CLINTON'S PLEDGES
WASHINGTON POST
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20, 1993
ARMS CONTROL
- Ratify START I and START II treaties.
- Use sanctions to seek stronger export controls from countries with technologies for nuclear and other arms.
- Prevent foreign governments from using agricultural and other non-military aid on weapons.
- Enable the International Atomic Energy Agency to conduct more inspections to stop nuclear proliferation.
- Press countries to join the Missile Technology Control Regime.
- Seek Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and an international agreement banning chemical weapons.
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
- Link most-favored-nation trading status for China with progress on human rights and nuclear proliferation.
- Seek U.N. authorization for air strikes against forces that disrupt relief efforts in Bosnia while using U.S. and European naval forces to tighten economic sanctions against Serbia and Montenegro.
- End reported atrocities in Serbian detention camps with international military force if necessary, and punish those responsible for atrocities in Bosnia under international law.
- Get full accounting of POWs and MIAs before normalizing relations with Vietnam.
Increase political and economic pressure on Haiti's current leadership to restore that country's democratically elected government.
- Encourage more private investment in the former Soviet Union.
- Guarantee loans for Israel to help settle Soviet Jews.
- Recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and oppose the creation of an independent Palestinian state.
- Modify foreign aid programs to promote democracy.
- Establish Radio Free Asia.
DEFENSE
- Save $200 billion in defense spending over 5 years, or
$60 billion more than the Bush administration proposed.
- Cut military personnel by offering voluntary early retirement and pro-rated pensions for those who have served 15 to 20 years.
- Pay retiring personnel for a year of retraining.
- Build fleet of C-17 cargo planes to expand sea- and airlift capabilities and enhance rapid-deployment forces.
- Reduce U.S. forces in Europe to 75,000-100,000 troops but maintain commitment to NATO.
- Maintain U.S. military presence in Korea.
- Maintain 10 carrier battle groups instead of 12.
- Develop short-and medium-range missile defenses and continue research on limited long range missile defenses.
- Cut spending on large, space-based missile defenses.
- Reverse ban on homosexuals in the military.
ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT
- Oppose increasing federal excise gas taxes or increased reliance on nuclear power.
- Raise Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards for auto makers from 27.5 miles per gallon to between 40 and 45.
- Convert federal vehicle fleet to natural gas.
- Encourage renewable and alternative energy projects with tax incentives.
- Use highway spending to encourage car pooling and mass transit.
- Change regulations, and building standards, to make energy efficiency profitable for utilities and consumers.
- Curb industrial and toxic emissions and expand markets for recycled products with tax incentives.
- Enforce environmental laws with jail terms for corporate polluters when necessary.
- Push utilities to consider social and economic costs of fuel sources with incentives to adopt least-cost planning.
- Protect expanded Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska from drilling.
- Require companies to recover some of the waste they generate or buy "credits" from companies that do.
- Pass Clean Water Act that includes incentives to reduce "non-point-source" pollution from household chemicals, pesticides and other substances.
- Allow citizens to sue federal agencies for ignoring environmental laws and regulations.
- Stick to "no net loss" wetlands policy.
- Limit carbon dioxide emissions to 1990 levels by 2000.
- Push major banks to reduce debt burdens on developing nations in exchange for land conservation efforts.
- Allow U.S. funds to support international family planning and population control efforts.
HEALTH CARE
- Provide coverage to all Americans with cost controls and by requiring employers to buy private insurance or pay into a public system.
- Allow people to choose services from competing local networks of insurers, hospitals, clinics and doctors, who will be paid a fixed rate.
- Provide a core benefits package that includes ambulatory physician and inpatient hospital care, prescription drugs, basic mental health coverage, and expanded access to preventative treatments and routine screenings.
- Create a board of consumers, providers and representatives from government, business and labor to establish a core package of benefits and annual health budget targets.
- Require insurers to cover individuals with any pre-existing conditions, charge all businesses in a community the same rate, and streamline billing practices to cut administrative costs.
- Phase in requirements for small employers until costs are reduced.
- Allow small employers to pool to receive more favorable rates from insurers.
- Eliminate tax breaks for prescription drug manufacturers whose prices increase faster than incomes.
- Expand Medicare benefits for the elderly and disabled to include more options for long-term care.
HOUSING
- Hold a Housing and Homelessness Summit with urban leaders to develop poverty and housing programs.
- Transfer 10 percent of all federal housing to churches and other non-profit community groups for the homeless.
- Use housing at closed military bases for the homeless.
- Provide federal support to programs that restore old housing to sell to low-income home buyers.
- Attract investment with a permanent Low Income Housing Tax Credit.
- Provide increased federal funding for maintenance of
existing public housing.
- Raise the ceiling on Federal Housing Authority mortgage insurance to 95 percent of the price of a home in average metropolitan areas.
- Expand local authority to make more low-income rental units available through the HOME Program.
EDUCATION
- Create a national service program that allows college students to repay federal loans with community work.
- Fully fund Head Start and other programs recommended by the National Commission on Children.
- Enact national standards for public schools to be measured with examinations on core subjects.
- Help students not going to college develop job skills through a national apprenticeship program.
- Require employers to spend 1.5 percent of payroll costs on education and training for all workers.
- Entourage competition in education by giving parents One funding to "level the playing field" for disadvantaged students.
- Give school systems flexibility to use federal funds to
reduce class sizes or as they see fit.
- Develop programs that help disadvantaged parents work with their children on school assignments.
- Provide funds for security and metal detectors at schools that need them.
- Require large federal contractors to sponsor jobs and after - school employment for disadvantaged youth.
- Promote bilingual education programs in which students learn core subjects in their native languages while also studying English.
CRIME AND DRUGS
- Put 100,000 new police officers to work and expand community policing.
- Create a National Police Corps to put military personnel and unemployed veterans to work in law enforcement.
- Have first-time, nonviolent offenders serve out their sentences in community boot camps.
- Enact tough penalties for assaults against women and children to deter domestic violence.
- Increase federal funding for school-based and community drug education programs and treatment clinics.
- Provide federal matching funds for crime prevention in hard-hit communities.
- Impose a five-day waiting period on handgun purchases, ban assault weapons with no legitimate hunting purpose, and limit access to multiple-round clips.
- Seek jail terms for serious white-collar criminals in "real prisons, not high-tech summer camps."
- Crack down on hate crimes.
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