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Thinks

I want to inspire America to take a new path,
a different direction.
—Dennis J. Kucinich
Summary of the Kucinich for President 2008 Issues Library
Affirmative Action
Affirmative action is necessary, affirmative action is right, and affirmative action must be preserved. I supported the Supreme Court's decision allowing colleges and universities to use race and ethnicity as an admission factor. In Congress, I joined with 110 representatives to file a friend of the court brief in defense of the University of Michigan's affirmative action policies. And I continue the fight for diversity and civil rights. Until America is truly a level playing field, affirmative action will be essential to achieving those goals.
African American Issues
I grew up in the inner city of Cleveland, where my family was often the only Caucasian family in the neighborhood. People of color have been my friends and allies my entire life. My own views reflect my concern with racial justice. In summary, I support:
Aid to Africa
The United States should fully fund efforts to improve the lives of the world's poor by dramatically increasing our allocations to international relief organizations such as the UN World Food Program, whose work saves countless lives in over 80 countries through school feeding projects, nutrition programs for HIV/AIDS sufferers, refugee food relief and many other vital tasks. But aid is not enough. Impoverished countries are being ravaged by debt payments to global institutions like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.
AIDS
AIDS is a global epidemic. The United States must commit our full resources to fighting this growing global crisis. To do anything short of that is unacceptable. In the name of justice, humanity, and for the protection of the global community, we must seek ways to increase, not decrease, funding to fight this epidemic.
Animal Rights
My farm policy favors independent and family-owned farms. I support a national ban on packer ownership of livestock, and numerous new incentives for farmers to convert to sustainable and organic farming and ranching techniques. The vision of the meat that we consume coming from happy and healthy free-range animals can become more of a reality, as opposed to the inhumane conditions that the often mutated chickens and cows and pigs are forced to sustain in our current system.
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty
I filed a lawsuit in federal district court to block the President from withdrawing from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972. The United States must immediately re-engage in the important treaties that the Bush Administration has abandoned. We must affirm and ratify treaties, beginning with:
Arab Americans
The federal government can and must protect Americans from the threat of terrorism without eroding our constitutional liberties. Today, Arab Americans are especially vulnerable to abuses of government power. Yet ultimately all Americans are put at risk when our rights come under attack. We must work to preserve our constitutional rights and roll back the most egregious infringements of our individual freedoms.
Arts, The
I believe there is a positive role that the federal government can play in promoting arts and culture in our communities. The United States spends only a very small percentage (less than 1/10th of one percent) of its total federal budget on arts and culture, less than is spent by most industrialized nations of the world. As I have demonstrated in my pledge to the American Arts Alliance, this is something that I believe should change significantly.
Campaign Finance
The largest roadblock toward the American Restoration is a corrupt campaign finance system that promotes plutocracy allowing laws and regulations to be stealthily auctioned to the highest bidder.
What we need, other than media reform, is true campaign finance reform, complete public financing and the criminalization of bribery.
Campaign Reform and IRV
Our election system is in need of serious reform to expand and enrich democracy. I support measures such as:
I also support Instant Runoff Voting. IRV offers a cost-effective way of insuring that the winning candidate is preferred by a majority of voters; it encourages voters to vote their wishes and not their fears; it promotes greater voter turnout and positive campaigning.
Children's Issues
I favor universal, publicly financed early childhood education. That means full-time pre-school (also referred to as pre-kindergarten), free of charge, for all children who choose it. The Universal Pre-Kindergarten Act, which I introduced in Congress, would provide funding to states to establish universal pre-kindergarten programs that build on existing federal and state pre-kindergarten initiatives.
Civil Liberties
The "Patriot Act" is not what American patriots have fought and died for. To allow our Bill of Rights to be nullified without judicial supervision invites tyranny. The Attorney General has been handed unfettered power to wiretap, search, jail, and invade our most sacred right to privacy. The government must not be allowed, without probable cause or warrant, to snoop on our communications, medical records, library records, and student records.
Clean Air
We need a President who will reinvigorate the Clean Air Act and work to eliminate the pollutants in the air we breathe. We need a President who will join world efforts to curb global warming; who will ratify the Kyoto Protocol, spur research and development into clean-burning, renewable fuels, and move the United States to 20% renewable energy use by 2010.
Clean Water
Dennis Kucinich Plan for Clean Water for All In Summary:
Complementary and Alternative Medicine
I hope to broaden our understanding of alternative medicine and to expose and end any bias that may exist within our current system of medical doctrine. All citizens deserve access to safe and proven methods of medical care and I believe that we must expand our understanding of medicine that some would deem, unfortunately, the alternative.
Corporate Power
The challenge before us today is whether we can maintain a government of the people, by the people and for the people, or whether we will timidly accept the economic, social, and political consequences of a government of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations.
Crime
Our nation's police should be fully capable of protecting neighborhoods from crime and drugs, while respecting the rights of residents and communities. The U.S. government must spend the necessary money to ensure that our first defenders are our best defenders. I support strengthening civilian review boards, greater community policing, and an end to the drug war that has poisoned relations between cops and neighborhoods in too many cities. I also support legislation introduced by my colleague Rep. John Conyers to deny federal funds to police departments that continue to practice racial profiling.
Cuban Embargo
Common sense dictates that we pursue a policy of normalizing relations with Cuba. We need to work for repeal of the Helms-Burton Act and the immediate lifting of the trade embargo. We must lift not only the trade embargo. We must also lift the travel ban. We must cooperate with Cuba on issues of national security.
DC Statehood
The majority of Americans may not be aware that the citizens of Washington DC are currently disenfranchised and largely ignored, because they lack statehood. There are nearly 600,000 taxpaying citizens in the District of Columbia who have no federal voting representation in Congress. Despite the fact that DC residents have fought and died in every war since the War for Independence, and including the recent "Operation Iraqi Freedom," they do not return home to a democratic society with the same rights and privileges as all other Americans who served their country.
Death Penalty
Like most Americans, I arrived at my position on the death penalty through a process that involved the application of morality and moral principles (derived from my religious and spiritual convictions), personal reflection, and a rational examination of facts and statistics. In the end, all of these considerations have led me to come down strongly on the side of opposing capital punishment.
Department of Peace
The United States was founded on hope, optimism, and a commitment to freedom. We can once again become a beacon of hope for the world. To do that, we must reject the current administration's policies of fear, suspicion, and preemptive war. It is time to jettison our illusions and fears and to transform age-old challenges with new thinking. This is the idea behind my proposal to establish a Department of Peace. This is the idea to make nonviolence an organizing principle at home and abroad and dedicate ourselves to peaceful coexistence, consensus building, disarmament, and respect for international treaties. Violence and war are not inevitable. Nonviolence and peace are inevitable.
H.R. 808 Department of Peace and Nonviolence Act
Depleted Uranium
The United States must order an end to illegal use of depleted uranium munitions and lead an international effort to recover depleted uranium. We must promote environmental remediation. Also, we must develop a program to provide care and restitution for people suffering as a result of the United States' use of depleted uranium munitions, nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons production, nuclear testing, and uranium mining
Disability Rights
I am a longtime supporter of people with disabilities and their struggle for equal rights. I believe all of our people should be able to participate in all avenues of American life.
Domestic Violence
All violence is rooted in an abusive need for power and control. This is true at the international, national, state, city, schools, and work site levels. It is also true of domestic violence in the home. My proposal for a Department of Peace, which seeks to make nonviolence an organizing principle of life, applies directly to the alleviation of domestic violence.
Draft, The
This country surely knows that we've gone in the wrong direction in Iraq. But we're somehow committed to continuing it. We're putting in more troops, more resources, running the risk of precipitating a holy war in that region, and setting this country on a path of separating ourselves from the world community.
It's time for this nation, Democrats and Republicans alike, to come together and oppose all efforts to reinstate the draft.
Drug War
My position on this issue is to face it directly, though other politicians run away from it. I agree with the many law enforcement officials and experts in the field that we must find a new way of dealing with illegal drugs.
Economic Justice
I see a new horizon where America provides a means to have massive public works to rebuild our cities, our water systems, our public transportation systems, our schools, our parks, our public energy systems. Nearly $150 billion is needed over 20 years to repair and provide for adequate wastewater treatment systems. Another $120 billion is needed for drinking water systems.
Education
The right of every American child to a high-quality free public education is one of America's most treasured principles. We must improve the quality of public education in those schools that are struggling and expand public education to include pre-kindergarten beginning at age 3 for any families that want it, as well as tuition-free college for millions of students.
Electronic Voting
Democracy today is at risk by the very instrument that seeks to uphold it. Electronic voting machines with meager security and significant technical flaws threaten to undermine our voting rights and thus the reliability of the election process. Without federal review and software testing, these voting machines are being marketed by companies and bought by states at an alarming rate. We cannot wait for Congress to pass legislation to address this danger. We, the people, must take action NOW to ensure the accuracy and integrity of upcoming elections.
Electronic Waste
Electronic waste, or e-waste, represents the broad and growing range of electronic devices produced mainly in the last two decades as an inevitable by-product of the Information or High-Tech Revolution. From cell phones and video games to televisions and computer equipment, e-waste is now the fastest growing waste stream in the industrialized world, produced by the world's largest growing manufacturing industry: electronics. Experts believe that by the year 2004, over 315 million computers will become obsolete, leaving approximately 1.2 billion pounds of lead, 2 millions pounds of cadmium, and 4 billion pounds of plastics in the waste stream.
We must all work together to bring electronic waste to the forefront of environmental issues, through increased education, strengthening of environmental laws, and emphasis on corporate responsibility.
Energy
Thanks to advances in renewables, there are fewer technical obstacles to energy independence for our country. There are many political obstacles — but the oil, auto and electric utility corporations should not be directing energy policy. We must work to spur research and investment in "alternative" energy sources such as hydrogen, solar, wind and ocean, and make them mainstream. Clean energy technologies will produce new jobs. We can and must double our energy from renewable sources by 2010. And we can very soon have hybrid and fuel cell cars dominating the market.
Environment
I am not tied to any corporate interests that would strip our forests or pollute our air or water. Throughout my career, I have worked for structures of law that protect the environment, and the principles that animate my campaign are principles of sustainability. The principles that animate my life are principles of sustainability.
I have a long and consistent record of working for protecting the environment. I was active in helping draft the first environmental law protecting the air, as a member of the Cleveland City Council 30 years ago. I led the effort in Ohio challenging nuclear power as being unsafe, unreliable, and unsustainable, and I'm still leading the effort in challenging it. And, most recently, I was at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, advocating a plan with Mikhail Gorbachev for a Global Green Deal that would enable the introduction of $50 billion of new solar projects around the world.
Farm Policy
Something is wrong when profits of agribusiness corporations skyrocket, but farmers must find off-farm jobs or sell their farms to survive. I believe the United States must implement the following farm policies to benefit farmers, provide our nation with wholesome food, protect our natural resources, and restore our rural communities.
Forests and Logging on Public Lands
Our society has shown a fundamental disregard for the ecosystems that provide life on this planet. The United States was originally blanketed with a billion acres of forest. Now only 40 million acres remain uncut. Forests provide clean water and clean air. They regulate climate and provide soil stability and wildlife habitat, including habitat for fish and for the pollinators of food crops. Many modern medicines are derived from the forest. Our very survival as a species depends upon intact forests, yet we have destroyed 96% of our original forests.
And we have not necessarily corrected the error of our ways. President Bush and Congress recently created the "Healthy Forest Initiative," which targets the remaining 4% of intact forest for logging, under the guise of "forest-fire management." I am calling for a fundamental shift of public policy that will protect both our future on this planet and our tax dollar: Zero Cut, Zero Extraction on Public Lands.
Genetically Engineered Food
Genetically engineered food (GEF) poses grave risks, and much serious research into the potential harms is needed. The dominant voices in the public debate over genetically engineered food have been those of the agri-business and biotechnology industries. These multinational companies have invested millions of dollars into the research and development of GEF. They claim that genetically engineered food is safe and that it is associated with good environmental practices. Of course, there is a huge conflict of interest when the leading authorities on GEF are the same industries that hope to profit by them.
Gun Laws, Gun Rights & Violence
I have friends who both hunt and shoot. These are good people, they are not criminals, and they lock up their guns when not using them. I support their right to their hobbies, and I support the right to bear arms. I have also talked with widows and children left fatherless due to the improper use of firearms, and I am committed to preventing such tragedies from happening.
By helping to develop a society which does not look to violence as a method of solving problems, my proposed Department of Peace will play a key role in this. Conflict resolution and alternatives to violence will constitute major areas of responsibility within this new Department, so that we can begin to lead by examples as well as by words.
H-1B and L-1 Visas
The expanded use of H-1B and L-1 visas has had a negative effect on the workplace of Information Technology workers in America. It has caused a reduction in wages. It has forced workers to accept deteriorating working conditions and allowed U.S. companies to concentrate work in technical and geographic areas that American workers consider undesirable. It has also reduced the number of IT jobs held by Americans.
Haiti
What we are witnessing in Haiti is a clear failure of U.S. foreign policy under the Bush Administration and a possible violation of international law. Whatever the circumstances of President Aristide's departure, it is abundantly clear that the Bush Administration wanted him gone.
We need an independent investigation into the circumstances of his departure — one designed to determine whether he "resigned," as the Administration claims, or was forcibly removed, as some evidence suggests. And this investigation must be undertaken by the United Nations, the OAS, and the Caribbean community, not the Bush Administration. I would further suggest that that investigation extend to the roles that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund played in creating the framework for failure.
Hemp
It is time this country put an end to the demonization of hemp, paving the way for renewed commercial hemp cultivation in the United States and breaking down the unnecessary barriers that keep American farmers from enjoying the benefits of this thriving, sustainable industry.
Housing
Decent housing, free of discrimination, is a fundamental human right and a basic right of citizenship. In recent years, the cost of housing has risen while incomes for working Americans have stagnated. The result has been an affordable housing crisis that must be urgently addressed by federal, state, and local governments.
Immigrants' Rights
We cannot continue with a system in which millions of workers and their families live in fear and are subject to economic exploitation. There is no place in our country for second-class status. It is time to restore respect for the rights and contributions of immigrants.
International Cooperation
In the past three years, the U.S. has subjected the world community to a doctrine of preventive, unilateral, and illegal first strikes against "forces of evil" that have not attacked us. America has maintained into perpetuity an obsession with overwhelming U.S. military superiority. We have insisted that everyone else adhere to rules of international order that we have no intention of following ourselves. We have demonstrated a contempt for international organizations and any multilateral constraints whatsoever on the employment of American power.
All of this has estranged and frightened our allies and provoked enduring enmity in the councils of other governments and the hearts of citizens around the world. George Bush's foreign policies have made us new foreign enemies. George Bush's defense policies have weakened our defenses. George Bush's responses to 9/11 have made future 9/11s more likely to occur.
In the America of my dreams, the America I see taking root and flourishing under new administration, other nations will encounter an America that abides by Lincoln's precept: "The only lasting way to eliminate an enemy is to make him your friend." We will accommodate rather than alienate, make friends instead of enemies, and employ carrots far more often than sticks. We need an administration that will drain the swamps of hopelessness, exploitation, and humiliation that cause vulnerable individuals to head down the terrorist road. We need leaders who will be both tough on terror and tough on the causes of terror...
With a Department of Peace, we can articulate a vision of the future where humanity has abolished war itself.
Iraq, The Kucinich Plan for
There is a compelling need for a new direction in Iraq, one that recognizes the plight of the people of Iraq, the false and illegal basis of the United States war against Iraq, the realities on the ground which make a military resolution of the conflict unrealistic and the urgent responsibility of the United States, which caused the chaos, to use the process of diplomacy and international law to achieve stability in Iraq, a process which will establish peace and stability in Iraq allow our troops to return home with dignity.
Irish-Americans
Achieving peace and justice in Ireland is an important step towards the resolution of the regional conflicts which persist in today's world community.
Jobs Programs / Infrastructure
Our country is facing twin crises: high unemployment and a decrepit infrastructure. At the same time, millions of manufacturing and high-tech jobs are being shipped overseas. I have a plan that will turn our problems around and put Americans back to work in America...
My entire mission is aimed at increasing the benefits to the public good. My campaigns are financed completely by ordinary individuals, not large corporations. I am not beholden to any corporate interests; there are no strings attached. My campaigns and my work represent all the people of our nation, not just the wealthy elite.
Korea
We need a new foreign policy towards Korea. We need a President who will visit both Koreas, meet personally with Kim Jong Il, and strive to block the self-fulfilling prophecy of the Bush administration's "axis of evil." The U.S. should develop diplomatic and humanitarian relations with North Korea, with the goals of assisting the Korean people, furthering reunification, and advancing disarmament. We should engage in direct negotiations with North Korea, and in a multilateral peace conference involving both Koreas and the surrounding states, to pursue a permanent peace settlement. As a part of this process, we should consult closely with our South Korean allies, to evaluate appropriate conditions for a reduction or eventual withdrawal of U.S. forces.
LGBTQ Rights
I believe that equality of opportunity should be afforded to all Americans regardless of race, color, creed, sexual orientation or gender identity or expression. For that reason I support the right of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered persons to have the full protections and rights afforded under civil law including the right to marry the person of their choice.
Mad Cow Disease
In Congress I intend to introduce legislation that will:
Mandatory Minimum Sentences
Clearly, when two Supreme Court justices have openly questioned the efficacy of mandatory minimum sentences, as they have lately, it is time to act. Mandatory minimums came from pandering politicians who frighten their constituents and then offer ersatz "solutions" that destroy far too many lives and fragment far too many families. Obscene federal minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenses call into question whether we are truly the "home of the free."
Manufacturing
On Labor Day, 2003, I announced a new initiative — an initiative that will enable the United States to rebuild its cities in the same way that Franklin Roosevelt rebuilt America during the Depression. Through a WPA-type program, this initiative would rebuild our cities, our streets, our water systems, our sewer systems, and new energy systems, while simultaneously putting millions of people back to work.
Marijuana Decriminalization
As a nation, we must work to implement a drug policy that removes responsible recreational users and medical users of marijuana from the criminal justice system, in order to redirect resources toward the following goals:
Media Reform
I am working for serious media reform, including substantial free air time for candidates and parties. Given the high cost of campaigns, the power of corporate special interests, and the fact that the networks are given free use of the public's airwaves, I believe that the networks should be required to give something back other than "reality" shows.
Media conglomerates are currently among the most powerful lobbyists against media reform, but I believe that were the media to provide substantive coverage of politics it would actually boost both media ratings and voter turnout.
In addition to requiring free air time for political campaigns, we need to create a greater diversity of viewpoints in the media by breaking up the major media conglomerates, encouraging competition and quality as well as diversity. We should place new caps on media ownership and ban the granting of exceptions to those caps. We should limit the number of media outlets one corporation can own in a given medium, such as radio, print, or television. We should strictly prohibit cross-ownership and vertical integration.
Medical Marijuana
Our drug policy must be based on a rational examination of scientific evidence. Two main goals of a compassionate health care system are the treatment of disease and the alleviation of patient suffering. A growing body of evidence suggests that marijuana has vast potential in both of these areas. Therefore, the current policy of categorically rejecting marijuana as a legitimate medical treatment directly opposes these goals. I support issuing an executive order allowing marijuana for medical purposes, effectively ending DEA raids on medical marijuana patients and their providers. Disease sufferers should not have to turn to dangerous black markets to obtain this beneficial drug. Instead, doctors should be free to prescribe marijuana and marijuana-based medicines to their patients as needed to treat illness and manage pain. This will be an important step toward joining our friends in the UK, Spain, Germany, and Portugal in moving away from criminally-enforced prohibitions that divert resources from domestic projects and distract law enforcement officials from critical national security issues.
Medicare Bill
To understand why the privatization of Medicare is such a bad idea, you have to understand that insurance companies don't want to insure too many people who might actually need real health care. They make money by "cherry picking" — that is, by insuring healthy and wealthy customers and excluding the less healthy and less fortunate...
Also see:
Universal Health Care for details about "Enhanced Medicare for All" and how it can be financed.
Mental Health
I have long been an advocate of increased funding towards mental health programs. I am a strong supporter of The Paul Wellstone Mental Health Equitable Treatment Act and co-sponsored numerous other acts that also address the issue of insurance companies charging significantly more for mental ailments than they do for physical ailments.
Middle East
Israelis and Palestinians, locked in to a recursive conflict that feeds on itself, need to see more private initiatives, and more American support for them, as evidence that we will be there to assist in ending the conflict with our resources and moral power. We cannot do this when what investment we currently have is so overwhelmingly weighted towards military means. The U.S. should support the spirit of the Geneva Accord, which demonstrates that representatives from both Israel and Palestine can negotiate a mutually beneficial and mutually agreeable contract to resolve their longstanding conflict.
Military Budget
We must cut bloated and unneeded weaponry from a military budget that now almost equals the military spending of all other countries combined. The resulting peace dividend can then be invested in education, health care, environmental clean-up, urban infrastructure, Social Security, veterans' benefits, and other pressing domestic needs.
Minimum Wage
We must make it a top priority to restore the value of the federal minimum wage, bringing it up to at least its 1968 level and indexing it to automatically keep pace with the cost of living. This will allow workers to quit their second or third jobs and spend more time with their families.
My goal is to combine this with the creation of a truly universal single-payer health care system, universal free preschool, free college tuition at state colleges and universities, a public jobs program to restore our infrastructure, and withdrawal from NAFTA and the WTO in favor of bilateral trade pacts that protect workers' rights here and abroad. This will transform the lives of working people, and without the efforts of working people who have made the living wage an issue, this would not be possible.
National Security
The U.S. military is the strongest in the world, by far, and will remain so. We need to recognize the accomplishments of, and hardships experienced by, our men and women in uniform. My position on pay and benefits, for both active duty military and retired veterans, reflects this recognition. The Kucinich approach to national security is anti-militarist, not anti-military.
National security must be defined in terms much broader than size of the defense budget, or number of carrier battle groups, fighter aircraft, or infantry divisions.
Native Americans
Many people in this country have forgotten that Native Americans constitute this country's First Americans, and their tribes our First Nations. We all need to remember that Indian tribes are sovereign nations and treaties between the tribes and the federal government are treaties between sovereign equals. First and foremost, we must honor our treaties with our First Nations.
Nuclear Safety
Nuclear waste poses a serious threat to this nation. The transportation of this waste will require over 96,000 truck shipments over four decades. Almost every major east-west interstate highway and mainland railroad in the country will experience high-level waste shipments. More radioactive waste will be shipped in the first full year of repository operations than has been transported in the entire five-decade history of spent fuel shipments in the United States...
The federal government must radically improve the safety and security of these shipments. That is the purpose of the Nuclear Waste Transportation Protection Amendments Act of 2002, which I introduced in Congress. This legislation would require:
Nuclear Weapons
The United States must take the following steps to promote world peace:
Open Debates
I believe in the power of open debates to restore higher values of democracy and voter education to the American political process. By establishing a Citizen's Debate Commission to replace the CPD, the American public can once again see presidential debates that are rigorous, fair, and inclusive of important issues and all popular candidates. There is an increasing demand for voices that challenge the bipartisan consensus on many critical issues in America, and I am one of those voices. It is time for open debates that will serve the American people first.
Organic Farming
I am proud to give strong and unwavering support to our organic family farmers. This approach to the land provides the safest foods, the best incomes for our farmers, and new products for this nation to export.
Outsourcing Jobs
"Outsourcing" is a process in which American jobs, mainly in technological fields, are contracted out to countries where wages are significantly lower. According to the February edition of Wired Magazine, the typical salary for an American programmer is $70,000 a year. The typical salary for a programmer in India is $8,000 a year. U.S. companies are expected to ship 200,000 jobs a year to India in the near future, in pursuit of these lower wages, and we have already lost a significant fraction of our manufacturing jobs to countries overseas.
The Bush Administration has embraced the concept of outsourcing American jobs overseas as a new form of international trade. Where is the patriotism in this? ...
My entire mission is aimed at increasing the benefits to the public good, specifically by keeping American jobs in America. My campaigns are financed completely by ordinary individuals, not large corporations. I am not beholden to any corporate interests; there are no strings attached. My campaigns and work represent all the people of our nation, not just the wealthy elite.
PATRIOT Act
It's time for our Party to show some backbone. It's time to stand for the repeal of the PATRIOT Act. As a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, I spoke against it, I voted against it, and I introduced legislation for its repeal. From traveling across America, it's unmistakably clear to me that there is an almost universal rejection of the PATRIOT Act.
Poverty
America is losing its way at home and in the world. We have no money to rebuild America's cities, but we have money to blow up cities in Iraq. No money to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to shelter the homeless in America, but money to rain death, destruction, and starvation on Iraq.
Once again, the hopes of people of two nations are being smashed by weapons in the name of eliminating weapons. Let us abolish weapons of mass destruction at home. I am from the inner city. I have inspected these weapons.
Let us abolish such weapons of mass destruction here at home... Let us use the trillion dollars which some would cast upon Iraq in bombs and warring troops, instead for the restoration of the American dream, to rebuild our economy, to rebuild our cities and to expand opportunities for all.
Predatory Lending
We must fight to stop the predatory lending practices that have victimized so many American seniors. These loan sharks can devastate in weeks the financial security that older Americans have strived to build for themselves over many years of consistent labor...
In the U.S. Congress, I have co-sponsored amendments to the Truth in Lending Act to protect consumers from these immoral and illegal loan schemes, to take some initial steps to reform the industry, and to offer comprehensive attempts to limit predatory abuses.
Prescription Drugs
Perhaps the most shocking increases in health care are occurring in prescription drugs. This is a problem like so many where Dennis has a real solution. H. R. 5155, the Free Market Drug Act, will dramatically lower the cost of prescription drugs if and when enacted.
Public Services
By expanding the public service sector, I believe we can help create an America where human rights, workers' rights, and environmental quality principles are within the ark of the Human Covenant — where people build families, build communities, and build an American community that can light the way to a better world.
Racial Discrimination
It is time to face the fact that institutional racism still exists and must be treated with education — and legal enforcement. Police departments that consistently engage in racial profiling must be subject to federal penalties. "Driving while black" is an all too common "crime" in America. The President should sign an executive order ending all forms of racial profiling.
Reproductive Rights
The fact is that most Americans, including myself, are uncomfortable with abortions and feel there are too many of them. At the same time, the vast majority of Americans recognize that there are circumstances in which a woman and her doctor should be allowed to make this most difficult decision without government intervention. To return to the days when woman could self-abort without penalty, but to imprison doctors who would help them, seems senseless, especially recognizing that a new abortion law would likely become known as "The Abortions for the Rich-Only Bill."
Seniors
I see a new vision for American seniors. I see a country where all citizens can retire with full benefits at age 65, where social security will never become privatized, and where retirement years won't land in the hands of the stock market. I see an America where equal access and equal rights are obtained by all; where health care is regarded as a human right; and where the people who have lived to see this country grow can continue to grow old with it in peace.
Small Business Growth
he United States must create a more level playing field for small businesses by reconstituting the trust-busting powers of the Justice Department and breaking up the monopolies that make competition next to impossible for small businesses in many industries. Repealing corporate trade agreements — NAFTA and the WTO — that currently give further advantages to large corporations at the expense of small businesses and local economies are central to this goal.
Social Security
Why would this administration attempt to kill the most successful anti-poverty program in our history? An earned benefit based on your full work history? Frankly, from a number of White House memos and materials written by conservatives over the years, it is clear that conservatives hate Social Security as the last major vestige of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal. These are the Grover Norquist people running this government (and the "K" Street Project) who talk about drowning government in a bathtub, people who can't manage disasters like Hurricane Katrina because they don't want government to work. They simply want it to wither away and for everyone to fend for themselves. The true goal of their "ownership society" — according to some pointed but telling humor — is "to have everyone on their own." Atomizing, dividing and pitting one group against another is their method. While they may not express a belief in evolution, they like to at least see Social Darwinism in action.
Sweat Shops
It is time this country makes a priority of ending sweat shop conditions at home and abroad. Working people in our country deserve a leader who will expose the fact that so many products purchased in our country are made in sweat shops — and a leader who feels that walking a picket line is more important than walking a golf course. The U.S. should institute a policy that any company that receives federal aid or assistance must observe "Sweat Free" procurement laws.
Taxes
"If class warfare is being waged in America, my class is clearly winning."
Said by Warren Buffett, world's second-richest man at $42.9 billion, in criticizing the fact that corporate taxes only amounted to 7.4% of fiscal 2003 U.S. tax receipts. With the exception of 1983, when Reagan was in office, this is the lowest portion of our tax receipts that corporations have paid since 1933. If corporations and the wealthy aren't paying their fair share, who must take up the slack? Yes, working Americans.
Terrorism
The roots of terrorism lie in desperation. People with no hope resort to acts of indiscriminate violence. People with futures don't typically strap on bombs to kill others. We must all refrain from condoning some acts of violence as justified while similar actions by others are dismissed as "terrorism."
We cannot hope to end terrorism by killing terrorists. Hatred feeds on violence and killing. I understand this and am here to offer a more practical approach: to reduce poverty worldwide with bold changes in current U.S. policy. NAFTA and the World Trade Organizations have only served to increase global poverty, thus deepening one of the most virulent causes of terrorism. This is why I am calling for immediate cancellation of NAFTA and U.S. withdrawal from the WTO. For the sake of justice and wellbeing, it is time we established bilateral fair trade agreements that contain strict provisions for workers' rights, human rights, and environmental principles.
World opinion, which fuels much of the terrorism against the United States and threats of terrorism, could easily be turned to America's advantage with less force and more diplomacy, undergirded by an understanding that "We share this fragile planet and are our brother's keeper."
Torture
My reasons for opposing torture are not just the clear moral prohibition, but a more practical reason: What would you do if your child was tortured — especially if they were innocent, as so many tortured people are?
Trade
If the United States is to be free to negotiate fair trade agreements that protect jobs, the rights of workers, and the environment, then there is no alternative but to repeal NAFTA and withdraw from the WTO. I have sworn to repeal NAFTA and the WTO, and I will unalterably continue to work toward these goals.
Universal Health Care
Our health care system is broken, and H.R. 676, the Conyers-Kucinich bill, is the only comprehensive solution to the problem. It is also the system endorsed by more than 14,000 physicians from Physicians for a National Health Program. Nearly 46 million Americans have no health care and over 40 million more have only minimal coverage. In 2005 some 41% of moderate and middle income Americans went without health care for part of the year. Even more shocking is that 53% of those earning less than $20,000 went without insurance for all of 2005. In fact, the National Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine estimates that 18,000 Americans die each year because they have no health insurance.
Dennis Kucinich is the only Presidential Candidate with a plan for a Universal Single Payer, NOT FOR PROFIT Healthcare system.
MEDICARE FOR ALL
Veterans
While I have strongly opposed this war and call for an end to the occupation in Iraq, I am committed to treating its veterans with the utmost respect and dignity, providing all of the benefits and support that they need to live comfortable, successful lives. Citizens who have risked their lives to serve their country deserve nothing less.
Voting Rights
Our election system is in need of serious reform. Too many Americans, especially African Americans, have been intimidated, excluded, and shut out from our democracy. I support measures such as Election Day as a holiday, election-day voter registration, enhanced voting rights enforcement, an end to the racially biased disenfranchisement of felons who have served their time, and full Congressional representation for residents of the District of Columbia...
Other measures I support:
Vouchers
Vouchers represent an attempt to disestablish not only public education, but the entire public realm. Even in Cleveland and Milwaukee, where voucher programs are in place, there have been no tangible results in student achievement. Instead, the programs have diverted public money away from the vast majority of public school students. In most cases, these are the students who need it the most.
Water as a Human Right
Ten Principles
Weapons and Non-Proliferation
We must demand that our nation and all nations:
Workers' Rights
People have a right to:
These basic rights ought to be inviolate in a democratic society. There can be no true corporate accountability unless corporations are accountable to workers. There can be no accountability to workers unless workers' rights are protected.
World Hunger
The United States should fully fund efforts to eradicate hunger by dramatically increasing our allocation to the UN World Food Program, whose work saves countless lives in over 80 countries, through school feeding projects, nutrition programs for HIV/AIDS sufferers, refugee food relief, and many other vital tasks...
We should push for the immediate cancellation of all bilateral debts of countries facing hunger, as well as cancellation of debts to the IMF and World Bank.
President Eisenhower once observed: "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." This year our nation will spend over $360 billion on the Pentagon, but barely more than $1 million on food aid for the world's hungry. It is time the U.S. set an example for the world by proposing a 15% cut in the military budget to help meet pressing social needs, including hunger, both abroad and at home. I have proposed a bill to establish a Department of Peace to mediate international conflicts, negotiate arms control agreements, and promote nonviolence, so that other nations can devote resources to the fight against hunger, not the arms race.
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