Hillary Clinton wants to take from rich and give to the middle class
May 30, 2007
By Jennifer Hunter
Like a modern-day Robin Hood, Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton wants to take from the rich and give to the poor.
She wants to rescue the American middle class.
She charges that the middle class is being eroded by jobs shipped overseas, by falling incomes and rising payments for basic services.
Her proof: Health-care premiums have gone up 87 percent since 2000, college costs have gone up 40 percent in the same time and gas prices have more than doubled. “It’s like our middle class and working-class families are invisible to this president.”
And she has an ambitious, lengthy list of ideas for saving the middle class, including eliminating burdens such as the alternative minimum tax, allowing Medicare to negotiate for better drug prices with pharmaceutical companies and creating incentives for American companies to create domestic jobs.
Calls for new version of Progressive Movement
In a speech Tuesday at the Manchester School of Technology, she harked back to the Progressive Movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries when there were too many “haves and have-nots” and efforts were made to bust the robber barons’ monopoly and modernize the workplace, calling for a new Progressive Movement that would give all Americans a chance to compete and prosper in the global economy.
She cited the astonishing statistic that every child born in American has a $29,000 share in the federal deficit.
One of her major concerns is not only to reduce that federal deficit but also to tighten corporate governance and raise corporate taxes, particularly in the oil sector, where companies make huge profits. (She noted no-bid contracts given to Halliburton in Iraq.)
She also wants to reform the tax code so U.S. companies do not get a tax break for “shipping jobs overseas.” And she would provide advantages for companies that create jobs in America.
She also wants to:
• Institute affordable health care.
• Eliminate President Bush’s tax cuts to high-income families while maintaining the cuts for the middle class
• Create universal pre-kindergarten
• Make it easier for college students to get loans
• Help working people earn enough to support their families and save money
• Expand unemployment insurance
• Make it easier to join a union
• Invest in alternative energy resources to create new jobs.
Her plan is wide-ranging and so ambitious it will take the determination of a Robin Hood.
Source: Chicago Sun-Times
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