A Refresher Course

In case you were wondering or were unable to do the research yourself or just need a little bit of a refresher before election day here is a synopsis on where the candidates stand on some of the issues.  This is not an inclusive list and I tried to be as brief and through as possible so forgive me if I made some generalizations.  I got most of this information from the New York Times. 

Abortion: Obama is pro-choice and supports Roe v. Wade.  McCain is pro-life and wants to overturn Roe v. Wade but has supported it in the past.

Afghanistan: Obama has promised to ramp up the American military effort, particularly on the Pakistani border.   McCain said that he would increase the number of troops in Afghanistan.

Climate Change: Obama believes that the US must lead global efforts to reduce emissions.  He wants to reduce carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050.  Wants to double fuel economy standanrds.  McCain says the US should work toward a global effort. He wants to reduce carbon emissions by 60 percent by 2050.  Has voiced support for an increase in fuel economy but has not specified a standard.

Costs: Obama stimulus plan would cost $175 billion.  McCain's plan would cost $353 billion mostly due to the mortgage purchases.

Early Education: Obama wants to create challenge grants to help states move toward voluntary, universal preschol.  Wants to provide affordable child care and increase Head Start funding and quality.  McCain wants to provide $200,000 per year to each existing Head Start program with a proven record of success.  He is against nationally imposed standards or federal funding strings.

Financial Aid: Obama wants to streamline the application process and increase the maximum Pell grant award to $5,000.  McCain wants to consolidate aid programs to improve their administration and lessen deterrents to eligible families.

Health Care: Obama would require employers to provide insurance or contribute to the cost.  Provide subsidies for low-income people.  Would make plans portable from job to job and prohibit insurance companies from denying coverage to people with health problems.  McCain seeks to provide $2,500 tax credit for individuals and $5,000 for families to buy their own insurance.  Wants to bring greater competition to drug markets by safe reimportation of drugs and streamlining the process for introducing generic drugs.  Offer federal assistance for states to create high risk pools that would contract with insurers to cover consumers who have been rejected on the open market.  Moves to compensate medical providers based on the quality of their work.

Iran: Obama said he would do anything in his power to keep Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon and would be willing to meet with the Iranian president with no preconditions during the first year of his administration.  McCain has called for strong sanctions on Iran and would be willing to act militarily.  He would not negotiate with Iranians without preconditions.

Iraq: Obama says he will remove one or two brigades a month and get all the combat troops out within 16 months. McCain says we must pursue victory in Iraq first, and worry about bringing troops home after but projects that most American forces would be home by 2013.

Job Creation:  Obama would invest $25 billion to repair roads, bridges, and to make schools more energy efficient.  Would also double loan guarantees for automakers to $50 billion.  McCain supported the legislation to grant $25 billion in loan guarantees to automakers.  He proposes building 45 nuclear power plants by 2030 to create 700,000 jobs.

Mortgage Crisis: Obama would enact a 90-day moratorium on most home foreclosures, requiring financial institutions that take government help to agree not to act against homeowners who are trying to make payments.  McCain would like to purchase troubled mortgages directly from financial institutions and replace them with fixed-rate, government guaranteed mortgages at the home's reduced value.

Oil: Obama supports taxing oil company windfall profits and use the money to support is middle class tax cut.  McCain opposes taxing oil company's saying it would increase our dependence on foreign oil.

Taxes: Obama wants to repeal the Bush tax cuts for households earning more than $250,000.  Extend middle class cuts and eliminate income taxes for senior citizens with up to $50,000 in income.  Increase capital gains tax from 15 percent to 20 percent.  McCain wants to make permanent nearly all of the Bush tax cuts.  Propose cutting capital gains tax to 7.5 percent from 15 percent.  

Teachers: Obama would offer federal financing to districts that negotiated performance pay programs with teachers' unions and allow bonus for veteran teachers who teach in hard to staff schools or demonstrated high levels of performance.  He proposes to create 200 teacher residency programs and wants to create new teacher scholarships.  McCain would reallocate 60 percent of the $3 billion in current federal spending on teacher quality programs to finance direct payments to high performing teachers.  He would devote 5 percent of the spending to recruitment of top new teachers and 35 percent to the discretion of the schools.