Following are some of the specific responses of Presidential Candidate Congressman Kucinich.

PAKPAC has undertaken an initiative to educate and advise the Presidential candidates on the issues that are of concern to the Americans of Pakistani heritage. Congressman Kucinich has been the first one to respond to the questions.

1) Civil Liberties and Equal Opportunities for Pakistani Americans:

Congressman Kucinich opposes the PATRIOT ACT

Response:

The unfolding of the promise of democracy in our nation has paralleled the expansion of civil rights and civil liberties. That is why we must challenge the rationale of the "USA Patriot Act." I am the only presidential candidate who voted against the "Patriot Act." We must ask why America should put aside guarantees of constitutional justice.

The American jurisprudence system is the envy of the free world with its emphasis on due process. Yet a recent Executive Order of this administration replaces our American justice system with military tribunals where officers sit as judge and jury, with secret evidence, secret witnesses, and secret verdicts and even secretly handed down death sentences.

We cannot justify widespread wiretaps and Internet surveillance without judicial supervision, let alone with it. We cannot justify secret searches without a warrant. We cannot justify giving the Attorney General the ability to designate domestic terror groups. We cannot justify giving the FBI total access to any type of data that may exist in any system anywhere such as medical records and financial records.

We cannot justify giving the CIA the ability to target people in this country for intelligence surveillance. We cannot justify a government that takes from the people our right to privacy and then assumes for its own operations a right to total secrecy.

This is not reflective of Jeffersonian Democracy. This is Kafka's "The Trial", writ large. We should not let the actions of terrorists cause us to sacrifice our American system of justice.

2) Peaceful Resolution of Kashmir Crisis According to the will of the people of Kashmir:

Congressman Kucinich supports the peaceful resolution of the Kashmir Crisis as supported by the United Nation resolutions about the resolution to be according to the will of the people of Kashmir.

Congressman Kucinich supports the US involvement (as a mediator) in the negotiation between India and Pakistan to help in the peaceful resolution to the 50+ year old most dangerous conflict.

Congressman Kucinich supports the presence of international monitors (United Nations) along the line of cease fire between India and Pakistan to monitor the alleged cross border infiltration

3) Health Care

Response:

The Kucinich plan is enhanced 'Medicare for All' -- a universal, single-payer system of national health insurance, carefully phased in over 10 years. It addresses everyone's needs, including the 40 million Americans without coverage and those paying exorbitant rates for health insurance. This approach to healthcare emphasizes patient choice, and puts doctors and patients in control of the system, not insurance companies. Coverage will be more complete than private insurance plans, encourage prevention and include prescription drugs.

Health care is currently dominated by insurance firms and HMOS, institutions that are more bureaucratic and costly than Medicare. People are waiting longer for appointments. Fewer people are getting a doctor of their choice. Physicians are given monetary incentives to deny care. Pre-existing illnesses are being used to deny coverage.

Over time, the Kucinich plan will remove private insurance companies from the system -- along with their waste, paperwork, profits, excessive executive salaries, advertising, sales commissions, etc -- and redirect resources to actual treatment. Insurance companies do not heal or treat anyone, physicians and health practitioners do ...and thousands of physicians support a single-payer system because it reduces bureaucracy and shelters the doctor-patient relationship from HMO and insurance company encroachment.

Non-profit national health insurance will decrease total healthcare spending while providing more treatment and services -- through reductions in bureaucracy and cost-cutting measures such as bulk purchasing of prescriptions drugs. Funding will come primarily from existing government healthcare spending (more than $1 trillion) and a phased-in tax on employers of 7.7% (almost $1 trillion). The employers' tax is less than the 8.5% of payroll now paid on average by companies that provide private insurance.

This type of system -- privately-delivered health care, publicly financed -- has worked well in other countries, none of whom spend as much per capita on healthcare as the United States. "We're already paying for national healthcare; we're just not getting it," says Kucinich. The cost-effectiveness of a single-payer system has been affirmed in many studies, including those conducted by the Congressional Budget Office and the General Accounting Office. The GAO has written:
"If the US were to shift to a system of universal coverage and a single payer, as in Canada, the savings in administrative costs (10% to private insurers) would be more than enough to offset the expense of universal coverage."

Over the years, groups and individuals as diverse as Consumers Union, labor unions, the CEO of General Motors, the editorial boards of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and St. Louis Post Dispatch, and Physicians for a National Health Program have endorsed a single-payer approach. It is sound economics -- what actuaries call 'Spreading the Risk' -- to extend Medicare to younger and healthier sectors of our population, thereby putting everyone in one insurance pool. It permanently saves and improves Medicare, while eliminating duplicative private and government bureaucracies.

While enhanced Medicare for All makes economic sense, it has not made political sense to some, due to the power of the private insurance lobby. The streamlined Kucinich plan is very different than the 1993 Clinton HMO-based plan, a complex proposal that left big insurance firms in a central role. After Clinton's 'Managed Competition' plan failed without coming up for a vote, talk-radio host Jim Hightower asked President Clinton why he hadn't put forward a "simple, straightforward" single-payer plan "instead of all this bureaucracy." Clinton replied, "I thought it would be easier to pass" a bill that left the insurance industry in place. "I guess I was wrong about that."

Prescription Drugs: Today there are senior citizens throughout America who are forced to make cruel choices between paying the high cost of prescription drugs or buying food, between prescription drugs or clothing. Seniors are splitting their pills to make prescriptions last, splitting their budgets with $600 monthly prescription bills, splitting their physical and economic health.

The pharmaceutical industry is the most profitable in America, even more profitable than the banking industry. America is a captive market. Americans pay 64% more than Canadians pay for the same pharmaceuticals. Canadians have a system to control prices.

Solution:

Our government should place limits on the price that any manufacturer can charge for prescription drugs. We need a new Prescription for America, a regulatory structure which puts a ceiling on drug company profits the same way credit laws establish what constitutes usury. As with utility rates, our government should be empowered to lower prices and impose windfall profits taxes to correct excess pricing.

4) United States and Pakistan Relationship

Congressman Kucinich supports increase in bilateral Pakistan United States trade and development of mechanisms to increase jobs in Pakistan and increase export to the United States.

Congressman Kucinich opposes IT outsourcing to Pakistan or any other Country.

Congressman Kucinich believes in allowing increase in imports from Pakistan especially with respect to, but not limited to cotton, rice, carpets, surgical equipment, and sports goods. United States has supported a global economic system based on nondiscriminatory free-trade principles. US, however provide tax payers’ 3.5 billion dollar in subsidies to the U.S. cotton farmers who produce cotton at a cost of 60 to 80 cents per pound when it could be produced at half of this cost in Pakistan. This process hurts U.S. taxpayers and poor farmers of Pakistan. He supports that we must provide mechanisms to help save the tax payers money, but also help with Pakistan’s export of cotton and other exports.

5) Education:

Response:
Congress should strive to reduce poverty as its goal. Education is the only solution proven to reduce poverty levels. This conclusion is backed by thousands of national studies. Given the opportunity, education and training pave a path out of poverty for many families.

Five years ago when welfare was reformed, recipients were discouraged, and even prevented from earning a higher degree. Since 1996, the City University of New York experienced annual declines in the number of students who were welfare recipients - from a high of 22,000 students in 1996, to only 5,000 welfare students in 2000. As soon as welfare reform passed, some recipients were even kicked out of school, some only a few months from graduation. What improved condition worthy of the name of reform would create barriers to a college degree?

Congress should allow and encourage people to get career training or work toward a college degree, GED, other degree or learn English. It should create exemptions from time limits so welfare recipients aren't prevented from earning a college degree. If an individual has a bachelor's degree, the average yearly wage is $30,730, nearly three times as much as the $11,432, non-degree employees earn. A college degree translates to a living wage job that allows people to live self-sufficiently and move from welfare programs for good.

Congress should allow home childcare to count as an allowable work activity. For women on welfare, childcare during evening and weekend hours is notoriously difficult to find and is too costly for a welfare recipient. In 1998, 43 states reported waiting lists for childcare, and only 12 percent of those eligible for child care are getting it. Not only does it make practical sense to allow mothers to take care of their own children; it makes sense for families to stay together.

Dennis Kucinich introduced legislation that will expand full-day, full-year quality education programs to all children over the age of three.

Pre-kindergarten programs prepare children to meet the challenges of school. Studies show that young children who have access to a quality education benefit with higher academic achievements, increased graduation rates and decreased juvenile delinquency. Nationwide there's a severe shortage of affordable, quality education programs. By providing universal pre-kindergarten, we are ensuring that all of our children are ready for school.

The Universal Pre-Kindergarten Act will provide funding to States to establish universal pre-kindergarten programs that build on existing federal and state pre-kindergarten initiatives. The program is voluntary and will be available free-of-charge to all families who choose to participate. The legislation requires pre-kindergarten programs to meet quality standards of early education and provides resources for the professional development of teachers.

6) Support the building of education and health infrastructure in Pakistan

Congressman Kucinich supports that United States must use programs like USAID and other programs to help build the educational, health and economic infrastructure of Pakistan, thus minimizing the risk of extremism to flourish in Pakistan.

Congressman Kucinich supports that Pakistan has significant debt at this time, it is important to use different mechanisms including further debt rescheduling and servicing to ensure that more resources could be placed on building up of the infrastructure of the country.

7) A Strong National Economy and Improved Jobs in United States.

Response:
Kucinich Proposal: Employ the Jobless to Rebuild America's Decaying Infrastructure (Labor Day, Sept. 1, 2003)

Our country is facing twin crises: high unemployment and a decrepit infrastructure. Dennis Kucinich has developed a means to solve both problems, and put the unemployed to work rebuilding America's infrastructure.

Unemployment stands at 6.2% nationally. Long term unemployment has become a persistent problem. Nearly 2 million Americans have been looking for work unsuccessfully for over six months, while over 9 million Americans are unemployed. According to the Economic Policy Institute, there are three unemployed people for every job opening.

Ironically, at the same time so many Americans can't find work, there is much work to do. The crisis of our decaying infrastructure is something we see every day when we sit in traffic bound by orange barrels that line our highways. It is something that schoolchildren experience at their desks, crowded together under leaking roofs. In cities, municipal sewer systems overflow into rivers, streams and estuaries. These events occur with increasing regularity as systems age. Infrastructure problems threaten our productivity, our economy, our environment and our health.

Nationally, it would take more than $1 trillion to bring our country's roadways up to speed, according to a report released a couple of years ago by the American Society for Civil Engineers. It would take $127 billion to repair and renovate our schools, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. And in a study completed by the Water Infrastructure Network, it would take $1.3 trillion over 20 years to build, operate and maintain drinking water and wastewater facilities.

With work that needs to be done, and people needing to work, what America needs is a way to put unemployed Americans to work rebuilding America's neglected infrastructure.

The Kucinich plan will make that happen:

The Kucinich plan calls for the creation of a low-cost federal financing mechanism to administer $50 billion in zero-interest loans every year for ten years. Twenty percent of these funds would be targeted for school construction and repair.

State and local governments would continue to issue bonds to finance infrastructure projects. But the Kucinich plan would authorize the federal government to buy those bonds. States would have to repay the principal, but unlike normal municipal borrowing, these bonds would pay zero interest. So the cost of borrowing for infrastructure improvement would be reduced by half.

The federal government would hold these bonds in the Federal Bank for Infrastructure Modernization (FBIM). The bank, as an extension of the Federal Financing bank under the Treasury, would administer the loans. The loans would bear a small fee of one-quarter of one percent of the loan principal to cover the administrative costs of the FBIM. In order to provide the money for the loans, the FBIM would hold a portion of the Treasury securities that the Federal Reserve normally holds. The Fed currently holds about $300 billion in Treasury securities. By transferring about $50 billion annually to the FBIM, it would still allow the Fed to operate as it does now to add liquidity to the system. The Fed, instead of buying securities, would buy the mortgage loans of the states. This way the FBIM's finances would be integrated by the Federal Open Market Committee so as not to disrupt its ability to promote economic stability.

In his February 2001 testimony, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan supported a very similar type of transaction. Already, the Open Market Committee conducts repurchase agreements in mortgage-backed securities guaranteed by the agencies. Greenspan stated: "The FOMC asked the staff to explore the possible mechanisms for backing our usual repurchase operations with the collateral of certain debt obligations of U.S. States and foreign governments." This plan would follow that approach by providing the tool for the FOMC to integrate the mortgage loans of the states.

This amount would be varied so the funds could be used as a tool to foster stable economic growth. During times of economic slowdown, the FBIM would make more loans available to spur investment. During times of economic boom, the FBIM would make fewer loans available.

The Kucinich plan will put Americans back to work. Two million Americans would find jobs in such enterprises as rebuilding schools, designing roads, refurbishing environmental projects and manufacturing steel for water systems. And the Kucinich plan will increase the quality of life in America, by making highways safer, water cleaner, and schools more conducive to learning.

The Economy:

"I see an America where the economy works for everyone because everyone is working. I see a new horizon in this country where there is no such thing as an acceptable level of unemployment. Nearly 9,000,000 Americans are unemployed. Millions more are not being included in the official count. Average wages are falling. People are taking pay cuts to keep their jobs. The unemployed and the employed alike are experiencing a falling standard of living. The middle class aspirations of many are being dashed."

"Where the private sector fails to provide jobs, the public sector has a moral responsibility to do so. People want work, not welfare. And while there ought to be welfare for those unable to work, there ought to be work for those who are able to work and who want to work. And there is enough work to do."

"I see a newly rebuilt America. I see a new horizon where America provides a means to have massive public works to rebuild our cities, our water systems, our public transportation systems, our schools, our parks, our public energy systems. Nearly $150 billion is needed over 20 years to repair and provide for adequate wastewater treatment systems. Another $120 billion is needed for drinking water systems. We need a new financial mechanism to get money to cities and states to begin rebuilding and to put America back to work."

"The federal government can give cities and states loans for infrastructure programs to be repaid over a period of 30 years, at zero interest. This will boost economies and spur private investment. A Federal Bank for Infrastructure Maintenance would administer a program of lending $50 billion per year to state and local governments. The money comes from an innovative adaptation of the normal money supply circulation activity of the Federal Reserve Bank.

The cost to the American taxpayer is simply the cost of the interest on the loans."

"It is up to the Democratic Party to be the advocates for economic progress for all the people."

8) Immigration:

Congressman Kucinich is opposed to this discriminatory practice of visa rejection based on the Country of birth and origin. He does not support the discriminatory visa rejections of individuals from Pakistan.

Congressman Kucinich opposes NSEERS.

PAKPAC will keep you posted on the responses from other Presidential candidates, as well as our suggestions about support.