Jews and the state of Israel, and a commitment to the promise of diplomacy.

-Take steps to expose Iran to democratic culture and ideas and will use diplomacy to separate extremists from leaders more inclined to stabilize Iran's relations with the world.

-Pursue a new course of targeted sanctions toward Iran, American companies and foreign companies to deter them from helping to pursue a nuclear program.

-Reach out to China and Russia to work on reaching their economic objectives through alternatives that do not assist Iran's military nuclear capability.

-Root out and shut down terrorist cells in particular regions and countries by enacting a comprehensive strategy to ensure that intelligence is used to root out and shut down the scourge of terrorism and to unite the world against violent extremism.

-Use our aid agencies to help Pakistan develop strong educational alternatives to the madrassas that are radicalizing Pakistani youth.

Government Accountability/Corporate Responsibility

Obama

-Reinstate pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) budgeting rules, which require new spending commitments or tax changes to be paid for by cuts to other programs or new revenue.

-Create a centralized Internet database of lobbying reports, ethics records, and campaign finance filings in a searchable, sortable and downloadable format.

-Fight for an independent watchdog agency to oversee the investigation of congressional ethics violations.

-Promote public financing of campaigns combined with free television and radio time as a way to reduce the influence of moneyed special interests.

-Create a "contracts and influence" database that will disclose how much federal contractors spend on lobbying, and what contracts they are getting and how well they complete them.

-Ensure that any tax breaks for corporate recipients — or tax earmarks — are also publicly available on the Internet in an easily searchable format.

-Require that nearly all contract orders over $25,000 be competitively awarded.

-Will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days.

-Will amend executive orders to ensure that communications about regulatory policymaking between persons outside government and all White House staff are disclosed to the public.

-Require his appointees who lead the executive branch departments and rulemaking agencies to conduct the significant business of the agency in public, so that any citizen can see in person or watch on the Internet these debates.

Clinton

-Re-propose the Count Every Vote Act (CEVA), which promotes the accuracy, integrity, and security of the election process by requiring the preservation of a voter-verified paper ballot that serves as the official record of any recount and random mandatory audit.

-Rebuild the Department of Justice's traditional role in defending civil rights and the rule of law, and review charges of improper, politically motivated hiring.

-Permanently ban all Cabinet officials from lobbying her Administration once they’ve left office.

-Extend the whistleblower shield to all government employees and contractors so they can defend themselves when they speak out in the public interest.

-Restore the practice of competitive bidding except in times of national emergency, ending the abuse of no-bid contracts; and will post every contract online, inviting interested citizens to scrutinize the details and hold their government accountable.

-Through an Executive Order cut the number of contractors working for the federal government by 500,000 over the next ten years.

-Require all government agencies to publish all budget justification documents online within 48 hours of delivering those documents to Congress, except those that raise national security concerns.

-Create a new Results America Initiative, modernizing data collection to address critical gaps in our knowledge and making the findings available on the web so that citizens can get real-time information on a host of issues, from their local air quality to traffic flow to the conditions of critical infrastructure, such as roads and bridges and the electrical grid.

-Create a Corporate Subsidy Information Service (CSIS) that will identify recipients of corporate subsidies – who gets how much – and evaluate the effectiveness of these subsidies in promoting growth and opportunity.

-Will ban political appointees from altering or removing scientific conclusions in government publications without any legitimate basis for doing so, and prohibit unwarranted suppression of public statements by government scientists.

Edwards

-Require the use of paper ballots verified by voters. Voting machines will ensure access for people with disabilities and foreign-language speakers, use transparent and publicly accountable open-source software, and be verified by mandatory audits.

-Require Election Day registration for federal elections and encourage states to offer no-excuse absentee voting.

-Establish a Department of Justice task force to investigate patterns of dirty election tricks nationwide.

-Strengthen rules against highly concentrated media ownership and define robust public interest obligations for digital broadcasters.

-Create a new Grassroots Presidential Financing System to empower regular Americans in a potentially universal public financing system that matches small contribution at a rate of 8 to 1 ($100=$900), and reduce maximum contributions to $1,000 with a smaller match ($1,000=$1,800).

-Public financing for Congressional Candidates who raise a certain number of $5 contributions will receive equal public financing and airtime, while additional "fair fight" funds will help candidates facing self-financed campaigns and independent expenditures.

-Require corporations to disclose all political spending and activity including ‘anonymous’ donations to 527 groups, politically active trade associations, state and local candidates, and state parties.

-Prohibit all federal candidates from accepting campaign contributions from federal lobbyists.

-Require lobbyists to disclose within 48 hours which federal office candidates, members, staff and executive officials they met with, which legislative or regulatory items they discussed, and any contributions made or raised for that official.

-Mandate that lobbyists disclose prior employment by the government or a contractor and any close relationship to a current member of Congress, staff member, or executive branch employee.

Florida DFA has not endorsed any candidate for the 2008 Presidential election. The information contained herein is meant to provide a clear idea of some of the specific policies that the leading Democratic candidates intend to pursue, once elected. Links have been provided to each of the candidate websites, where the bulk of the information contained within was originated. For further information on policies the candidates intend to pursue, please visit their websites.

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