Mondale on the issues - I agree 100%
Mondale reveals views on issues
Eric Black
Star Tribune
Published Nov. 1, 2002 ISSU01
Saying that his years in private law practice and the business sector "haven't made me any less of a liberal than I was" in the past, DFL Senate nominee Walter Mondale divulged his positions on taxes, Social Security, abortion, gay rights, civil liberties, drugs for seniors and the Iraq resolution on his first full day as a candidate.
The views were mostly natural extensions of those he held as senator, vice president and presidential nominee. On most issues, Mondale's positions were close to those taken by the late Sen. Paul Wellstone and at odds with the positions of Republican candidate Norm Coleman.
The major exception was free trade. Mondale, like Coleman, supports the free trade agreements of recent years, such as NAFTA and permanent normal trade relations with China. Wellstone opposed them.
Here are some of the other positions Mondale articulated during an interview Thursday:
• Iraq: Mondale said he would have voted, as Wellstone did, against the resolution authorizing President Bush to use military force with or without U.N. support.
• Taxes: He favors repealing the portions of Bush's 2001 tax cut that help the wealthy, including reducing the top tax rate and phasing out the estate tax. The savings would be used partly to grant a temporary cut in the FICA payroll tax, which would put more money in the pockets of most workers and help stimulate the economy, and partly to reduce the ballooning federal deficit.
• Prescription drugs: Mondale favors the approach taken by most Democrats of adding a prescription drug benefit to Medicare. He also endorsed the patients' bill of rights.
• Abortion: He thinks Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that established abortion rights, was correctly decided and said he would not vote to confirm a nominee whom he thought would help overturn the decision. He opposed a ban on the late-term abortion procedure called "partial-birth abortion" by its opponents.
• Gay rights: Mondale said he does not favor treating same sex unions as marriages, but he supports giving gay partners legal and employment benefits as though they were spouses.
• War on terrorism, civil liberties: He said the war on terror is the top national priority, but he expressed concern about damage to civil liberties that could be committed in the name of fighting terror. "We can do everything we need to do within our existing system of justice," he said.
• North Korea: The revelation of a nuclear weapons program in North Korea makes that threat "more dangerous than Iraq" in some respects, Mondale said. He approves of the administration's approach, which is to enlist all of North Korea's neighbors to pressure Pyongyang to drop its nuclear ambitions.
• Missile defense: Mondale favors continuing research and testing, but criticized Bush for seeking deployment too early, which he said was "destabilizing" and is getting ahead of the technology's capabilities. Coleman supports Bush's approach.
• Social Security: Privatizing Social Security is "a dreadful idea, as the recent stock market trends have demonstrated," Mondale said. He ruled out any increases in the Social Security retirement age beyond those already scheduled. He endorsed no tax increases or benefit cuts that might forestall the system's insolvency, now projected for 2041, but said getting the deficit under control was vital for maintaining benefits when baby boomers retire.
That argument led Mondale back to his opposition to the Bush tax cut of 2001, which he denounced as too big, too tilted to the rich and responsible for "blowing an enormous hole in the budget." |
