2007 Iowa Brown & Black Presidential Forum: on Welfare & Poverty

Dennis Kucinich: Address poverty with full employment economy & social reform

A: In Cleveland we face a situation where there is a massive amount of foreclosures, rising unemployment about around particularly around African American households and some Latinos. Here is my plan first of all. A full employment economy. A Roosevelt type WPA program that puts everyone who is able to work back to work with a living wage. Second a not for profit health care system. Third, universal pre-kindergarten. Four, universal college education. So we need to make economic reform the fundamental driving force in this country and a president percentage stands for the principle of a rising tide lifts all boats not trickle down economics.

Hillary Clinton: Partner with faith based community in empowerment zones

A: In New York City we have seen the transformation of Harlem from a combination of government action creating an empowerment zone, the private sector coming in to take advantage of that and an explosion of entrepreneurial dynamism. We’ve also seen the faith based community like Abyssinians & others that have been partners with it and of course we’ve seen a lot of hip hop participants and leaders taking advantage of that. So we need this partnership. We need this partnership between the public and private sector and the not-for-profit and faith-based sector. And we need to make sure that young people have a particular stake in what we are going to present. That’s what I’ve worked on in NYC and in upstate NY and I intend to put that to work when I’m president.