Keeping Promises to Veterans: Gov Richardson policy speech

[seasat]

Richardson outlined some of the general points in this speech earlier in his campaign. He proposes a detailed policy in this speech to support veterans. The major points of his plan are:

• Create a "Heroes Health Card"; veterans get healthcare anywhere
  
• Guarantee Full Mandatory Funding for Veterans' Healthcare
  
• Offer Tax Cuts for Veterans; 5% cut for veterans, no income tax 1st year out
  
• Take Care of Military Families; comprehensive disability, caregiver leave
  
• Fight for a GI Bill for the 21st Century; loan rebate, Immediate family member can use in place of veteran
  
• Fund it by requiring 3rd party reporting on capital gains; Est 15 to 25 billion by closing loophole
  

Here's an excerpt from the speech:

Put simply, the President has hidden away the heroism of our fighting men and women.

He has traded in our troops' health care for tax cuts, and he has traded on our veterans' service for votes.

It's long past time that ended.

It's long past time we said:

Never in America.

Never again.

It is the sacred duty of any Commander-in-Chief to take care of his or her troops. And I swear to you that when I am President, I will not rest until the promise we've made to our veterans and our military families is fulfilled.
...
Over 3,800 brave Americans have lost their lives. More than 60,000 have been wounded. Countless more suffer the lonely anguish of mental trauma.

Yet, the administration has shut its eyes to the scars and closed its ears to the cries for help.

It is absolutely unacceptable.

Our veterans fought the enemy abroad. They should not have to fight their government at home to get the health care they have earned over and over again.

My father in law is a Vietnam veteran (and diehard Democrat) and while he gets good service at the VA hospital, he has to drive 45 miles to get to one. The veteran's card would really benefit him. I was appalled when he mentioned in his speech that some of the returning Iowa National Guard were denied full veterans benefits because they were short 1 day of service in Iraq.

He has much more details in this PDF file of his plan. He addresses mental health services for veterans, small business aid, and job security for the National Guard among other issues. I've read over his plan a couple of times and agree with everything he's outlined. That's a first for me since, even as a supporter, I usually can find some differences. I like the fact that he offers a method to pay for it by closing a tax loophole that has benefited the wealthy. Anyone else have comments on this plan?

[seasat]

1. Bumping my own thread for the Sunday crowd.

No comments yesterday. Does anyone think these are good or bad ideas?

[janx]

2. Richardson threads always sink in GD Politics...

;-)

I haven't looked at this in depth yet, but we have a lot of military in NM. Richardson knows their needs well.

I'm still scratching my head, wondering why more people don't appreciate Richardson's experience and outlook.

[seasat]

3. IMHO, he doesn't fit the media narrative and he ran as himself

I'm a realist. Richardson would be further ahead in the polls if he hadn't initially decided to forgo debate training and had used some consultants for media prep. He's going up against Senators and lawyers that have spent their entire careers debating and speaking in sound bites. He hurt himself with his first couple of debate performances and some interviews. If he was doing as well as he is doing now in the debates and interviews, he might be in the top three.

Since he didn't reinvent himself to fit a large constituency within our party, he hasn't got a built in base. While his foreign policy, environmental, and civil liberties stances are among the most liberal in the race, he supports a balanced budget amendment and no new gun control laws. It is a platform that will win in a general election but has trouble gaining traction among the different groups in our party. The moderates don't agree with him on no residual troops in Iraq and the liberals don't like his balanced budget or gun policy. His main supporters are ACLU liberals, Hispanics, Native Americans, Western Democrats, and some of the antiwar crowd. He lost some momentum among the antiwar crowd when some of the top candidates repositioned their policy closer to his.

On the bright side, I think he is starting to regain some of his earlier momentum. He received a small bump in national polling after the last debate according to Rasmussen. He's still on an upward trend in New Hampshire. He has to turn around in Iowa where he's lost some momentum and win in Nevada. It appears that his strategy is to let the others attack Hillary. If Hillary falters or they land some blows, I think he's hoping that his nice guy attitude on personal attacks will attract some of the former Hillary supporters. Other than his early speaking performances, he's run a solid campaign.

I don't think he's running for Clinton's VP. He's too different from Clinton in some policy areas and has been very critical of her policy. However, his criticisms just don't get the air play that Obama's or Edward's statements do. The media narrative that he's running for her VP is been used to marginalize him but he is getting some media attention now and maybe that'll bring some folks into his camp. He also has received some big endorsements recently that may draw more attention to him.

The reality is that Iowa is probably the key for all the candidates. Anyone finishing behind Clinton with her large national lead and big war chest will most likely be finished. I don't expect anyone to concede until after Feb 5th but it'll take a major Clinton flub to win if she takes Iowa.