On the Issues: Barack Obama and John McCain

SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D)

IMMIGRATION

• • Preserve the integrity of the U.S. borders. Support additional personnel, infrastructure and technology on the border and at the ports of entry
• • Increase the number of legal immigrants to keep families together and meet the demand for jobs employers can't fill
• • Crack down on employers who hire undocumented immigrants
• • Allow undocumented immigrants in good standing to pay a fine, learn English and go to the back of the line to become citizens
• • Promote economic development in Mexico to decrease illegal immigration

ABORTION

• • Supports reproductive choice and will make preserving women's rights a priority
• • Oppose any constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court's decision
• • Support the Prevention First Act to increase funding for family planning and comprehensive sex education that teaches both abstinence and safe sex methods. This will end insurance discrimination against contraception, improve awareness about emergency contraception and provide assistance to rape victims, he says

HEALTH CARE

• • Insurance companies must cover pre-existing conditions
• • Create a Small Business Health Tax Credit for small businesses to provide affordable insurance to their employees
• • Lower costs for businesses by covering a portion of the catastrophic health costs they pay in return for lower employee premiums
• • Prevent insurers from overcharging doctors for their malpractice insurance and invest in proven strategies to reduce medical errors
• • Establish a National Health Insurance Exchange with a range of private insurance options and a new public plan based on benefits available to Congress members
• • Allowing the importation of medicines from other countries, increasing the use of generic drugs in public programs and taking on drug companies that block cheaper medicines from the market
• • Increase competition by taking on anticompetitive activity that drives up health prices without improving the quality of care.

IRAQ

• • End the war
• • Remove troops in a phased manner, directed by military commanders on the ground and done in consultation with the Iraqi government
• • Redeploy combat brigades from Iraq at a pace of one to two brigades per month to remove them in 16 months
• • Keep a residual force in Iraq to conduct targeted counter-terrorism missions against al Qaeda and to protect American personnel
• • Secure Iraq's borders, keep neighboring countries from meddling inside Iraq, isolate al Qaeda, support reconciliation among sectarian groups and provide support for Iraq's reconstruction and development
• • Provide at least $2 billion to expand services to Iraqi refugees in neighboring countries, and ensure Iraqis in their own country find sanctuary.

ENVIRONMENT

• • Provide short-term relief to families paying high gas prices
• • Help create 5 million new jobs by investing $150 billion over the next 10 years to encourage private efforts to build clean energy
• • Save more oil than the United States currently imports from the Middle East and Venezuela
• • By 2015, add 1 million plug-in hybrid cars, to be built in the United States
• • Create a $7,000 tax credit for purchasing advanced vehicles
• • Ensure 10 percent of electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012 and 25 percent by 2025.
• • Implement an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050
• • Enact a Windfall Profits Tax to provide $1,000 emergency energy rebate to families
• • Establish a low carbon fuel standard
• • Require old companies to develop the 68 million acres of land they are not drilling on.
• • Weatherize 1 million low-income homes each year for the next decade.

EDUCATION

• • Create Early Learning Challenge Grants to promote state preschool efforts and help states toward voluntary, universal pre-school
• • Quadruple Early Head Start, increase Head Start funding and improve quality for both
• • Reform No Child Left Behind Act through increased funding and improving assessments and accountability system
• • Support college outreach programs
• • Support transitional bilingual education
• • Pair experienced teachers with recruits to provide mentoring
• • Require school districts to reward accomplished teachers
• • Simplify financial aid applications

ECONOMY

• • Provide middle-class families with at least $1,000 per year in tax relief.
• • Provide $25 billion to prevent cuts in health, education, housing and heating assistance and prevent increases in property taxes, tolls or fees
• • Provide $25 billion in a Jobs and Growth Fund to prevent cutbacks in road and bridge maintenance, and fund school repair
• • Eliminate income taxes for seniors making less than $50,000
• • Pressure the World Trade Organization (WTO) to enforce trade agreements and stop countries from continuing unfair government subsidies to foreign exporters and non-tariff barriers on U.S. exports
• • Amend the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
• • End tax breaks for companies that send jobs overseas, provide tax credit to companies that provide good jobs with benefits
• • Invest in the manufacturing sector and create 5 million green jobs
• • Provide tax relief for small businesses and start-ups
• • Strengthen workers' ability of workers to organize unions by fighting for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act
• • Increase the minimum wage and index it to inflation
• • Give a tax credit to all middle-class homeowners
• • Create a 10 percent mortgage credit to provide homeowners who do not itemize tax relief
• • Create a Homeowner Obligation Made Explicit score to provide borrowers with a standardized metric for mortgages
• • Establish a Credit Card Bill of Rights to stop credit card companies from exploiting consumers
• • Cap interest rates on payday loans and improve disclosure
• • States should adopt paid leave

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R)

IMMIGRATION

• • Ensure adequate funding for resources, training facilities, staff and technologies
• • Fund U.S. attorney's offices in border states
• • Implement policies for contracting Department of Homeland Security software and infrastructure
• • Institute targeted auditing by the Department of Labor to end employers' abuse of the system
• • Ensure the cap rises and falls with market demand to meet the economy's needs
• • Provide worker protection to guard against abuses of temporary workers
• • Offer a limited number of green cards to reflect the number of workers that may wish to stay in the United States
• • Assure that the remaining undocumented immigrants learn English, pay back taxes and fines and pass a citizenship course as part of a path to legal status
• • Guarantee that no person illegally receives a green card before those who have been legally waiting outside the country

ABORTION

• • Restore constitutional balance by reversing Roe v. Wade, returning the abortion question to states
• • Empower government and strengthen organizations that support single mothers. These groups can help build the consensus necessary to end abortion at the state level.
• • Seek ways to promote adoption as a first option

HEALTH CARE

• • Use competition to improve the quality of health insurance with greater variety to match people's needs through lower prices and portability
• • Make health care available to all
• • Families should be in charge of their health care dollars and have more control over care. They should be able to choose their health insurance.
• • Make every family receive a refundable tax credit of $2,500 for an individual and $5,000 for families
• • Establish a nonprofit corporation to have insurers cover patients who were denied insurance because of pre-existing conditions
• • Re-import drugs and support faster introduction of generic drugs
• • Promote having providers collaborate to produce the best health care
• • Reform the payment systems in Medicaid and Medicare to compensate providers for diagnosis, prevention and care.

IRAQ

• • Stay in Iraq until the United States has supported the government of Iraq in becoming capable of governing itself and guarding its people
• • Establish a stable, prosperous and democratic state in Iraq that poses no threat to its neighbors and contributes to end terrorism
• • Support a larger United Nations role in supporting the elections in Iraq.
• • Help the economy in Iraq by using a portion of the budget surplus to employ Iraqis in infrastructure projects
• • Help Iraq's government deliver basic services.
• • Call for international pressure on Syria and Iran.

ENVIRONMENT

• • Lift federal restrictions on domestic oil
• • Expand the use of domestic supplies of national gas
• • Reform the U.S. transportation sector
• • Commit a $5,000 tax credit for each customer who buys a zero-carbon-emission car
• • Propose a $300 million prize to improve battery technology for the development of plug-in hybrid and fully electric automobiles
• • Support exploration of alcohol-based fuels
• • Eliminate mandates, subsidies, tariffs and price supports that focus exclusively on corn-based ethanol
• • Enforce the mileage requirements that automobile manufacturers' cars must meet
• • Commit $2 billion annually to advancing clean-coal technologies
• • Construct 45 nuclear power plants by 2030 with the goal of building 100 new plants

EDUCATION

• • Use No Child Left Behind to hold schools to high standards
• • Have schools compete to be the most innovative, flexible and student centered
• • Reward accomplished teachers
• • Support tutoring programs for students struggling to meet state standards
• • Give $500 million to build new virtual schools and support the development of online courses
• • Recruit teachers who graduate in the top 25 percent of their class or who participate in an alternative recruitment program
• • Provide incentives for high-performing teachers to locate in challenging educational settings
• • Devote 35 percent of Title II funding to cover schools' needs
• • Give principals greater control over spending
• • Simplify higher education tax benefits and federal financial aid
• • Eliminate earmarks on research

ECONOMY

• • Promote telecommuting so workers can spend less time commuting
• • Provide workers with more choice in job training assistance
• • Increase the value of the dollar
• • Ensure assistance for borrowers is focused on homeowners and government assistance to the banking system is based on preventing risk
• • Reform civil service system to promote accountability and good performance in the federal workforce
• • Restrain the growth in spending and cutting taxes over 10 years
• • Reform large spending pressures in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid
• • Cut the corporate tax rate from 35 to 25 percent.
• • Reduce the Estate Tax rate to 15 percent and permit a $10 million exemption
• • Encourage the growth of more jobs through more free trade agreements.
• • Overhaul unemployment insurance and make it a program for retraining, relocating and assisting workers who have lost jobs