President-Elect Obama's Urban Policy and Poverty Agenda is FUCKING OUTSTANDING!

[redstate_democrat]

The Obama-Biden Plan

As a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago, Barack Obama learned firsthand that urban poverty is more than just a function of not having enough in your pocketbook. It's also a matter of where you live -- in some of our inner-city neighborhoods, poverty is difficult to escape because it's isolating and it's everywhere. Our job across America is to create communities of choice, not of destiny, and create conditions for neighborhoods where the odds are not stacked against the people who live there. Barack Obama will lead a new federal approach to America's high-poverty areas, an approach that facilitates the economic integration of families and communities with efforts to support the current low-income residents of those areas.

Strengthen Federal Commitment to our Cities

* Create a White House Office on Urban Policy: Obama and Biden will create a White House Office of Urban Policy to develop a strategy for metropolitan America and to ensure that all federal dollars targeted to urban areas are effectively spent on the highest-impact programs. The Director of Urban Policy will report directly to the president and coordinate all federal urban programs.
* Fully Fund the Community Development Block Grant: In the long run, regions are only as strong as their people and neighborhoods. The Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program is an important program that provides housing and creates jobs primarily for low- and moderate-income people and places. Barack Obama will restore funding for the CDBG program.
* Do No Harm: Barack Obama and Joe Biden do not support imposing unfunded mandates on states and localities. They strongly support providing necessary funding for programs such as No Child Left Behind.

Stimulate Economic Prosperity in our Metropolitan Regions

* Support Regional Innovation Clusters: Thriving innovation clusters across the country like the North Carolina Research Triangle Park and Nashville's thriving entertainment cluster prove that local stakeholders can successfully come together and help reshape their local economies. Barack Obama and Joe Biden will create a federal program to support "innovation clusters" -- regional centers of innovation and next-generation industries. This innovation clusters program will provide $200 million in planning and matching grants for regional business, government, and university leaders to collaborate on leveraging a region's existing assets -- from transportation infrastructure to universities -- to enhance long-term regional growth.
* Support Job Creation: The federal government has a role to play to ensure that every American is able to work at his or her highest capacity. Barack Obama and Joe Biden will double federal funding for basic research, expand the deployment of broadband technology and make the research and development tax credit permanent so that businesses can invest in innovation and create high-paying, secure jobs.
* Enhance Workforce Training: Obama and Biden will make long-term investments in education, language training, and workforce development so that Americans can leverage our strengths -- our ingenuity and entrepreneurialism -- to create new high-wage jobs and prosper in a global economy. A critical part of this process is ensuring that we reauthorize the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) and ensure that it strengthens federal investments needed for success in the 21st Century.
* Increase Access to Capital for Underserved Businesses: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will strengthen Small Business Administration programs that provide capital to women and minority-owned businesses, support outreach programs that help business owners apply for loans, and work to encourage the growth and capacity of these firms. They will also strengthen Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs), which are engaged in innovative methods to provide capital to urban businesses.
* Create a National Network of Public-Private Business Incubators: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will support entrepreneurship and spur job growth by creating a national network of public-private business incubators, which facilitate the critical work of entrepreneurs in creating start-up companies. They will invest $250 million per year to increase the number and size of incubators in urban communities throughout the country.
* Convert our Manufacturing Centers into Clean Technology Leaders: America boasts the highest-skilled manufacturing workforce in the world and advanced manufacturing facilities that have powered economic growth in America for decades. Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe that America is at a competitive advantage when it comes to building the high-demand technologies of the future, and they will help nurture America's success in clean technology manufacturing by establishing a federal investment program to help manufacturing centers modernize.
* Strengthen Core Infrastructure: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will make strengthening our transportation systems, including our roads and bridges, a top priority. As part of this effort, Obama and Biden will create a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank to expand and enhance, not supplant, existing federal transportation investments. These projects will directly and indirectly create up to two million new jobs per year and stimulate approximately $35 billion per year in new economic activity.
* Improve Access to Jobs: America's families and businesses depend upon workers having reasonable access to their places of employment. Barack Obama and Joe Biden will double the federal Jobs Access and Reverse Commute (JARC) program to ensure that additional federal public transportation dollars flow to the highest-need communities and that urban planning initiatives take this aspect of transportation policy into account. The Obama-Biden urban agenda will also help facilitate the creation of new jobs in underserved economic areas, so more low-income urban residents can find employment within their home communities.
* Invest in a Skilled Clean Technologies Workforce: Obama and Biden will increase funding for federal workforce training programs and direct these programs to incorporate green technologies training, such as advanced manufacturing and weatherization training, into their efforts to help Americans find and retain stable jobs. Obama and Biden will also create an energy-focused youth jobs program to invest in disconnected and disadvantaged youth.

Housing

* Lower Interest Payments by Creating a New Mortgage Interest Tax Credit: Many middle class Americans do not receive the existing mortgage interest tax deduction because they do not itemize their taxes. Obama and Biden will ensure that middle-class Americans get the financial assistance they need to purchase or keep their own home by creating a 10 percent universal mortgage credit that gives tax relief to 10 million Americans who have a home mortgage.
* Increase the Supply of Affordable Housing throughout Metropolitan Regions: Communities prosper when all families have access to affordable housing. Barack Obama and Joe Biden supported efforts to create an Affordable Housing Trust Fund to create thousands of new units of affordable housing every year. Barack Obama and Joe Biden will also restore cuts to public housing operating subsidies, and ensure that all Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) programs are restored to their original purpose.

Poverty

* Establish 'Promise Neighborhoods' for Areas of Concentrated Poverty: Successful strategies to address concentrated, intergenerational poverty are comprehensive in nature and address the full range of obstacles that stand in the way of poor children. One highly-acclaimed model is the Harlem Children's Zone in New York City, which provides a full network of services to an entire neighborhood from birth to college. Obama and Biden will create 20 Promise Neighborhoods in cities that have high levels of poverty and crime and low levels of student academic achievement.
* Increase the Minimum Wage: As president, Obama will raise the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour by 2011 and index it to inflation so full-time workers can earn a living wage that allows them to raise their families and pay for basic needs such as food, transportation, and housing -- things so many people take for granted.
* Expand the Earned Income Tax Credit: In the Illinois State Senate, Obama led the successful effort to create the $100 million Illinois Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). As president, Obama will reward work by increasing the number of working parents eligible for EITC benefits, increasing the benefit available to noncustodial parents who support their children through child support payments, increasing the benefit for families with three or more children, and reducing the EITC marriage penalty which hurts low-income families.
* Help Low-Income Workers Enter the Job Market: As president, Obama will invest $1 billion over five years in transitional jobs and career pathways programs that implement proven methods of helping low-income Americans succeed in the workforce. This investment will be coupled with other measures to encourage the private sector and state and local governments to increase their support of these effective employment programs.

Livability of Cities

* Build More Livable and Sustainable Communities: Our communities will better serve all of their residents if we are able to leave our cars to walk, bicycle and access other transportation alternatives. As president, Barack Obama will re-evaluate the transportation funding process to ensure that smart growth considerations are taken into account.
* Control Superfund Sites and Data: Obama and Biden will restore the strength of the Superfund program by requiring polluters to pay for the cleanup of contaminated sites they created.
* Use Innovative Measures to Dramatically Improve Efficiency of Buildings: Buildings account for nearly 40 percent of carbon emissions in the United States today and carbon emissions from buildings are expected to grow faster than emissions from other major parts of our economy. It is expected that 15 million new buildings will be constructed between today and 2015. Barack Obama and Joe Biden will work with cities so that we make our new and existing buildings more efficient consumers of electricity.
* Foster Healthy Communities: How a community is designed -- including the layout of its roads, buildings and parks -- has a huge impact on the health of its residents. For instance, nearly one-third of Americans live in neighborhoods without sidewalks and less than half of our country's children have a playground within walking distance of their homes. Barack Obama introduced the Healthy Places Act to help local governments assess the health impact of new policies and projects, like highways or shopping centers.

Urban Education

* Support Teachers in Urban Schools: Barack Obama and Joe Biden value teachers and the central role that they play in education. To ensure competent, effective teachers in schools that are organized for success, the Obama-Biden K-12 plan will expand service scholarships to underwrite high-quality preparation for teachers who commit to working in underserved districts and support ongoing improvements in teacher education.
* Expand Early Childhood Education: Obama and Biden's comprehensive "Zero to Five" plan will provide support to young children and their parents by investing $10 billion per year to create Early Learning Challenge Grants to stimulate and help fund state "zero to five" efforts; quadruple the number of children eligible for Early Head Start, increase Head Start funding, and improve the quality of both; work to ensure all children have access to pre-school; and create a Presidential Early Learning Council to increase collaboration and coordination across federal, state, and local programs.
* Reduce the High School Dropout Rate: The warning signs for high school dropouts often occur well before high school. Obama will sign into law his Success in the Middle Act to improve the education of middle school students in low-performing schools. Obama and Biden will also establish a competitive grant process for entities pursuing evidence-based models that have been proven to reduce dropouts.

Crime and Law Enforcement

* Support Local Law Enforcement: Barack Obama and Joe Biden are committed to fully funding the COPS program to put 50,000 police officers on the street and help address police brutality and accountability issues in local communities. Obama and Biden also support efforts to encourage young people to enter the law enforcement profession, so that our local police departments are not understaffed because of a dearth of qualified applicants.
* Reduce Crime Recidivism by Providing Ex-Offender Supports: America is facing an incarceration and post-incarceration crisis in urban communities. Obama and Biden will create a prison-to-work incentive program, modeled on the successful Welfare-to-Work Partnership, and work to reform correctional systems to break down barriers for ex-offenders to find employment.
* End the Dangerous Cycle of Youth Violence: Obama and Biden support innovative local programs, like the CeaseFire program in Chicago, which implement a community-based strategy to prevent youth violence and have been proven effective.
* Address Gun Violence in Cities: Obama and Biden would repeal the Tiahrt Amendment, which restricts the ability of local law enforcement to access important gun trace information, and give police officers across the nation the tools they need to solve gun crimes and fight the illegal arms trade. Obama and Biden also favor commonsense measures that respect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners, while keeping guns away from children and from criminals. They support closing the gun show loophole and making guns in this country childproof. They also support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent.

Homeland Security

* Allocate Funds Based on Risk: Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe that the president and Congress should direct our precious homeland security dollars according to risk, not as a form of general revenue sharing. To address this pressing issue, Obama introduced an amendment, supported by the Families of 9/11 and former 9/11 Commissioners Lee Hamilton and Tim Roemer, to increase risk-based funding in the 9/11 bill.
* Prepare Effective Emergency Response Plans: As our nation witnessed in the Hurricane Katrina crisis and its aftermath, too many localities do not have integrated emergency response plans to handle disasters. As president, Obama will further improve coordination between all levels of government, create better evacuation plan guidelines, ensure prompt federal assistance to emergency zones, and increase medical surge capacity.
* Improve Interoperable Communications Systems: Barack Obama and Joe Biden support efforts to provide greater technical assistance to local and state first responders and dramatically increase funding for reliable, interoperable communications systems.
* Safeguard Mass Public Transportation: Every weekday, Americans take 34 million trips on public transportation systems to get to work, school and beyond. Obama and Biden will fight for greater information-sharing between national intelligence agents and local officials and provide local law enforcement agencies with the everyday tools they need to protect their transportation systems.

Families

* Provide a Tax Cut for Working Families: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will restore fairness to the tax code and provide 150 million workers the tax relief they deserve. They will create a new "Making Work Pay" tax credit of up to $500 per person, or $1,000 per working family.
* Strengthening Fatherhood and Families: As president, Obama will sign his Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Families Act into law to remove some of the government penalties on married families, crack down on men avoiding child support payments, ensure that support payments go to families instead of state bureaucracies, fund support services for fathers and their families, and support domestic violence prevention efforts.
* Support Parents with Young Children: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will expand the highly successful Nurse-Family Partnership to all low-income, first-time mothers. The Nurse-Family Partnership provides home visits by trained registered nurses to low-income expectant mothers and their families. Researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis concluded that these programs produced an average of five dollars in savings for every dollar invested and produced more than $28,000 in net savings for every high-risk family enrolled in the program.
* Expand High-Quality Afterschool Opportunities: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will double funding for the main federal support for afterschool programs, the 21st Century Learning Centers program, to serve one million more children.
* Expand the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit: The Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit provides too little relief to families that struggle to afford child care expenses. Barack Obama and Joe Biden will reform the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit by making it refundable and allowing low-income families to receive up to a 50 percent credit for their child care expenses.
* Cap Outlandish Interest Rates on Payday Loans and Improve Disclosure: In the wake of reports that some service members were paying 800 percent interest on payday loans, the U.S. Congress took bipartisan action to limit interest rates charged to service members to 36 percent. Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe that we must extend this protection to all Americans, because predatory lending continues to be a major problem for low and middle income families alike.
* Encourage Responsible Lending Institutions to Make Small Consumer Loans: Some mainstream, responsible lending institutions are beginning to enter the short-term lending market to provide many Americans with fair alternatives to predatory lending institutions. Barack Obama and Joe Biden will work with his Secretary of the Treasury and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to encourage banks, credit unions and Community Development Financial Institutions to provide affordable short-term and small dollar loans -- and to drive the sharks out of business.

Poverty

The Obama-Biden Plan

Barack Obama has been a lifelong advocate for the poor -- as a young college graduate, he rejected the high salaries of corporate America and moved to the South Side of Chicago to work as a community organizer. As an organizer, Obama worked with churches, Chicago residents, and local government to set up job training programs for the unemployed and after-school programs for kids. As president, he will use his life experiences to fight poverty and improve opportunities for poor families all across America. Barack Obama and Joe Biden will lead a new federal approach to America's high-poverty areas, an approach that facilitates the economic integration of families and communities with efforts to support the current low-income residents of those areas.
Expand Access to Jobs

* Help Americans Grab a Hold of and Climb the Job Ladder: Obama and Biden will invest $1 billion over five years in transitional jobs and career pathway programs that implement proven methods of helping low-income Americans succeed in the workforce.
* Create a Green Jobs Corps: Obama and Biden will create a program to directly engage disadvantaged youth in energy efficiency opportunities to strengthen their communities, while also providing them with practical skills in this important high-growth career field.
* Improve Transportation Access to Jobs: As president, Obama will work to ensure that low-income Americans have transportation access to jobs. Obama will double funding for the federal Jobs Access and Reverse Commute program to ensure that additional federal public transportation dollars flow to the highest-need communities and that urban planning initiatives take this aspect of transportation policy into account.
* Reduce Crime Recidivism by Providing Ex-Offender Supports: Obama and Biden will work to ensure that ex-offenders have access to job training, substance abuse and mental health counseling, and employment opportunities. Obama and Biden will also create a prison-to-work incentive program and reduce barriers to employment.

Make Work Pay for All Americans

* Expand the Earned Income Tax Credit: Obama and Biden will increase the number of working parents eligible for EITC benefits, increase the benefits available to parents who support their children through child support payments, increase benefits for families with three or more children, and reduce the EITC marriage penalty, which hurts low-income families.
* Raise the Minimum Wage to $9.50 an Hour by 2011: Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe that people who work full-time should not live in poverty. Even though the minimum wage will rise to $7.25 an hour by 2009, the minimum wage's real purchasing power will still be below what it was in 1968. As president, Obama will further raise the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour by 2011, index it to inflation and increase the Earned Income Tax Credit to make sure that full-time workers can earn a living wage that allows them to raise their families and pay for basic needs such as food, transportation, and housing -- things so many people take for granted.
* Provide Tax Relief: Obama and Biden will provide all low and middle-income workers a $500 Making Work Pay tax credit to offset the payroll tax those workers pay in every paycheck. Obama and Biden will also eliminate taxes for seniors making under $50,000 per year.

Strengthen Families

* Promote Responsible Fatherhood: Obama will sign into law his Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Families Act to remove some of the government penalties on married families, crack down on men avoiding child support payments, and ensure that payments go to families instead of state bureaucracies.
* Support Parents with Young Children: Obama and Biden will expand the highly-successful Nurse-Family Partnership to all 570,000 low-income, first-time mothers each year. The Nurse-Family Partnership provides home visits by trained registered nurses to low-income expectant mothers and their families.
* Expand Paid Sick Days: Today, three-out-of-four low-wage workers have no paid sick days. Obama and Biden support guaranteeing workers seven paid sick days per year.

Increase the Supply of Affordable Housing

* Supports Affordable Housing Trust Fund: Obama has supported efforts to create an Affordable Housing Trust Fund to develop affordable housing in mixed-income neighborhoods.
* Fully Fund the Community Development Block Grant: Obama and Biden will fully fund the Community Development Block Grant program and engage with urban leaders across the country to increase resources to the highest-need Americans.

Tackle Concentrated Poverty

* Establish 20 Promise Neighborhoods: Obama and Biden will create 20 Promise Neighborhoods in areas that have high levels of poverty and crime and low levels of student academic achievement in cities across the nation. The Promise Neighborhoods will be modeled after the Harlem Children's Zone, which provides an entire neighborhood with a full network of services from birth to college, including early childhood education, youth violence prevention efforts, and after-school activities.
* Ensure Community-Based Investment Resources in Every Urban Community: Obama and Biden will work with community and business leaders to identify and address the unique economic development barriers of every major metropolitan area. Obama and Biden will provide additional resources to the federal Community Development Financial Institution Fund, the Small Business Administration and other federal agencies, especially to their local branch offices, to address community needs.
* Invest in Rural Areas: Obama and Biden will invest in rural small businesses and fight to expand high-speed Internet access. They will improve rural schools and attract more doctors to rural areas. And they will implement a bold climate change and energy independence plan that will revitalize rural America through new investments in renewable energy production, including wind, solar, and biofuel investments.

To see the rest of the Agenda, go here -----> http://change.gov/agenda/

[ecstatic]

1. bookmarking for the next time a troll tells me Obama doesn't care about the poor

[redstate_democrat]

4. I love his agenda for fathers

especially fathers who may have difficulty paying child support with low paying jobs. A lot of these guys can barely live with the types of payments they have to make. Obama's plans gets them in job training and gives them support. He also expands the EITC for these fathers if they pay child support. I think that's great. His ex-offenders job program sounds good too.

He has great ideas and plans. With a 59-60 seat majority in the Senate, we will get it done, finally!

[Cha]

17. It's mind boggling to have a

180 degree agenda for the American People and our country starting to take shape:bounce:

Pretty fast, already! Like they've been thinking about it.

[pinto]

2. Kick and rec.

:kick:

[Lyric]

3. Good, except for one glaring omission.

Any "poverty" plan that doesn't fix the horrific damage done to our welfare system back in 1996 is not going to work. Considering just how many more poor people we're going to be seeing in the near future, AND how bad that poverty us going to be, there can be no higher priority than restoring welfare as an entitlement program, guaranteeing at least minimum help to ALL families with children/elderly/disabled members who have very low incomes.

Work requirements don't work when there are no jobs, when the poor can't afford cars or gas (and public transportation sucks,) and when safe, accessible childcare is nothing more than a dream to so many poor parents.

I'm in the midst of writing an extensive research paper on this subject. It really, truly is the single most effective thing that Obama and Congress can do to make a REAL difference in poverty.

It's time to lay the cruel political fiction about "lazy welfare queens" to rest once and for all. It was never truth. It was extreme exaggeration, rooted in racism and sexism, and meant solely to get Repukes elected.

I intend to send Obama a copy of my paper when I'm done. I really hope he's willing to at least consider it. This is long, long overdue.

[redstate_democrat]

5. Ya know, Obama came around to Clinton's welfare reform program eventually

He was at first against it mainly because of some of the issues you raised: childcare, jobs, etc. But I think the programs he has on his agenda basically fill out a lot of those concerns. I mean, it is JAMMED PACK with goodies. :D

I also love his economic plan. It is STELLAR.

[CADEMOCRAT7]

7. I pray we can put down that myth, it is racist and sexist and so narrow minded.

If you feel like sharing any key points from your research paper, would appreciate you sharing the fruits of your labor. I know it is a labor. Best of luck with it.

[Chulanowa]

8. No argument from me

But still, this plan outline is damned good. I couldn't find any flaws in it, and I'm a consummate flaw-finder. In fact the only thing I have to complain is that it may be a little too ambitious, especially with Congressional Sellout dems still warming the benches.

[Madam Mossfern]

12. Thank you, thank you , thank you

I'm an "Employment Specialist" for our Welfare to Work program, I would love to let you know what's happening from where I sit in the trenches. Very frustrating for me, very frustrating for my clients. I'm a cross between a guidance counsellor and a truant officer...talk about split personalities! There needs to be a compete overhaul of the system.


edited for outrageous spelling errors.

[political_Dem]

27. I will keep my fingers crossed for you. Reagan started the "welfare queen" meme.

He created a lot of ill will against the poor, women and people of color because of it.

Good luck.

[tosh]

35. oktoberain, will you be publishing this or posting it to the internets?

I would really like to peruse your research paper when it's done. :hi:

[Lyric]

37. I'm not sure yet.

Here's the thing--I'm an undergrad, technically still a freshman. I don't even think that it's possible to "publish" a paper of mine, at least not in any academic sense of the word. I might be published in a textbook, as a writing example (like two of my papers from last semester were published,) but I'm no scholar. Yet.

The paper is for a simple English 102 composition class--a rhetorical argument research paper that is our "final project." I chose a heavy topic on purpose, and I've tried to pursue it in a way that is up to academic-level writing standards, but the fact remains--nobody is going to publish a freshman in a "serious" way.

That being said, I would gladly share it with my fellow DU'ers. Some of the information I've collected, when read together, is staggering. For example--although poverty rates *overall* have declined since the welfare reforms were passed, "deep poverty" rates are at the highest levels we've seen in over 30 years. Coupled with the fact that the "federal poverty line" fails to include the costs of housing, transportation, and childcare, has not been updated since the 60s, and is therefore not exactly the most reliable indicator of ACTUAL overall poverty...well, you can see how troubling that is. And this is all from information that was gathered BEFORE the economy started crashing. God only knows what those numbers are going to look like five years from now...or even ONE year from now.

Seriously--we're doing a lot of arguing over a lot of topics, but this topic is being all-but-ignored. How many people here can be ABSOLUTELY sure that they are never going to need government assistance? Especially now? How many of us have anything close to a "safe" job? The work requirements and time limits for TANF, as onerous as they are, are not the worst part of welfare "reform." The worst part is that there is no longer ANY promise of government help for starving families with children. None whatsoever. AFDC was the safety net that ensured that AT LEAST no American child would ever have to be seriously hungry or shelterless. That bare minimum of an income to poor families with children was guaranteed. But America was lied to, and led to believe that "welfare mothers" were having babies for the sole purpose of increasing their checks. That is absurd--seriously. For example, in Mississippi, the "increase" to an AFDC check for an additional child was a whole $24. Barely enough to buy a couple of packs of diapers. Does anyone REALLY think that these women were putting their lives at risk to get pregnant and give birth, solely for the sake of an extra $24 a month? The whole notion is absolutely absurd.

The reforms didn't take away "free money" from lazy people. They took away a promise that we had made to America's children: you will not starve, you will not freeze, you will be taken care of in at least a minimal way. And now it's looking like the loss of that guarantee might be a serious threat to the health and safety of real American children in the very near future. I cannot stress this enough--we MUST abolish the Republican reforms to TANF, and return to an entitlement program that promises help to EVERY poor child. I cannot believe that nobody is seriously pushing for this.

[CADEMOCRAT7]

6. Thank you for your post, yes it is very exciting. n/t

[Window]

9. K/R.

:kick:

[TygrBright]

10. As an aging Poverty Warrior and veteran of the Community Action movement...

...reading this made me literally cry with joy.

It is so long since we've had anyone who both CARES about the poor, and KNOWS about the anatomy of poverty in the country, that I'd almost lost hope.

No, we can't "eliminate poverty" or even roll back the last 30 years of shitting on the poor overnight... but if he manages to make a good, concrete start on even one-THIRD of this agenda, it will make the difference of day to night for millions of Americans trapped in the dead end of structural poverty.

relievedly,
Bright

[appal_jack]

11. looks pretty good & hopeful, EXCEPT for 1 thing

In quickly reading over this plan, I am more than 99% enthusiastic and on-board, with one important exception:

"They also support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent."

What a can of worms this will be, if Obama and Biden are foolish enough to pursue it.

Automatic weapons have already been seriously restricted by the NFA of 1934. There is not a pressing need to further restrict semi-automatic rifles, which are used in less than 3% of crimes.

If this one provision were to be dropped from the platform, I would bet that every single other worthwhile measure would stand a greater chance of passing. The whole deal would be much more Constitutional too.

-app

-app

[grantcart]

18. Yes people keep saying that

But can you explain to me how weapons that are not technically "Automatic Weapons" can be easily reconfigured so that they can "spray" gunfire and shoot 21 people on an Air Force base where lots of people with weapons were unable to stop the shooter before he was able to unload clips in the same way "automatic weapons" do.

My cousin, a Doctor, narrowly survived this assault by a person who easily reconfigured a weapon so that it could 'spray' bullets.

Call it what you want - we want this type of weapon that can spray massive amounts of bullets off the streets. The shooter bought the weapon a couple of days before the assault and made the simple adjustments necessary with easily accessed legally purchased kit. Whatever it is it needs to be outlawed. It has nothing to do with hunting or protecting your life or the 2nd ammendment.




http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9906E4DD133DF932A15755C0A962958260

A man with an assault rifle stormed onto an Air Force Base today and sprayed a hospital and parking lot with gunfire. Four people were killed and 19 wounded before a policeman shot the gunman dead.

Ten of the wounded were listed in critical condition.

The gunman was armed with an AK-47 and another unspecified "single shot" weapon, said Col. William Brooks, commander of Fairchild Air Force Base, where the shooting took place.

The man was a member of the military who was assigned to the base, but his exact military affiliation was unclear, said a Spokane County undersheriff, John Goldman.

A military police officer on bicycle patrol shot the man in a parking lot outside the hospital, Sheriff Larry Erickson said.

Mr. Goldman said the gunman arrived at the hospital in a taxicab from a local motel, entered an adjacent annex building and shot two people.

"Then he went down the halls and corridor, spraying rounds," in the annex and the hospital, Mr. Goldman said. Hundreds of people were in the buildings at the time, he said.

At some point, a bystander in the parking lot was fatally shot.

The 19 wounded were taken to several other hospitals. Among the wounded, hospital officials said, were a 3-year-old boy and a 5-year-old girl. Their conditions were not immediately released.

"I kept hearing these popping noises," said Rebecka Vanover, who lives in a base housing area across the street from the hospital. "They sounded almost like firecrackers but they were dull. It was really a madhouse, all these sirens going on."

Todd Boyle, who also lives across the street, said he heard gunshots, looked out his front door and saw a man who was dressed in black fall to the ground.

Dozens of witnesses were taken to a community center on the base for interviews with investigators.

Fairchild Air Force Base, 10 miles west of Spokane, had been a bomber base since World War II. But in May, the last of the base's B-52's were moved elsewhere as Fairchild began conversion to an air refueling base.

[derby378]

33. What you mean "we," kemo sabe?

Tell me something - it's still "We, the People," who have the right "to keep and bear arms," right? :shrug:

[appal_jack]

38. Glad to hear that your cousin was OK.

Thanks for your thoughtful question, grantcart.

Any tool can be horribly misused. A truck could be driven into a large crowd to kill dozens of people. But that's illegal, and (thankfully) very few truck owners ever do such a thing. If someone were to misuse a truck in this manner, police would make an arrest (or shoot if the perp didn't stop when ordered). We would also be asking questions about the driver's sanity, and maybe whether the crowd-area might have had better barriers between it and the road. But few (if any) would question the need for citizens to own trucks. Because we all know that when you need to haul firewood or tow a tractor, the Honda Fit won't cut-it. And of course, there are those who never haul firewood or tow tractors, but own trucks anyway. They may be silly gas-guzzlers, but in a free society, I think it would be even sillier to pass regulations and restrictions on who can buy a truck. And our Constitution doesn't even mention trucks in it. However, it explicitly mentions (and protects the right to keep and bear) arms (RKBA).

Firearms are tools too. They are already heavily regulated. A fully-automatic AK or other machine gun cannot be legally owned without some serious paperwork, plus taxes and background checks (I don't recall the full details, because I have neither the interest nor the $$$ to own automatic weapons). I believe that this is a reasonable restriction of the RKBA, as automatic fire is offensive and non-targeted. The shooter cannot effectively determine where every bullet goes, so the state is playing a legitimate role when it heavily restricts automatic weapons.

It is equally illegal to convert a semi-auto AK clone to full-auto without such paperwork/taxes/checks. And of course, it is very illegal to shoot anyone with any firearm, except in legitimately defensive cases (the exact definition of legitimate defensive use presently varies from state to state, but all generally mandate that you must honestly believe that your life is in danger before you employ any deadly-force response).

I fully support laws that would prevent sociopaths from committing violent crimes with firearms, as long as such laws do not unduly restrict the natural, inalienable, and Constitutional right of peaceable Americans to keep and bear arms. A ban on semi-automatic rifles does not pass either of these criteria.

As I said above, I am genuinely sorry that a tragic episode of violence struck close to a family member of yours, and glad that it did not end worse for your cousin. I think that you and I (and most DU members) could find common cause on issues of better mental health treatment for he mentally ill, better background checks, and a whole range of issues. But further restricting the 2nd Amendment (or any other Constitutional right) is a cause I will oppose.

-app

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

13. I'm so excited because I work at HUD and Obama has promised that HUD will have a

prominent role in his administration!!

[Cha]

16. That really

is exciting!

[political_Dem]

28. Finally. I just hope that he picks the right person to head it.

No more Alphonso Jacksons!

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

30. That criminal!!

But he actually was nice. He was always friendly to me and would ask about how my dissertation was coming along when I was writing. He's just a criminal, that's all. ;)

[TheWraith]

14. I thought it would be, for two reasons.

One, you can't live in urban Chicago all those years without knowing about the issues related to poverty.

Two, Obama's sharp enough that he knows a ton of our other domestic problems like crime, drugs, education, etcetera, all link back to poverty.

[Cha]

15. I knew it was going to be Good but

seeing it here in black and white is stunning! And, why not?! After what we've all had thrown at us the last 8 years!

Bookmarking..thanks redstatedem!

[bread_and_roses]

19. I am very, very glad to see this focus, addressing one of our most serious problems

- the devolution of our inner cities into Third-World conditions over the past decades, totally ignored, blighted, abandoned, whole generations lost. How wonderful to see THAT acknowleged as a problem, at last, again.

There are omissions and no doubt bits and pieces to quarell with, but how wonderful to see the possibility for a beginning.

I agree with the poster above that the Clinton assault on welfare created untold suffering - and I've seen it first-hand, in nearly thirty years of human service work, addition to extensive reading. Ultimately, we need a guaranteed national income, but at least there will now be attention, focus, recognition of some of the systemic problems - this is major, major, after the last decades of neglect.

[EconomicLiberal]

20. The New Great Society?

[Odin2005]

21. Hey Obama-bashing concern trolls, THIS is what change looks like!!!

:woohoo:

[FrenchieCat]

24. The bashers will just be late to the party, is all.

[Triana]

22. Under strengthening families - the issue of domestic abuse/domestic violence...

....needs a LOT of attention.

It shouldn't be an afterthought.

[Patiod]

31. It's always been on Biden's front burners

He made it a priority throughout his Senate service

[bluestateguy]

23. Detroit will need MAJOR federal investment if the big 3 go under

nt

[democracy1st]

25. K & R

[political_Dem]

26. I love it. I think it is about time too.

[Hope And Change]

29. K & R!

[derby378]

32. I call bullshit on the gun ban

The timeline goes like this.

2009-2010: New semi-auto ban enacted.

2010: Republicans take House and Senate.

2012: President Sarah Freakin' Palin!

That is all...

[No Elephants]

34. A lot of great comments on this thread. I hope that you will convey them to the transition team via

www.change.gov

[olkaz]

36. Is there a rural/non-urban policy like this?

I'd wager our problems are at least as bad.