Word Count: 2353In my paper the Democratic Candidates are Al Gore and Bill Bradley. They both have a
lot of the same views on issues that have come out in the campaigning. For the
Rebublicans it is George W.
Bush and John McCain. Both of these guys have different
views on their issues. The debates between these two men have really been heating up
and it will be interesting to see the outcome of this election. But also on the other side of
this the Democratic battle has also been a though one but I think Bradley will drop out.
He feels and knows he is over matched.Al Gore served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam.
He worked for seven years as a
newspaper reporter and then was elected to Congress from Tennessee. After eight years
in the House of Representatives and eight years as an U.S. Senator from Tennessee, he
was elected Vice President of the United States.
For almost seven years, Al Gore has been a central member of President Clinton's
economic team -- helping to design the program that has led to our strong economy,
casting the tie-breaking Senate vote for the plan in 1993, helping to pass the first balanced
budget in 30 years. He has helped to usher in the longest peacetime economic expansion
in American-- with over 18 million new jobs, wages rising twice the rate of
inflation, the lowest African-American and Hispanic poverty on record, the highest level
of private home ownership ever, more investment in our cities, and the lowest
unemployment in 29 years.
Since his days in the House and Senate, Vice President Gore's environmental
record has been unparalleled. He leads the Administration's efforts to protect the
environment in a way that also strengthens the economy -- such as working with the Big
Three auto makers to support the development of a new generation of fuel- and
energy-efficient vehicles, and working to combat global warming in a way that also
creates new jobs, by helping America lead the estimated $400 billion worldwide market
for new technologies that clean up the environment.
Bill Bradley was born on July 28, 1943, in Crystal City, Missouri, the only
child of Warren and Susan Bradley. The Bradleys lived a comfortable,
middle-class life in a small, multiracial, multiethnic town on the banks of the
Mississippi River, thirty-six miles south of St.
Louis. The Crystal City of Bill's
youth was a blue-collar company town with a single stoplight and a population of
3,492. With the support of his family and the close-knit community around him,
Bill developed the values that have guided him as a leader, athlete, writer, U.S.
Senator, and presidential candidate.
While Bill was growing up, Warren Bradley was a respected small-town
banker. He had been forced to quit high school at age sixteen to help support his
family, taking a job with the St. Louis-San Francisco Railroad. A few years later,
he began what was to become a long and fulfilling career at the local bank, first
"shining pennies," and working his way up to become assistant cashier, cashier,
and eventually president of the bank. He gave Bill his first job as a janitor at the
bank during school breaks.
A reserved man, Warren Bradley had a clear sense of
ethics and lived by a strict code of conduct. Warren's proudest achievement was
that he never foreclosed on a single homeowner throughout the Great
Depression, something that earnedhim the admiration and gratitude of the local
community.
Bill's mother was an energetic and strong-willed former schoolteacher.Susie Bradley taught Sunday school classes at the Presbyterian Church across
the street from the Bradley home, which the family attended every week.
She also
doted on her only son. Susie kept Bill active and involved as a child, enrolling him
in piano, trumpet, French, swimming, basketball, boxing, and French horn. She
was the den mother of his Cub Scout group and attended all of his activities and
sporting events. Susie stressed the importance of manners and modesty to Bill.He would win a race or game, but she would convince him that he hadn't won,
that he just had longer legs than the other boys. Susie also made sure the
neighborhood kids felt welcome in their house.
The Bradley home became a
popular gathering place for Bill and his friends, where they played pinball in the
basement, watched "American Bandstand" on TV, and traded baseball cards in
the backyard.
Basketball was Bill's passion, but under his mother's guidance, he developed into a
well-rounded young man and a good student. As a Boy Scout, he earned the rank of Eagle
Scout. While his high school's student body president, Bill organized a state student
council convention, bringing together student leaders throughout Missouri to Crystal
City. He was also a member of the baseball and track teams.
The college basketball recruiters flocked to Crystal City Bill's senior year. Susie
Bradley wanted her son to stay close to home and attend the University of Missouri.Warren Bradley didn't understand all the fuss being made about their son's athletic
prospects. In all, seventy-five colleges offered Bill athletic scholarships. Bill chose Duke
University in North Carolina.
But during the summer between high school and college, Bill's future took a
different turn. Warren Bradley sent his son to Europe on an educational tour. This trip
exposed the small-town boy to the larger world and sparked his interest in international
affairs. In particular, Oxford, England, caught Bill's eye. He learned about the Rhodes
Scholarship, which provided college graduates with the opportunity to study at Oxford
University.
After he returned home, Bill broke his foot. For the first time he was
confronted with the possibility of not being able to play basketball. At the last
minute-four days before the Duke freshman class convened-Bill changed his mind and
decided to attend Princeton University, a school that did not give out athletic
scholarships, but, as Bill had learned, had an impressive record of producing Rhodes
Scholars.
Al Gore supported the Largest Single Increase in Education Investment in 30
Years. As part of the 1997 Balanced Budget Act, Congress passed the HOPE scholarship
tax credit program proposed by the Administration. This new program will give students
a $1,500 tax credit that will help make the first two years of college universally available.
The HOPE Scholarships are expected to help 5.9 million students attend college. The
1997 Act included other tax deductions that helped make it the largest single increase in
education spending in 30 years.
The Vice President has called on Congress to build upon the successes made last
year to reduce class sizes in grades 1-3.
As part of the Fiscal 1999 budget, Congress
agreed to partially fund an Administration initiative to help schools hire and support
additional teachers. Gore is now challenging Congress to finish the job by providing the
funding needed to hire 100,000 new teachers.
As part of the Fiscal 2000 budget plan, the President and Vice President
introduced a proposal to build and modernize 6,000 schools nationwide. In announcing
this new proposal, Vice President Gore stated that we need to ensure that our children
are learning 21st Century skills in 21st Century classrooms, and that no child should be
forced to learn in a temporary trailer.
In 1996, Vice President Gore launched the national initiative to wire every
classroom to the Internet. Under the E-Rate program more than 62,000 school districts
and libraries applied for E-rate funds in the first two grant cycles. In the first eighteen
months of the program, more than 80,000 schools and libraries received $1.66 billion in
funding helping to connect 640,000 classrooms to the Internet.
More than 53% of those
schools and libraries receiving funding were in the poorest neighborhoods.
As Vice President, Al Gore has worked hard to bring advances in technology into
the classroom to help prepare todays students for the challenges of the next century.Investments in educational technology have increased thirty-fold under this
Administration from $23 million in 1993 to nearly $700 million last year. Gores
commitment to educational technology began when he was member of Congress.
In 1984,
he introduced the National Educational Software Act, to establish the National
Educational Software Corporation to provide venture capitol for educational software
development. Gore also sponsored the National High-Performance Computing Act of
1991, which encouraged development of a National Research and Education Network to
help link teachers, students, and researchers.
Bill Bradley believes in a strong federal commitment to public education. He
believes education starts at birth, continues through life, and must include everyone.Bradley realizes that really improving student achievement requires thinking about
education in broader terms. Whether a child does well in school isn't just about 30
different little programs that come down from Washington.
It's also about whether she is
well fed, cared for at home, healthy, and attends a safe school. Bradley thinks outside the
"education box" -- he thinks about the child.
That's why he has proposed a strong, integrated and targeted agenda to improve
American education. In the early years, he will help ensure that children are ready for
school. In the K-12 years, he will concentrate on putting qualified teachers in every
classroom, holding schools accountable for student achievement, providing parents with
information and choices, and developing rich after-school opportunities.
In the later
years, he would make lifelong learning possible by strengthening our community college
system and make college loans more affordable. To do these things, Bradley will invest
$175 billion over ten years in education.
Other candidates talk about cutting tax rates. Bill Bradley has done it.
He was the
moving force behind the 1986 Tax Reform Act, the most sweeping tax reform since the
income tax was introduced in 1913. The Act consolidated 15 tax brackets (the highest 50
percent) to two-15 percent and 28 percent. Six million low-income Americans were
removed completely from the tax rolls. The Act also eliminated nearly $200 billion
annually in tax loopholes.
The reform achieved what many before had tried and failed: it lowered tax rates
across the board and created a fairer tax system in which people with equal income pay
about equal tax. It ended long-standing tax provisions that allowed the politically
powerful to avoid taxes at the expense of the middle class.
And it provided for
markets-not special interests and politicians-to determine how investment capital is
allocated.
Even after the enactment of the 1986 Tax Reform Act, Bradley continued to push
for a simpler and fairer tax code. He repeatedly proposed that many of the remaining
loopholes-often known as corporate welfare-be stricken from the code. Bradley proposed
or supported the elimination of wasteful tax expenditures, including a tax break for
tobacco advertising and countless other special interest tax breaks that made their way
back into the tax code after 1986.
Governor George W.
Bush George W. Bush is the 46th Governor of the State of
Texas. Now entering his second term, Governor Bush has earned a reputation as a
compassionate conservative who shapes policy based on the principles of limited
government, personal responsibility, strong families, and local control.
During two Texas Legislative sessions, Governor Bush has worked in a spirit of
bipartisan cooperation with Lt. Governor Bob Bullock, House Speaker Pete Laney, and
members of the Texas Legislature to enact historic reforms to improve public schools, put
welfare recipients to work, curb frivolous lawsuits and strengthen criminal justice laws.In 1998, Texas taxpayers began receiving the largest tax cut in Texas history, a $1 billion
dollar school property tax cut funded by savings from state government.
Governor Bush's first priority is the education of Texas children. He has worked
with the Legislature to increase the state's share of funding for schools, to restore local
control, to strengthen the state's accountability system, to give parents and students
greater choice of schools, and to foster competition and creativity through charter schools
and an expanded menu of educational opportunity. His most profound goal for Texas is
that every child will learn to read by third grade and will continue to read at grade level
or better throughout public school.
George W.
Bush was born July 6, 1946 and grew up in Midland and Houston,
Texas. He received a bachelor's degree from Yale University and an MBA from Harvard
Business School. He served as an F-102 pilot for the Texas Air National Guard. He began
his career in the oil and gas business in Midland in 1975 and worked in the energy
industry until 1986.
After working on his father's 1988 presidential campaign he
assembled the group of partners that purchased the Texas Rangers baseball franchise in
1989 and which later built the Ranger's new home, the Ballpark at Arlington.
Throughout his public career, John McCain has been a leader in the most critical
issues facing the country. He has waged a determined and often solitary campaign against
pork barrel spending, fighting for ten years to pass a line-item veto. He has been a
persistent proponent of lower taxes, genuine deregulation and free trade. He has become
one of Congress' most respected voices for a strong national defense, and for sound
foreign policy.
He has been an outspoken advocate for the reform of government institutions, and
he has led a principled fight to change a campaign finance system that favors the interests
of a special few over the needs of the majority. He is also considered one of the leading
defenders of the rights of Native Americans.
John McCain was first elected to the U.S.
House of Representatives in 1982. As a
long time admirer of Ronald Reagan, McCain was an early foot soldier in the Reagan
Revolution. He served two terms in the House before being elected to the Senate in 1986.He was re-elected to a third Senate term in November, 1998. In that election, he received
nearly 70% of the vote, a total which included 65% of the women's vote, 55 % of the
Hispanic vote, and even 40% of the Democrats.
George W.
Bush preaches personal responsibility to the school children of Texas
but they can't hear him. The Texas Commission on Alchohol and Drug Abuse conducted
the sixthstatewide school survey of drug and alcohol use among in-school youths.
Gov. George W.
Bush, in a day laced with pageantry and new policy nuggets, said
Wednesday that he opposes President Clinton's push for more federal money to hire
100,000 teachers. The Republican presidential front-runner also criticized the annual
budget tussles in Washington and urged the federal government to follow Texas' lead and
move to a two-year budget.
In conclusion a couple of candidates have dropped out of the running. One is Bill
Bradley he lost too many states in the primaries to win the candidacy.
But the run for the
Republican race has gotten real close. I feel that George W. Bush will be the front runner
because of the amount of money that he has. And his background with his father. He has
too much money for any other candidate to keep up with him.
