Barack Obama's Plan to Change America

Barack Obama believes we can unite people around a politics that puts solving the challenges of everyday Americans ahead of partisan calculation and special interest politics.

Iraq
Obama opposed the war in Iraq from the beginning, and has a plan to responsibly end the war. Obama would immediately begin to pull out troops engaged in combat operations and pressure the Iraqi government to reconcile. He would call for a new constitutional convention with the United Nations. And he would take immediate steps to confront the humanitarian disaster in
Iraq.

Healthcare
Obama will sign legislation by the end of his first term in office that will provide quality, affordable and portable health care to every single American. His plan will save a typical family up to $2,500 every year by providing health coverage for every American, modernizing the U.S. healthcare system to contain costs, promoting prevention, and strengthening public health.

Economy
Obama will restore fairness to the tax code and provide 150 million workers with a tax cut, including a new tax credit worth up to $500 per worker. He will make strategic long-term investments in research, infrastructure, education, training, and workforce development so that America can create new high-wage jobs and prosper in the world economy. Barack Obama will fight for trade agreements that grow American jobs and contain good labor and environmental standards.

Education
Obama is committed to strengthening our public schools. He will increase investment in early childhood education, and reform and fund No Child Left Behind. Obama will support paying teachers like the professionals they are and will encourage the development of professional, differentiated teacher compensation systems. Pay reform will be done with teachers, not to them. He will make college affordable for every American by expanding grant aid and reforming federal student loans to free up more money for student aid.

Energy and the Environment
Obama has been a leader in the fight to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and minimize the effects of climate change on our planet. He strongly supports the most aggressive cap-and-trade approach to achieve an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2050.

John McCain has given up on fighting to keep jobs here

Under the guise of "straight talk," John McCain has given up on fighting to keep jobs in the US. During the primary campaign, McCain told Midwestern workers that jobs will be lost and they would continue to be lost under his presidency.

So it is ironic that McCain chose to attack Barack Obama on the issue of jobs and energy policy at a biker rally earlier this month.

According to new post at AFL-CIO Now, McCain opposed provisions in 2005 that would have required the US government to purchase Harley-Davidson motorcycles.

McCain has called such provisions "disgraceful."

To quote the AFL-CIO post:

"As we’ve noted, McCain has supported the outsourcing of jobs. His campaign is staffed and funded by corporate lobbyists, including Rick Davis, the lobbyist whose DHL deal could result in thousands of lost jobs in Ohio, and Randy Altschuler, an outsourcing guru who advises companies on how to ship jobs overseas."

McCain favors "free trade" agreements that have cost Michigan tens of thousands of jobs, and opposes provisions that protect workers and the environment. He prefers to hand authority over the US economy to international financial institutions that make judgments about how our policies impact "free trade."

Michigan workers simply can't another four years of George W. Bush under John McCain.

Michigan Senator Calls for Great Lakes Water Compact

Calling the Great Lakes Water Compact the next step in fully protecting Michigan's great lakes ecosystems and clean water for the future, Sen. Carl Levin (D) introduced a resolution to pass the Great Lakes Water Resources Compact. The compact says, “the protection of the integrity of the Great Lakes Ecosystem shall be the overarching principle for reviewing proposals.”

The measure would use scientific principles to determine whether water can be diverted from the lakes, a shift from the Republican mind-set of doing anything to environment in order to let corporations make profits. The compact imposes "a scientific method for determining whether to allow a proposal to divert water from the Great Lakes, it makes our efforts to protect the lakes more clearly compliant with international trade agreements."

The measure also protects environmental standards from manipulation or challenge by countries or other international entities that might seek to weaken environmental protections here as part of a hindrance to "free trade."

I think the measure hints a serious and meaningful alternatives to the do-anything, free trade mentality that ruled while Republicans controlled our government. Now we are seeing the beginning of responsible protections that have a better shot at preserving water, animal and plant species, and other environmental ecosystems that we as humans need in order to survive.

Free trade, profits, and the market should not be prioritized over human needs or its survival.

Read Levin's full statement here...