Has Kerry ever been responsible for any downard transfer of wealth?

[AP]

Not including wealth transferred from his rich wives to himself, has Kerry ever passed legislation that ensured that power (political, economic and cultural power) was flowing from people at the top of the pyramid down to people in the middle and at the base? Or has he been involved, professionally or in his political life or even personally, in helping people who only have their labor to sell retain the fullest fair value of their labor?

If he has, why isn't he playing up that aspect of his persona? Why isn't it a part of his message?

[KFC]

1. Sure. Taxes.

Next.

[AP]

2. I'm not going to totally blame democrats, but Kerry's been a Senator

for about 20 years and, for the last 30 years, taxation has steadly lost semblence of progressivity.

Has Kerry spoken out about this?

Also, Kerry's family gets a tiny percentage of its income from earned income. He gets most of his income from sources taxed much lower than earned income.

[poskonig]

3. Kerry supports raising taxes on the upper class.

In other words, he supports progressive taxation.

[AP]

4. To be clear, this post is harsh, and I will vote for Kerry if he's the nom

and I'm feeling a little guilty about the way I worded the post, but...

what I'm asking is not what he's saying now, but what he's done/said/experienced in his own life in the past.

I'm looking for some symbol of what I think is THE key issue in this election and whether it exists in Kerry's candidacy in some way that's greater than a promise he's making (and, to be fair, I believe he'll keep this promise because it's so obvioulsy the thing that needs to be done -- it's just that, to get people to appreciate it, it's best that the nominee embodies the principle, I believe).

[bigtree]

6. YouthBuild is the youth program that John Kerry spoke of in the Wisconsin

. . . as an accomplishment that he was the most proud of.


Senator John Kerry Visited Youth Action YouthBuild in
East Harlem, N.Y. On Tuesday March 11
http://www.youthbuild.org/events_kerrynewyork.html

U.S. Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) visited Youth Action YouthBuild in East Harlem. He was greeted by youth and directors from five local
YouthBuild programs: Youth Action Programs and Homes (East Harlem, N.Y.), YouthBuild SOBRO (Bronx, N.Y.), Flushing YMCA YouthBuild (Flushing, N.Y.), Promesa (South Bronx, N.Y.), and Isles YouthBuild (Trenton, N.J.).

Senator Kerry talked with a group of students, learned some construction skills and spoke to the assembled crowd. He reiterated his commitment to YouthBuild, saying his goal was to secure enough funding so no young person has to be turned away from the program

Senator Kerry, a longtime advocate and supporter of YouthBuild, visited his first YouthBuild program, YouthBuild Boston, in 1991.

Since then he has visited numerous programs and helped secure YouthBuild legislation. Kerry has always been responsive and open to hearing from their youth and their stories and needs, and each year he has sponsored the "Dear Colleague" letter to the senate, helping to build bipartisan support of 63 senators for the expansion and development of YouthBuild.

Image Image Image

History: In 1978, Dorothy Stoneman, asked neighborhood teens in East Harlem how they would improve their community if they had adults supporting them. The students answered, “We’d rebuild the houses. We’d take empty buildings back from the drug dealers and eliminate crime.” Together they formed the Youth Action Program and renovated the first YouthBuild building. They replicated the program in 5 locations in New York City during the eighties. In 1990, YouthBuild USA was founded to orchestrate the national replication. By the early 1990’s the program had been replicated in 11 cities nationwide and had been added as a line item in the federal budget. Since its inception in 1978 thousands of people have contributed to the YouthBuild movement which has been called “a wellspring of human reclamation” by The New York Times.

Recognition: YouthBuild USA was named one America’s 100 Best Charities by Worth magazine in 2002. In honor of the success of YouthBuild and her contribution to the field, Dorothy Stoneman was awarded the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship in 1996 and the Independent Sector’s annual John Gardner Leadership Award in 2000.
http://www.youthbuild.org/about_history.html


HUD Funding of Youthbuild Programs
http://www.youthbuild.org/about_partners.html

The Youthbuild Act (H.R. 501) was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Congressman Major Owens of Brooklyn in 1990. Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts introduced it in the Senate as S. 1100 in 1991. These two elected officials have effectively championed YouthBuild ever since.

After two years of energetic advocacy by the YouthBuild Coalition, in concert with Sen. Kerry and Rep. Owens, the bill was passed into law as "Subtitle D--Hope for Youth: Youthbuild" in the Housing and Community Development Act of 1992. Continued advocacy, coupled with the inspiring success of local YouthBuild programs, resulted in annual appropriations administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) through a competitive process.


The Youthbuild Act can be found at: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/r102query.html

( check the 103rd Congress link and enter in the search box: The Youthbuild Act)

[poskonig]

7. Kerry has supported progressive taxation his entire career.

Which is what, four or five times as long as Edwards'? But at least Edwards has the 'son of a textile consultant' thing working for him. :spank:

[AP]

9. Do you have any evidence of that? Either of those claims?

I'm not saying Kerry doesn't have a career of supporting progressive taxation. What I'm saying is that, if he has, it hasn't percolated up to his public persona as a politician.

In Edwards's much shorter career it has percolated up and rising high above the surface -- and it's not just from what he says and the legislation he has supported, but it's evidenced by the life he has lived.

Also, I had chicken cordon bleu on a airplane once. They can call it whatever they want be it was cheap meat.

I don't know what Edwards's father called himself at the end of his career, but, apparently because he didn't have college degree, he couldn't get promoted into a level of management which college graduates he trained entered immediately.

And if you're making an argument that his title conferred social and economic benefits, what were they? What was his salary? Why did Edwards's mother have to quite her small business and work for the post office so that Edwards could afford to go to the cheaper of the two excellent law schools which accepted him? Why is Edwards's brother a union electrician, rather than a partner in his father's "consultancy" business?

[poskonig]

10. What matters:

Does Edwards want to unconditionally end NAFTA and the WTO? If so, I'll consider changing my support.

I've always found the "I'm your brother" stuff phony. Edwards has gotten slicker with his delivery, but I'm not going to vote for a guy just because he pretends to be some kind of proletarian. I don't know why Edwards' brother never made it to the lowly position of plant manager like his father. Whether Edwards can effectively use his make-believe "I feel your pain" story with the regular voter remains to be seen.

Moving from the superficial stuff to real-life economic policy, Kerry and Edwards are closer to each other on trade and taxation when compared to Nader and Kucinich. I'd be happy with Kerry or Edwards but have a hunch Kerry has a better chance of winning, given his capacity to raise money and his foreign policy credibility.

[AP]

11. Whatever Edwards's father TITLE he was clearly not RICH or PRIVILEGED

In Four Trials, Edwards tells a story about his parents visiting him when he was young lawyer. They went to a nice restaurant on the top of a building in Memphis. Edwards parents were amazed. They said they didn't think they'd ever seen that far in their life.

A friend of mine was just telling me a story about having dinner with some old, rich people. One of their kids told on one of the other kids, so they put them all on their jet and flew them off to boarding school. It wasn't "their" jet, the wife said modestly. "It was the corporate jet."

Now which of those two worlds sounds like a world of privilege?

Face it, Edwards is from a very different class background compared to Bush and Kerry, and it's a very powerful symbol, and has very real consequences on the way all three view the world. And this thread is sort of proving it. People can't find many symbols or facts in Kerry's life which sugest a deep concern with these issues.

[King of New Orleans]

5. Edwards won those

in Wisconsin who didn't want the tax cuts for the wealthy repealed by a 41-18 margin (Dean got 26%). It was only 12% of the electorate, but still... What is Edwards position BTW?

[AP]

8. It's amazing. He's arguing for totally progressive taxes. Revoke the cuts

earned income earners over 200K. He also wants to jack up cap gains taxes on income earners over 300K (but I'm not sure if that's AGI or cap gains income earned over 300K).

He's talking about have the people who benefit the most from society pick up some of the slack in America, and these are the people who seem to love him the most.

Actually, there are so few people who benefit a great great deal, and they, perhaps, are not voting for Edwards, and these high income earners who are voting for him are professionals who earn their money (ie, they don't have 300K in cap gains income). So they'll actually do better with Edwards, and they're voting in their best financial interests.