Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Presidential Promises Checklist Date: Sun, 8 Nov 92 15:50:37 EST Message-ID: \SE A;NATION \HD Presidential Promises Checklist \BY J. Jennings Moss \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES The same question comes at every presidential candidate: "If you win, what do are you going to do." Bill Clinton always had the same answer: "Read my plan." Now that he's got the job, the public can keep him to his word. The president-elect provided much of the checklist in his manifesto, "Putting People First." Analysts say that if Mr. Clinton can succeed with two top pledges - to get the economy moving and to control health care costs - then voters should forgive him should lesser promises go unfulfilled. But the details he gave on the campaign may work against him should rivals and the public hold him to every promise. Following is a comprehensive list of what to expect from the Clinton administration. Most of it comes from the book; the rest was pulled from the president-elect's speeches and policy papers. AGRICULTURE Remove unfair trade barriers to pry open closed foreign markets. Expand food aid overseas and increase funding for the Food for Peace program. Equip Department of Agriculture offices with modern communications and computer equipment. Consolidate forms and processes. AIDS Appoint an AIDS czar. Speed up the AIDS drug-approval process. Fully fund the Ryan White Care Act to help communities deal with AIDS. Promote AIDS education and sex education in schools and promote a national AIDS education and prevention initiative. Provide drug treatment on demand. Increase funding for AIDS-specific and general biomedical research. Oppose mandatory HIV testing in the Peace Corps, the Jobs Corps and the Foreign Service. Develop programs with the Department of Health and Human Services to ensure that health care professionals be kept informed on latest HIV issues. ARMS CONTROL Bolster the International Atomic Energy Agency's capacity to inspect suspect facilities through surprise inspections. Ratify the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty and the June follow-up agreement. Achieve a comprehensive test-ban TReaty through a phased approach. Conclude a chemical weapons accord banning the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons. Focus "star wars" research and development with the goal of a limited missile-defense system that complies with the ABM Treaty. ARTS Oppose "content restrictions" on grants made by the National Endowment for the Arts. BUREAUCRACY Ask Congress to give the president the line-item veto. Reduce White House staff by 25 percent and encourage Congress to follow suit. Cut 100,000 federal jobs through attrition. Require federal managers and employees to achieve 3 percent across-the-board administrative savings. CAMPAIGN FINANCES AND LOBBYING Push for a campaign finance law that puts a voluntary spending cap on congressional races, cuts PAC contributions, lowers the cost of television air time and ends "soft money" contributions. Ask Congress to eliminate the tax deductions for special interest lobbying expenses. Push for legislation to toughen and streamline lobbying disclosure. Sign the motor voter bill, allowing people to register to vote when they get their driver's license. CITIES Create 75 to 125 urban and rural enterprise zones in distressed communities. Pass a more progressive Community Reinvestment Act to emphasize performance over paperwork, and enforce provisions to make banks grant loans in minority and lower-income neighborhoods. Create a City Assistance Flexibility Program to allow cities to redirect 15 percent of their federal aid to meet their own priorities. Create a network of 100 community development banks with a federal investment of $500 million. Create 1,000 micro-enterprise programs that give aid to small businesses. Use funding and Community Development Block Grants to rebuild the nation's infrastructure. CIVIL RIGHTS Issue executive orders to repeal the ban on homosexuals in the military and foreign service. Support federal civil rights protections for homosexuals. Support the Equal Remedies Act, which lifts damages caps for women, people with disabilities and religious minorities. Support District of Columbia statehood. Support sovereignty and self-determination of American Indian tribal governments. Fully implement the Americans With Disabilities Act. CORPORATE AMERICA Eliminate tax breaks for excessive executive pay. Allow companies to deduct "golden parachute" payments to managers only if they provide severance packages to other employees. Make plea bargaining for white-collar crimes limited to questions of prison time and require sentences to be served in prisons. Reform anti-trust laws and government regulations so that companies can work together in the United States the way others do abroad. Eliminate tax breaks for U.S. companies that ship jobs overseas while ending jobs at home. CRIME Put 100,000 more police officers on the streets and expand community policing. Create a National Police Corps. Establish community "boot camps" to discipline first-time nonviolent offenders. Sign the Brady bill to initiate a waiting period on the purchase of handguns. Work to ban assault rifles. DEFENSE Reduce U.S. troops in Europe to 75,000-100,000. Have a 10-aircraft carrier Navy. Offer early retirement and a prorated pension to military personnel with 15 to 20 years of service. Create an education fund to provide grants for professionals formerly in defense work to master civilian technology developments. Propose a five-year defense budget of $1.36 trillion. Preserve a limited Strategic Defense Initiative option. Support some new weapons systems, such as the V-22 Osprey and fast sealift ships, and ensure the completion of the Arrow anti-ballistic missile. DEFICIT Halve the deficit within four years and assure it continues to fall each year after that. EDUCATION Fully fund such educational programs as Head Start and the Women, Infants and Children Program. Reduce class sizes in grades kindergarten through 12 by increasing funding. Give every parent the right to choose their children's public school. Provide funds for some schools to hire security personnel and purchase metal detectors. Develop a national apprenctice-style program that teaches skills to those not going to college. Create a National Service Trust Fund that lets college students either pay back their loans based on a percentage of what they make or by performing community service. Create a Youth Opportunity Corps to give high school dropouts a second chance. Establish national education standards and a national examination system in core subjects such as writing, math and science. Give local schools more power to make decisions. ENERGY Increase corporate average fuel economy standards from the current 27.5 miles per gallon to 40 miles per gallon by the year 2000 and 45 miles per hour by 2015. Issue an executive order to purchase natural-gas-powered vehicles for the federal automobile fleet. Oppose increased reliance on nuclear power. Oppose federal excise tax increases on gasoline. ENVIRONMENT Prohibit drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. Pass a new Clean Water Act. Support legislation that allows ordinary citizens to sue federal agencies that ignore environmental laws. Limit U.S. carbon dioxide emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000 and accelerate the phase-out of substances that deplete the ozone layer. Create a solid-waste reduction program. Make the "no net loss" wetlands pledge a reality. FAMILIES Pass the Family and Medical Leave Act. Report deadbeat parents to credit agencies and use the Internal Revenue Service to collect child support. Create a child-care network as complete as the public school network. Promote tough child-support legislation. HEALTH CARE Guarantee that every American has a basic health benefits package. Set a national health budget to limit what consumers pay for health coverage. Require employers to insure their workers. Guarantee private coverage for people who don't work, starting with pregnant women and children. Ban pre-existing condition conclusions and require policies to offer full benefits. Replace the Health Care Financing Administration with a health standards board that will establish health budget targets and outline benefits. Eliminate tax breaks for drug companies that raise their prices faster than Americans' incomes rise. Institute a single health-claim form and ban certain underwriting practices. Replace the current health care financial forms with a simplified billing system. Create a nationwide program to provide health care services to low-income women and their children. Work to provide everyone with "smart cards" coded with personal medical information. HOUSING AND HOMELESS Increase the ceiling on Federal Housing Authority mortgage insurance to 95 percent of the price of a home. Permanently extend the low-income housing tax credit. Transfer 10 percent of Housing and Urban Development housing and other government-controlled housing to community groups and churches to house the homeless. Use housing available at closed military bases for homeless people. Hold a housing and homelessness summit. IMMIGRATION Eliminate backlogs that separate families. Condition favorable trade terms with repressive regimes on their respect for human rights, political liberalization and responsible international conduct. Allow HIV-infected immigrants into the United States. Oppose repatriation of Haitian refugees and give fleeing Haitians consideration for political asylum until democracy is restored in Haiti. INFORMATION Create a national information network to link every home, business, lab, classroom and library by the year 2015. INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS Create an Economic Security Council to coordinate U.S. international economic policy. Issue an executive order banning trade negotiators from becoming foreign lobbyists. INTERNATIONAL Restore U.S. funding for the United Nation's population stabilization efforts. Reorganize and redirect U.S. foreign assistance programs to stress not only sustainable development but also the development of skills, values and institutions of a free society. Support the establishment of an American Democracy Corps to work in the former Soviet Union. Renew support for the bipartisan National Endowment of Democracy. Expand Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty with radio broadcasts to Asia. Allow sale of new F-15 technology to Saudi Arabia if it does not compromise Israel's security. ISRAEL Support making Jerusalem the nation's capital. Support loan guarantees for Israel. Oppose the creation of an independent Palestinian state. Form a joint U.S-Israel High-Tech Commission. LABOR Sign the Workplace Fairness Act to ban the permanent replacement of striking workers. Increase the minimum wage to keep pace with inflation. MANUFACTURING Create 170 market-driven manufacturing centers to help small- and medium-size manufacturers with business decisions. Of these centers, 25 would be dedidated to defense workers and another 25 to manufacturing. Create the civilian equivalent of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to invest in advanced manufacturing technologies. REGULATION Enforce the Regulatory Flexibility Act's provisions for reducing the regulatory burdens on small businesses. Develop regulatory short forms - similar to those used for federal taxes - for use by small businesses. SENIOR CITIZENS Lift the Social Security earnings test limitation. Support reauthorization of the Older Americans Act. Ask seniors making more than $100,000 to subject more of their benefits to taxation and pay more for Medicare. SMALL BUSINESS Expand the Small Business Innovation Research Program by doubling the amount federal agenecies are required to set aside from their research-and-development budgets for small business from 1.25 to 2.5 percent. Extend special conversion loans to small businesses that switch their productive capacity from defense to civilian uses. Increase government procurement dollars for small businesses, including minority- and women-owned businesses. Provide tax credits to let small businesses provide private health insurance without risk to jobs. Increase the health care insurance premium tax deduction for the self-employed from 25 percent to 100 percent. Phase in employer requirements for health care coverage after cost controls are in place with the smallest businesses being the last ones in the system. SPACE Call on NASA to develop smaller and more focused missions that address the environment. Support completion of Space Station Freedom. TAXES Raise taxes on those making more than $200,000 a year. Provide a targeted investment tax credit to encourage investment in new manufacturing plants and equipment. Give middle-class taxpayers a choice between a children's tax credit or a significant reduction in their income tax credit. Middle class is defined as families with an income of $65,000 annually. Offer a 50 percent tax exclusion to those who make long-term investments in new businesses over five years. Make permanent the research-and-development tax credit. Increase the earned income tax credit to make up the difference between a family's earnings and the poverty level. TECHNOLOGY Give Vice President-elect Al Gore the responsibility and authority to coordinate the administration's vision for technology. Devote a "significant portion" of a four-year, $80 billion "Rebuild America" fund to technology development. Invest in private-sector-led consortia and require companies to match federal contributions on at least a 50-50 basis. Refocus the current $76 billion spent on research and development each year to such areas as advanced materials, information technology and new manufacturing processes. Shift the balance of technology spending from 60 percent on defense and 40 percent on non-defense to a 50-50 split over three years. Double the budget of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. TRADE Pass a stronger, sharper "Super 301" trade bill. Complete the Uruguay Round of trade talks to reduce foreign tariffs on U.S. goods. Further liberalize East-West export controls while avoiding unilateral export controls and controls on technology widely available in world markets. Streamline decision-making on export controls. Strengthen the commercial sections of U.S. embassies so that they can promote U.S. goods and other actions. Provide matching funds to trade associations or other organizations that establish overseas centers to promote U.S. exports that have the effect of creating U.S. jobs. TRANSPORTATION Create a "Rebuild America" fund of $80 billion over four years. Renovate U.S. roads, bridges and railroads. Create a high-speed rail network linking major cities and commercial hubs. VETERANS Ensure enough funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide health care for veterans. Guarantee that the government will not merge veterans' medical centers into the welfare system. Simplify and reform VA eligibility and cut the VA bureaucracy. Consult with veterans' groups before choosing a VA secretary. Account for all POWs and MIAs and open up all related files. WELFARE REFORM Provide welfare recipients with job training, education, job placement and child care for two years. Give people two years on welfare and then force those who can work to get a job or do community service. Establish Individual Development Accounts for low-income people to save for home purchases, education, business development and retirement. The federal government will provide some matching federal funds depending on a person's income. Raise the asset limit from $1,000 to $10,000 on savings for those receiving welfare. WORKER TRAINING Require every employer to spend 1.5 percent of payroll for continuing education and training, and make them provide the training to all workers. Require that any corporation receiving a multimillion-dollar federal contract create a mentorship or employment program for disadvantaged youth. Fund private sector-led training centers that guarantee employees the skills they need for higher-paying jobs. WOMEN Sign into law the Freedom of Choice Act to ensure abortion rights. Allow federally funded abortions. Repeal the "gag" rule, which prohibits nurses in federally funded clinics to discuss abortion as an option. Hire and appoint more women at all levels of government. Sign the Violence Against Women Act. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. 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