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         CLINTON/GORE ON AMERICAN FAMILIES



Washington has abandoned working families.  While
taxes fall and incomes rise for those at the top of
the totem pole, middle class families have worked
harder for less money and paid more taxes to a
government that failed to produce what we need:
good jobs in a growing economy, world-class
education, affordable health care and safe streets
and neighborhoods.

The Republicans have lectured America on the
importance of family values.  But their policies
have made life harder for working families: They
have forced parents to choose between the jobs they
need and the families they love, and they've
slashed funding for programs that prepare kids for
kindergarten, send teens on to college, and save us
all money. They have stood idly by as neighborhoods
collapse, violent crime rises, and health costs
skyrocket.

A Clinton/Gore Administration will demand more from
families, but it will offer more, too.  It will
demand that parents pay the child support they owe.
But it will offer their children the pre-schooling
they need.  It will demand that young people stay
in school and off drugs.  But it will offer all
Americans safer streets and the chance to borrow
for college.  A Clinton/Gore Administration will
demand that people work hard and play by the rules.
It will honor and reward those who do.

We cannot afford another four years of a President
who doesn't have a plan to help Americas families
and who backs down from the promises he does make.
It is time for a change -- time to put people
first.

Treat families right

*    Grant additional tax relief to families with
     children.

*    Sign into law the Family and Medical Leave
     Act, which George Bush vetoed in 1990, so that
     no worker is forced to choose between keeping
     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; give parents choices
     between competing public and private
     institutions.

*    Establish more rigorous standards for
     licensing child care facilities and implement
     improved methods for enforcing them.

*    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.

Educate our children

*    Send children to school ready to learn by
     fully funding pre-school programs which save
     us several dollars for every one we spend  --
     Head Start, the Women Infants and Children
     (WIC) program, and other critical initiatives
     recommended by the National Commission on
     Children.

*    Develop national parenting programs like
     Arkansas Home Instructional Program for
     Pre-school Youngsters to help disadvantaged
     parents work with their children to build an
     ethic of learning at home that benefits both.

*    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
     they have in Arkansas; in return, demand that
     parents work with their children to keep them
     in school, off drugs, and headed toward
     graduation.

*    Establish 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.

*    Give every American the right to borrow for
     college by scrapping the existing student loan
     program and establishing 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.

Guarantee every family the right to quality,
affordable health care

*    Control costs, improve quality and cover
     everybody under a national health care plan
     that requires insurers to offer a core
     benefits package, including pre-natal care and
     other important preventive treatments.

*    Take on the insurance industry by simplifying
     financial and accounting procedures; banning
     underwriting practices that waste billions
     trying to discover which patients are bad
     risks; and prohibiting companies from denying
     coverage to individuals with pre-existing
     conditions.

*    Stop drug price gouging by eliminating tax
     breaks for drug companies that raise their
     prices faster than Americans incomes rise.

Make our homes, streets and schools safe again

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

*    Put 100,000 new police officers on the streets
     by establishing a National Police Corps drawn
     partly from military veterans and active
     military personnel.

*    Expand community policing to stop crimes
     before they happen by taking officers out of
     patrol cars and putting them back on the beat.

*    Sign the Brady Bill to create a waiting period
     for handgun purchases and allow authorities to
     conduct background checks to prevent guns from
     falling into the wrong hands; work to ban
     assault rifles that have no legitimate hunting
     purpose.

*    Launch a Safe Schools Initiative to help
     schools take back their facilities as places
     of learning: make schools eligible for federal
     assistance to pay for metal detectors and
     security personnel if they need them;
     encourage states to get tougher with in-school
     crime; and fund mentoring, counseling, and
     outreach programs so kids in trouble with
     crime, drugs or gangs have some place to turn.

Reward working families

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

*    Put an end to welfare as we know it by making
     welfare a second chance, not a way of life;
     empower people on welfare with the education,
     training and child care they need, for up to
     two years, so they can break the cycle of
     dependence after that, those who can work will
     have to find a job either in the private
     sector or in community service.

Providing fairness for families

*    Governor Clinton proposed and passed a measure
     which reduced or eliminated state income taxes
     for 374,000 Arkansans.  Because of his
     leadership, Arkansas tax burden is the second
     lowest in the country.

*    Directed the Arkansas Child Support
     Enforcement Unit in aggressively enforcing
     child support laws.  The Unit has received
     national recognition for its success.
     Collections totalled more than $41 million in
     1991, a 20 percent increase from 1990.

*    Senator Gore cosponsored the Family and
     Medical Leave Act of 1991, which George Bush
     vetoed.

*    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.

*    Sponsored the Gore/Downey Working Families Tax
     Relief Act for families with children to
     expand the earned income tax credit program to
     help lift working families out of poverty.

*    In 1992 Gore sponsored the Family Reunion
     Conference in Nashville, TN, 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

Improving education

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

*    Fought to establish tough standards for
     teachers, students, and schools; increased
     parental involvement; raised teacher salaries;
     developed a new curriculum, including advanced
     college preparation courses in math and
     science; revoked the drivers licenses of
     students who drop out of school before age 18
     for no good reason.

*    Increased education funding; Arkansas ranks
     fifth in the nation over the last decade in
     percentage increase of funding for higher
     education.

*    Guided Arkansas to the highest high school
     graduation rate in the region; and helped to
     increase the college attendance rate from 38.2
     percent in 1982 to 41.3 in 1991.

*    Created a youth apprenticeship program to aid
     and motivate non college-bound students.

*    Established the Arkansas Academic Challenge
     Scholarship program to provide scholarships to
     middle-income and poor students who maintain a
     minimum GPA, score 19 on the ACT, and stay off
     drugs.

*    Created a college bond program to allow
     parents to buy short- or long-term college
     bonds, not taxed in Arkansas, to finance their
     childrens education.

*    Senator Gore supported the Neighborhood
     Schools Improvement Act, which affirms the
     national education goals and establishes an
     assessment panel to report on reaching these
     goals; improves teacher and school leader
     training; strengthens parental involvement;
     provides for school year and day extension;
     expands dropout prevention efforts; and
     increases the use of educational technology.

*    Voted for legislation to expand Pell Grants
     eligibility, increase grant levels, and
     increase the availability of grants and loans
     to middle-income families.

*    Voted for the Vocational Education which funds
     education in skilled trades beyond high
     school.

Protecting health

*    Governor Clinton launched Arkansas first
     school-based health clinics.  Today there are
     21 such clinics, reaching thousands of
     Arkansas' children who wouldn't otherwise have
     access to health care.

*    Cut Arkansas infant mortality rate almost in
     half through improved pre-natal and post-natal
     care.

*    Proposed and passed a Health Care Access Law
     designed to provide, among other things,
     universal health coverage for all Arkansas
     children under age 16, regardless of family
     income. The law emphasizes preventive and
     primary care.

*    Sharply increased efforts to improve rural
     health: the Rural Physician Recruitment and
     Retention Program encourages physicians to
     locate and practice family medicine in small
     Arkansas communities; the Rural Medical
     Practice Student Loans and Scholarships
     provide support for medical students agreeing
     to practice in rural communities.

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

*    Authored legislation that resulted in FDA
     regulations banning the use of
     life-threatening sulfites on fresh fruits and
     vegetables.

*    Led the successful fight for warning labels on
     alcohol beverages that provide consumers --
     particularly pregnant women -- with critical
     information.

*    Wrote and steered to passage the Cigarette
     Labeling Act to require stronger warning
     labels.

*    In August 1992, Arkansas was one of twelve
     states which received funding as part of the
     Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's State
     Initiatives in Health Care Financing Reform
     Programs.  Arkansas was chosen for its
     innovative approach to increase health care
     insurance coverage to residents and to contain
     the escalating costs of care.

Getting tough on crime

*    Governor Clinton Increased penalties for drug
     dealing and violent crime.

*    Established innovative
boot camps to instill discipline in non-violent
first-time offenders.

*    Built more prisons and kept costs down.

*    Senator Gore cosponsored legislation to
     provide a mandatory 5-year prison sentence for
     anyone who used a gun to commit a federal
     crime.

*    Supported the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986
     which attacks drug abuse in our country with
     reinforced interdiction efforts, expanded
     prevention, education and treatment programs,
     assistance to local law enforcement, and
     stiffer criminal penalties.

Fighting dependency

*    Governor Clinton helped draft and Senator Gore
     supported the most significant welfare reform
     legislation ever, the Family Support Act of
     1988.  Arkansas welfare-to-work program,
     Project Success was one of the first three
     such efforts implemented, and has helped
     almost 10,000 Arkansans find work in one year
     alone.

*    Removed a quarter of a million low-income
     Arkansans from the tax rolls.
