Connecticut

Q1: While the U.S. has made improvements in the number of children who have health insurance, many children remain uninsured. In addition, federal funding for the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) will expire unless the program is reauthorized by March 2009. What priority do you place on SCHIP reauthorization? What can be done, if anything, to increase the number of children who have access to health insurance?

SCHIP should be reauthorized until we have adopted single-payer universal health care in Connecticut or nationally. One of my priorities as congressman (and a priority of the Green Party) will be single-payer universal health care. That 47 million Americans, many of them children, cannot afford, and thereby forgo, proper health care is an abomination, as evidenced by the young boy, who died of an abscessed tooth in Philadelphia. The Green Party and I also will...

Q2: While the federal government has supported many initiatives to improve health care quality, these efforts often focus on adults and Medicare recipients. What steps, if any, would you support to enhance the quality of children's health care?

In addition to single-payer universal health care, I will spearhead congressional initiatives, such as tuition assistance and community service programs, to increase the number of nurses and aides in both the physical and psychological fields of medicine. Because of increases in the physical and psychological maladies affecting children, many correlated with poor American diet (e.g., obesity, childhood diabetes, hypertension), pollution (e.g., asthma and other pulmonary diseases) and cultural stresses (e.g., anxiety, attention deficit disorders, obsessive-compulsive...

Q3: Senator Menendez introduced S. 3277, the "Children's Budget Act," which would add a requirement to future federal budgets to list the different sources of federal funding for children's programs, thereby illustrating how the federal government prioritizes and allocates resources affecting children. What importance, if any, do you place on creating a Children's Budget and why?

I support S. 3277, the "Children's Budget Act," because it provides transparency to America's governmental commitment to children. Administrations and individual legislators can be monitored according to their efforts on behalf of children. Likewise, disproportionately large allocations of resources to the military, Wall Street bail-outs, corporate welfare, and subsidies for the rich and corporate elite (e.g.., factory farming, pharmaceutical companies, big oil) can be scrutinized as destructive diversions of resources from our children.

Q4: Health care reform may be a big topic for Congressional debate in 2009. What initiatives, if any, would you proactively support? How do you see children's healthcare fitting into this larger debate?

Already answered in responses to Q1and Q2, prioritization of single-payer universal health care and incentives for training in pediatric medicine.

Q5: According to the United States Department of Education, between 2001 and 2010 two million students who are otherwise qualified to go to college will not attend because they cannot afford the tuition costs. What measures, if any, do you feel should be taken to make higher education more affordable to students?

It is an unfortunate fact that the ceilings for Pell Grants have been adjusted to make Pell Grants larger, but the total amount of money appropriated for Pell Grants by our incumbents in Congress has been reduced. Furthermore, student loans for college tuition have interest rates in the double-figures. Students sometimes leave college with six-figure debt. As an undergraduate in the mid-1970s, student loans had 3% interest. I will work in congress to increase the...

Q6: Today, many American families are comprised of either a working single parent or two working parents who need to use child care services in order to work - which can be a significant financial burden for those trying to make ends meet. What, if anything, can be done to make it easier for working families to obtain child care assistance?

The only propositions I have generated for reducing costs of child care service are to provide tax incentives for employers and to work with businesses to either (1) provide child care at the workplace as part of their employee services or (2) provide financial assistance as a trade-off with sick leave, personal time and vacation time to partially compensate costs of child care away from the workplace. For instance, if an employee accrues and does...

Q7: Every year, over one million American students fail to graduate from high school. What policy ideas are most important to you in working to increase graduation rates and strengthen America's public schools?

First, we must have the kind of leadership in government which gives value to the acquisition of knowledge. As a scientist, writer and philosopher statesman (not a lawyer or career politician), I will bring that kind of leadership to congress, harkening back to the Sixties and the enthusiasm brought to education by John F. Kennedy's administration. We must break from the trend of acquisitive goals in education rather than knowledge for the sake and pleasure...

Q8: Obesity has emerged as a public health crisis, nationally and in Connecticut. Over the past quarter century, the percentage of American children who fit the definition of "obese" has shot up dramatically, tripling for those aged 12 to 19 and nearly tripling for those aged 6 to 11. What can be done, if anything, to help families and communities address this issue?

Three contributing factors to obesity are lack of physical exercise, brought on to a large degree by the computer age, e-mailings, computer games, etc., more sedentary lifestyles and deterioration of local community, secondly, excessive meat consumption in America, AND thirdly, the addictive infusion of high fructose corn syrup and other sweeteners into processed foods. In congress, I will oppose subsidies to the "monoculture" of cheap corn, which has created the deluge of high fructose corn...