Iraq
"We ask our young men and women to go over and to fight, and if you have a deadline knowing they're pulling out, how can you expect them to defend this country? How can you expect them to go out and put their lives at risk?"
***
"Should the Congress pass a law forcing the president to withdraw troops at a given point in time? I think that is not something that is in the country's interest or in the military's interest."
***
“I’m voting for George W. Bush and it’s mainly because I think we have to strike back at terrorists. To argue that Saddam Hussein wasn’t a terrorist is ridiculous. He used mustard gas or some kind of gas against his own people.”
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"If you take out a tyrant who clearly gassed tens of thousands of his own people, if you stabilize a part of the world where, tragically, terrorism goes on every day, then it will have been the right decision."
Other Foreign Policy Issues
Climate Change/Energy
"Terrorists kill people, weapons of mass destruction have the potential to kill enormous numbers of people, global warming has the potential to kill everybody. This is really just as lethal, it's just that the results are something we will face long term."
“I believe that the United States, which leads the world in greenhouse-gas production, must finally set real and binding carbon reduction targets. As long as there is no penalty or cost in producing greenhouse gases, there will be no incentive to meet such targets. And for that reason, I believe the United States should enact a tax on carbon emissions.”
"You can see 'political science' at work when it comes to global warming. Despite near unanimity in the science community there's now a movement – driven by ideology and short-term economics – to ignore the evidence and discredit the reality of climate change."
***
"If they don't act, we will. Shame on them but we cannot sit around and watch our environment deteriorate and put this world in jeopardy. We are willing to stand up, we think it is one of the seminal issues of our time."
Healthcare
"We've got a health care system that's not only breaking the bank, and not only leaving one out of six Americans uninsured, but which also provides decidedly ineffective care. We have the most expensive and most advanced health care system in the world, yet we lag on such basic measures as life expectancy, and we fail to prevent death and disability for millions of Americans with common conditions such as high blood pressure and diabetes."
***
"We're paying for a disease care system, not a health care system. We must fundamentally reorder our priorities - and start rewarding the primary and preventive care that keeps people out of hospitals in the first place."
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"Today, most businesses, down to the smallest corner grocery store, have better information about their sales and inventories than even affluent medical practices have about their patients."
Education
"That's where our new 'Opportunity NYC' initiative comes in. It's modeled on programs that have succeeded in Mexico and other countries, but that haven't yet been tried in America—until now. Starting next month, we'll begin making cash payments—from privately raised dollars— to a test group of young people and adults if – let me say that again: If – they do the things that are most likely to lead them to break the cycle of poverty. That means high school students will be able earn $600 for each statewide standardized test they pass – $400 for graduating – and up to $50 a month for maintaining near-perfect school attendance – while adults will be able to earn up to $150 a month for working full-time.”
***
Mike Bloomberg believes that a good education is the key to unlocking the American Dream for all of our children - and that's why he made fixing New York City's long-broken public schools one of his top priorities as Mayor. During his first year at City Hall, Mike abolished the ineffective Board of Education and asked New Yorkers to hold him personally responsible for achieving results. Today, math and reading scores are up significantly and graduation rates are at their highest levels in two decades. Turning around the nation's largest school system wasn't Mike Bloomberg's first experience as an education leader; he also served as chairman of the board of trustees of his alma mater, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
Homeland Security
Family
"The U.S. Constitution should be something that unites, rather than divides Americans. I do not believe that government should be in the business of telling people who they can and can't marry. I believe New Yorkers should have the right to marry whomever they choose, regardless of sexual orientation. If they [New York's highest court] rule that same-sex marriages are legal, then we'll perform them. … If they rule the other way, our administration will begin working with the state Legislature for a new law that establishes marriage equality for all New Yorkers."
***
"Reproductive choice is a fundamental human right, and we can never take it for granted."
Taxes/Fiscal Policy
"It seems to me that the Conservative Party in the UK is much more fiscally conservative than many American politicians who call themselves conservative. Too many of them want to run up enormous deficits and hope that some way, somehow -- someone else will pay for it. That's not conservatism, that's alchemy, or if you like, lunacy."
"I'm not suggesting we should have high taxes and have high interest rates. . . . I think the next president will have to deal with a slowing economy ... whether the term 'recession' is appropriate, I have no idea. But the country has very serious economic problems and we're not addressing those problems."
Illegal Immigration
"We're not going to deport 12 million people, so let's stop this fiction."
***
"Nobody’s going to go home for a year and come back. Nobody could ever enforce that. Nobody in their right mind would ever try to do it.”
***
"I'm very proud of our ability to attract people and, once they get here, to make sure that they get the necessary services and let them become productive members of society,"
***
"Although they broke the law by illegally crossing our borders or overstaying their visas, and our businesses broke the law by employing them, our City's economy would be a shell of itself had they not, and it would collapse if they were deported. The same holds true for the nation. For our children to have a bright future, two things are true: a strong America needs a constant source of new immigrants. And in a post-9/11 world, a secure America needs to make sure that those immigrants arrive here legally."
***
“The bottom line is we should be giving drivers' licenses to people, knowing who they are and making sure that they have a right to have them.”
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