Presidential Hopeful Barack Obama Address Our Issues & Concerns

[Excerpts of Obama’s Response to the NAACP 2008 Presidential Questionnaire]

I will increase federal funding for programs that help working families, including universal health care, dramatically improving education opportunities from birth to college, providing a “Marking Work Pay” tax credit to 150 million working Americans, fully funding the CBDG program and other programs that increase the availability of affordable housing, increasing funding for transitional jobs and career pathway programs... (p. 19)

As someone who was largely raised by my grandparents, I recognize that Social Security is indispensable to workers and senior… I remain committed to making sure Social Security is solvent and viable for the American people, now and in the future… I will be honest with the American people about the long-term solvency of Social Security and the ways we can fix the problem… I believe that the first place to look for ways to strengthen Social Security is the payroll tax system. Currently, the Social Security payroll tax applies to only the first $97,500 a worker makes. I support increasing the maximum amount of earning covered by Social Security and I will work with Congress and the American people to choose a payroll tax reform package that will keep Social Security completely solvent for at least the next half century. (p. 27)

I believe that the travesty of justice we saw in Jena exposed glaring inequities in our justice system that were around long before the schoolyard fight broke out. And as president, I’ll take steps to ensure that our criminal justice system works for everyone… Part of what we saw in Jena was a rush to prosecute and try young men as adults. As president, my Justice Department will work with local law enforcement to strengthen, identify and implement strategies to seek to prevent youth crime before it occurs. I will build on my efforts in the Senate to end racial profiling… improve the quality of our nation’s public defenders by creating loan-forgiveness programs for law students who enter this field… replicate the successful efforts of drug courts… I will ensure that our federal courts and probation offices have adequate resource to deal with this new program. Couple with the elimination of sentencing disparities and mandatory minimum reform, this will help many of our youth avoid a life of crime. (p. 18)

Nearly 2 million children have a parent in a correctional facility. It is simply unacceptable to keep ignoring this crisis in American families and communities. In the U.S. Senate, I cosponsored the Second Chance Act and have worked to provide job training, substance abuse and mental health counseling, and employment opportunities to ex-offenders… I will create a prison-to-work incentive program, modeled on the Welfare-to-Work Partnership, to create ties with employers, third-party agencies that provide training and support services to ex-offenders, and to improve ex-offender employment and job retention rates. I will also reduce bureaucratic barriers at state correctional systems that prevent former inmates from finding and maintaining employment. As a state senator, I fought for and passed legislation to provide ex-offenders with expanded mental health counseling and remove barriers that prevent non-violent offenders from finding and maintaining employment. (p. 13)

I have been a strong advocate of re-entry programs for prisoners… Additionally, many faith-based organizations and nonprofits have successfully worked to provide needed programs to prisoners, and I will work with these groups to reduce our high recidivism rate as president. (p. 17)

I support government efforts to partner with faith-based organizations… important partners in delivering social services, whether it’s helping with prisoner ere-entry programs or providing job training skills. (p. 5)

I support restoration of voting rights for ex-offenders. I am a cosponsor of the Count Ever Vote Act, would sign that legislation into law as president. (p. 7)

I will implement a multi-prong strategy of address homelessness in the United States, building off of my record in the Senate to tackle homelessness with our nation’s veteran population. (p. 30)

I will work to engage more chronically unemployed Americans into the workforce by investing $1 billion over 5 years into transitional jobs and career pathways programs. (p. 30)

I will also expand resources for ex-offender job training and support services, as well as substance abuse programs to help more disengaged Americans rebuild their lives. (p. 30)

I will work to make sure Washington represents the national interest instead of the special interests. We must increase the minimum wage to $9.50 and hour and tie future increases in the minimum wage to inflation… And we need to make the minimum wage a living wage that helps American families not just survive, but succeed. (p. 28)

In the Illinois State Senate, I expanded Illinois version of SCHIP to cover 150,000 children and parents. I have continually opposed President Bush’s efforts to undermine these programs. (p. 28)

As a member of the Illinois state senate, I led efforts to reform a broken death penalty system that sent 13 innocent people to death row… I drafted and passed a law requiring videotaping of interrogations and confessions in capital cases to ensure that prosecutions are fair. As president, I will encourage the states to adopt similar reforms. (p. 16)