Newsgroups: alt.politics.clinton
Subject: ==> Clinton/Gore On Helping America's Children
Supersedes: <92282.223624U56503@uicvm.uic.edu>
Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago
Date: Thursday, 8 Oct 1992 23:13:49 CDT
From: <U56503@uicvm.uic.edu>

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Information in the public interest which does not imply that it
is the opinion of UIC.  Contact 75300.3115@compuserve.com for
further information.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    CLINTON/GORE ON HELPING AMERICA'S CHILDREN



For far too long we have failed to address the
needs of America's children.  We do not provide
them with adequate health care, the best education
or protection from violence, and we do not address
the special problems of the disadvantaged.  We need
to achieve bold reform to help every child reach
his or her full potential.

It is time to put children first. The next
generation of young people should not be America's
first to grow into a less certain future than their
parents. Bill Clinton and Al Gore will make sure
that America's children are prepared for the 21st
century -- with the education, the health care, and
the safe neighborhoods they need.

Our children and our country cannot afford another
four years of neglect.  It is time for action.

The Clinton/Gore Plan


Guarantee quality, affordable health care

*    Control costs, improve quality, and cover
     everybody under a national health care plan.
     The Clinton/Gore plan will require insurers to
     offer a core package of benefits, including
     pre-natal care and other important preventive
     care benefits.

*    Create a nationwide program like Arkansas'
     Good Beginnings to provide health care
     services to more low-income women and their
     children.

*    Develop a comprehensive maternal and child
     health network to reduce both the infant
     mortality rate and the number of low
     birth-weight babies  - because every child
     deserves a fighting chance to grow up healthy.

*    Fully fund the Women, Infants and Children
     (WIC) program and other critical initiatives
     recommended by the National Commission on
     Children that save us several dollars for
     every one we spend.

Revolutionize lifetime learning

*    Make good on the Bush Administrations broken
     promises by fully funding Head Start and other
     pre-school programs.

*    Through innovative parenting programs like the
     Home Instructional Program for Pre-school
     Youngsters (HIPPY), help disadvantaged parents
     work with their children to build an ethic of
     learning at home that benefits both parent and
     child.

*    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
     Governor Clinton has done in Arkansas.

*    Create 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.

*    Develop a national apprenticeship system to
     give kids who don't want to go to college the
     skills they need to find high-wage jobs.

*    Give every American the opportunity to borrow
     money for college: retain the Pell grant
     program but scrap the existing college loan
     program and establish 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.

Make our homes, schools, and streets safer for
children

*    Crack down on violence against women and
     children.  Sign the Violence Against Women
     Act, which would provide tougher enforcement
     and stiffer penalties to deter domestic
     violence.

*    Launch a Safe Schools Initiative so kids can
     focus on learning again: make schools eligible
     for federal assistance to pay for metal
     detectors and security personnel if they need
     them; encourage states to grant school
     officials greater authority to conduct locker
     and automobile searches; and fund mentoring
     and outreach programs so kids in trouble with
     crime, drugs or gangs will have someone to
     turn to.
*    Establish school-based clinics and drug
     education programs to prevent drug abuse, and
     to help kids who get hooked on drugs.

*    Promote AIDS education in American schools.

*    Set standards for crime emergency areas by
     making communities hit hardest by crime
     eligible for federal matching funds to assist
     in the war on crime when they adopt proven
     anti-crime measures.

*    Fight crime by putting 100,000 new police
     officers on the streets; create a National
     Police Corps and offer unemployed veterans and
     active military personnel a chance to become
     law enforcement officers here at home.

*    Expand community policing, fund more drug
     treatment, and establish community boot camps
     to discipline first-time non-violent
     offenders.

*    Sign the Brady Bill, which will create a
     waiting period for the purchase of handguns
     and allow authorities to conduct background
     checks before guns fall into the wrong hands.

*    Work to ban assault rifles that have no
     legitimate hunting purpose.

Support pro-family and pro-children policies

*    Expand the Earned Income Tax Credit to
     guarantee a working wage  so that no American
     who works full-time is forced to raise their
     children in poverty.

*    Lower the tax burden on middle class Americans
     by asking the very wealthy to pay their fair
     share; give middle class taxpayers a choice
     between a children's tax credit or a
     significant reduction in their income tax
     rate.  Virtually every industrialized nation
     recognizes the importance of strong families
     in its tax code; we should, too.

*    Sign into law the Family and Medical Leave
     Act, which George Bush vetoed in 1990, so that
     no worker is forced to choose between
     maintaining 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; establish more rigorous
     standards for licensing child care facilities
     and implement improved methods for enforcing
     them.

*    Promote tough child support legislation and
     develop stricter, more effective methods to
     enforce it: 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.

Health care

*    Governor Clinton established 21 school-based
     health clinics serving thousands of Arkansas
     children who wouldn't otherwise have access to
     health care.  State health personnel use the
     clinics to fight problems that can devastate
     young lives.

*    Introduced programs to provide low-income
     women with access to comprehensive maternity
     and infant care. Arkansas infant mortality
     rate has dropped from 16.4 to 9.3 deaths per
     1,000 births, one of the lowest for a Southern
     state.

*    Proposed and passed a Health Care Access Law,
     a program designed to provide universal health
     care coverage by the year 2000 for all
     children 16 and under, regardless of family
     income.

*    Senator Gore was a principle sponsor of the
     Infant Formula Act to improve nutrition and
     safety standards.

*    Authored legislation that led the FDA to ban
     the use of life-threatening sulfites on fresh
     fruits and vegetables.

*    Voted for the Family and Medical Leave Act,
     which President Bush vetoed.

*    Authored and helped to enact into law the
     Trauma Core Revitalization Act, which makes
     grants to hospital trauma centers incurring
     substantial uncompensated costs in providing
     trauma care in areas with high rates of crime
     related to drug trafficking.

*    Gore conducted hearings that led to the
     passage of the National Organ Transplant Act,
     which he also helped to write.  The Act
     established a national network to match organ
     donors and recipients.

*    In 1992 Senator Gore sponsored the Family
     Reunion Conference in Nashville, Tennessee,
     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.

Protecting children

*    Governor Clinton created a Children's Trust
     Fund, financed by a $5 fee on marriage
     licenses, which grants funds for local child
     abuse and neglect prevention projects.

*    Established a Child Sexual Abuse Education
     Commission to train social workers, teachers,
     and others on the problems of child sexual
     abuse.

*    Cracked down on deadbeat parents by reporting
     those who owe more than $1,000 in support to
     major credit agencies.

*    Senator Gore 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.

Early childhood programs

*    Governor Clinton established the first
     state-wide Home Instructional Program for
     Pre-school Youngsters in 1986, which helps
     mothers teach their children to read. Arkansas
     is now the largest in the nation.

*    Launched the Arkansas Better Chance Program,
     which expands early childhood programs for
     at-risk children ages 3-5.

*    Raised standards for licensing child-care
     centers, hired more inspectors to enforce
     them, and established a fund to train child
     care workers.

*    Senator Gore voted for legislation to expand
     Head Start and bolster programs that help
     children  into elementary school.

*    Fought to continue funding for the Corporation
     for Public Broadcasting, in order to continue


Education

*    Governor Clinton created tough new standards
     for students, teachers and schools.

*    Provided matching funds to assist school
     districts in obtaining up-to-date scientific
     and technical equipment.

*    Demanded responsibility from students and
     parents.  In Arkansas, students who drop out
     of school for no good reason lose the
     privilege of a drivers license, and parents
     are fined if they repeatedly fail to show up
     for parent-teacher conferences.

*    Permitted parents to choose the public schools
     their children attend as long as an acceptable
     racial balance is maintained.

*    Created the Arkansas Academic challenge
     scholarships to provide college scholarships
     to middle income and poor students who achieve
     good grades, score 19 on the ACT and stay off
     drugs.

*    Got real results: under Bill Clinton's
     leadership, Arkansas students' test scores,
     graduation rates, and college attendance rates
     increased dramatically.

*    Senator Gore voted for the Neighborhood
     Schools Improvement Act, which provides
     assistance to school based management efforts,
     increases parental involvement, improves
     teacher training and aids dropout prevention.

*    Voted for legislation to expand funding for
     Chapter 1 and 2 programs for disadvantaged
     children.

*    Voted to expand the Pell Grant program,
     increasing the number of grants and lowering
     income eligibility standards.
Newsgroups: alt.politics.clinton