I am running primarily because the current Congress is failing to address the needs of millions of Americans who are suffering from unemployment, and who are finding themselves slipping into poverty through no fault of their own. I am running because millions of Americans still have no meaningful access to needed health care. I am running because our educational system is not meeting the needs of our children, with the result that our Nation's leadership role in the international community is threatened. I am running because 22% of America's children should not be living in poverty. I am running because the conversation needs to be focused on these things, and that need is urgent.
The Obama Administration's Jobs Bill offers a number of well-considered proposals for job creation, and ought to be passed.
Congress should address problems faced by small business in obtaining financing so that those businesses can expand more readily.
New energy technologies are not only vital to national security, but offer the added benefit of research and manufacturing expansion, and ought to be supported by incentive programs. If we fail to develop these technologies domestically, we will be buying them from others in relatively short order.
I am committed to careful review of the federal budget and the efficiency of government programs, and to bipartisan discussion of possible budget savings. The federal budget obviously ought to be constructed so as to best meet projected needs.
That said, requiring balanced federal budgets would restrict the Nation's ability to respond to unforeseen events. Many government expenditures are effectively beyond the government's control, as in the case of unpredictable rises in unemployment benefits and reduction in revenues that may result from an economic downturn, or from international or domestic crises that require a government response.
Social Security is a wonderfully successful program. In the current economic downturn, which has forced so many Americans into poverty, the over 65 age cohort has not suffered a statistically significant decline in welfare. We all benefit when the retired and elderly have a secure source of income.
Privatization is a horrible idea that would subject the retirement security offered by the system to the vagaries of the stock market, the skills of the individual investor and advisors, and the cost of private investment fees. Privatization would also reduce the projected life span of the current system by diverting funds into those private investments.
The income cap on payments into the system should be raised as a partial solution to the long-term problem. Beyond that, we have time to carefully consider how best to ensure continuation, and need not rush into ill-conceived solutions. Current benefit levels can be maintained for the next 25 years without change.
The three Illinois counties with the highest home foreclosure rates – Kane, Kendall and McHenry – are all in the 14th District. Obama Administration efforts to address fraudulent lending and foreclosure practices must be continued, as must loan modification programs. We also need to explore and expand such alternatives to foreclosure as deed-in-lieu agreements, under which the lender takes ownership while the homeowner maintains residence on a rental basis, thus helping families maintain some stability, lenders to recover the property, and neighborhoods to avoid the blight of vacant and frequently deteriorating properties.
The Administration's Jobs Bill, with its funding for infrastructure repair and upgrade projects, will bring both social and economic benefits. For example, there are over 40 bridges in the District deemed "structurally deficient." Delays will result in significantly increased budgetary burdens in the future.
Subsidies can provide critical support to business and industry, particularly in the development of new, promising and perhaps risky undertakings. They can provide support to businesses vital to the community that face acute uncertainty or risk. They can also distort the market, and can continue beyond their useful life. The need for subsidy must be addressed on a case-by-case basis.
When an industry is profitable and would remain so even absent the subsidies – the oil industry being an example of such a case – it is difficult to justify what is a transfer of wealth from the taxpayer to the industry.
In other cases, such as small farms, subsidies help to protect a particularly vital industry against an unpredictable production environment and to smooth an unpredictable market in a vital industry.
The U.S. should work with the international community to ensure that Iran does not pose a threat to its neighbors or the larger international community. We must be careful that we do not further destabilize a volatile region and especially that we do not do so unilaterally.
Yes. I am of the view that the overwhelming majority of members of Congress wish to do what is best for the Nation. While there may be differing views on how best to achieve those ends, those differences cannot be used as an excuse for inaction or willful obstruction. I believe that reasoned discussion is critical for the Nation's well-being, and that the current climate of extreme partisanship and unwillingness to compromise is fundamentally undemocratic.
To do the right thing and help people. I got tired of going to a primary election and seeing only one person on the ballot. To get someone elected to Congress who was not a bought-and-sold politician. To be a representative of the people of this district, elected by the people of this district, to vote for the benefit for the people of this district and not of the corporations, by the monied interests, for the already powerful and privileged.
Pass much of what President Obama's job plan consists of. Putting Americans to work and fixing this county's aging infrastructure is a win-win for all of us.
Have a strong national defense, but curtail the obscene national offense. In 2003, the defense budget was $379 billion, if it rose by the rate of inflation, would be $465 billion, but is it now $750 billion. The domestic "protection" (Police, Courts, Prisons, etc) was $40 billion in 2003, if it rose by the rate of inflation, would be $50 billion, but is it now $57 billion. Stop funding overseas empire building and stop imprisoning our own citizens. Russia, China, and Iran have less per capita and less total numbers of their population in prisons and jails than we have. I am against a constitutional amendment to have a balanced budget. If members of Congress cannot balance a budget, they should not be re-elected @ a 90% recidivism rate as they are now, and we should send people there that will.
I would like to see the actuarial tables on this proposal: lower the rate to 5% (from the present 6.2%) on both the individual and employer on income up to $125,000. Then, the same 5% on all income by the individual over $250,000. That way the tax is lowered on all making less than $125k, lowered for the employers, and is a less regressive tax then it is at present (a lower, flat tax should make the likes of Grover Norquist happy too). Should that not be able to keep it solvent for the next 75 years, we can adjust the numbers if necessary, as I don't know how that would play out. But to drastically change it, raise the age of retirement, or end it, I am generally opposed. It will be solvent for the next 3 decades, it is something that needs to be addressed, but we have issues that need to be addressed tomorrow that should take precedence.
Protect civil liberties and enforce the rule of law. "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin. The Patriot Act, FISA, MCA, NDAA, etc, etc, etc should have the most egregious parts of those undone and we need to stop passing new ones like it (SOPA, PIPA, etc). Prosecuting those that ordered things like torture, rendition, extra-judicial killings over the past 11 years and prosecuting those that committed fraud and theft on Wall Street over the past 4 years. "When once a republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil." - Thomas Jefferson [as copied from Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws, VIII, c.12:]
Farming yes, but max out where small family farms can still receive assistance as needed, but large industrial farms can't pad their profits at the expense of the federal government. Oil and Gas no. They have been consistently the most profitable industries and have some of the largest incomes of any company on the planet, there should be windfall taxes applied, not credits.
President Ford (with Dick Cheney in the White House and Don Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense at the time) thought it proper to allow the sale of nuclear technology to Iran in 1975. The reasoning was that the more domestic power Iran could produce by other means, a benefit was that more oil could be exported to foreign interests. They are a member of the IAEA and have signed the nuclear non-proliferation agreement. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in January of this year, there is no evidence that Iran is trying to make a nuclear weapon. From the IAEA "all nuclear material in the facility remains under the agency’s containment and surveillance." Much of the talk surrounding this is by people who think that attacking Iran is the next best thing to attacking Iraq and Afghanistan (both trillion dollar debacles that resulted in thousands of dead US Soldiers and tens of thousands of innocent dead Iraqis and Afghans if you care to remember)
I believe it was James Clyburn (D-SC) who said: "If we are five steps away from agreement, I'll be happy to walk three steps if you walk two". I am more than ready and able to do the same. Unfortunately, I am of the belief that many Republicans of today not only won't budge, they'll move the goalposts backwards a step or three in the process. We need more, and better, Democrats in office. Getting the money out of politics will go a long way, also.
