Kucinich Proposes Pentagon Budget Cut
Originally published in The Guardian
Kucinich Proposes Pentagon Budget Cut
Monday July 28, 2003 1:19 PM
By MIKE GLOVER
Associated Press Writer
OTTUMWA, Iowa (AP) - Rep. Dennis Kucinich called for a $60 billion effort to provide universal preschool and proposed paying for the plan with a 15 percent cut in Pentagon spending.
"The Pentagon budget has just gone through the roof," Kucinich said at a forum on Sunday. "We need a critical analysis and a real effort to claim back money from the Pentagon."
The Democratic presidential candidate from Ohio didn't specify all the spending cuts he would push, but did single out a missile defense program that would have a dim future should he win the White House. He promised broad cuts.
"I'm not talking about trimming around the edges here," he said.
Kucinich, who said he would reverse that trend of cutting funding for education, called for a new care program for children 3 to 5 years old to help prepare them for school. He said his plan also would ease the financial burden of working parents bearing the high cost of day care.
"I intend to put forward a plan for universal pre-kindergarten, a day care program that would provide quality day care five days a week, year-round," he said.
Kucinich linked the soaring Pentagon spending with what he called President Bush's aggressive and largely unilateral foreign policy and said defense spending could be trimmed if the U.S. adopted a more cooperative stance with other countries.
Kucinich became the latest Democratic presidential contender to join Sen. Tom Harkin at a "Hear it from the Heartland" series of forums. The forums provide candidates with a chance to speak to Democratic activists who are committed to attending Jan. 19 precinct caucuses that will launch the presidential nominating season. Harkin is urging all the candidates to focus on bedrock economic issues where he says Bush is vulnerable.
"This is the first president since Herbert Hoover to have a net loss in jobs," Harkin said.
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