Iraq
“Setting the date (to be out of Iraq) is not a plan. I understand Senator Kerry's frustration and the frustration of millions of Americans but that is not a plan. A plan relates to what are you going to leave behind as well as how do you get out?”
***
“We say, "Mr. President, you only can keep troops up to 2008 in the following circumstances: on the border, training Iraqis, and denying Al Qaida occupation of territory. What you can't do, Mr. President, is you can't put them in a city of 6.2 million people knocking on doors in the middle of a sectarian war."
***
"Mark my words: if we leave chaos behind because we have not done this smart, we will have our security interests affected for a generation."
***
“Making federalism work for all Iraqis is a strategy that can still succeed and allow our troops to leave responsibly. It's a strategy I have been promoting for a year. I cannot guarantee that my plan for Iraq (detailed at www.planforiraq.com) will work. But I can guarantee that the course we're on -- the course that a man I admire, John McCain, urges us to continue -- is a road to nowhere.”
***
“Maintain in or near Iraq a small residual force -- perhaps 20,000 troops -- to strike any concentration of terrorists, help keep Iraq's neighbors honest and train its security forces.”
Other Foreign Policy Issues
“If we should be surging forces anywhere, it is to Afghanistan. That country is not lost, but it is on the brink of a major comeback by the Taliban, Al Qaeda, warlords and drug traffickers. Our necessary investment in blood and treasure risks being squandered -- we need an infusion of military and economic assistance and a plan to wean that country away from drugs.”
***
"We must stop the self-defeating saber-rattling when it comes to Iran. Instead, we should make clear our interest is not regime change but conduct change."
***
"It's been nearly four years since the Bush Administration rightly called the atrocities in Darfur genocide -- and we are still making threats instead of taking action."
***
"I went there (to Darfur). I sat on the borders. I went in those camps. They're going to have thousands and thousands and thousands of people die. We've got to stop talking and act. ... By the time all these guys talk, 50,000 more people are going to be dead! They're going to be dead!"
Climate Change/Energy
"As the next president I will tackle our greatest challenge: undertaking the massive economy-wide project of transforming America into the source of the world's energy future."
***
"There is no question our oil dependence is threatening our national security. It helps fuel the fundamentalism we're fighting. Our oil dependence limits our options and our influence around the world, because oil rich countries pursuing policies we oppose can stand up to us, while oil dependent allies may be afraid to stand with us. If we don't change our policy, oil will further empower the countries that produce it, restrict our options, and undermine our economic and physical security."
Healthcare
“I don't think we should have a government run, single payer system.”
***
“We can ensure every single, solitary kid. We can provide catastrophic health insurance right off the bat. We can do that for the cost of just one thing: the tax cut for people in the top 1 percent. It's less than $85 billion a year.”
***
"It's time to take charge of our health care system. The current system, as good as it is for its people (who can afford it), it's just not working well enough for all of the people."
***
"I don't think you are going to need to mandate. When affordable health care is available, people will buy it, they'll step into it."
***
“Because I am sure you agree, no one in America should be denied quality health care because they are poor or unable to afford health insurance. I believe every American should be able to join the same health care program that federal employees have -- based on a sliding scale as to what they can afford. We don't have to reinvent the wheel to give every American decent and adequate health care.”
Education
“You've got to start off and focus on the nurturing and education of children when they're very young, particularly children from disadvantaged families. You've got to invest in starting kids in preschool at age four. And you've got to make sure you have smaller classrooms & better teachers in the disadvantaged schools.”
***
“There's two things everyone knows: the smaller the class size, the better the outcome; and the better the teacher, the better the outcome. In those very nations named, a teacher makes as much as an engineer. If we want the best students in the world, we need the best teachers in the world.”
***
"Everything is priorities. The priority to me is education. It is the key to economic growth, key to our social stability and key to us being able to be competitive in the world."
***
“I proposed it in 1987. We should go to school longer. We should have a minimum 16 years of education. We should be focusing on the socioeconomic disadvantaged, mostly minorities in inner cities. That's something we've ignored. We pay no attention to it. We pretend they're the same circumstances as every other kid in America. They start off with half. Half of the education gap exists before they set foot in the first classroom. That should be the focus.”
***
“The idea that 12 years of public education is sufficient in the 21st century is ridiculous. I have a thing called a college access program. I would allow every single solitary family making up to $150,000 to be able to have a refundable tax credit of $3,000 per student. Everyone under $50,000 now qualifies for a Pell Grant. I would change them from $4,300 to $6,300 plus the refundable tax credit. It would mean every child in America, every qualified person in America, under an income under $50,000 would have $9,300 to go to any state university in their state in America for four years. But we have to change our mind-set here, and lead with early education, with pre-Head Start and Head Start. The whole Biden plan for starting early and college as well, that whole plan costs less than $18 billion a year.”
Homeland Security
“President Bush has been criminally irresponsible in the way he has handled national security.”
***
Torture “should be no part of our policy ever--ever.”
***
"This is all about setting the right priorities for America. Instead of giving a tax cut to the richest Americans who don't need it, we should be focusing on the security of all Americans."
***
"Rudy Giuliani just doesn't get it. Tough talk and cheap shots won't make America any safer or get mine resistant vehicles to our troops any faster. It is absurd for Rudy Giuliani to call Democrats 'losers' after five years of failed Republican policies in Iraq.”
***
"It is outrageous that three years after the 9/11 Commission made its recommendations virtually nothing has been funded by this White House and yet Giuliani continues to make the pathetic case that his party has provided leadership fighting terrorism."
***
"As everyone knows, until we end the war in Iraq, we are distracted from the main agenda of combating terrorism in Afghanistan and strengthening our homeland security. Giuliani and the rest of the Republican candidates continue to cling to this Administration's failed policy that a strong central government can be propped up in Iraq."
Family
"Peter Pace is flat wrong. I've been to Afghanistan, I've been to Iraq seven times, I've been in the Balkans, I've been in these foxholes with these kids, literally in bunkers with them. Let me tell you something, nobody asked anybody else whether they're gay in ... those foxholes."
***
Noting that "the British, the French, all our major allies" allow gays to serve openly, Biden added: "I don't know the last time an American soldier said to a backup from a Brit, 'Hey, by the way, let me check. Are you gay? Are you straight?' This is ridiculous."
Taxes/Fiscal Policy
"I warn all of you, all of you making more than a million bucks - I hope you all are - I'm taking away your tax cut. I'm not joking."
***
“We are giving people tax breaks who don't need it. The top 1% got an $85 billion a year tax break. It is not needed. My dad used to have an expression--don't tell me what you value; show me your budget. We need more revenue to be able to pay for the things the governor and everybody else talks about. And there's only one way to do it. You either raise taxes or take tax cuts away from people who don't need them. I'd take them away from people who don't need them.”
***
“Right now, Social Security tax is up to $97,500. I think that's the number. If you raise it to $118,000, subject to the tax, you increase its life expectancy another 40 years. This is not a tough problem, folks. This is not real hard.”
***
“As a matter of fact, we're heading toward a recession if we don't begin to generate new jobs, we don't begin to invest in infrastructure, we don't begin to change the way we're approaching the economy.”
Illegal Immigration
“There doesn't need to be a 700-mile fence, 14 million illegals -- now you tell me how many buses, car loads, planes that are going to go out, round up all these people, spend hundreds of millions of billions of dollars for the whole world watching, while we send these folks back. Rather than get a background check on all of them, take out the criminals, get them back, and provide for a means by which we allow earned citizenship over the next decade or so.”
***
“I voted for the [Mexican border] fence was that was the only alternative that was there, and I voted for the fence related to drugs. You can -- a fence will stop 20 kilos of cocaine coming through that fence. It will not stop someone climbing over it or around it. But this bill has a much more reasonable provision in it. It has much shorter fence, it does have the Border Patrol requirement, and it is designed not just to deal with illegals; it's designed -- a serious drug trafficking problem we have.”
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