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John Kerry on Welfare & PovertyJr Senator (MA), Democratic nominee for President |
A: It’s long overdue time to raise the minimum wage. We have fought to raise the minimum wage in the last years. But the Republican leadership won’t even let us have a vote on it. They don’t want to raise the minimum wage. The minimum wage is the lowest minimum wage value it’s been in our nation in 50 years. If we raise the minimum wage, which I will do over several years to $7 an hour, 9.2 million women trying to raise their families would earn another $3,800 a year. Bush has denied 9.2 million women $3,800 a year, but he doesn’t hesitate to fight for $136,000 to a millionaire. 1 percent of America got $89 billion last year in a tax cut, but people working hard, playing by the rules, trying to take care of their kids, family values, that we’re supposed to value so much in America. I’m tired of politicians who talk about family values and don’t value families.
A: I helped form the housing trust fund, which provides lending for low to middle income housing. We desperately need to build more housing in this country. More working families in this country are homeless than every before -- its unacceptable and we must provide incentives for low to middle income families that need our help.
In every area of government, we should demand demonstrable results, because we claim that the public sector can get results. But we should never confuse government as an organizer of public resources with government as an owner-operator of public enterprises. Some areas, like public schools and the police, are properly the province of the public sector. We can’t strengthen education by weakening public education. But there are countless areas- child care, after-school programs, environmental protection-where government can and should work through community organizations, nonprofit, and even for-profit private enterprises or public-private partnerships.
The congressional Republicans and some in the Bush administration are waging war to discourage poor working families from receiving the EITC with the claim that they are fighting fraud. Just last year the IRS announced plan to make millions of EITC recipients pre-qualify for their benefit through separate procedure before claiming the credit on their tax forms. An administration that purports to compassionate toward the poor and passionate about lowering taxes and reducing bureaucracy is apparently trying to intimidate working families out of benefiting from tax credits by imposing new layer of bureaucracy.
Proponent's argument to vote Yes:Sen. BARBARA MIKULSKI (D, MD): [In developing national service over many years] we were not in the business of creating another new social program. What we were in the business of was creating a new social invention. What do I mean by that? In our country, we are known for our technological inventions. But also often overlooked, and sometimes undervalued, is our social inventions.
We created national service to let young people find opportunity to be of service and also to make an important contribution. But not all was rosy. In 2003, when I was the ranking member on the appropriations subcommittee funding national service, they created a debacle. One of their most colossal errors was that they enrolled over 20,000 volunteers and could not afford to pay for it. That is how sloppy they were in their accounting. I called them the "Enron of nonprofits."
And they worked on it. But all that is history. We are going to expand AmeriCorps activity into specialized corps. One, an education corps; another, a health futures corps; another, a veterans corps; and another called opportunity corps. These are not outside of AmeriCorps. They will be subsets because we find this is where compelling human need is and at the same time offers great opportunity for volunteers to do it.
Opponent's argument to vote No:No senators spoke against the amendment.
Help Working Families Lift Themselves from Poverty
In the 1990s, Americans resolved to end welfare dependency and forge a new social compact on the basis of work and reciprocal responsibility. The results so far are encouraging: The welfare rolls have been cut by more than half since 1992 without the social calamities predicted by defenders of the old welfare entitlement. People are more likely than ever to leave welfare for work, and even those still on welfare are four times more likely to be working. But the job of welfare reform will not be done until we help all who can
work to find and keep jobs -- including absent fathers who must be held responsible for supporting their children.
In the next decade, progressives should embrace an even more ambitious social goal -- helping every working family lift itself from poverty. Our new social compact must reinforce work, responsibility, and family. By expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit, increasing the supply of affordable child care, reforming tax policies that hurt working families, making sure absent parents live up to their financial obligations, promoting access to home ownership and other wealth-building assets, and refocusing other social policies on the new goal of rewarding work, we can create a new progressive guarantee: No American family with a full-time worker will live in poverty.
Amends the Small Business Act to require a Federal procurement contract awarded as a best value contract by competition to an eligible small business owned and controlled by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals to include an evaluation factor for a bidding participant that is also a qualified HUBZone (historically underutilized business zone) small business. Prohibits such factor from exceeding ten percent of the best value factor assigned to price as an evaluation factor.
Establishes the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund in the Treasury to promote the development of affordable low-income housing through grants to States and local jurisdictions.
Amends the Internal Revenue Code to permit a community homeownership tax credit based upon an applicable percentage of each qualified residence's eligible basis. Makes such credit available to residences (including factory built homes) located:
To: President George W. Bush
Dear President Bush:
We write to express our strong support for AmeriCorps and recognize the leadership you have shown on this issue over the years. We know you agree that AmeriCorps is an outstanding program which has proven successful in addressing our homeland security needs, leveraging volunteers, and improving the quality of services available to a broad range of Americans.
Unfortunately, as you know, the Corporation for National Service officially announced yesterday unprecedented and drastic funding cuts, from 50 to 95 percent in every state. These cuts mean that under the State Competitive funding stream the Corporation will only fund 2,036 volunteers, compared with 11,236 last year. Many states will see their volunteer allocations under the competitive stream drop by as much as 90 percent and 16 states are shut out completely.
In your 2002 State of the Union address, you called for every American to dedicate 4,000 hours to community service throughout their lives. In your 2004 budget request, you proposed increasing the number of AmeriCorps volunteers from 50,000 to 75,000. Unfortunately, due to serious errors made by the Corporation, fewer than half this number of Americans will be allowed to serve their country through service.
We should support, not oppose, efforts to encourage more Americans to enter public service. We should do everything in our power to reward the American men and women who have chosen to serve the country and their communities in the hope of meeting the nation's critical education, safety, health, and homeland security needs.
We urge you to request additional funding in the supplemental appropriations bill to ensure that AmeriCorps remains a strong and vital program today and in the future.