Re: Barack 2008!
Barack Obama on education
On No Child Left Behind law
Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., was not in office when Congress passed an education bill in 2001 that requires states to annually test students, known as the No Child Left Behind law. He has said it is a well-intentioned attempt to erase long-standing achievement gaps between white and minority students, but he believes
the Bush administration ruined it through inflexible application. Obama wants more money for schools and to move away from traditional testing to judge schools.
On making college affordable
Obama has been pushing for an increase in the federal Pell grant awards that students can get to pay for college. That increase was part of a wide-ranging college funding bill that the Senate passed in September 2007.
Obama was a co-sponsor of legislation that President Bush signed in September 2007 lowering fees and cutting interest rates for student loans by half, to 3.4%, and increasing Pell grant awards from $4,310 in 2007 to $5,400 by 2012.
Other education priorities
Obama says he wants to
improve teacher quality and increase pay, especially for those teachers who also mentor students or boost achievement. Obama has said, however, that
improvements in achievement shouldn’t be based “on some arbitrary test score.”
(THIS IS CURRENT THINKING IN AUSTRALIA!)
Barack Obama on abortion:
On Roe v. Wade
Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., has said a woman's right to decide how many children to have and when is one of the nation's most fundamental freedoms.
Obama opposes a constitutional amendment or federal law banning abortion.
At a forum in July conducted by the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Obama implied that he would appoint Supreme Court nominees who support Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision legalizing abortion.
"With one more vacancy on the court, we could be looking at a majority hostile to a woman's fundamental right to choose for the first time since Roe v. Wade, and that is what is at stake in this election," Obama said. "It is time for a different attitude in the White House. It is time for a different attitude in the Supreme Court."
In the U.S. Senate,
Obama voted in 2005 to minimize cuts to Medicaid, a move that Planned Parenthood said would prevent cuts to services such as family planning.
In 2006, Obama voted against making it a federal crime for anyone other than a parent to accompany a minor across state lines to get an abortion. The bill did not become law.
The National Right to Life Committee, which opposes abortion rights, said Obama never voted with the group's interests in 2005 and 2006. Planned Parenthood, which supports abortion rights, said Obama voted 100% of the time with the group's interests in 2006.
Barack Obama on Iraq:
On going to war
Democrat Barack Obama was an Illinois state senator in 2002 when Congress voted to give President Bush the authority to use military force against Iraq.
“I don’t oppose all wars. “What I am opposed to is a dumb war,” Obama said at the time. He predicted that even a successful war in Iraq would require “a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at an undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences,” and “fan the flames of the Middle East.”
On Bush's troop increase
Obama, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was opposed to Bush’s plan in January 2007 to temporarily build up U.S. troop levels in Iraq to combat sectarian violence and help Iraqis achieve independence. In September 2007, Obama also criticized Bush’s proposal to withdraw those additional troops by summer 2008 but leave behind about 130,000 forces. “He is bound to the same failed course that we have seen for the last several years,” Obama said of Bush.
On moving forward
Obama proposed in September 2007 to remove all U.S. combat troops in Iraq by the end of 2008. He called for a “new approach” on achieving
reconciliation among the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds in Iraq. Obama’s plan also would escalate diplomatic efforts to engage Iraq’s neighbors and the United Nations to help stabilize Iraq, and provide more humanitarian aid to the war-torn country.
Barack Obama on immigration:
On border security
Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., said in 2006 that dealing with border security is “only one side of the equation.” He voted for final passage of a bill in September 2006 that called for 700 miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexican border, after opposing a version in May of that year. The measure, signed into law by President Bush, was an alternative to a broader approach on border security and immigration that died from lack of consensus.
On immigration overhaul
Obama supported the 2007 comprehensive bill that would have established a “guest-worker” program,
provided a path to citizenship for most of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the USA, emphasized worker skills for visas instead of family ties and beefed up border security. That measure never got an up-or-down vote, but Obama voted for a similar bill in 2006.
“
For the millions here illegally but otherwise playing by the rules, we must encourage them to come out of hiding and get right with the law,” he said on his campaign website. That means, he said, paying a fine, learning English, not committing any crimes and then going “to the back of the line” to apply for citizenship.
Obama also has advocated that employers need to do more to check the legal status of their workers. His plan calls for a new employment eligibility verification system, according to his campaign website.
http://asp.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/issues.aspx?i=4&c=12