How do the candidates stack up on your issues?

Consumer Protection
• Work to pass his STOP FRAUD Act to define mortgage fraud, increase funding for federal and state enforcement programs, create new criminal penalties, and require reporting of suspicious activity.
• Give a 10 percent tax credit to all middle-class homeowners that don’t itemize their deductions.
• Allow bankruptcy courts to reduce mortgage payments.
• Establish a Credit Card Bill of Rights to: ban unilateral changes; apply interest rate increases only to future debt; prohibit interest on fees; prohibit “universal defaults;” and require prompt and fair crediting of cardholder payments.
• Require lenders to provide early, clear and simplified information about loan fees, payments and penalties.

Labor
• Work for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, that makes it easier for workers to organize unions, and sign it into law.
• Work to ban the permanent replacement of striking workers.
• Increase the minimum wage and index it to inflation to ensure it rises every year.
• Work to overturn the National Labor Relations Board’s decisions classifying nurses, construction, and professional workers as “supervisors” unprotected by federal labor laws.
• Ensure public contracts are awarded to companies committed to American workers.
• Encourage flexible work schedules.

Taxes
Roll back the Bush tax cuts for Americans earning more than $250,000 annually and by retaining the estate tax at its 2009 level.
• Create a tax credit to help small businesses provide affordable health insurance to their employees.
• Enact a Windfall Profits Tax on oil companies to provide a $1,000 emergency energy rebate to families.
• End tax breaks for companies that send jobs overseas.
• Provide middle-class families with at least $1,000 in permanent annual tax relief.
• Provide a $25 billion State Growth Fund to prevent state and local services cuts or tax increases.
• Eliminate all federal income taxes for seniors making less than $50,000 per year.

Health Care
• Establish a National Health Insurance Exchange with a range of private insurance options, and a new public plan based on benefits available to members of Congress to allow individuals and small businesses to buy affordable health coverage.
• Require insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions.
• Cover a portion of catastrophic health costs for businesses if they lower premiums for employees.
• Require large employers that don’t offer coverage to contribute a percentage of payroll toward the costs of employees’ health care.

Social Security/Retirement
• Seek alternatives to raising the retirement age.
• Oppose privatizing Social Security.

Infrastructure
• Spend $60 billion over 10 years to create and fund a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank to expand and enhance, not supplant, existing federal transportation investments.
• Provide $25 billion in a Jobs and Growth Fund to prevent cutbacks in road and bridge maintenance and fund school repair.

Consumer Protection
Oppose taxpayer bailout of real estate speculators or financial market participants who failed to perform due diligence in assessing credit risks.
• Base any government assistance to the banking system solely on preventing systemic risk.
• Allow every “deserving” family or homeowner to trade a burdensome mortgage for a manageable loan that reflects their home’s value.
• Call on the federal government and states to create a student loan continuity plan and expand the lender-of-last resort capabilities for each state’s guarantee agency.

Labor/Economy
• Minimize mandates on small businesses, such as those for health insurance and pro-union initiatives such as card check.
• Repeal the 54 cents per gallon tax on imported sugar-based ethanol.
• Reduce barriers to international trade.

Taxes
• Lower the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent.
• Lower tax rates on dividends and capital gains.
• Lower individual tax rates on small businesses such as sole-proprietorships, partnerships, landlords and others.
• Improve investment and research incentives for business.
• Ban internet and cell phone taxes.
• Double the personal income tax exemption for each dependent from $3,500 to $7,000.
• Create a refundable health insurance tax credit of $2,500 per individual or $5,000 per family.
• Tax the value of employer-paid health benefits. The tax credit would offset that tax.
• Phase-out the Alternative Minimum Tax.

Government Reform
• Stop all discretionary federal spending, except for essential military and veterans’ programs, for one year to review the effectiveness of federal programs and use those savings for deficit reduction.
• Eliminate Medicare subsidies for the most affluent individuals.
• Balance the federal budget by 2013.
• Reclaim billions of dollars in spending from earmarks and add-ons in FY 2007 and 2008.
• Hold overall spending growth to 2.4 percent.
• End subsidies to high-income individuals and corporations.
• Reform the civil service system to promote accountability and good performance in our federal workforce.
• Reform unemployment programs.
• Reform procurement programs and cut wasteful spending in defense and non-defense programs.

Health Care
• Promote insurance portability.
• Allow families to purchase health insurance across state lines.
• Eliminate lawsuits against doctors who follow clinical guidelines and adhere to proven safety protocols.
• Allow re-importation of drugs and faster introduction of generic drugs.
• Encourage prevention, early intervention, healthy habits, new treatment models, new public health infrastructure and the use of information technology.
• Promote walk-in clinics at retail outlets.
• Reform the payment systems for Medicaid and Medicare.

Social Security/Retirement
• Supplement the current system with personal accounts.