######## updated format CLINTON/GORE ON AMERICAN FAMILIES Washington has abandoned working families. While taxes fall and incomes rise for those at the top of the totem pole, middle class families have worked harder for less money and paid more taxes to a government that failed to produce what we need: good jobs in a growing economy, world-class education, affordable health care and safe streets and neighborhoods. The Republicans have lectured America on the importance of family values. But their policies have made life harder for working families: They have forced parents to choose between the jobs they need and the families they love, and they've slashed funding for programs that prepare kids for kindergarten, send teens on to college, and save us all money. They have stood idly by as neighborhoods collapse, violent crime rises, and health costs skyrocket. A Clinton/Gore Administration will demand more from families, but it will offer more, too. It will demand that parents pay the child support they owe. But it will offer their children the pre-schooling they need. It will demand that young people stay in school and off drugs. But it will offer all Americans safer streets and the chance to borrow for college. A Clinton/Gore Administration will demand that people work hard and play by the rules. It will honor and reward those who do. We cannot afford another four years of a President who doesn't have a plan to help Americas families and who backs down from the promises he does make. It is time for a change -- time to put people first. Treat families right * Grant additional tax relief to families with children. * Sign into law the Family and Medical Leave Act, which George Bush vetoed in 1990, so that no worker is forced to choose between keeping his or her job and caring for a newborn child or sick family member. * Create a child care network as complete as the public school network, tailored to the needs of working families; give parents choices between competing public and private institutions. * Establish more rigorous standards for licensing child care facilities and implement improved methods for enforcing them. * Crack down on deadbeat parents by reporting them to credit agencies, so they cant borrow money for themselves when they're not taking care of their children. Use the Internal Revenue Service to collect child support, start a national deadbeat databank, and make it a felony to cross state lines to avoid paying support. Educate our children * Send children to school ready to learn by fully funding pre-school programs which save us several dollars for every one we spend -- Head Start, the Women Infants and Children (WIC) program, and other critical initiatives recommended by the National Commission on Children. * Develop national parenting programs like Arkansas Home Instructional Program for Pre-school Youngsters to help disadvantaged parents work with their children to build an ethic of learning at home that benefits both. * Dramatically improve K-12 education by establishing tough standards and a national examination system in core subjects, leveling the playing field for disadvantaged students, and reducing class sizes. * Give every parent the right to choose the public school his or her child attends, as they have in Arkansas; in return, demand that parents work with their children to keep them in school, off drugs, and headed toward graduation. * Establish a Youth Opportunity Corps to give teenagers who drop out of school a second chance. Community youth centers will match teenagers with adults who care about them, and will give kids a chance to develop self-discipline and skills. * Give every American the right to borrow for college by scrapping the existing student loan program and establishing a National Service Trust Fund. Those who borrow from the fund will be able to repay the balance either as a small percentage of their earnings over time, or through community service as teachers, law enforcement officers, health care workers or peer counselors helping kids stay off drugs and in school. Guarantee every family the right to quality, affordable health care * Control costs, improve quality and cover everybody under a national health care plan that requires insurers to offer a core benefits package, including pre-natal care and other important preventive treatments. * Take on the insurance industry by simplifying financial and accounting procedures; banning underwriting practices that waste billions trying to discover which patients are bad risks; and prohibiting companies from denying coverage to individuals with pre-existing conditions. * Stop drug price gouging by eliminating tax breaks for drug companies that raise their prices faster than Americans incomes rise. Make our homes, streets and schools safe again * Crack down on violence against women and children by signing the Violence Against Women Act, which would provide tougher enforcement and stiffer penalties to deter domestic violence. * Put 100,000 new police officers on the streets by establishing a National Police Corps drawn partly from military veterans and active military personnel. * Expand community policing to stop crimes before they happen by taking officers out of patrol cars and putting them back on the beat. * Sign the Brady Bill to create a waiting period for handgun purchases and allow authorities to conduct background checks to prevent guns from falling into the wrong hands; work to ban assault rifles that have no legitimate hunting purpose. * Launch a Safe Schools Initiative to help schools take back their facilities as places of learning: make schools eligible for federal assistance to pay for metal detectors and security personnel if they need them; encourage states to get tougher with in-school crime; and fund mentoring, counseling, and outreach programs so kids in trouble with crime, drugs or gangs have some place to turn. Reward working families * Expand the Earned Income Tax Credit to guarantee a working wage so that no American with a family who works full-time is forced to live in poverty. * Put an end to welfare as we know it by making welfare a second chance, not a way of life; empower people on welfare with the education, training and child care they need, for up to two years, so they can break the cycle of dependence after that, those who can work will have to find a job either in the private sector or in community service. Providing fairness for families * Governor Clinton proposed and passed a measure which reduced or eliminated state income taxes for 374,000 Arkansans. Because of his leadership, Arkansas tax burden is the second lowest in the country. * Directed the Arkansas Child Support Enforcement Unit in aggressively enforcing child support laws. The Unit has received national recognition for its success. Collections totalled more than $41 million in 1991, a 20 percent increase from 1990. * Senator Gore cosponsored the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1991, which George Bush vetoed. * Cosponsored the Child Welfare and Preventive Services Act which establishes innovative child welfare and family support services that strengthen families, keep children out of foster care, promote the development of comprehensive substance abuse programs for pregnant women, and provide improved health care services for low-income children. * Sponsored the Gore/Downey Working Families Tax Relief Act for families with children to expand the earned income tax credit program to help lift working families out of poverty. * In 1992 Gore sponsored the Family Reunion Conference in Nashville, TN, which brought together 600 people including social workers, teachers and psychologists to exchange ideas and develop solutions to the challenges facing our families and children. The conference resulted in the formation of the Tennessee Family Action Network Improving education * Governor Clinton established the first state-wide Home Instructional Program for Pre-school Youngsters in 1986, which helps welfare mothers teach their children to read. * Fought to establish tough standards for teachers, students, and schools; increased parental involvement; raised teacher salaries; developed a new curriculum, including advanced college preparation courses in math and science; revoked the drivers licenses of students who drop out of school before age 18 for no good reason. * Increased education funding; Arkansas ranks fifth in the nation over the last decade in percentage increase of funding for higher education. * Guided Arkansas to the highest high school graduation rate in the region; and helped to increase the college attendance rate from 38.2 percent in 1982 to 41.3 in 1991. * Created a youth apprenticeship program to aid and motivate non college-bound students. * Established the Arkansas Academic Challenge Scholarship program to provide scholarships to middle-income and poor students who maintain a minimum GPA, score 19 on the ACT, and stay off drugs. * Created a college bond program to allow parents to buy short- or long-term college bonds, not taxed in Arkansas, to finance their childrens education. * Senator Gore supported the Neighborhood Schools Improvement Act, which affirms the national education goals and establishes an assessment panel to report on reaching these goals; improves teacher and school leader training; strengthens parental involvement; provides for school year and day extension; expands dropout prevention efforts; and increases the use of educational technology. * Voted for legislation to expand Pell Grants eligibility, increase grant levels, and increase the availability of grants and loans to middle-income families. * Voted for the Vocational Education which funds education in skilled trades beyond high school. Protecting health * Governor Clinton launched Arkansas first school-based health clinics. Today there are 21 such clinics, reaching thousands of Arkansas' children who wouldn't otherwise have access to health care. * Cut Arkansas infant mortality rate almost in half through improved pre-natal and post-natal care. * Proposed and passed a Health Care Access Law designed to provide, among other things, universal health coverage for all Arkansas children under age 16, regardless of family income. The law emphasizes preventive and primary care. * Sharply increased efforts to improve rural health: the Rural Physician Recruitment and Retention Program encourages physicians to locate and practice family medicine in small Arkansas communities; the Rural Medical Practice Student Loans and Scholarships provide support for medical students agreeing to practice in rural communities. * Senator Gore was the principal sponsor of the Infant Formula Act to improve nutrition and safety standards. * Authored legislation that resulted in FDA regulations banning the use of life-threatening sulfites on fresh fruits and vegetables. * Led the successful fight for warning labels on alcohol beverages that provide consumers -- particularly pregnant women -- with critical information. * Wrote and steered to passage the Cigarette Labeling Act to require stronger warning labels. * In August 1992, Arkansas was one of twelve states which received funding as part of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's State Initiatives in Health Care Financing Reform Programs. Arkansas was chosen for its innovative approach to increase health care insurance coverage to residents and to contain the escalating costs of care. Getting tough on crime * Governor Clinton Increased penalties for drug dealing and violent crime. * Established innovative boot camps to instill discipline in non-violent first-time offenders. * Built more prisons and kept costs down. * Senator Gore cosponsored legislation to provide a mandatory 5-year prison sentence for anyone who used a gun to commit a federal crime. * Supported the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 which attacks drug abuse in our country with reinforced interdiction efforts, expanded prevention, education and treatment programs, assistance to local law enforcement, and stiffer criminal penalties. Fighting dependency * Governor Clinton helped draft and Senator Gore supported the most significant welfare reform legislation ever, the Family Support Act of 1988. Arkansas welfare-to-work program, Project Success was one of the first three such efforts implemented, and has helped almost 10,000 Arkansans find work in one year alone. * Removed a quarter of a million low-income Arkansans from the tax rolls.