New Democrat Update - September 2005
IT’S THE DEMOCRATIC THING TO DO
Hurricane Katrina has wrecked havoc in the southeastern United States, including, of course, New Orleans. Eighty percent of the city is now under water which, in some places, is 20 to 25 feet deep. Over 300 deaths have been reported in seven states - a number, unfortunately, that is expected to grow significantly. Katrina may be the worst natural disaster ever to hit the United States.
The best way is to help is by contributing money to coordinated relief efforts. Money allows organizations to purchase exactly what is most urgently needed by hurricane survivors, as well as paying for the transportation necessary to distribute the supplies.
Please visit the web site of the American Red Cross, the Salvation Army or other organizations and give what you can - today.
SENATOR KEN SALAZAR’S FAST START
U.S. Senator Ken Salazar has certainly kept his campaign promise to be an independent voice for all the people of Colorado. He has put them first, ahead of the special interests that often have a stranglehold on Washington.
The Senator is advocating a clear set of important priorities including keeping America safe and ensuring that every person has the opportunity for a good job and better health care. He is also pushing key initiatives that will boost rural America and promote wise stewardship of our land and water.
Public Safety - Of course, protecting the public is the first and foremost primary responsibility of government. With his experience as a former state Attorney General, Salazar is working hard to beef up training and resources for state and local "first responders” - police, firefighters and other emergency personnel. He has also been a force for strengthening border and port security.
His comprehensive survey earlier this year of Colorado’s first responders revealed that most of them feel largely unprepared for a terrorist attack and frustrated by inconsistent leadership from the federal government. That finding led him to introduce legislation, requiring the Department of Homeland Security to act as a “best practices” clearinghouse for state and local governments.
The Senator has also proposed adding more than 50,000 police officers on the streets, opposing the Bush administration’s efforts to eliminate the highly successful Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program. The timing for this legislation could not be better. Just as crime is rising again, local governments are struggling with a “cop crunch” caused by federally imposed homeland security responsibilities, an ongoing fiscal crisis intensified by this administration's budget and economic policies, and the call-up of many police officers to serve in the National Guard and Reserves.
Economic Opportunity and Security - Senator Salazar recognizes that, for the economy to grow again and generate jobs, Washington must get the federal budget back into balance. Getting the nation's fiscal house in order is the best way to lower the upward pressure on interest rates, creating a pool of affordable and available capital for critical investments in new plants, equipment and technology.
That’s why he supports “Pay-As-You-Go” which requires that any proposed spending, or tax cuts, must be offset by spending cuts or revenue increases. That idea helped to balance the budget during the 1990s and it can do it again. Very closely related, he has also fought to stop the privatization of Social Security, which only hastens the program’s insolvency and creates an additional $2 trillion of debt, as well as cutting retirement benefits.
Of course, investing in people is also very necessary. Less than 15 percent of our high school students take enough science and math to qualify for any kind of engineering or advanced science in college, and India alone produces four times more engineers each year than the United States. Our 15-year-olds now rank 28th in the world in math scores. To help turn that around, Salazar supports increasing college scholarships to $4,500 and boosting student loan forgiveness amounts for future math and science teachers.
Better Health Care - Senator Salazar is focusing on fixing what he has rightly said is our primary domestic crisis - a health care system that is bankrupting the nation’s families, businesses and governments. Toward that end, he is working to reduce the cost of prescription drugs, prohibit discrimination based on genetic information and provide resources for breast cancer research and Healthy Start, which provides medical care for pregnant women, babies, and children. Another very important priority is to get health care faster to those who really need it - disabled individuals on Social Security.
Boosting Rural America - As a farmer and rancher who grew up in the San Luis Valley, Salazar has made rural economic revitalization one of his top priorities. In fact, in his first speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate he said “The America where I grew up is vanishing, left behind by a Washington D.C. that has lost touch with what is important to the people of the heartland. I fear that rural Colorado, like the rest of rural America, may have become ‘the forgotten America.’”
Today’s economy is creating an evermore spatially dispersed and footloose business sector, which allows an increasing share of economic activity now located in high-cost metro areas to relocate to lower-cost areas. As more of the economy processes information digitally, more firms are able to locate anywhere - as long as high-speed data transmission capabilities are available.
Which is why Salazar has placed such a high priority on increasing investment in broadband infrastructure. Once in place, it will spur economic growth and increase demand for products and services (agricultural biotechnology, wind power, etc.) likely to be produced in rural areas.
Growing and prospering also requires investing in the skills and knowledge of young people. Teacher quality - the most important in-school factor in boosting student achievement - can be significantly raised by supporting new and experienced teachers. The Senator’s proposed teacher retention initiative will provide signing and retention bonuses to those educators who agree to work in rural areas.
Wise Stewardship - Starting even before his days as Colorado’s Director of Natural Resources and Attorney General, Senator Salazar has always been a vigorous steward of our nation’s land, water and air. That strong commitment continues in the U.S. Senate - demonstrated by his opposition to oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and support for reducing greenhouse and diesel engine emissions.
Committed to protecting public lands, the Senator wants to address the growing backlog of maintenance needs at our national parks, an annual shortfall estimated to be $600 million. Under Salazar’s proposal, that gap would be narrowed by a voluntary taxpayer checkoff option on federal tax returns.
As a supporter of responsible energy development and to reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil, the Senator is advocating tax incentives for alternative energy sources, including ethanol and biodiesel fuels. He is also pushing a proposal, modeled after a recently voter-approved ballot initiative in Colorado, that will require utilities to get at least 10% of their power from renewable energy by 2020.
Finally, Senator Salazar deserves credit for countering Washington’s polarization with something more compelling than just more polarization. He, along with 13 other senators (seven Democrats and seven Republicans), stopped the GOP Senate leadership from changing the rules on the confirmation process for federal judicial nominees. The agreement effectively prevented the entire body from shutting down for the rest of the year.
All of the above is just a sampling what Senator Salazar has already accomplished - in just a little over eight months. Clearly, Coloradans made the right choice last November.