Posted on 10/29/2007 2:32:24 PM PDT by Red Badger
Candidate: Sacrifice must be priority, too John Edwards says if he's elected president, he'll institute a New Deal-like suite of programs to fight poverty and stem growing wealth disparity. To do it, he said, he'll ask many Americans to make sacrifices, like paying higher taxes.
Edwards, a former Democratic senator from North Carolina, says the federal government should underwrite universal pre-kindergarten, create matching savings accounts for low-income people, mandate a minimum wage of $9.50 and provide a million new Section 8 housing vouchers for the poor. He also pledged to start a government-funded public higher education program called "College for Everyone."
"It is central to what I want to do as president to do something about economic inequality. I do not believe it is okay for the United States of America to have 37 million people living in poverty," he said in a meeting with Monitor reporters and editors this week. "And I think we need, desperately need, a president who will say that to America and call on Americans to show their character."
At every stop, Edwards said, he tells voters he'll ask them to sacrifice. Asked to describe what he means, he described his plan for increases in capital gains taxes, saying taxes on "wealth income" should be in line with those on work income.
"I think if we want to fund the things that I think are important to share in prosperity, then people who have done well in this country, including me, have more of a responsibility to give back," he said. Later, he added: "There are no free meals." Like other Democrats, Edwards named his top three priorities as ending the war in Iraq, enacting universal health care and overhauling the American energy system. "Those are three things instantly I would do," he said.
Edwards also ripped fellow Democrat Sen. Hillary Clinton, who leads most polls nationally and in New Hampshire by a wide margin, for taking campaign contributions from federal lobbyists and for her recent vote in favor of naming Iran's Revolutionary Guard a terrorist group. Edwards barely mentioned Sen. Barack Obama.
Both Edwards and Clinton have proposed universal health care plans that mandate insurance for everyone, while Obama has proposed a plan that requires coverage only for children. Edwards, who was first to propose a plan, called Clinton's a "carbon copy" of his but said he is better positioned to negotiate because he has the "clean hands of not taking money from lobbyists."
"Senator Clinton has over the years has taken millions of dollars from lobbyists and defends the status quo system," he said. "She just basically says the system works and her argument is, 'I'm experienced, I can operate within the system.' "
Clinton spokeswoman Kathleen Strand questioned the line Edwards has drawn. He takes money from state lobbyists and from a variety of industry groups; according to a Washington Post roundup, he's taken more than $8 million this year from lawyers and law firms, including some that also employ lobbyists.
"It is disappointing that instead of taking the opportunity to lay out his ideas to New Hampshire voters, John Edwards is consistently choosing to engage in misleading, desperate attacks against Senator Clinton," Strand said.
Edwards called the Iran vote made by Clinton and others "a signal" to President Bush about what's permissible.
"Are we going to hear six months from now, Bush invades Iran, 'If only I had known then what I know now?' " Edwards said. "How long does it take to learn this lesson? There's a very hard lesson that I've had to learn from Iraq."
As a senator, Edwards voted to authorize the war in Iraq, as did Clinton. Since then, Edwards has apologized and called the vote a mistake, while Clinton has not, saying that she "takes responsibility" for her vote and she would end the war. Edwards has often criticized Clinton for stopping short of an apology.
Edwards said he would pull combat troops out of Iraq within 10 months, while leaving behind a strike force in the region and limited troops in Iraq with missions like protecting the American embassy. He said it's impossible to predict the future of the country.
"No one knows what's going to happen in Iraq. We're in a bad place, the choices are ugly," he said. And we have to make the best choices under the circumstances to maximize the chances for success, but there are enormous risks in Iraq. And a lot of it is out of our hands."
Edwards billed himself as a "rare combination": The most progressive of the major candidates as well as "the most electable." He pointed to the fact that he was elected to the Senate from a "red state" and that he comes from a rural area, two factors that he said prove his electability.
Edwards said the time has passed for "poll-driven, careful, cautious ideas."
"I think you have to say, 'There's something rotten in Denmark,' " he said. "The system needs to be fixed."
Another McGovern!!!
We need an exit strategy from the failed war on poverty. Instead, Edwards wants a surge.
really stupid people
What if we say "No"?
Especially if he doesn't say "Please".
...in the lexicon of the political class,
the word “sacrifice” means that the citizens
are supposed to mail even more of their income
to Washington so that the political class will
not have to sacrifice the pleasure of spending it.
George Will - Newsweek, 2/22/93
I don’t think even McGovern was THIS stupid!.........
Peon! Don't you know that the government is working in YOUR best interest? Fork it over and get back to work for the betterment of ALL! We will take things away from you for the common good!..................
Worse .... I think he’s more like a Jimmy Carter ...
And once his wife dies, dear god help us when the media
gives her the princess Dianna treatment, and then literally gets on their knees for him.
The voters or the candidates?................not that it makes much difference.......
Gee, Mr Edwards when all the wealthy people become impoverished from paying all the new taxes, will they get these new benefits for the “poor”? If so who will be left to finance all this? And this guy is supposed to be a smart lawyer?
He will run the SOS campaign. The SOS in this case is not the morris code symbol for help, but stands for Stuck on Stupid.
He could issue 150 million section 8 vouchers... but if a land lord does not want accept a section 8 recepient, they do not have to.. and many of them do not want to deal with the quality of some of the people, let alone mention they must deal with another government program and process to go thru, and the government intrusion...I have a dear friend, who got a vouchers.. she is in her 70’s and was lucky to find a land lord who would accept her..she has good credit and references..
He’s right about minimum wage. If we want to be consistent about it (and believe me I DO NOT), it should indexed to inflation, etc. Which means the 1977 minimum wage should probably be in the $8 to $9+ per hour range.
It might wreck the economy, but it would have the unintended consequence of wrecking the RINO labor market for cheap illegal peasant labor and the Rat market for free illegal votes.
Yet I think he’s a bit miserly on the 1 million 8a housing certificates. With about 65 million families in our “two Americas” (30 million “rich”, 35 million “poor”), surely he’ll need 5 or 10 or even 20 million cheap housing giveaways to bring things to parity.
Who said it?
1) “We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.”
A. Karl Marx
B. Adolph Hitler
C. Joseph Stalin
D. None of the above
2) “It’s time for a new beginning, for an end to government of the few, by the few, and for the few...and to replace it with shared responsibility for shared prosperity.”
A. Lenin
B. Mussolini
C. Idi Amin
D. None of the Above
3) “(We)...can’t just let business as usual go on, and that means something has to be taken away from some people”
A. Nikita Khrushev
B. Josef Goebbels
C. Boris Yeltsin
D. None of the above
4) “We have to build a political consensus and that requires people to give up a little bit of their own ... in order to create this common ground.”
A. Mao Tse Dung
B. Hugo Chavez
C. Kim Jong Il
D. None of the above
5) “I certainly think the free-market has failed.”
A. Karl Marx
B. Lenin
C. Molotov
D. None of the above
6) “I think it’s time to send a clear message to what has become the most profitable sector in (the) entire economy, that they are being watched.”
A. Pinochet
B. Milosevic
C. Saddam Hussein
D. None of the above
Answers:
(1) D. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 6/29/2004
(2) D. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 5/29/2007
(3) D. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 6/4/2007
(4) D. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 6/4/2007
(5) D. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 6/4/2007
(6) D. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 9/2/2005
With this ideology, why not say the minimum wage is like $20/hr? this would wipe out poverty. But your Big Mac might now cost you 17.99 or supersize it for another $4. Whoops I guess if everyone has a college education, they wont be flippin burgers. With free healthcare, free education, government retirement, why work if your tax rate is 60%?
I want free cell phone and cable TV myself! John are you listening!
You need to add the quote:
“I cannot be held responsible for every under capitalized company out there.”
In response to a question about whether her original healthcare plan would bankrupt some small businesses....
Libs have no imagination. It’s all “take money from those who have some and give it to those who have less”.
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