Dennis Kucinich on Welfare & Poverty Democratic Representative (OH-10)

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.

Funding faith-based initiatives with taxes is problematic

Separate state from church, not from spiritual values

A: I come from a spiritual insight which says that we have to have faith but also have good works. The founders meant to have separation of church & state, but they never meant America to be separate from spiritual values. I’ll bring strong spiritual values to the White House, and I’ll bring values that value peace, social & economic justice, values that remember where I came from.

Public sector has moral responsibility to provide jobs

Education is only solution to alleviate poverty

Work not welfare for those able to work

A: Provide work not welfare for those able to work.

Voted YES on instituting National Service as a new social invention.

Adds to National and Community Service Act of 1990 (NCSA) purposes:
1. providing year-round opportunities in service-learning;
2. involving program participants in emergency and disaster preparedness, relief, and recovery;
3. increasing service opportunities for retiring professionals;
4. encouraging service by individuals age 55 or older and continued service by national service alumni;
5. focusing national service on the areas of national need.

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.

Voted YES on providing $70 million for Section 8 Housing vouchers.

Proponents of the amendment say:
• This amendment would enable an additional 10,000 low-income families to afford safe, decent housing.
• To offset this increase, the amendment cuts a poorly managed computer upgrade program. The committee has been very ingenious in squirreling away money in different accounts and the bill would still provide $94 million in funds for IT projects.
• We have a choice: Do we want to help thousands of families obtain affordable housing, or do we think it is more important to have a somewhat faster computer upgrade in HUD?
• Our amendment does not seek to restore the amount to the amount that the President recommended, which is $144 million more than the committee recommends, it seeks merely to restore $70 million, or about half of what the difference is to what the President recommended.
• This is less than the bare minimum of what is needed. We have hundreds of thousands of families on waiting lists, waiting up to 10 years for decent housing for Section 8 vouchers.

Opponents say:
• The existing bill fully funds the renewal of Section 8 vouchers. Additional funds are simply not necessary.
• The cost of Section 8 vouchers are remaining constant and in some markets are actually decreasing. As such, this funding level will provide funds to restore vouchers that may have been lost in recent years.
• The proposed reduction will cause delays in critically needed efforts to modernize antiquated legacy computer systems.

Voted NO on promoting work and marriage among TANF recipients.

Voted NO on treating religious organizations equally for tax breaks.

Voted YES on responsible fatherhood via faith-based organizations.

Support school breakfast for low-income children.

A resolutix`on expressing the sense of the Senate that providing breakfast in schools through the national school breakfast program has a positive impact on the lives and classroom performance of low-income children.
• Recognizes the positive effect the National School Breakfast Program has had on children's classroom performance and the lives of low-income children and families.
• Expresses strong support for states that have successfully implemented school breakfast programs and encourages all states to improve their programs.
• Recognizes:
  1. the importance of providing states with resources to improve the availability of adequate and nutritious breakfasts;
  2. the role nonprofit and community organizations play in increasing awareness of, and access to, breakfast programs for low-income children; and
  3. hat National School Breakfast Week helps draw attention to the need for, and success of, the National School Breakfast Program.
  Source: SR67&HRes210 2009-SR67 on Mar 5, 2009

  Reduce the concentration of wealth & wage inequality.

  Kucinich adopted the Progressive Caucus Position Paper:

  Economic inequality is the result of two and a half decades of government policies and rules governing the economy being tilted in favor of large asset owners at the expense of wage earners. Tax policy, trade policy, monetary policy, government regulations and other rules have reflected this pro-investor bias. We propose the introduction or reintroduction of a package of legislative initiatives that will close America’s economic divide and address both income and wealth disparities.

  The Progressive Caucus could take the lead in the formation of a national leadership steering committee to put this dramatic issue before the public through coordinated media campaigns and local education and action forums. The political program should be concerned with:
  • Reducing wage inequality: We are proposing initiatives to both raise the minimum wage floor and prevent the tax code from subsidizing excessive compensation.
  • Asset-building initiatives: The government has historically given land to citizens. Unfortunately, the programs were discriminatory toward people of color and kept a whole generation of people off the asset-building train. We are proposing a universal asset building approach that will dramatically reduce the number of “asset less” households and reduce the disparity of wealth for all Americans.
  • Addressing the over concentration of wealth and power: The concentration of wealth is a problem because it distorts our democracy, destabilizes the economy and erodes our at our social and cultural fabric. Too much concentrated wealth leads to too much concentrated power and begins to undermine our participatory democracy.
  After a decade of economic prosperity, the moral question remains: if we can’t address the persistent economic divide in our nation today, when can we? Source: CPC Position Paper: Income Inequality 99-CPC3 on Nov 11, 1999

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