Chuck Schumer - Positively American: Winning Back the Middle-Class Majority One Family at a Time

This book is for my parents,
Abe and Selma Schumer,
to whom I owe everything
and with whom I originally met the Baileys

Triple federal education spending to an average of $2,800 per student.

Assess schools on one consistent federal standard.

After four years, make increased federal dollars dependent on achievement and fund schools that are subpar only if they enact prescribed requirements and programs.

Offer federal salary stipends directly to highly qualified math and science teachers.

Encourage localities to cut property taxes that fund education by 50% over ten years by freezing them now.

If unforeseen circumstances arise, restore the highest-income tax bracket to mid-1990s levels before taking away the property tax reduction.

Make up to $15,000 of tuition per child per year tax deductible for families making less than $150,000 a year.

Give colleges and universities incentives to keep tuition hikes at or below the rate of inflation.

Restore Pell Grants and federal loans to late-1990s levels, and peg future increases to the average cost of college, so everyone has a chance.

Establish real enforcement measures against employers that hire illegal immigrants.

Create a biometric employment card.

Offer a fair path to earned citizenship for those who are here.

Increase the number of green cards granted a year to make up for the reduction in illegal immigration.

Rationalize legal immigration to fill high-needs jobs, retain those who are educated here, increase geographic, economic and educational diversity and promote family reunification.

Short-term: Increase conservation and fossil fuel-production.

Double CAFE standards.

Drill in most of the eastern Gulf of Mexico.

Encourage exploration on certain leased federal lands.

Make existing power generation more efficient.

Expand Energy Star to include construction. Make it a requirement for all federal projects.

Long-term: End dependence on fossil fuels.

Give $10 billion a year and broad powers to a new agency to design a fossil fuelfree solution within three years and implement it over the following seven.

Guarantee early-detection screenings for high-risk cancers for all Americans by requiring insurers to cover screenings and providing federal government coverage for the uninsured.

Fully fund all National Cancer Instituteapproved research grants.

Increase research funding for new genetically based personalized medicine.

Build world-class cancer centers in the nations top fifty population centers.

Fight smoking by encouraging reduced insurance rates for nonsmokers and increasing insurance coverage of smoking cessation programs.

Create a new C-DOTS program to help cancer centers electronically share information nationwide.

Add a Surgeon Generals warning to junk-food marketing and packaging.

Tax fast-food advertising to fund a national ad campaign to combat childhood obesity.

Require chain restaurants to list caloric information on menus.

Teach good health in school.

Make school food and school vending machines lean and healthy.

Get junk food out of the food stamp program.

Help localities and schools encourage kids to exercise.

Ensure real and age-appropriate sex education in public schools, including education on abstinence and contraception.

Make contraceptives more available.

Increase funding for federal family planning programs (Title X).

Create a national media campaign to reduce unwanted pregnancies.

Hold credit card and other payment processing companies accountable for secure age verification for adult Web sites.

Impose a 25% tax on pornographic sites to fund real enforcement of age verification and CAN-SPAM.

Create a Schumer Box for all cell phone and electronic media player contracts.