Washington has abandoned working families. While
taxes fall and incomes rise for those at the top of
the totem pole, middle class families have worked
harder for less money and paid more taxes to a
government that failed to produce what we need:
good jobs in a growing economy, world-class
education, affordable health care and safe streets
and neighborhoods.
The Republicans have lectured America on the
importance of family values. But their policies
have made life harder for working families: They
have forced parents to choose between the jobs they
need and the families they love, and they've
slashed funding for programs that prepare kids for
kindergarten, send teens on to college, and save us
all money. They have stood idly by as neighborhoods
collapse, violent crime rises, and health costs
skyrocket.
A Clinton/Gore Administration will demand more from
families, but it will offer more, too. It will
demand that parents pay the child support they owe.
But it will offer their children the pre-schooling
they need. It will demand that young people stay
in school and off drugs. But it will offer all
Americans safer streets and the chance to borrow
for college. A Clinton/Gore Administration will
demand that people work hard and play by the rules.
It will honor and reward those who do.
We cannot afford another four years of a President
who doesn't have a plan to help Americas families
and who backs down from the promises he does make.
It is time for a change -- time to put people
first.
Treat families right
* Grant additional tax relief to families with
children.
* Sign into law the Family and Medical Leave
Act, which George Bush vetoed in 1990, so that
no worker is forced to choose between keeping
his or her job and caring for a newborn child
or sick family member.
* Create a child care network as complete as the
public school network, tailored to the needs
of working families; give parents choices
between competing public and private
institutions.
* Establish more rigorous standards for
licensing child care facilities and implement
improved methods for enforcing them.
* Crack down on deadbeat parents by reporting
them to credit agencies, so they cant borrow
money for themselves when they're not taking
care of their children. Use the Internal
Revenue Service to collect child support,
start a national deadbeat databank, and make
it a felony to cross state lines to avoid
paying support.
Educate our children
* Send children to school ready to learn by
fully funding pre-school programs which save
us several dollars for every one we spend --
Head Start, the Women Infants and Children
(WIC) program, and other critical initiatives
recommended by the National Commission on
Children.
* Develop national parenting programs like
Arkansas Home Instructional Program for
Pre-school Youngsters to help disadvantaged
parents work with their children to build an
ethic of learning at home that benefits both.
* Dramatically improve K-12 education by
establishing tough standards and a national
examination system in core subjects, leveling
the playing field for disadvantaged students,
and reducing class sizes.
* Give every parent the right to choose the
public school his or her child attends, as
they have in Arkansas; in return, demand that
parents work with their children to keep them
in school, off drugs, and headed toward
graduation.
* Establish a Youth Opportunity Corps to give
teenagers who drop out of school a second
chance. Community youth centers will match
teenagers with adults who care about them, and
will give kids a chance to develop
self-discipline and skills.
* Give every American the right to borrow for
college by scrapping the existing student loan
program and establishing a National Service
Trust Fund. Those who borrow from the fund
will be able to repay the balance either as a
small percentage of their earnings over time,
or through community service as teachers, law
enforcement officers, health care workers or
peer counselors helping kids stay off drugs
and in school.
Guarantee every family the right to quality,
affordable health care
* Control costs, improve quality and cover
everybody under a national health care plan
that requires insurers to offer a core
benefits package, including pre-natal care and
other important preventive treatments.
* Take on the insurance industry by simplifying
financial and accounting procedures; banning
underwriting practices that waste billions
trying to discover which patients are bad
risks; and prohibiting companies from denying
coverage to individuals with pre-existing
conditions.
* Stop drug price gouging by eliminating tax
breaks for drug companies that raise their
prices faster than Americans incomes rise.
Make our homes, streets and schools safe again
* Crack down on violence against women and
children by signing the Violence Against Women
Act, which would provide tougher enforcement
and stiffer penalties to deter domestic
violence.
* Put 100,000 new police officers on the streets
by establishing a National Police Corps drawn
partly from military veterans and active
military personnel.
* Expand community policing to stop crimes
before they happen by taking officers out of
patrol cars and putting them back on the beat.
* Sign the Brady Bill to create a waiting period
for handgun purchases and allow authorities to
conduct background checks to prevent guns from
falling into the wrong hands; work to ban
assault rifles that have no legitimate hunting
purpose.
* Launch a Safe Schools Initiative to help
schools take back their facilities as places
of learning: make schools eligible for federal
assistance to pay for metal detectors and
security personnel if they need them;
encourage states to get tougher with in-school
crime; and fund mentoring, counseling, and
outreach programs so kids in trouble with
crime, drugs or gangs have some place to turn.
Reward working families
* Expand the Earned Income Tax Credit to
guarantee a working wage so that no American
with a family who works full-time is forced to
live in poverty.
* Put an end to welfare as we know it by making
welfare a second chance, not a way of life;
empower people on welfare with the education,
training and child care they need, for up to
two years, so they can break the cycle of
dependence after that, those who can work will
have to find a job either in the private
sector or in community service.
Providing fairness for families
* Governor Clinton proposed and passed a measure
which reduced or eliminated state income taxes
for 374,000 Arkansans. Because of his
leadership, Arkansas tax burden is the second
lowest in the country.
* Directed the Arkansas Child Support
Enforcement Unit in aggressively enforcing
child support laws. The Unit has received
national recognition for its success.
Collections totalled more than $41 million in
1991, a 20 percent increase from 1990.
* Senator Gore cosponsored the Family and
Medical Leave Act of 1991, which George Bush
vetoed.
* Cosponsored the Child Welfare and Preventive
Services Act which establishes innovative
child welfare and family support services that
strengthen families, keep children out of
foster care, promote the development of
comprehensive substance abuse programs for
pregnant women, and provide improved health
care services for low-income children.
* Sponsored the Gore/Downey Working Families Tax
Relief Act for families with children to
expand the earned income tax credit program to
help lift working families out of poverty.
* In 1992 Gore sponsored the Family Reunion
Conference in Nashville, TN, which brought
together 600 people including social workers,
teachers and psychologists to exchange ideas
and develop solutions to the challenges facing
our families and children. The conference
resulted in the formation of the Tennessee
Family Action Network
Improving education
* Governor Clinton established the first
state-wide Home Instructional Program for
Pre-school Youngsters in 1986, which helps
welfare mothers teach their children to read.
* Fought to establish tough standards for
teachers, students, and schools; increased
parental involvement; raised teacher salaries;
developed a new curriculum, including advanced
college preparation courses in math and
science; revoked the drivers licenses of
students who drop out of school before age 18
for no good reason.
* Increased education funding; Arkansas ranks
fifth in the nation over the last decade in
percentage increase of funding for higher
education.
* Guided Arkansas to the highest high school
graduation rate in the region; and helped to
increase the college attendance rate from 38.2
percent in 1982 to 41.3 in 1991.
* Created a youth apprenticeship program to aid
and motivate non college-bound students.
* Established the Arkansas Academic Challenge
Scholarship program to provide scholarships to
middle-income and poor students who maintain a
minimum GPA, score 19 on the ACT, and stay off
drugs.
* Created a college bond program to allow
parents to buy short- or long-term college
bonds, not taxed in Arkansas, to finance their
childrens education.
* Senator Gore supported the Neighborhood
Schools Improvement Act, which affirms the
national education goals and establishes an
assessment panel to report on reaching these
goals; improves teacher and school leader
training; strengthens parental involvement;
provides for school year and day extension;
expands dropout prevention efforts; and
increases the use of educational technology.
* Voted for legislation to expand Pell Grants
eligibility, increase grant levels, and
increase the availability of grants and loans
to middle-income families.
* Voted for the Vocational Education which funds
education in skilled trades beyond high
school.
Protecting health
* Governor Clinton launched Arkansas first
school-based health clinics. Today there are
21 such clinics, reaching thousands of
Arkansas' children who wouldn't otherwise have
access to health care.
* Cut Arkansas infant mortality rate almost in
half through improved pre-natal and post-natal
care.
* Proposed and passed a Health Care Access Law
designed to provide, among other things,
universal health coverage for all Arkansas
children under age 16, regardless of family
income. The law emphasizes preventive and
primary care.
* Sharply increased efforts to improve rural
health: the Rural Physician Recruitment and
Retention Program encourages physicians to
locate and practice family medicine in small
Arkansas communities; the Rural Medical
Practice Student Loans and Scholarships
provide support for medical students agreeing
to practice in rural communities.
* Senator Gore was the principal sponsor of the
Infant Formula Act to improve nutrition and
safety standards.
* Authored legislation that resulted in FDA
regulations banning the use of
life-threatening sulfites on fresh fruits and
vegetables.
* Led the successful fight for warning labels on
alcohol beverages that provide consumers --
particularly pregnant women -- with critical
information.
* Wrote and steered to passage the Cigarette
Labeling Act to require stronger warning
labels.
* In August 1992, Arkansas was one of twelve
states which received funding as part of the
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's State
Initiatives in Health Care Financing Reform
Programs. Arkansas was chosen for its
innovative approach to increase health care
insurance coverage to residents and to contain
the escalating costs of care.
Getting tough on crime
* Governor Clinton Increased penalties for drug
dealing and violent crime.
* Established innovative
boot camps to instill discipline in non-violent
first-time offenders.
* Built more prisons and kept costs down.
* Senator Gore cosponsored legislation to
provide a mandatory 5-year prison sentence for
anyone who used a gun to commit a federal
crime.
* Supported the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986
which attacks drug abuse in our country with
reinforced interdiction efforts, expanded
prevention, education and treatment programs,
assistance to local law enforcement, and
stiffer criminal penalties.
Fighting dependency
* Governor Clinton helped draft and Senator Gore
supported the most significant welfare reform
legislation ever, the Family Support Act of
1988. Arkansas welfare-to-work program,
Project Success was one of the first three
such efforts implemented, and has helped
almost 10,000 Arkansans find work in one year
alone.
* Removed a quarter of a million low-income
Arkansans from the tax rolls.
