John Kerry in A Call to Service
On Principles & Values:
Redeem promise for a better America for our children
I am a child of the greatest generation of Americans and therefore a member of the most fortunate generation of Americans. Like my parents, I have always hopes and often assumed that my own children will have more opportunities in life than
I had and will live in a country and in a world where such opportunities are more widely shared and more deeply rooted than at any time in the past. I am running for president in no small part to redeem that promise for the America to come.
While we are living today in the most extraordinary and powerful nation no earth, I believe not only that America's best days are still to come but that our best work is yet to be done. We have the capacity to lift the life of our own land as well as
lead the world to a safer and more hopeful future. But doing so will require equal measures of strength, vision, and resolve, embodied in a leadership that grasps both the breadth of our potential and the great legacy of our past.
Source: A Call to Service, by John Kerry, p. 1
On Principles & Values:
Bush broke his three biggest campaign promises
My case is based on 3 big promises Bush made in 2000, then subsequently abandoned. - First, he pledged to "change the tone" in Washington-to reach out to Democrats & all Americans and overcome the partisan bitterness of the late 1990s. But since
then the president has done the very opposite, presiding over the most partisan administration I have experienced.
- Second, Bush pledged frequently to temper the harsh ideology of his party with a "compassionate conservatism." [But Bush's approach has
been] a rhetoric of compassion and concern accompanied by policies that are compassionate primarily toward the most comfortable members of our society.
- Bush pledged many times to usher in a "responsibility era," to exercise brave leadership whatever
the political costs. He has reneged by refusing to deal with global climate change, the impending crisis in retirement programs, the culture of corporate corruption, our vulnerability to energy blackmail, [and many other dangers.].
Source: A Call to Service, by John Kerry, p. 10-13
On Education:
Supported "No Child Left Behind," but Bush reneged
Bush's one exercise in "compassionate conservatism" was the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, an education reform effort that I supported. The stated purpose of that legislation was to offer a new bargain to states and school districts,
under which they would accept greater accountability for results in exchange for the resources and the flexibility to get the job done. The Bush administration began welshing on its side of the bargain almost before the ink was dry on the bill,
undermining education funding as part of a larger strategy of directing every available school dollar toward tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. This has been sadly typical of the administration's approach to government:
a rhetoric of compassion and concern accompanied by policies that are compassionate primarily toward the most comfortable members of our society.
Source: A Call to Service, by John Kerry, p. 11-12
On Principles & Values:
Campaign built around a call to service
No matter what issue I address, my underlying message will be the same:It's time to renew a sense of common purpose. My presidential campaign will be built around the ideas of shared endeavor, national service, intergenerational obligation,
and activism aimed at overcoming partisan and personal rivalries to meet the demands of a decisive, even fateful, era. That's why I've titled the book A Call to Service. I hear that call, and I believe most Americans are ready to hear it as well.
Source: A Call to Service, by John Kerry, p. 13
On Tax Reform:
GOP tax policy comforts the comfortable
This administration has made its top wartime priority the easing of the tax burden on its wealthiest citizens-the citizens least likely to face sacrifices at home or abroad in a time of war.
The president has all but endorsed the most invidious conservative policy of our time:
that cutting taxes for the people who least need help, turning budget surpluses into deficits, and piling debts on our children are all useful strategies because they will effectively paralyze our own government-
the instrument of our democracy-by denying it the revenues to pay for progress. Using tax dollars to comfort the comfortable while starving the commonwealth has become an item of orthodoxy for the Republican party.
Source: A Call to Service, by John Kerry, p. 14
On Foreign Policy:
Supports multilateral cooperative internationalism
In contrast to the dangerous mix of isolationism and unilateralism that characterizes the Republicans, [I support] speaking from a position of strength on international issues-the multilateral cooperative tradition of democratic internationalism forged
in the course of two world wars and the cold war. It acknowledges that multilateral organizations are vehicles for the promotion of our ideals and the protection of our interests around the world. And it recognizes that those ideals and interests in this
globalized world are consistent with the peace, prosperity, and self-determination of every country on earth. Democratic internationalists understand that there are times when America must challenge the UN, NATO, and our allies
to stand up for their own preferred values. And they also realize that there are times when America must be challenged to live up to its values as well. America has taken a rare step in human history in arguing that its interests and the world's are one.
Source: A Call to Service, by John Kerry, p. 19-20
On Principles & Values:
Raised Catholic, but family history includes Jews
As fate would have it, I learned a new personal lesson about diversity and the American mosaic late last year. Anticipating my candidacy, the Boston Globe looked into my family history. Among other things, the paper discovered one hundred years ago,
my paternal grandfather was an American Jew named Fritz Kohn, who changed his name to Kerry and converted to Catholicism shortly before immigrating to Massachusetts.
I didn't know this because my grandfather died when my father was just five years old-a reminder of how much so much of America's history is buried. One thing that hasn't changed for me as a result of this revelation is my Catholic heritage.
I am a believing and practicing Catholic. And being an American Catholic at this particular moment in history has three particular implications for my own point of view as a candidate for the presidency.
Source: A Call to Service, by John Kerry, p. 23-4
On Principles & Values:
Persecuted Catholics rely on church-state separation
Catholics have always been a minority in this country, and we have sometimes suffered persecution. To a larger extent than Catholics elsewhere, we have supported and relied upon the constitutional principle of separation of church and state to guarantee
our right to worship and our liberty of conscience. That tradition, strongly advanced by John Kennedy in his quest to become our first Catholic president, helped make religious affiliation a non-issue in American politics. It should stay that way
Source: A Call to Service, by John Kerry, p. 24
On Welfare & Poverty:
Ok for government to partner with non-profits & for-profits
It bothers me that some Democrats have resisted the idea of making educational outcomes-the skills and knowledge our kids obtain from the educational system-as important as educational inputs-the adequate funding, the good facilities, and the higher
teacher pay we all want.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.
Source: A Call to Service, by John Kerry, p. 27-28
On Homeland Security:
The New War: We are no longer safe at home
On the periphery of the world are dangerous and unstable places, places where terrorists, absolutists, neo-Fascists, and gangsters work to undo the twentieth century and impose a new dark age.
Though these forces are essentially weak and defensive and far less popular even in their home territories than the American values they oppose, they have repeatedly demonstrated the global reach of their ability to do violence.
The proliferation of international criminal gangs and narco-terrorists in the 1990's-a subject I wrote about I my 1997 book, The New War, was a warning that we were no longer safe at home from the dark underside of a global society.
Any lingering doubt about that reality was dramatically dispelled on 9/11.
Source: A Call to Service, by John Kerry, p. 34
On War & Peace:
Supported Kosovo action & Powell Doctrine
I fully support the concept of a quick victory when war is deemed unavoidable, but we cannot always choose our opponents for their weakness. Use of force sometimes ahs to be controversial and limited.
And we are dangerously distant from our moorings as a nation if we make military or political considerations alone the reason for using or not using force.
I supported our military intervention in Kosovo, which was both controversial and limited, though ultimately successful. Many conservative supporters of he Powell Doctrine, including its namesake, opposed this action.
But it proved to be the right thing to do in the face of potential genocide and given a carefully weighed proportionate use of force.
Source: A Call to Service, by John Kerry, p. 42-3
On Homeland Security:
Modernize the Middle East to prevent future terrorism
It isn't only terrorism we are fighting, it's also the beliefs that motivate terrorists and the conditions that make those beliefs possible.There are no full-fledged democracies among the 16 Arab states of the Middle East and North Africa.
More than half of Arab women are still illiterate. These countries are among the most economically isolated in the world, with very little trade & investment and little income apart from the oil royalties. With a landscape marked by political oppression,
economic stagnation, staggering unemployment, lack of education, poverty, and rapid population growth, is it any wonder these Islamic countries are recruiting grounds for terrorists?
We need more than a one-dimensional war on terror.
We must engage in a smarter, more comprehensive, and more farsighted strategy for modernizing the greater Middle East. It's no more ambitious-and no less necessary-a task than the rebuilding of Europe that we undertook at the end of World War II.
Source: A Call to Service, by John Kerry, p. 44-6
On Energy & Oil:
Dismissal of Kyoto indicative of Bush's unilateralism
There have been periods in our history when it didn't much matter if we had a president who was inclined toward fostering international relations or commanded a lot of personal respect in other countries. This is emphatically not one of those times.
It is hard to think of a modern presidency so reflexively and systematically marked by rejection of diplomacy, international cooperation, and other building blocks for collective security as that of George W. Bush.
The first sign of indifference was the summary rejection of the Kyoto Protocol on Global Climate Change. the handiwork of dozens of countries acting under U.S. leadership for a decade. Kyoto could and should have been improved; instead, it was dismissed
by the Bush government out of hand. This was followed by the United States' refusal to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, another product of long years of American leadership. Both rejections came in the president's first year in office.
Source: A Call to Service, by John Kerry, p. 48-9
On War & Peace:
Palestinians renounce right of return; get treated equally
But the biggest step each side must take is not really explicitly addressed in that road map. For Palestinians, it's compromising on the "right to return" to Israel,
since that claim inherently rejects the establishment of the Jewish state in Palestine in 1948. For Israelis, the test is extending truly equal rights and equal services to non-Jewish citizens
-and once terrorism has ended and secure boundaries have been set, creating genuine economic partnership with an independent Palestine.While the United States should recognize that both parties must be willing to walk the path of peace together,
we must also acknowledge that there is no substitute for our own leadership in lighting the path and dealing with potential pitfalls along the way.
Source: A Call to Service, by John Kerry, p. 53-4
On Homeland Security:
Invest billions to secure loose nukes abroad
After spending trillions of dollars to win the cold war, it was worth spending a few billion dollars a year to make sure that a stricken former Soviet industry for the production of weapons of mass destruction does not become the source to a fire sale
for rogue states and terrorists.Instead the Bush administration tried to slash federal funding for these Nunn-Lugar initiatives the moment it took office, an effort it continued well after 9/11 starkly illustrated the potential costs of letting
terrorists get control of weapons of mass destruction. More recently the administration has offered more support for Nunn-Lugar initiatives, but we must match that with broader, multilateral framework for identifying & securing nuclear materials wherever
they may be and in whatever quantity. As Nunn and Lugar have long argued, we must help those in possession of deadly materials who lack the financial and technical means to control them to become responsible stewards under international supervision.
Source: A Call to Service, by John Kerry, p. 57-8
On Homeland Security:
Focus on first responders instead of duct tape
The Bush administration denied for a very long time after 9/11 that there was any homeland security challenge at all, beyond the counterterrorism efforts already being performed by the FBI at home and the CIA overseas. Then the administration reversed
course and embraced a Democratic proposal to create a cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security. Yet what Bush has offered is little more than a huge new bureaucracy and a run on duct tape. Funding for homeland security's first responders-
firefighters, paramedics, and law enforcement-was first delayed, then drawn from other law-enforcement funding. I've proposed a First Defenders Initiative to help both firefighters and police staff up against crime and terrorism and give homeland
security forces the same degree of support we've given our armed forces overseas. This initiative includes efforts to bring 21st century technology to the war on terror so that first defenders can communicate and share lifesaving information.
Source: A Call to Service, by John Kerry, p. 59-60
On Budget & Economy:
Base policy on broad growth and progressive taxation
We cannot go back to the 1909s, and we should not simply restore the Clinton administration's policies. But there are certain bedrock, mainstream principles that can and must power our engines of economic growth: - Economic growth is built on the
talent and hard work of all our people, not just wealthy elites.
- Both private and public investment play a role in building the infrastructure for growth.
- Government must ensure a fair and honest marketplace for business competition,
labor-management cooperation, and investors with enforceable standards of integrity for financial and accounting systems and corporate executives.
- The progressive system of taxes, which distributes the burden of self-government in proportion to the
ability to pay, can and should be maintained without discouraging enterprise or wealth.
The Bush administration has violated, indeed sometimes even waged war on, all of these foundations of American economic policy.
Source: A Call to Service, by John Kerry, p. 67-8
On Jobs:
Weekly economic policy summit to create jobs
Our first has to be to put jobs back at the top of national agenda. As president, I will commit this country to turning the tide on manufacturing jobs. I'll start with a tax incentive to encourage companies to keep jobs in America. I will also propose a
job-creation tax credit that would give businesses a one time break from the payroll tax for every new worker they hire. and my health-care plan, which I will explain in a alter chapter, will stop spiraling health-care costs, one of the biggest problems
facing businesses struggling to maintain employment levels.Beyond any specific proposals, getting this economy moving gin, stopping job losses and creating new jobs depends on national leadership that believes it can make a difference and can muster
the courage and imagination to do so. If elected president, I will hold economic policy once week for the first six months of my administration, aimed at developing targeted strategies to create jobs in key regions and key industries.
Source: A Call to Service, by John Kerry, p. 74-5
On Welfare & Poverty:
Expand EITC as anti-poverty measure
The earned income tax credit (EITC), which reward working families for staying off welfare, also needs a boost. President Reagan rightly called the EITC the "best antipoverty, the best pro-family, the best job creation measure to come out of Congress."
President Clinton rightly said no family in which parents work full time should have to live in poverty.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.
Source: A Call to Service, by John Kerry, p. 76-7
On Technology:
Invest in high-speed commuter rail & double-dip benefits
Top spur the economy in the short term, I'd accelerate investments in infrastructure projects, which immediately generate jobs while laying foundations for future growth.
Wherever possible, we should aim at double- or triple-dip investments that spur the economy, increase future productivity, and improve our quality of life.
What better time to get moving no projects like high-speed rail for commuters and for profitable intercity routes in places including the Boston-Washington corridor and a Portland-Seattle route?
Why should we continue to lag behind France and Germany in transportation technology?
Source: A Call to Service, by John Kerry, p. 77
On Corporations:
Regulate on side of citizens, not on side of corporations
A critical precondition for reviving the economy and sustaining the revival is the restoration of public confidence in the fairness, integrity, and transparency of our economic system and its accountability to investors, consumers, and workers with a
stake in our private enterprises. That means, first and foremost, a federal regulatory system unmistakably on the side of the citizens it represents rather than the corporations it regulates. We also need a president whose approach to corporate abuses is
more like Teddy Roosevelt's and less like William McKinley's. Above all, we need a president who looks out for the well-being of all Americans, fostering broad-based prosperity instead of promoting the interests of the wealthy and powerful.Our
economic system relies on the safeguards to ensure transparency, arms-length transactions, and the effectiveness of watchdogs. It's all too easy for criminals to infiltrate the informal networks that link the business world to the political world.
Source: A Call to Service, by John Kerry, p. 78-80
On Corporations:
Offshore tax havens cause higher middle class taxes
Offshore tax havens and tax shelters let corporations and executives evade an estimated $20 to $40 billion each year-taxes that must be made up by other taxpayers or by government borrowing. And these offshore tax havens rob us of more than tax
dollars, for they are where renegade corporations flee from all responsibility to shareholders, employees, rules of fair play, and their own country. It's no accident that Enron had over 800 subsidiaries in countries with no taxes on income, profits, or
capital gains. These included 692 in the Cayman Islands alone.
Taking on these abuses does not mean launching an attack on legitimate overseas operations of American businesses. I believe in opening new markets, and I want American companies to compete
and win everywhere they can. But brass-plate addresses with nothing behind the door but a fax machine are not legitimate enterprises.
Source: A Call to Service, by John Kerry, p. 81
On Energy & Oil:
Drilling for oil doesn't gain energy independence
To some extent, [my proposed energy independence] Apollo Project would involve redeploying resources from the failed energy policies of the past and present.
At present we spend $1.8 billion in subsidies to the oil and gas industries while investing only $24 million in federal venture capital for alternative energy sources.
And the Bush administration seeks to accelerate this trend by moving heaven and most of all earth to expand oil drilling in some of our most sensitive environments. All this drilling won't produce significant quantities of oil for many years,
so we will remain dependent on a global oil market whose prices are controlled-and often manipulated-by a handful of countries, lending permanent instability to our economy.
Source: A Call to Service, by John Kerry, p. 85-86
On Energy & Oil:
Apollo project approach to energy independence
A smart energy policy can reflect a smart economic policy. We can work toward energy independence not only from foreign energy sources but from environmentally damaging sources as well-in a way that calls on the best of our creative and entrepreneurial
spirit and improves both our quality of life and our national security.In the 1960's President Kennedy challenged America to conquer space and land on the moon within a decade. It's time for comparable Apollo Project approach to energy independence,
with a focused effort that relies on public-private partnerships and creates millions of new jobs. For Americans who work in engineering, design, and industry, the growth of wind, solar, and geothermal energy would spark a surge in production and jobs.
And since developing new energy technology requires research and path-breaking applications, we can create thousands of high-paying jobs in those areas as well. Americans can take the lead, or we can let Germans and Japanese dominate this new industry.
Source: A Call to Service, by John Kerry, p. 85-86
On Technology:
Member of "Digital Dozen" of tech-savvy legislators
We can get enormous multiple payoff by investing in the technological infrastructure of our information age:- Making permanent the federal tax credit for research and development that helped supply much of the capital for the tech boom of the 1990s
- Expand high-speed Internet access to insure that inner cities and rural areas become fully wired and to expand e-commerce
- A tax credit for companies that set up broadband networks in inner cities, just as I earlier sponsored the e-rate law that
finances the wiring of inner-city schools for the Internet
- Enact digital signature legislation that makes it possible to execute secure and private authorizations of e-commerce transactions.
These issues are not just a recent sideline for me;
they've been a big focus of my efforts in the Senate. I'm proud that Business Week magazine named me one of its digital dozen, the twelve most tech-savvy members of Congress. I was the only Senate Democrat to make that list.
Source: A Call to Service, by John Kerry, p. 90-91
On Education:
Stop viewing charter schools as threatening innovation
You have to observe a good charter school in action to appreciate the revolutionary nature of what often sounds like an academic concept. I've seen Community Day in Lawrence MA-with a student body that is 80% Hispanic, more that 2/3 poor enough to qualif
for subsidized school lunches. Community Day has no particular gimmicks and no particular advantages over other schools beyond flexibility keyed to results and a lot of determination. Every student is given a personal education goal and an attainment
strategy, based on his or her strengths. And the concept works. In the 2001-02 school year, Community Day had the best statewide scores in Lawrence. Community Day has a waiting list of over 500 kids. We need to empower every school in the public
school system to apply the best practices from schools across the country.
I believe it's time to stop viewing innovative approaches as anomalies or threats to traditional public schools and begin seeing them as part of the future of public education.
Source: A Call to Service, by John Kerry, p.107-8
On Education:
Nothing good about vouchers can't be done in public schools
I believe public financing of vouchers for private schools is pushing the country in the wrong direction. Vouchers allocate resources not among competing public schools but out of the system entirely. Private schools accepting vouchers do not agree to
accept kids on an equal basis & also do not guarantee that the voucher will cover the cost of education. And most objectionally, voucher schemes do not hold private schools accountable in any way for the educational results they achieve-or do not achieve
Confusing public school choice and innovation isn't just a matter of comparing apples & oranges-it's comparing apples & worms. There's nothing that's good about a voucher system-parental choice, competition, and the ability to provide innovative
instruction-that can't also be achieved by public education. But the kind of public schools we ought to have can avoid what's bad about vouchers: the inequality; the lack of accountability; and the gradual erosion of our sense of commonwealth.
Source: A Call to Service, by John Kerry, p.108-9
On Health Care:
Simultaneously address costs, coverage, and choice
There are four ways we can deal with healthcare problems as a country.- First, we can confront the issues of cost, access and quality in a piecemeal way, much as we did during most of the last decade.
- Second, we could try to overwhelm the
problems with a massive expansion of the federal government's role in health care.
- Third, we could choose not to institute any reforms-the position of the Bush administration.
- I offer is a fourth proposal that simultaneously addresses three
challenges: bringing costs under control; offering access to affordable coverage to every American; and guaranteeing that every child in America will have health insurance coverage.
My plan builds on and strengthens the current public/private system
of health care and at the same time simplifies it. I definitely don't want to put Americans in some sort of one-size-fits-all health-care program; I want to give them more affordable options and greater choices.
Source: A Call to Service, by John Kerry, p.125-9
On Health Care:
Cut $350B of bureaucracy and cover 90% of Americans
We have the opportunity, if we act now, to make health care a fairly straightforward matter in the future. Here, in summary form, I my bottom line: - All Americans will have access to the same health-care coverage that their member of Congress
has today.
- A commitment to work until every American has affordable health insurance-starting with a plan that covers 99% of children and 96% of all Americans.
- Contain soaring health-care costs by making prescription drugs more affordable,
getting rid of frivolous lawsuits, reducing uncompensated care, and giving patients affordable health-care choices.
- Releif to employers who offer affordable coverage to their employees by covering a portion of their highest cost cases.
-
Save costs by cutting bureaucracy; that cuts nearly $350 billion a year out of the health-care system.
Source: A Call to Service, by John Kerry, p.142-3
On Environment:
Make environmental justice an EPA priority
The problem of environmental justice is well-documented. Back in the 1980s, studies determined that most landfills were located near minority communities. In 1992, a Bush administration investigation confirmed that the poor face greater risk of hazardous
waste exposure and sustain more environmental costs than more fortunate Americans. On Earth Day 2003, I announced a proposal to resume the battle against environmental injustice, in part by greatly elevating it priority for the EPA and other federal
enforcement agencies and in part by creating environmental empowerment zones, in which the impact of federal decisions on the health of low-income and minority citizens would have to be taken into account before they are implemented.
I also called for
a measure that will be critical not only in dealing with environmental injustice but also in dealing with environmental health issues generally: establishing a national tracking system for chronic diseases and environmental health hazards.
Source: A Call to Service, by John Kerry, p.159-60
On Crime:
Bush wants to eliminate federal assistance to local police
I voted for the USA Patriot Act in the Senate right after 9/11 to advance our security at home but I am concerned that John Ashcroft's Justice Department is abusing its powers, especially in targeting immigrants for scrutiny and detention. I think the
Bush administration is relying far too much on extraordinary police powers and not enough on regular policing in its homeland security efforts, a result of its ideologically driven obsession with eliminating federal assistance to local law enforcement.
Source: A Call to Service, by John Kerry, p.177
On Civil Rights:
Voted for PATRIOT Act, but genuinely alarmed at PATRIOT II
I voted for the USA Patriot Act [but] I'm genuinely alarmed at what I've seen of the Patriot II Act. One of its provisions would apparently enable federal employees to strip US citizens of their rights without due process. More broadly, it would create a
separate, very shadowy justice system for terrorist suspects in which most of the rights and procedures normally guaranteed criminal suspects can be abrogated at the discretion of the government.As a former prosecutor and something of a specialist in
dealing with international drug and terror networks, I know there's a big difference between giving the government the resources and commonsense leeway it needs to track and tough and devious foe and giving in to the temptation of taking shortcuts that
will sacrifice liberties cheaply without significantly enhancing the effectiveness of law enforcement. Patriot II threatens to cross that line-and to a serious degree. As president, I wouldn't propose it, and if it were passed I would veto it.
Source: A Call to Service, by John Kerry, p.177-8