How The Next President May Impact Your Family
With the Obama/Hillary epic over, vice presidential picks completed, and both national conventions in the books, all eyes turn to November 4th, 2008. Election day has rarely carried this much importance in the history of our young country, and it will be up to the people to decide who will be best to lead us for the next four years. Family issues are one of the most talked about topics amongst the candidates in an effort to get the parental vote. Below is a description on where each candidate stands on issues that may affect your family for the next four years.
Obama/Biden (D)
Benefits for Families
- A plan to initiate a “Making Work Pay” tax credit of $500 per person, or $1,000 per working family will help eliminate income tax for ten million Americans.
- Minimum wage will be raised to $9.50 by 2011.
- Continue to push for the expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit in an effort to fight the war on poverty. The EITC is a benefit offered to full-time minimum wage workers that currently sits at $175. Obama plans to raise that number to $555 per worker, and $1,110 for workers who pay child support.
- A plan to reform the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit by making it refundable and allowing low-income families a chance to receive up to a fifty percent credit for child care expenses.
Benefits in Education
- The “Zero to Five” plan will expand early childhood education by creating grants to fund the effort, ensure all children have access to pre-school, quadruple the number of children eligible for Early Head Start programs, and provide affordable, high-quality child care for working families.
- Improve public schools through teachers by preparing competent, effective instructors through mentoring, incentives, and providing proper learning time for their instructive positions. Obama’s K-12 plan will expand service scholarships to recruit teachers in underserved districts in an attempt to eliminate teacher shortages in all areas.
- A plan to reform and fund No Child Left Behind will shift its focus onto improving schools with necessary resources to meet their goals instead of punishing them for not doing so.
- Creating an American Opportunity Tax Credit will make the first $4,000 of a student’s college education free for most Americans, cover two-thirds of tuition in public colleges in exchange for 100 hours of community service per year.
Benefits in Healthcare
- Provide universal health care that is affordable, comprehensive, portable, and available to every American, saving the average American approximately $2,500 per year on health-related costs.
- Employers who do not offer or contribute to health coverage to their employees will be required to contribute a percentage of payroll towards the national health plan.
- Allow Americans to buy prescription drugs from other countries if the drugs are safe and cost less than in the U.S.
McCain/Palin (R)
Benefits for Families
- Raise the personal tax exemption for each dependent from $3,500 to $7,000.
- Institute the Family Friendly Workplace Act to provide flexible work schedules for employees with families. Employees will be allowed to paid time-off instead of being paid overtime so they can use the accrued overtime to work less hours in another week.
- End our oil dependence by reducing, and eventually eliminating, oil purchases from overseas and relying only domestic oil. The impact of this will lower gas prices.
- Institute a summer gas tax holiday that will remove the 18.4 cent gasoline and 24.4 cent diesel taxes between Memorial Day and Labor Day.
- Roll back on corn-based ethanol mandates, which have been a contributor to rising food costs.
Benefits in Education
- No Child Left Behind has succeeded in exposing struggling schools and students. A plan to correct these issues based on the results will be put in place.
- Encourage alternative methods for finding quality teachers by funding states to recruit teachers who graduate in the top 25 percent of their class or participate in programs such as Teach For America, the New York City Teaching Fellowship Program, the New Teacher Project and universities.
- Provide bonuses for teachers who move to underperforming schools and contribute to student improvement, raise student achievement and enhance the school-wide learning environment.
- Expand the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program by increasing the budget from $13 million to $20 million, creating scholarships that will benefit a thousand more families than before.
- The “Enhancing Education Through Technology Program” will allot $500 million in federal funding to build virtual schools and expand online course offerings for students.
- Low-income students will be eligible to receive up to $4,000 for enrolling in virtual schools, online tutoring, or online courses.
Benefits in Healthcare
- While still having the option of employer-based insurance coverage, every family will receive a direct refundable tax credit of $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for families to offset the cost of insurance. These monies can be used by choosing an insurance provider of your choice, and any extra monies not used will be deposited into a Health Savings Account.
- Work to make sure uninsurable individuals, such as those with pre-existing conditions, get proper, high-quality coverage they need.
- Lower drug prices by safe re-importation of drugs and introducing generic drugs to the market at a faster pace.
These are just several of the issues each candidate is addressing. For more information, please visit. www.barackobama.com and www.johnmccain.com.
Anthony Ripo
Mommy & Me Correspondent
