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To: altair19 who wrote (18198)	11/4/2002 3:44:37 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 104160

<<...Let's get out and VOTE!...>> Good suggestion A19...I plan to take action and vote tomorrow. Last time I checked you have quite a close Governors race in Mass...it will be interesting to see how it turns out. -S2@therecouldbeafewupsetstomorrow.com

To: altair19 who wrote (18198)	11/4/2002 3:50:42 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 104160

Big Issues Loom in Midterm Election By CALVIN WOODWARD Associated Press Writer 11/04/02 WASHINGTON (AP) - More than the fate of candidates is at stake Tuesday. In determining which party controls the House and Senate, voters are shaping the coming battles over taxes, Social Security (news - web sites), jobs, drugs and — well into the future — the makeup of courts that could rule on a long list of issues from abortion to welfare. Those struggles will take place against the backdrop of a shaky economy that makes difficult choices at the best of times harder still, intensifying the public's needs and driving up the expense of addressing them. Local concerns motivated most campaigns. Transcendent issues, when taken up, were raised in almost cartoonish fashion at times — Democrats slamming the "risky scheme" of their opponents on Social Security; Republicans literally running a cartoon that depicted a tax-grabbing Democratic boogieman. But Tuesday's choices inevitably will set a course on those issues and more. To be determined: not only whether one party's plans prevail over the other's, but how much gets done at all in the two years before a presidential election, a time ripe for brinkmanship and distraction. Some issues are more likely than others to rise or fall based on which party controls the Senate and House. Among them: SOCIAL SECURITY The idea held broad appeal when the stock market was high — let people take some of the money that now goes into the Social Security system and put it into personal retirement accounts instead. Higher returns would ensure a more comfortable retirement for more people, the reasoning goes. Most Democrats oppose any diversion of money from Social Security. The sinking value of so many retirement funds has set back the initiative, a top plank in President Bush (news - web sites)'s 2000 platform. Supporters argue that investment safeguards can protect against deep losses in unpredictable times and still provide a better return than most people get from Social Security. Even so, a variety of Republicans are tentative about advancing the idea while the stock market is so erratic. If Bush has a hope of making much progress on the plan in what's left of his term, he can probably do so only if his party controls both houses of Congress. ECONOMY, TAXES Last year's $1.3 trillion package of tax cuts was to expire in a decade; the two parties are wrestling with each other over Bush's call to make the reductions permanent. Democratic leaders are pitching other ideas to stimulate the economy, including an extension of unemployment benefits, an increase in the minimum wage and narrower business tax cuts. Democratic Rep. Richard Gephardt (news, bio, voting record) of Missouri, in line to be speaker if the House falls into his party's hands, proposes raising the minimum wage to $6.65 an hour by January 2004 from $5.15 now. Senate Democrats favor a similar raise. Bush might go along with a small raise if he gets something important in return; generally, he favors an increase only if individual states are allowed to opt out of it. PRESCRIPTION DRUGS Both parties want prescription drug coverage for the elderly, filling a hole in Medicare, which does not pay for most drugs. At issue is how to do it — through Medicare itself, or run by a private company — and how comprehensive the benefits should be. Drug costs are rising, and about one-third of Medicare recipients do not have their own coverage. The issue, which was featured heavily in the 2000 elections, consumed weeks of debate in Congress but was not resolved. A plan passed by the Republican-controlled House would spend $320 billion to set up a privately administered insurance system. Beneficiaries would pay premiums, deductibles and copayments on the first $2,000 in drug costs, then pay all costs until out-of-pocket expenses reached $3,700 a year. Insurance would pay anything above that. The Democratic-controlled Senate debated and rejected a variety of plans costing much more than the House plan and offering much better benefits. MENTAL HEALTH Control of Congress could decide the fate of legislation that would require insurance plans that include mental illnesses to cover them the same way they cover physical ones. If this were law, health plans couldn't limit patients to 10 visits a year for a mental health problem when there are no limits for a bad heart or a troublesome allergy. Majorities in both the House and Senate support this "mental health parity," and Bush backs it, too. But Republican House leaders oppose it and have used their agenda-setting powers to stop it. They argue the mandate would drive up already rising health care costs and some employers might drop mental health coverage altogether. JUDGES The donnybrook over Bush's picks for federal courts illustrates how something that is not supposed to matter — the perceived ideology and policy leanings of judges — can matter very much. Seventeen U.S. District Court nominees are waiting for Senate votes, as well as one appeals court candidate. The Senate has confirmed 80 and blocked several since Bush took office. Presidents don't admit to making judicial nominations based on ideology; Bush says Democrats are standing in the way of a "sound judiciary." Democrats say Bush has put forward nominees too far to the right, ones who would strip back abortion rights, civil rights and more. The debate is bound to grow if a Supreme Court vacancy opens. The court is closely divided on abortion, and the balance could swing depending on who leaves and who is put forward.

To: altair19 who wrote (18198)	11/4/2002 5:00:44 PM
From: elpolvo	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 104160

precint19- we have the option of voting early in NM. i voted two weeks ago. we do have secret balloting but just in case anyone is interested, here's how i voted: i DID NOT VOTE for a single republican. (even though ONE of them was fully competent)<g> i wanted to send a message that the top dogs in the (R) party have gone berserk and that no one in that party will get my vote until things change. they all put on compassionate masks at election time and give exactly the same answers to questions as the democrats do... but after the election they do exactly the opposite. did bush tell you he was going to renege on the kyoto treaty, declare war on iraq, and open up the arctic natl. wildlife refuge to oil drilling? did he say he was going to slap tariffs on steel and lumber? did he say that the UN is irrelevant and that america should act unilaterally with pre-emptive attacks on "evil axis" nations while remaining immune to any international courts of law? if he mentioned any of these things before the election, they sure got by me. there were a couple of democrats i did not vote for also. even one who was running unopposed for district court judge... IMO he's an unethical jerk. i voted AGAINST all the bonds for infrastructure improvements. when times are tough, bite the bullet and make do with what you have already. billions more are going to our military budget this year... if you need sewer improvements or library books, cut back on bullets and re-route the spending or bite bullets and do without - your choice. cutting taxes while increasing spending does not compute for me. it's voodoo economics. (yes, i realize that we're talking about different budgets - state and county vs. federal --- and property taxes vs. income taxes - but i'm sending the message that all these budgets are connected - in that they ALL INVOLVE ME and people i vote for or against... and all these overseers of our various budgets had better get their act together on the federal, state, AND local levels.) i voted FOR all the (state) constitutional amendments. most of them were to correct obsolete wording in old laws or to benefit seniors and veterans. i voted to retain the district and metro judges that are competent and i voted to NOT retain a couple of judges who have made a-holes of themselves in the past two years. whether my vote gets counted properly or not... i'll never know. i didn't know until the last general election in 2000 that thousands of votes get thrown out or are not counted every election for many different reasons. i think i'd rather just have a show of hands and watch as the hands are counted. -juan q. publik