Presidential Election 2000: The Choice is Crystal Clear

Who will fight for working families? Gore vs. Bush

The outcome of the November presidential elections will have a critical bearing on the jobs and rights of AFSCME members. Every member should therefore take the opportunity to compare the candidates’ records on the issues of vital importance, especially those affecting working families.

The following comparison highlights many of the striking differences between the proven leadership of Vice Pres. Al Gore and the regressive positioning of his opponent-to-be Gov. George Bush. AFSCME has thoroughly researched the records and statements of both candidates. The result: a ringing endorsement of Gore.

Six months ago, Gore trailed Bush in national opinion polls. Thanks to the collective clout of labor unions and their members, the race is now close.

Al Gore offers proven leadership plus a sensitive, sympathetic approach to major social issues and to the problems confronting America’s working families. As a senator and then for eight years the nation’s second highest official, he has demonstrated consistently that he values unions and the working people for whom they fight. He has personally lobbied for collective bargaining, supported the Family and Medical Leave Act, opposed Bush’s plan to privatize thousands of Medicaid and Food Stamp jobs, supported the right to organize and increases in the minimum wage.

Bush promotes himself as "a reformer with results"; however, the evidence shows that the myth of the compassionate conservative is just that. These are the reformer’s results in his own state.

The state he governs:

• is 1st in people without health coverage;
• is 2nd in suffering from hunger;
• has the second worst poverty rate in the nation;
• has a minimum wage that is almost $2 less than the federal minimum;
• is the 48th worst state for raising children (measuring immunizations, dropout and teen pregnancy rates);
• has the worst pollution in the nation; third worst for toxic water pollution;
• has the most private prisons in the country; and
• has no OSHA protections for public employees.

Here, spelled out issue by issue, is why you should get involved.

BUDGET SURPLUS/TAXES

Gore supports targeted tax cuts as part of a responsible economic plan. He favors cuts specifically for education and retirement. They would take the form of 401(j) savings accounts for education and lifelong learning. In those accounts, invested earnings can be withdrawn and used for college or other qualified training. Current education IRAs can only be used until age 30, but these 401(j) plans can be used thereafter and would help Americans learn new skills to meet the demands of the rapidly changing economy.

Gore would also help working families by increasing the earnings cap for married couples receiving the Earned Income Tax Credit, increasing the standard deduction for couples and creating modified Universal Savings Accounts to help those who do not have access to 401(k) plans at work. He has limited tax cuts to between $250 billion and $300 billion because his overall economic plan calls for reducing the national debt year by year to eliminate it completely by 2013 — before most of the baby boomers retire. The money that would otherwise be spent for interest payments on the debt would be used to help pay Social Security and Medicare benefits.

Bush’s $1.5 Trillion Tax Plan Favors the Rich. Bush’s tax cuts would use up the entire non-Social Security federal budget surplus and then require dipping deeply into the Social Security Trust Fund’s projected surpluses or severely cutting federal programs that provide vital services to working families.

According to an analysis by Citizens for Tax Justice, the Bush cuts would cost $1.5 trillion over the 10-year period from 2002 to 2011, but the federal budget surplus for 10 years is just $838 billion. That means $662 billion, or 29 percent of the Social Security Trust Fund’s $2.3 trillion projected 10-year surpluses, would have to be used to make up the difference.

Overall, the richest 1 percent (those making over $301,000) would get an average tax cut of $47,000 and the lowest 60 percent (those making under $38,200) would get an average cut of $249.

Governor Bush’s Regressive Tax Policies. In 1996, Texas had the third most regressive tax system in the country because the state relies on the sales tax, which tends to take a higher proportion of income from the poor than the wealthy. Texas families with low incomes pay 13.8 percent of it in state and local taxes; middle-income families, 8.9 percent; and wealthy families, just 4.4 percent.

The tax system has not changed, but a strong economy has boosted state tax revenues by about 25 percent during Bush’s time in office and almost tripled the state’s budget surplus to $6.4 billion in the most recent two-year budget cycle. Despite the windfall, Texas dropped from 49th to 50th among the states in per capita state government spending while Bush has been in office.

SOCIAL SECURITY

Gore opposes raising the retirement age, cutting benefits or privatizing the Social Security System. He supports, instead, paying down the national debt and using the interest saved as well as two-thirds of the budget surplus to shore up Social Security and Medicare. Eliminating the debt would keep interest rates low and boost the economy. The interest savings from reducing the debt would be used to extend the solvency of Social Security to the year 2050.

Bush would consider the possibility of raising the retirement age and has refused to rule out further increases. It will already gradually rise from 65 to 67.

Bush favors partially privatizing Social Security to create individual investment accounts in which the privatized portion of benefits would fluctuate with the market and participants would not be guaranteed a specified level of income. Bush refuses to give specific details about the costs and risks of his plan until after he’s elected. If economic growth slows with the aging of the workforce, as Social Security trustees predict, the stock market may not do as well as Bush has assumed, and the privatized accounts may earn less than the current guarantee. In addition, the high administrative fees Wall Street firms charge for managing the accounts may consume a large portion of the returns.

Bush aides have indicated that 2 percent of the 12.4 percent payroll tax would go into the investment accounts. To pay for that and at the same time pay full benefits to current retirees without raising taxes, all of which Bush has promised, would require draining almost the entire $2 trillion expected to accumulate over the next decade in the Social Security Trust Fund.

MEDICARE

Gore would allow older Americans, aged 55 to 64, to buy into Medicare. For Medicare recipients, he would create a benefit to counter the soaring costs of prescription drugs. He strongly opposes plans to make deep cuts in Medicare and would use the federal budget surplus to ensure the stability of the program. In addition, Gore has attacked the root cause of soaring prescription drug prices by backing proposals to make it much harder for drug companies to get patent extensions that delay the introduction of lower-cost generic drugs.

Bush has no prescription drug plan. The governor announced his health care plan in April 2000, but failed to address the issue of prescription drug benefits under Medicare.

Since then, he has promised to give seniors a choice of plans under Medicare, including prescription drugs, and not raise taxes. However, as noted before, his proposed tax-cut plan already uses up the entire non-Social Security federal-budget surplus — plus some of the Social Security surplus — so there would be little money left to shore up the Medicare system.

EDUCATION

Gore opposes the use of federal tax dollars to send children to private schools. Gore is against vouchers and any other plan that would divert money from public schools to fund private school tuition. To help all students, he would improve education for all by expanding after-school programs, repairing and modernizing school facilities, and hiring well-trained teachers.

Bush supports taking federal money away from public schools to fund vouchers for private schools. Taxpayer funding of private schools is controversial because it subsidizes parents who are currently paying for private schools and are usually more wealthy than the average public school family. Private schools are less accountable to the public regarding test scores, racial composition, teacher certification, and suspension and expulsion rates.

They are not required to provide special education services for children with language or learning disabilities or bilingual education. Some private schools also argue that they are exempt from laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, pregnancy and marital or parental status.

UNIONS AND ORGANIZING

Gore has been a vocal supporter of the right to organize, calling it a "fundamental American right that should never be blocked, stopped, and never, ever taken away." He has personally fought to enact laws in Maryland and Puerto Rico to allow public employees to bargain collectively. Gore not only supports collective bargaining, but he has actually done something about it.

Bush and his Economic Development Agency praise the "right-to-work" status of his state. The Texas agency also brags about its low wages and anti-labor climate. Bush’s advisors are working on a government reform plan aimed at using computer technology and privatization to deliver federal services at lower cost and with fewer workers. The plan, described as "a work in progress," calls for "using many of the technological improvements and downsizing reforms made by business and industry to transform the way federal programs are run." The "reforms" include contracting out more government work to the private sector.

MINIMUM WAGE

Gore has supported increases in the minimum wage since his election to Congress more than 20 years ago. He will continue to pressure Congress to raise it again, this time by $1 to $6.15.

Bush opposes a real minimum wage increase and instead proposed a change that would let states opt out of a federal $1-an-hour boost. Texas’ working poor who are not covered by the federal minimum wage law earn the state minimum wage of $3.35 an hour (or $6,968 a year for full-time work).

FAMILY AND MEDICAL LEAVE/CHILD CARE

Gore was an early sponsor of the federal Family and Medical Leave Act and worked for its passage as Vice President. He has proposed expanding it to grant workers paid time off to care for a sick relative or to attend parent-teacher conferences. He proposes spending $182 million for quality child care.

Bush offers no position on Family and Medical Leave. This policy has not been a priority for the Texas governor, and he has not addressed the issue as a presidential candidate. Also, by such measures as immunizations, and dropout and teen-pregnancy rates, Texas ranks as one of the worst states — 48th for raising children and in its delivery of social services; and 2nd highest in number of children raised in poverty and number of children without health insurance.

"PAYCHECK PROTECTION" & CAMPAIGN FINANCE

Gore opposed the anti-union "paycheck protection" proposals and denounced them as "paycheck destruction." He has proposed real campaign finance reform that includes:

• A ban on soft money and on political parties raising or spending unlimited contributions from both unions and corporations.
• A non-partisan Democracy Endowment to provide for public financing of congressional elections.
• Free airtime in the final 30 days before an election.
• Requirements that groups running independent-expenditure campaigns and special-interest committees list donors; and lobbyists report their activities frequently and post them on the Internet.

Bush supports "paycheck protection" legislation. That would require unions to undertake a cumbersome paperwork collection procedure to get permission from every member every year to use dues for political purposes, but not require the same of corporations and their shareholders. The real motivation behind "paycheck deception" is to silence the political voice of working families, since union members’ paychecks are already "protected" by a Supreme Court ruling that allows members to request refunds of dues spent on political activities to which they object. Bush supports bans on soft money from unions and corporations, but would increase the amount individuals are allowed to give.

HEALTH CARE REFORMS

Gore has helped to enact the federal Children’s Health Insurance program, the Mental Health Parity Act and other laws to help people keep their health insurance when they change jobs.

Gore has fought for HMO reforms and a Patients’ Bill of Rights. He supports:

• allowing people aged 55 to 64 to buy into Medicare;
• creating a prescription drug benefit for Medicare;
• enacting a long-term-care tax credit and a refundable tax credit for insurance for the self-employed; and
• strengthening the safety net system of community health centers, public hospitals and academic medical centers.
• expanding the Children’s Health Insurance Program to cover more of them and some of their parents.

Since becoming governor, Bush has not made health care a priority — despite a large budget surplus, Bush has not tried to tackle some of Texas’ most urgent health care problems — having the nation’s highest rate of uninsured residents and numerous public-health problems. Nearly 5 million Texans — one-fourth of the population — are uninsured. At the border, infectious diseases are widespread. Yet as governor, Bush has not made one speech on health care since taking office in 1995. He first addressed the issue while campaigning for President in April 2000.

The Bush plan would spend $41.6 billion to provide refundable tax credits of $2,000 for families making up to $30,000, and $1,000 for individuals making up to $15,000. However, the actual costs of insurance for a family averages $4,000 in an employer-sponsored program and $6,000 to buy insurance on one’s own. The Bush plan is unlikely to significantly reduce the number of uninsured because low- and middle-income families would probably not be able to afford to make up the difference. In addition, Bush still has not addressed the issue of making prescription drugs more affordable.

PROTECTING PENSION FUNDS

As a senator and as Vice President, Gore has fought for legislation to protect pensions and to make it easier for workers to move pension funds to a new job.

By contrast, Bush broke a campaign promise to Texas teachers and cut $400 million in funding from the state’s Teacher Retirement System in 1995. He also proposed a $47 million raid on the pension fund to pay for administrative costs.

Bottom line: AFSCME recommends Gore in 2000!

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