Get rid of Bush - Who are the alternatives?

John Kerry

(abridged from www.azcentral.com)

www.johnkerry.com

KERRY ON THE ISSUES

Iraq: "I would go to the United Nations with a legitimate diplomatic effort, with humility, with a genuine effort to acknowledge some misjudgments, and to start to state clearly to the world, the way in which the world has a stake in what is happening. I would turn over to the U.N. legitimate authority for the civil reconstruction, for the humanitarian mission, and for the governance. And I would use the U.N.'s good services to help to internationalize this effort so that we reduce the sense of American occupation and the targeting of American troops."

Finding Osama bin Laden: "The Administration can and must turn up the tempo of operations against Al Qaida in Northern Pakistan by intensifying our efforts with General Musharraf, refocusing U.S. intelligence efforts on the border areas, and making better use of the existing collaboration between the U.S and Pakistan." Taxes: "I'm running for President to roll back George Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy so that we can invest in education and health care. But here's what I won't do. I won't balance the budget on the backs of seniors or veterans or the weakest and poorest people in our country. And I won't raise taxes on the middle class. Because we know the problem with this country is not that the hard working people have too much money." Energy: "We have to encourage the use of hybrid vehicles and invest in research and development. We have to set a goal by 2020 that 20 percent of our energy will come from renewable fuels. I am going to create an energy efficient trust fund to look for news sources of energy and we are going to create tens of thousands of jobs doing that. We can't drill our way out of this." Housing: "We desperately need to build more housing in this country. More working families in this country are homeless than every before-its unacceptable and we must provide incentives for low to middle income families that need our help." Immigration: "We need immigration reform. We need a serious standard for immigration in the country, obviously. I am in favor of earned legalization for those people who are here now, who have obeyed the law, are working, have paid their taxes, stayed out of trouble. Under those circumstances, we should be converting people to citizenship, but we need to do it simultaneously." Gun control: "Many of us took the heat of the NRA-we stood up against their interests knowing that they may not give millions of dollars to our campaigns and we passed it. We need to reauthorize that assault weapons ban today in this country."