<p>One idea for paying to improve American’s infrastructure, is to move some of the money that is being spent on improving Iraq’s infrastructure back to this country. We could then use that money to improve our own infrastructure.</p>
<p>My one caveat would be we should use different contractors. In Iraq they have spent billions with nothing or very little to show for it, I would not want that to happen to the commuter routes between NH and Boston.</p>
<p>^ The point is that Hillary provided no ideas at all to explain possible funding sources for her plan.</p>
<p>She simply turned the question around and never answered it. She is very good at that. She is also fairly competent in delivering well crafted canned speeches loaded with facts and figures that no one will remember. Her campaign team does know how to conduct research on “hot” topics. I’ll give her that.</p>
<p>It is interesting that she did not accept any questions at her speech in NH. The campaign team is smart enough to try to control what she says. I am sure she was told to stick to the script!</p>
<p>Aren’t you kind of holding Hillary Clinton to a different standard? </p>
<p>I haven’t heard John Edwards offer any suggestions about how he will pay for his $120 million a year health care plan.</p>
<p>I haven’t heard the Republicans offer any plan for paying for an indefinite occupation of Iraq at $120 billion a year. Nor have I heard them proposing how they intend to pay for additional tax cuts.</p>
<p>I haven’t heard Barack Obama propose how he intends to pay for deficit reduction to reverse our debtor status with China?</p>
<p>Is this different standard because she’s a woman?</p>
<p>Your point is taken, except that Edwards offered a rather detailed plan as to how he would pay for his health care plan. (Tax the rich, and he provided details.)</p>
<p>But no double standard: </p>
<p><a href=“http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070809/ap_on_el_pr/clinton_nuclear_weapons_7;_ylt=AomIHthgsVsbe8bR0phxMLvkbeRF[/url]”>http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070809/ap_on_el_pr/clinton_nuclear_weapons_7;_ylt=AomIHthgsVsbe8bR0phxMLvkbeRF</a></p>
<p>I think it is her “experience” showing. She can’t even remember what she says. It’s not because she is a woman. Sometimes it’s hard to keep your story straight.</p>
<p>Yes, mini is correct. Edwards has been fairly detailed about how he would pay for his proposals. And at least one of his education plans, he implemented himself and used his own money (albeit on a much smaller scale!) in a poor rural high school in NC. It was successful:</p>
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</p>
<p>Here’s a link to how Edwards would pay for universal health care (basically by raising taxes and, yes, taxing the rich) and by forcing employers to provide health plans. That’s really the only way, isn’t it-- aside from using the money we’re now spending on Iraq-- which Richardson has suggested we use for that. That, too, sounds like a plan to me. Neither Obama nor Clinton has provided any details on how to fund universal health care.
<a href=“johnedwards.com”>johnedwards.com;
<p>Here’s another interesting quote from that link (though dated from early spring, I think):</p>
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</p>
<p>Here’s the full text of the question and answer about the specifc use of tactical nuclear weapons against Iran in the interview with then Senator Clinton:</p>
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</p>
<p>That is a different set of circumstances than taking strategic nuclear weapons off the table as deterrence against a declared nuclear power. Senator Clinton was referring to published reports that the Bush Cheney administration was considering first-use, pre-emptive strike nuclear options against Iran.</p>
<p>Text from:</p>
<p><a href=“http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/aug/09/heres_a_transcript_of_hillarys_full_no_nukes_exchange[/url]”>http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/aug/09/heres_a_transcript_of_hillarys_full_no_nukes_exchange</a></p>
<p>I’m not sure where you stand, but I would be vehemently opposed to a first-strike preemptive nuclear strike against Iran.</p>
<p>Jack, as a Edward supporter maybe you can explain Edwards’ college plan. It’s confused me since I first heard it.</p>
<p>We already have a Pell Grant program that pays up to roughly $20,000 for four years of college for 5 million low income students. </p>
<p>So what would be the point of a new program that pays roughly $5,000 (the average public college tuition) on a one shot one year deal for 2 million students? </p>
<p>Is this to replace the Pell Grant program and save money? Is it for higher income students? What happens to the recepients after their freshman year? Drop out of college?</p>
<p>I have no clue how this new federal program fits in the big picture.</p>
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<p>That’s not true. Clinton has been been quite specific that her goal is to move towards universal health care without increased spending. That why the first stage of her health care plan rollout was focused on reducing costs.</p>
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</p>
<p>BTW, Clinton believes that the employer mandate was one of the primary reasons her 1993 plan was politically still born. At the YearlyKOS convention, she listed the “employer mandate” basis of her plan as one of the three major mistakes that she made and that she would not repeat.</p>
<p>The first major mistake was the failure to have a political plan for concensus support. The other was the failure to get the buyin of health care professionals (doctors, nurses, hospitals) in the plan.</p>
<p>Edwards will never get an employer mandate plan passed by Congress. Thus, his plan is imaginary, not reality based.</p>
<p>"Aren’t you kind of holding Hillary Clinton to a different standard? "</p>
<p>No. Not at all. I can’t stand any candidate that uses double-speak to answer a direct question. She does it all the time. I agree with the other poster who called her a fraud. She has become the fabrication of an “ideal” candidate by a bunch of love-struck supporters, and her entire persona has been engineered by a shrewd campaign team with their own special interests in mind. The more I see or hear her, the more I see how she will say whatever she thinks the audience at hand wants to hear, or whatever her “machine” tells her to. She is a transparent political opportunist prostitute. (I stole some of that language too. I think it is a perfect description.) Again, this is just my opinion based on my own personal observations. The sad thing is that I have been trying to find something I like about her. I just haven’t found it yet.</p>
<p>Phew…Now I will go duck and cover for the night…;)</p>
<p>sokkermom:</p>
<p>You are correct. The Clinton formula for politics is simple. Of the millions of issues and action items a President could pursue (knowing that it is only possible to accomplish a few), which items are of most concern to the American people? And which of those items provide the basis for an achievable concensus. Focus on those. Address some problems. </p>
<p>It’s not flashy. But, if you really think about our democracy, dating back to the founding fathers, the Clintons probably understand it better than most. After all, the consititution was written to form a government capable of making incremental progress on a few issues in a sea of irreconcilable disagreement between the industrialized cites and the rural agrarian states.</p>
<p>The beauty of today’s government is that we have sophisticated polling to actually find out what the PEOPLE view as the most pressing problems impacting their lives.</p>
<p>Beyond that, just try to run a semi-competent executive branch, knowing that you’ll make as many mistakes as any other executive.</p>
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</p>
<p>How does universal health care work “without increased spending?” Any details on how that’s done? Or was that humor, ID? I can’t tell anymore.</p>
<p>As far as Edwards’ education plan, I believe he wants to increase the maximum Pell Grant and generally make student loans more affordable. One of his suggestions has been for students to borrow directly from the Dept of Education, not from banks.</p>
<p>More than that, as I understand it, he wants to try to reach the students and families who have never even viewed college as an option (those students who would probably be the first in their familly to attend college-- as he was). The idea is that if you make college a realistic goal for these kids and reduce their first year costs, you ultimately get more kids to enroll in the first place. His plan would pay for 1 year of public college tuition, fees, books, for ~2 million students; in return, they work part-time while in college, and they take college-prep courses in high school, and they stay out of trouble-- to be eligible. I’m not sure what happens after that first year . . .</p>
<p>As in the case of his pilot program at Greene High School in NC, the college-going rate for seniors had been 54%. Since his program started, it increased to 74%. His plan would also help fund some of these low-income schools to provide more guidance counselors, etc.</p>
<p>So his education plan is really two-fold, as I understand it-- to get students actually thinking about going to college (in areas and in families that have never really had that in their minds as a possibility), and to make it an affordable reality… </p>
<p>He’d also push to have public universities keep their tuition low; in order to do that, more money comes from taxpayers and the state legislatures (presumably).</p>
<p>So I think these are all worthwhile plans, but I do think a lot of it will come from higher taxes (I’m guessing)-- hopefully from the very wealthy.</p>
<p>jack, thank you for that helpful info.</p>
<p>“Clinton has been been quite specific that her goal is to move towards universal health care without increased spending.”</p>
<p>And there is an easy way to do it. Provide private insurance to the uninsured, and make it more difficult for those with insurance to get the care they need. Waiting times for elective procedures are now LONGER than in Canada, and we can certainly make 'em even longer. We can pay doctors not to make necessary referrals (as my old HMO did), and take what little funds currently exist in the public health system to care for the indigent and provide it (with a nice hefty profit built in) to the health insurance companies who will kick back a small portion to the new President’s friends and campaign chest. </p>
<p>It’s a ridiculous goal, pursued that way. (Edwards’ plan is only minorly better.) Wring out the 18-33% profit that health insurance companies rake off currently, divert emergency department visits to choice of providers unfettered by health insurance executives getting their cuts, regulate pharmaceutical companies like utilities, and one can indeed provide quality health care to everyone at a cost less than we are currently paying. And every civilized country in the world can tell us that this is their experience.</p>
<p>mini.
you might find this interesting. If you criticize Clinton’s Health Care plan, you could be part of the right-wing conspiracy? Who knew? :D</p>
<p><a href=“http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/[/url]”>http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/</a></p>
<p>““Oh, man – that was a string of misrepresentations about me and the systems in other countries,” Clinton began her response. “Number one, I have never advocated socialized medicine, and I hope all the journalists hear that loudly and clearly because that has been a right-wing attack on me for 15 years, and it is wrong.””</p>
<p>More Clintonisms:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/08/10/gay.forum/[/url]”>http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/08/10/gay.forum/</a></p>
<p>Gay Marriage: Double SpeaK - Asked what was at the heart of her opposition to same-sex marriage, Sen. Hillary Clinton said, “I prefer to think of it as being very positive about civil unions.”</p>
<p>“It’s a personal position,” she said. “For me, we have made it very clear in our country that we believe in equality. How we get to full equality is the debate we’re having.”</p>
<p>Flip Flop?? (Popular Opinion?)
" One area where the Democratic candidates were in clear agreement with gay rights advocates was on the question of ending the don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy, which allows gay men and lesbians to serve in the military only if they do not publicly disclose their sexual orientation.</p>
<p>Clinton – whose husband, former President Bill Clinton, originally proposed the policy in 1993 – said she changed her mind in 1999 and that repealing it would be “one of my highest priorities” as president."</p>
<p>Another Contradiction? </p>
<p>"(CNN) – A comment from Sen. Hillary Clinton in 2006 saying she would “take nuclear weapons off the table” in the current situation with Iran is attracting new attention in the wake of her criticism of Sen. Barack Obama last week.</p>
<p>In the April 2006 interview with Bloomberg Television, amid reports the administration may have been weighing a nuclear option in Iran, Clinton said “I have said publicly no option should be off the table, but I would certainly take nuclear weapons off the table. This administration has been very willing to talk about using nuclear weapons in a way we haven’t seen since the dawn of a nuclear age. I think that’s a terrible mistake.”</p>
<p>But was Clinton caught in a contraction after attacking Obama for ruling out the nuclear option in Pakistan and Afghanistan?"</p>
<p>P.S.
I-dad,
I am not a radical Clinton hater, really. I am just very frustrated trying to get a grip on who she really is. 
</p>
<p>Her opposition to same-sex marriage is a “personal choice.” (Last night’s debate.)</p>
<p>That’s my line from now on. :)</p>
<p>I am not a radical Clinton hater, really. I am just very frustrated trying to get a grip on who she really is.</p>
<p>Are you willing to go as far as I am a Clinton disliker?</p>
<p>I don’t have any idea who she is. I do dislike her presentation and apparent transparency. I really have no idea who she is, or what she stands for. I’m not sure she knows that either, on any given day. 
</p>
<p>The more I read, the worse it gets. From today’s Boston Herald:</p>
<p>"This week, Sen. Clinton deftly danced around the trade issue during a debate sponsored by the AFL-CIO. To hear her talk about it, you’d think NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement, which removed barriers and tariffs for products traded among the United States, Mexico and Canada) was a Republican plot to destroy American jobs.</p>
<p>In reality, NAFTA was one of President Bill Clinton’s few genuine achievements. But like all the other Democratic candidates, Hillary disavowed NAFTA before the 17,000 union members gathered in Chicago’s Soldier Field. “NAFTA and the way it’s been implemented has hurt a lot of American workers,” she said, a position she claimed she’s held “for many years.”</p>
<p>Funny, I don’t remember first lady Clinton speaking out against NAFTA."</p>
<p>From post 138…“Funny, I don’t remember first lady Clinton speaking out against NAFTA.”</p>
<p>Generally it is considered bad taste for the first lady to speak out in opposition to her husband’s administration’s policies.</p>
<p>From post 138…“Funny, I don’t remember first lady Clinton speaking out against NAFTA.”</p>
<p>Generally it is considered bad taste for the first lady to speak out in opposition to her husband’s administration’s policies.</p>
<p>Yesterday’s New York Times had an article that very closely parallels the question of a family member speaking out against the president’s policies.</p>
<p>It was a hart warming, and hart rendering story of the anguish Bush the Elder is going through seeing and hearing all of the criticism his son the incumbent president is going through. It details examples of quiet personal advice but never any public disagreement. </p>
<p>I think the most telling of all of the quotes and antidotes is the one that follows. It is from Andy Card, President Bush’s former Chief of Staff. This quote tells us so much about the president. </p>
<p>“As to what is said in private conversations between father and son, no one can be certain. When phone calls come in from Houston or Kennebunkport, White House aides make themselves scarce. But Mr. Card says it is clear to him that family talks were not always confined to family matters. </p>
<p>“It was relatively easy for me to read the sitting president’s body language after he had talked to his mother or father,” Mr. Card said. “Sometimes he’d ask me a probing question. And I’d think, Hmm, I don’t think that question came from him.”</p>