There is a difference

By Tim Wheeler

Eleven days before the Nov. 7 election, polls show Democrat Al Gore and Republican George W. Bush in a dead heat, with the outcome resting on a handful of "battleground states."

But in truth, every state is a battleground. Gore's hope for victory over Bush rests on a massive voter turnout mobilized by organized labor, the African American and Latino communities, the women's equality movement and environmentalists. The gains of the past decade - in fact, the past century - will be endangered if Bush and Cheney capture the White House and the Republicans preserve majority control of Congress.

The differences between Gore-Lieberman and Bush-Cheney are stark on virtually every domestic issue.

The following is a comparison of the candidates' positions, often in their own words during televised debates.Who gets the $2 trillion budget surplus?

Debate Moderator Jim Lehrer, in a question to the Texas governor: "Your tax cut benefits the top 1 percent of the wealthiest Americans?"

Bush: "Of course it does. If you pay taxes, you're going to get a benefit ... Tax relief ... And my plan says why don't we pass $1.3 trillion of that back ..."

Gore: "Now under my plan, for every dollar that I propose in spending for things like education and health care, I will put another dollar into middle-class tax cuts. And for every dollar that I spend in those two categories, I'll put $2 toward paying down the national debt ..."

Social Security: Defend it or privatize it?

Gore: "I will put Medicare and Social Security in an iron-clad lockbox that is off the budget and I will veto anything that takes money out of Social Security for anything other than the purposes for which it was collected ... I believe it is important to resist the temptation to squander our surplus by giving tax cuts to the wealthiest 1 percent."

Bush proposes that Social Security enrollees be permitted to divert at least 2 percent of payroll contributions, or 16 percent of all Social Security revenues, into private investment accounts, a loss of $1 trillion to the Social Security Trust Fund.

He also proposes returning $1.3 trillion of the budget surplus mostly to wealthy taxpayers instead of using those surpluses to bolster Social Security and Medicare. To avert bankruptcy, Social Security taxes would have to be increased, benefits slashed and the retirement age raised.

Health care: Coverage for uninsured or HMO profits for the HMOs?

Bush: "I'm absolutely opposed to a national health care plan. I don't want the federal government making decisions for consumers or for providers ... We need a $2,000 credit, rebate for people who don't have insurance. They can get it in the marketplace and start purchasing insurance ... In the Medicare reform I talk about, it says if you're a senior, you can stay in Medicare if you like ... But we're going to give you other choices. Insurance, that's a Washington term."

Gore: I think we should move step by step toward universal health coverage ... And 85 percent of our people have health insurance; 15 percent don't. That adds up to 44 million people. That is a national outrage ... I will make a commitment to bring health coverage of high quality to every single child in America within four years. And then we'll fill other gaps by covering the parents of those children ... I will prevent [Medicare] money from being used for anything other than Medicare. Under the governor's plan, if you keep the same fee-for-service that you have now under Medicare, your premiums would go up between 18 percent and 47 percent."

Prescription drugs: Curbing drug company profiteering:

Marie Payne Clepy, one of the Town Hall meeting participants in St. Louis, asked, "Are either of you concerned with finding some feasible way to lower the price of pharmaceutical drugs?"

Bush: "I'm against price controls. I think price controls would hurt our ability to continue important research and development."

Bush said he supports a prescription plan under Medicare. But, in fact, his plan would require Medicare beneficiaries to buy private insurance subsidized by the federal government with no guaranteed benefits. The private companies would determine drugs covered, premiums and co-pays.

Gore: "I propose a real prescription drug plan under Medicare for all seniors." The patient would take a doctor's prescription to the pharmacy "and then Medicare pays half the price. If you're poor, they pay all of it. A $25 premium and much better benefits than you get from the private sector. Here's the contrast: 95 percent of all seniors would get no help whatsoever under [Bush's] plan for the first four or five years."

Education: Improve public schools or vouchers for private schools?

Bush: "I happen to believe in strong accountability. I believe we ought to measure a lot, three, four, five, six, seven, eighth grade. I also believe that we need to say to people, if you cannot meet the standards, there has to be a consequence instead of just the soft bigotry of low expectations. And the consequence is that federal portion of federal money will go to the parent so the parent can go to a tutoring program or another public or private school."

Gore: "We have a huge difference between us. I see a day in the United States of America where all of our schools are world-class; where the classrooms, numbers of students, are small so that the teacher can spend enough one-on-one time with each student. That means recruiting new teachers for the public schools.

"In my plan, there are hiring bonuses to get 100,000 new teachers in the schools within the next 10 years ... interest-free bonding authority so that we can build new schools and modernize the classrooms ... I want to give every middle-class family a $10,000 a year tax deduction for college tuition ... Gov. Bush is for vouchers. He proposes to drain more taxpayer money out of public schools for private school vouchers than all the money he proposes for the schools themselves. And only one in 20 students would be eligible for those vouchers."

Racial profiling and hate crimes:

Gore: "If I am entrusted with the presidency, [a law banning] racial profiling will be the first civil rights act of the 21st century ... And as for singling out people because of race, you know James Byrd was singled out because of his race in Texas ... And other Americans have been singled out because of their race or ethnicity. And that's why I think we can embody our values by passing a hate crimes law ... These crimes are different because they are based on prejudice and hatred ... crimes that have not just a single victim but are intended to stigmatize and dehumanize a whole group of people. "

Bush: "Guess what. The three men who murdered James Byrd? Guess what's going to happen to them? (Bush is smiling broadly). "They're going to be put to death." (In fact, only two received the death penalty and legal experts denounced Bush for making this pronouncement while appeals are pending.)

Discrimination against gays and lesbians:

Gore: "There's a law pending called the Employment Nondiscrimination Act. I strongly support it. What it says is that gays and lesbians can't be fired from their jobs because they are gay or lesbian. It's been blocked by the opponents in Congress. I wonder if the governor would lend his support to that law?

Bush: "I have no idea ... I support equal rights but not special rights for people."

Supreme Court nominees and women's rights:

Gore: "(T)he next president is going to appoint three, maybe four justices of the Supreme Court. And Governor Bush has declared to the anti-choice groups that he will appoint justices in the mold of (Antonin) Scalia and Clarence Thomas who are known for being the most vigorous opponents of a woman's right to choose. [Bush] trusts the government to order a woman to do what it thinks she ought to do. I trust a woman to make the decisions that affect her life."

Bush: "I am pro-life. I'll put competent judges on the bench , people who will strictly interpret the Constitution and will not use the bench to write social policy."

Gore: "(T)he Constitution ought to be interpreted as a document that grows with our country and our history ... When the names of Scalia and Thomas are used, those are code words for saying the governor will appoint people who would overturn Roe v. Wade.

Oil companies and the environment:

Gore: "We have to free ourselves from the domination of the big oil companies that have the ability to manipulate the price ... Gov. Bush is proposing to open up ... the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to the big oil companies ... I don't think it is a fair price to pay to destroy precious parts of America's environment."

Bush: "Well, its an issue I know a lot about. I was a small oil person for a while in West Texas ... You bet I want to open up a small part of Alaska because when that field is on-line, it will produce a million barrels of oil a day."

Labor rights:

Gore: "Congress has ... passed tricky amendments that [have] resulted in gross unfairness to workers trying to organize a union. I will propose the needed changes ... And fight for them in Congress. The right to organize and bargain collectively is a fundamental American right that should never be blocked, never be stopped, and never, ever taken away ... I am for a ban on permanent striker replacements and I have felt this way for 24 years. If they just fire you the minute you dig your heels in, what good is that? I will use the bully pulpit to make change."

(Gore made these comments in an appearance before the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.)

Bush: "I am for unions as long as they are voluntary. Texas is a right-to-work state."

Bush supports measures like California's Proposition 226 that would require unions to get written permission from each member before union funds could be used in election campaigns. The Texas AFL-CIO successfully blocked Bush's attempt to privatize the jobs of 16,000 Texas state employees, a move to bust their union.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of the issues on the table. Gore supports an immediate increase in the minimum wage. Bush opposes an increase. Texas has a $3.35-an-hour state minimum wage, lowest in the nation.

In the final debate, Gore strongly endorsed affirmative action and challenged Bush on the issue. Bush squirmed and finally said, "I'd support affirmative access."

A victory Nov. 7 will block corporate America's drive to push the nation to the right. It will open the way for the broad democratic people's coalition to win major new victories. Lives are in the balance. Vote Nov. 7!