Social Security & Healthcare
When it comes to the costliest, most economically dangerous entitlements in our country -- Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid -- John Kerry opposes desperately needed reforms, such as partial privatization, that would take America off this precipitous and unsustainable path. In his platform, Kerry offers the basis of a plan to offer near-universal health coverage to American, saying, "My plan expands health care coverage to 96 percent of Americans and 99 percent of all children."
What John Kerry is really saying, though, is that he doesn't believe in the free market, and would see the United States spiral into the same socialized healthcare abyss that now consumes Canada and many European nations.
Also, for better or for worse, Kerry is no fan of Al Gore's Social Security "Lock Box," if his congressional record is any indication, voting at least five times to raid the fund.
In his platform, however, Kerry revisits the lock box theme, vowing to "take Social Security off the table when balancing the budget." At the same time, Kerry opposes even partial privatization of Social Security, on the grounds privatization would "cost" $1 trillion, causing deficits to spiral. By "cost" of course, Senator Kerry means loss of government revenue. But why would this matter, you might ask, if Kerry, in "lock box" fashion, vows to take Social Security "off the table" when balancing the budget? Good question.
Affirmative Action
Affirmative action, also known as codified reverse-discrimination, is one of John Kerry's lesser known but more revealing flip-flops. In 1992, as Bill Clinton was making his bid for the White House, John Kerry gave the first in a promised series of speeches at Yale University dealing with issues of race, crime and urban America. The speech warned against a "culture of dependency.... We must ask whether [social disintegration] is the result of a massive shift in the psychology of our nation that some argue grew out of the excesses of the 1960s, a shift from self-reliance to indulgence and dependence, from caring to self-indulgence, from public accountability to public abdication and chaos," Kerry, who was himself a major player in the social upheaval of that era, said.
Kerry went on to argue that affirmative action had denigrated the civil rights movement into legalistic bickering over quotas, saying, "today the civil rights arena is controlled by lawyers and the winners and losers [are] determined by...rules most Americans neither understand or are sympathetic with. The shift in the civil rights agenda has directed most of our attention and much of our hope into one inherently limited and divisive program: affirmative action."
"The truth," said Kerry, "is that affirmative action has kept America thinking in racial terms." Needless to say, such a statement was seen as an uncharacteristically bold move for a leftist population, especially for the understudy of Ted Kennedy. When Bill Clinton -- running on a platform of personal accountability and "ending welfare as we know it" -- went on to choose Al Gore of Tennessee as his running mate, though, Kerry's promised series simply evaporated, and were never given.
While Kerry has taken up Bill Clinton's famous refrain to "mend, not end" affirmative action, Kerry has been conspicuously inactive in the issue he spoke to with such fervor in 1992. Kerry didn't support the 1995 Dole-Canady bill to eliminate federal race preferences, the Gramm-Franks amendment ending preferences for minority contractors for federal bids, or sign the amicus brief in opposition to the University of Michigan's race-based admissions system, later ruled illegal by the Supreme Court. In the end, Kerry has neither worked to mend or to end affirmative action.
Presently, Kerry's official campaign website is seemingly unambiguous, vowing to "preserve affirmative action," and not mentioning the candidate's past reservations or concerns about this policy's negative effects. The site maintains that Kerry "consistently opposed efforts in the Senate to undermine or eliminate affirmative action programs, and supports programs that seeks to enhance diversity." So much for Yale, 1992.
Military/Defense
Massachusetts's most liberal senator has, over the years, voted against defense appropriations bills funding weapons that have proved essential to U.S. national security, including the Patriot Missile, the Tomahawk cruise missile and the B-2 stealth bomber. Kerry's voting record also shows his support for cutting funding or altogether canceling existing weapons systems such as the M-1 Abrams tank, Bradley Fighting Vehicle, the Apache helicopter, B-1 Bomber, F-14, F-15, F-16 and AV-8B Harrier. Kerry also voted against the Navy's Aegis Air Defense Cruiser and Trident Missile System for U.S. submarines.
The Center for Security Policy, a conservative, Washington-based think tank committed to "promoting international peace through American strength," has rated Kerry among the worst on Capitol Hill when it comes to national security and defense. In 1995, the Center gave Kerry a score of five out of a possible 100 points. Two years later, in 1997, Kerry earned a mind-blowing score of exactly zero.
It goes without saying that Kerry has voted against the strategic missile defense shield, as well as U.S. withdrawal from the antiquated Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. But while Kerry has gone to every length to inhibit U.S. security, by contrast he has cast two votes in the past ten years to loosen restrictions on the export of dual-use technology -- the sort of technology that enemies of the United States can convert into weapons and turn against us.
So much for Kerry's commitment to the war on terrorism.
In keeping with his sympathies on the Vietnam War, John Kerry became one of President Ronald Reagan's most outspoken opponents regarding the policy of militarily suppressing Communist inroads in Latin America, culminating in a controversial, if not treacherous, April 1985 visit to Nicaragua's Sandinista regime.
Following the Cold War, Kerry's doveliness continued unabated. Following Iraq's seizure of Kuwait in 1990, Kerry voted against authorization for the use of force -- which is more than can be said for Saddam Hussein. In 1995, Kerry was among 29 other senators who voted against ending the arms embargo against the Bosnians, even as Slobodan Milosevic escalated his reign of terror.
Concerning the authorization for the use of force against Iraq last year, however, Senator Kerry had this to say on 23 January 2003: "Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction ... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real...."
Kerry now says he believes the war was a mistake, and that he voted to authorize the threat of force, but did not support the use of it.
And Kerry's response to the questions raised over his defense voting record by Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss -- questions appropriate to anyone aspiring to serve as command-in-chief: "[The President has] decided once again to take the low road of American politics. ... Saxby Chambliss, on the part of the president and his henchmen, decided today to question my commitment to the defense of our nation...." And again, when responding to similar queries over his record: "I'd like to know what it is Republicans who didn't serve in Vietnam have against those of us who did." Vietnam, Vietnam, Vietnam....
Finally, to bring the Kerry record up-to-date, John Kerry didn't hesitate to breathe life into the conspiracy theory involving a U.S.-led coup against Haitian president/autocrat Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who resigned office and fled into exile earlier this year. Following Aristide's departure, Kerry remarked, "I think there should be some investigation of it. I have a very close friend in Massachusetts who talked directly to people who made that allegation [of a U.S.-led coup]. I don't know the truth of it. I really don't. But I think it needs to be explored and we need to know the truth of what happened."
So let's get this straight. Kerry admits he doesn't "know the truth of it," but at the same time he doesn't wince at lending credence to an unfounded rumor that the President of the United States (who he just happens to be running against in November) ordered the kidnapping of a foreign leader.
But then again, John Kerry has never had the highest standards of veracity.
National Security
Since 1986, John Kerry has chaired the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations. So, if Kerry wants to join in the witch hunt to assign blame for the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, blame begins at home. Moreover, Kerry opposed the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, designed to streamline and solidify U.S. preparedness against terrorist aggressors.
Once again, Kerry's congressional voting record says it all, with the Senator voting for no less than seven major defense and military budget reductions related to national security.
Further, in his campaign platform for national insecurity, Kerry promises to repeal the 2001 USA Patriot Act, claiming "the spirit of the law has been abused by the Ashcroft Justice Department." In truth, the Patriot Act does little more than codify a series of executive orders in effect since the early 1980s, and does not represent a massive expansion of federal prerogatives. For the truth about the Patriot Act, see The Federalist's exposition: federalistpatriot.us
Kerry also claims that terrorism is being used as an excuse for "an assault on immigration." Does he really want to charge the Bush administration with an assault on immigration, when conservatives are in high gear (mistakenly) criticizing President Bush's immigration reform proposals as "amnesty" for illegals?
That doesn't make sense, even by John Kerry's standards. |
