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Why George W. Bush's policies and Al Gore's policies are basically the same

By Jerry Gordon, 23 August 2000

Jerry Gordon, an active member of the Labor Party in Cleveland, Ohio, put together this leaflet for his Labor For Nader coalition. He can be reached at <JANDB99@aol.com> or 216-382-4597.

• BOTH get huge political contributions from the big corporations.
• BOTH are heavily financed by Big Oil.
• BOTH support bloated military spending, with the Pentagon budget now nearly $300 billion for a single year.
• BOTH support corporate globalization, resulting in the loss of good paying jobs at home and austerity, debt burden, and cuts in social services for peoples in less developed countries.
• BOTH support trade policies which result in lower standards of living for workers, together with the destruction of fair labor and environmental protections for peoples around the world.
• NEITHER calls for repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act, the anti-labor law passed by Congress in 1947, which severely restricts unions' rights to organize, bargain collectively, and strike.
• BOTH supported the repeal of welfare rights, which threw an additional million persons into poverty, most of them children, and ended up denying Medicaid coverage to millions.
• BOTH promote policies of corporate welfare.
• BOTH oppose guaranteeing comprehensive health care coverage for all, based on a publicly funded system, which nearly all other industrial countries throughout the world have.
• NEITHER supports real campaign finance reform which requires full public financing of national and state elections.
• NEITHER calls for alternative sources of energy, especially solar and wind.
• BOTH support the death penalty and oppose a moratorium on executions.
• BOTH oppose national funding of all public education, which would permit all children, regardless of the family's income, to have the necessary learning resources.
• BOTH support the $1.3 billion appropriation for Columbia, which takes the U.S. another step on the road to a new Vietnam & again in alliance with repressive military forces.
• BOTH support continued sanctions against the people of Iraq, which has caused the death of over one million Iraquis and is killing 250 Iraqui children a day.
• BOTH favor the continued embargo of Cuba, which has caused terrible hardship to the people of that island.
• BOTH supported U.S. military intervention against Yugoslavia and the savage bombing attacks which killed many civilians and virtually destroyed that country's infrastructure.

NOTE: There are differences between Bush and Gore on certain domestic questions. But their basic agreement on the above issues, which are of fundamental importance, and the positions they hold regarding jobs, health care, labor's rights, the environment, justice and peace are so harmful to working families and the great majority, that a vote for either Bush or Gore only promotes the interests of Corporate America. By contrast, Ralph Nader offers an alternative program which is in the interests of the vast majority of the people of this nation (see the reverse side). The issue is not which of the so-called lesser evils is ahead in the polls, but rather who speaks for Corporate America and who speaks for us, the people. And even if Nader does not win this election, as Eugene V. Debs said, "It is better to vote for what you believe in and not get it, than to vote for what you don't believe in and get it." That is why we say: "VOTE FOR RALPH NADER ON NOVEMBER 7!"