Bill of Rights 21st Century- Jim Martorano: Jim is calling for a bill of rights for the 21st Century and will introduce legislation to establish new fundamental rights for all Americans!

• A right to health care...
• A right to retirement security...
• An enhanced right of privacy...and
• A right to a quality education

Civil Liberties: As a Legal Aid attorney, I have dedicated my professional life to the advancement of civil rights and the protection of civil liberties. I am opposed to warrantless wiretapping or bugging. I support the process established by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) expressly requiring judicial authorization for such activities. The Bush Administration has clearly abused its authority by ignoring this process under a dangerous theory that our Constitution in effect permits one branch of the federal government to do whatever it wants in the name of national security.



Education: Our future is our children. Their education and well-being are critical. We are facing a major crisis in our schools today. A strong, affordable and technologically modernized public education system – from pre-school through college – is crucial to our country’s future productivity and to our competitiveness in a global economy. Providing a sound education that gives all children, including those with disabilities, a fair chance to succeed in life is also the cornerstone of any program to reduce child poverty, which is currently at a disgraceful rate of 20% both nationally and in New York State. We need to improve the quality of education and eliminate unfunded mandates that are straining state and local budgets. The No Child Left Behind Act promised significant reforms, but has never been adequately funded by the Bush Administration. It presents obstacles to helping students and strengthening public schools, because it focuses on: punishments rather than assistance; rigid, unfunded mandates rather than support for proven practices; and standardized testing rather than teacher-led, classroom focused solutions. The proper role of the federal government is to set national standards and fund such mandates, thereby alleviating the overwhelming pressures we currently face on property taxes and other local funding sources. Instead, the federal government now finances only about 8% of elementary and secondary education. Communities have been denied the financial support they need to improve student achievement. The federal government should not promote vouchers. Kelly supports vouchers for private schools. Funds for vouchers compete with funds for overall improvements in America's public schools. I am committed to improving public schools. I oppose alternatives that divert attention, energy, and resources from efforts to reduce class size, enhance teacher quality, and provide every student with books, computers, and safe and orderly schools. I will oppose vouchers as draining desperately needed resources from public schools.



Health Care: I do not believe that free-market dynamics are compatible with health care. Medicine is simply not governed by traditional economic laws of supply and demand. Our attempts to build in competition and control costs through such approaches as managed care have failed. Instead of viewing health care as a moral compact with all Americans, we have turned health care into a profit-focused industry. Commercialization is ruining the practice of medicine. I believe that health care is a fundamental right. I will make a single-payer national health insurance program a top priority. Only a single-payer national plan will work. All the other gimmicks relying on market-based, employer-centered insurance have failed. Ultimately, state-based single-payer plans, while admirable, can’t survive in the long term, because they will lack the economies of scale only a sweeping national plan can make possible. I therefore support HR 676, the universal single-payer national health insurance act, introduced by Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan). HR 676 would create a national single-payer insurance covering everyone for all medically necessary care. This would include physician, hospital, rehab, diagnostic, long-term care, mental health, prescriptions, dental, vision, home health and physical therapy. The plan improves care to everyone, even those who currently have insurance, while extending health care to the 45 million who are now uninsured. HR 676 would transform for-profit health institutions into non-profits, simplify administration through a single-payer system, and put the savings into taking better care of everyone. The savings from a single-payer system would probably exceed $200 billion a year, far more than the cost of covering all of those now uninsured. I believe that the federal government should be responsible for ensuring that all Americans have adequate health care, regardless of their income. We need to learn the lessons of Medicaid, a federal-state program for the poor. When we isolate programs for the poor from other social programs, we end up spending more and getting less in return. Medicaid has been fraught with fraud and is draining state budgets. We need to fold Medicaid into a universal, federal single-payer program.



Retirement Security: **** Social Security **** Social Security is in sound financial shape through 2041, not 2020. We are not facing a Social Security crisis. To address any long-term shortfalls, I support raising the wage base on which payroll taxes apply. The current cap of $94,200 is too low. I oppose any reductions in benefits, any increases in the Social Security retirement age, and any modifications to cost-of-living adjustments. The Bush Administration proposals to privatize Social Security and drastically cut benefits for every worker who earns more than $20,000 per year will only make the country’s looming retirement crisis worse, while also adding trillions to the deficit. Kelly has refused to oppose these Bush proposals, which remain in his current proposed budget. I will fight them. **** Pensions **** We are, however, facing a retirement crisis due to the large numbers of boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) who do not have adequate pensions or savings to finance longer periods of retirement, including health and long-term care needs. Two decades ago, at least 1 in 3 working Americans was guaranteed a company defined-benefit pension, which provided a fixed portion of his or her final salary as a pension in retirement. Today, 1 in 5 U.S. workers has such a plan. We cannot permit employers to abandon their pension promises. Congress must act to save the pensions and health benefits of today’s and tomorrow’s retirees. I support federal legislation to curb pension freezes and to curtail cuts in retiree health benefits. I will support legislation to strengthen the country’s private pension system by providing more protection for workers through the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). I will also support legislation to strengthen 401(k) plans to make them more accessible to workers and to prevent future Enrons, where employees lost their retirement savings due to excess investments in company stock and other employer abuses. I will make retirement security and a dignified old age for today’s and tomorrow’s older Americans a top priority. **** Medicare **** The new Medicare Part D program, which was supposed to help senior citizens with the exorbitant cost of prescription drugs, has turned into an utter disaster. It has caused chaos and confusion for older people, their families, their physicians and their pharmacists. It is too expensive and inferior to the coverage many seniors have had. Many seniors who signed up for the program are learning that they are nowhere to be found in the government’s computers. Pharmacists can’t locate the needed billing information to fill prescriptions. People calling the federal Medicare hotline face hour-long waits to speak to a human being. The program has also forced states like New York to come to the rescue for hundreds of thousands of low-income elderly residents who are seeing a reduction in coverage of needed drugs. The Bush-Kelly idea of a 'free-market solution' is a government program that lets private companies siphon out billions of dollars. The Bush Administration and Kelly were determined to experiment with what happens when a successful government program like Medicare is handed over wholesale to private industry. This callous experiment is a clear failure. Currently in both houses of Congress, there is legislation that puts America’s seniors back on the right track. I support and will work for the rapid enactment of The Medicare Prescription Drug Savings and Choice Act (H.R. 752), sponsored by Reps. Berry, Schakowski and Allen. Its Senate counterpart is S. 345, sponsored by Sen. Durbin Bill. Among other provisions, this legislation would enable Medicare to negotiate drug prices directly with the pharmaceutical industry, rather than through private insurance companies. As currently structured, Part D ensures that private insurance companies provide the benefit and play an expanded role in Medicare. This costs the government and beneficiaries considerably more than is necessary. If Medicare could negotiate directly with drug companies, it would save the federal and state governments hundred of billions of dollars and cut insurance premiums. This approach has brought price reductions of 40% or more at the Veterans Administration. For example, among the 20 most widely prescribed drugs for seniors, a year's supply of Protonix (for ulcers) costs the VA $253, but the seniors in the Bush-Kelly Medicare program, which prohibits such bulk discounts, will pay a sticker price of $1,080. A year of Zocor, the cholesterol-reducing drug, costs the VA $251. Seniors in the Bush-Kelly drug plan must pay $1,323.