President Obama's Agenda

President Obama and Vice President Biden will renew America’s security and standing in the world through a new era of American leadership. The Obama Biden foreign policy will end the war in Iraq responsibly; finish the fight against the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan, secure nuclear weapons and loose nuclear materials from terrorists, and renew American diplomacy to support strong alliances and to seek a lasting peace in the Israeli Palestinian conflict.

 

Afghanistan and Pakistan

▪ Afghanistan: Obama and Biden will refocus American resources on the greatest threat to our security -- the resurgence of al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan. They will increase our troop levels in Afghanistan, press our allies in NATO to do the same, and dedicate more resources to revitalize Afghanistan’s economic development. Obama and Biden will demand the Afghan government do more, including cracking down on corruption and the illicit opium trade.

 

▪ Pakistan: Obama and Biden will increase nonmilitary aid to Pakistan and hold them accountable for security in the border region with Afghanistan.

 

Nuclear Weapons

▪ A Record of Results: The gravest danger to the American people is the threat of a terrorist attack with a nuclear weapon and the spread of nuclear weapons to dangerous regimes. Obama has taken bipartisan action to secure nuclear weapons and materials:

 

- He joined Senator Dick Lugar (R-In) in passing a law to help the United States and our allies detect and stop the smuggling of weapons of mass destruction throughout the world.

 

- He joined Senator Chuck Hagel (R-Ne) to introduce a bill that seeks to prevent nuclear terrorism, reduce global nuclear arsenals, and stop the spread of nuclear weapons.

▪ Strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty: Obama and Biden will crack down on nuclear proliferation by strengthening the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty so that countries like North Korea and Iran that break the rules will automatically face strong international sanctions.

 

▪ Move toward a Nuclear Free World: Obama and Biden will set a goal of a world without nuclear weapons, and pursue it. Obama and Biden will always maintain a strong deterrent as long as nuclear weapons exist. But they will take several steps down the long road toward eliminating nuclear weapons. They will stop the development of new nuclear weapons; work with Russia to take U.S. and Russian ballistic missiles off hair trigger alert; seek dramatic reductions in U.S. and Russian stockpiles of nuclear weapons and material; and set a goal to expand the U.S.-Russian ban on intermediate range missiles so that the agreement is global.

 

Iran

▪ Diplomacy: Barack Obama supports tough and direct diplomacy with Iran without preconditions. Now is the time to use the power of American diplomacy to pressure Iran to stop their illicit nuclear program, support for terrorism, and threats toward Israel. Obama and Biden will offer the Iranian regime a choice. If Iran abandons its nuclear program and support for terrorism, we will offer incentives like membership in the World Trade Organization, economic investments, and a move toward normal diplomatic relations. If Iran continues its troubling behavior, we will step up our economic pres-sure and political isolation. In carrying out this diplomacy, we will coordinate closely with our allies and proceed with careful preparation. Seeking this kind of comprehensive settlement with Iran is our best way to make progress.

 

Energy Security

▪ Achieving Energy Security: Obama will put America on a path to energy independence by investing $150 billion in renewable and alternative energy over the next ten year an investment that will create millions of jobs along the way. He’ll also make the U.S. a leader in the global effort to combat climate change by leading a new international global warming partnership.

 

 Renewing American Diplomacy

▪ Renew our Alliances: Obama and Biden will rebuild our alliances to meet the common challenges of the 21st century. America is strongest when we act alongside strong partners. Now is the time for a new era of international cooperation that strengthens old partnerships and builds new ones to confront the common challenges of the 21st century terrorism and nuclear weapons; climate change and poverty; genocide and disease.

 

▪ Talk to our Foes and Friends: Obama and Biden will pursue tough, direct diplomacy without preconditions with all nations, friend and foe. They will do the careful preparation necessary, but will signal that America is ready to come to the table and is willing to lead. And if America is willing to come to the table, the world will be more willing to rally behind American leadership to deal with challenges like confronting terrorism and Iran and North Korea's nuclear programs.

 

▪ Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Obama and Biden will make progress on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a key diplomatic priority from day one. They will make a sustained push working with Israelis and Palestinians to achieve the goal of two states, a Jewish state in Israel and a Palestinian state, living side by side in peace and security.

 

▪ Expand our Diplomatic Presence: To make diplomacy a priority, Obama and Biden will stop shuttering consulates and start opening them in difficult corners of the world particularly in Africa. They will expand our foreign service, and develop our civilian capacity to work alongside the military.

 

▪ Fight Global Poverty: Obama and Biden will embrace the Millennium Development Goal of cutting extreme poverty and hunger around the world in half by 2015, and they will double our foreign assistance to achieve that goal. This will help the world's weakest states build healthy and educated communities, reduce poverty, develop markets, and generate wealth.

 

▪ Seek New Partnerships in Asia: Obama and Biden will forge a more effective framework in Asia that goes beyond bilateral agreements, occasional summits, and ad hoc arrangements, such as the six party talks on North Korea. They will maintain strong ties with allies like Japan, South Korea and Australia; work to build an infrastructure with countries in East Asia that can promote stability and prosperity; and work to ensure that China plays by international rules.

 

Israel

▪ Ensure a Strong U.S.-Israel Partnership: Barack Obama and Joe Biden strongly support the U.S. Israel relationship, and believe that our first and incontrovertible commitment in the Middle East must be to the security of Israel, America's strongest ally in the region. They support this closeness, and have stated that the United States will never distance itself from Israel.

 

▪ Support Israel's Right to Self Defense: During the July 2006 Lebanon war, Barack Obama stood up strongly for Israel's right to defend itself from Hezbollah raids and rocket attacks, cosponsoring a Senate resolution against Iran and Syria's involvement in the war, and insisting that Israel should not be pressured into a ceasefire that did not deal with the threat of Hezbollah missiles. He and Joe Biden believe strongly in Israel's right to protect its citizens.

 

▪ Support Foreign Assistance to Israel: Barack Obama and Joe Biden have consistently supported foreign assistance to Israel. They defend and support the annual foreign aid package that involves both military and economic assistance to Israel and have advocated increased foreign aid budgets to ensure that these funding priorities are met. They have called for continuing U.S. cooperation with Israel in the development of missile defense systems.

Bipartisanship and Openness

 

▪ A Record of Bringing People Together: In the Senate, Obama has worked with Republicans and Democrats to advance important policy initiatives on securing weapons of mass destruction and conventional weapons, increasing funding for nonproliferation and countering instability in Congo.

 

▪ Consultative Group: Obama and Biden will convene a bipartisan Consultative Group of leading members of Congress to foster better executive-legislative relations and bipartisan unity on foreign policy. This group will be comprised of the congressional leadership of both political parties, and the chair and ranking members of the Armed Services, Foreign Relations, Intelligence, and Appropriations Committees. This group will meet with the president once a month to review foreign policy priorities, and will be consulted in advance of military action.

 

▪Getting Politics out of Intelligence: Obama will insulate the Director of National Intelligence from political pressure by giving the DNI a fixed term, like the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Obama and Biden will seek consistency and integrity at the top of our intelligence community not just a political ally.

 

▪ Change the Culture of Secrecy: Obama will institute a National Declassification Center to make declassification secure but routine, efficient, and cost effective.

 

▪ Engaging the American People on Foreign Policy: Obama and Biden will bring foreign policy decisions directly to the people by requiring their national security officials to have periodic national broadband town hall meetings to discuss foreign policy. Obama will personally deliver Your Weekly Address via webcast.

 

 

Defense

“Our country's greatest military asset is the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States. When we do send our men and women into harm's way, we must also clearly define the mission, prescribe concrete political and military objectives, seek out the advice of our military commanders, evaluate the intelligence, plan accordingly, and ensure that our troops have the resources, support, and equipment they need to protect themselves and fulfill their mission.

 

”Barack Obama, Chicago Foreign Affairs Council, April 23, 2007

 

 President Obama and Vice President Biden will invest in a 21st century military to maintain our conventional advantage while increasing our capacity to defeat the threats of tomorrow. They will ensure our troops have the training, equipment and support that they need when they are deployed.

 

Invest in a 21st Century Military

▪ Rebuild the Military for 21st Century Tasks: Obama and Biden believe that we must build up our special operations forces, civil affairs, information operations, and other units and capabilities that remain in chronic short supply; invest in foreign language training, cultural awareness, and human intelligence and other needed counterinsurgency and stabilization skill sets; and create a more robust capacity to train, equip, and advise foreign security forces, so that local allies are better prepared to confront mutual threats.

 

▪ Expand to Meet Military

Needs on the Ground: Obama and Biden support plans to increase the size of the Army by 65,000 soldiers and the Marine Corps by 27,000 Marines. Increasing our end strength will help units retrain and re-equip properly between deployments and decrease the strain on military families.

 

▪ Leadership from the Top:

President Obama and Vice President Biden will inspire a new generation of Americans to serve their country, whether it be in local communities in such roles as teachers or first responders, or serving in the military to keep our nation free and safe.

 

▪ Lighten the Burdens on Our Brave Troops and Their Families:

The Obama-Biden Administration will create a Military Families Advisory Board to provide a conduit for military families' concerns to be brought to the attention of senior policymakers and the public. Obama and Biden will end the stop-loss policy and establish predictability in deployments so that active duty and reserves know what they can and must expect.

 

Build Defense Capabilities for the 21st Century

▪ Fully Equip Our Troops for the Missions They Face: Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe we must get essential equipment to our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines before lives are lost.

 

▪ Review Weapons Programs: We must rebalance our capabilities to ensure that our forces can succeed in both conventional wars and in stabilization and counter-insurgency operations. Obama and Biden have committed to a review of each major defense program in light of current needs, gaps in the field, and likely future threat scenarios in the post 9/11 world.

 

▪ Preserve Global Reach in the Air: We must preserve our unparalleled airpower capabilities to deter and defeat any conventional competitors, swiftly respond to crises across the globe, and support our ground forces. We need greater investment in advanced technology ranging from the revolutionary, like Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and electronic warfare capabilities, to essential systems like the C-17 cargo and KC-X air refueling aircraft, which provide the backbone of our ability to extend global power.

 

▪ Maintain Power Projection at Sea: We must recapitalize our naval forces, replacing aging ships and modernizing existing platforms, while adapting them to the 21st century. Obama and Biden will add to the Maritime Pre-Positioning Force Squadrons to support operations ashore and invest in smaller, more capable ships, providing the agility to operate close to shore and the reach to rapidly deploy Marines to global crises.

 

▪ National Missile Defense: The Obama-Biden Administration will support missile defense, but ensure that it is developed in a way that is pragmatic and cost effective; and, most importantly, does not divert resources from other national security priorities until we are positive the technology will protect the American public.

 

▪ Ensure Freedom of Space: The Obama-Biden Administration will restore American leadership on space issues, seeking a worldwide ban on weapons that interfere with military and commercial satellites. They will thoroughly assess possible threats to U.S. space assets and the best options, military and diplomatic, for countering them, establishing contingency plans to ensure that U.S. forces can maintain or duplicate access to information from space assets and accelerating programs to harden U.S. satellites against attack.

 

▪ Protect the U.S in Cyber space: The Obama-Biden Administration cooperate with our allies and the private sector to identify and protect against emerging cyber-threats.

 

Restore the Readiness of the National Guard and Reserves

▪ Equip, Support and Modernize the National Guard and Reserves: The Obama-Biden will provide the National Guard with the equipment it needs for foreign and domestic emergencies and time to restore and refit before deploying. They will make the head of the National Guard a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to ensure concerns of our citizen soldiers reach the level they mandate. They will ensure that reservists and Guard members are treated fairly when it comes to employment, health and education benefits.

 

Develop Whole of Government Initiatives to Promote Global Stability

▪ Integrate Military and Civilian Efforts: The Obama-Biden Administration will build up the capacity of each non-Pentagon agency to deploy personnel and area experts where they are needed, to help move soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines out of civilian roles.

 

▪ Create a Civilian Assistance Corps (CAC): Obama and Biden will create a national CAC of 25,000 personnel. This corps of civilian volunteers with special skill sets (doctors, lawyers, engineers, city planners, agriculture specialists, police, etc.) would be organized to provide each federal agency with a pool of volunteer experts willing to deploy in times of need at home and abroad.

 

Restore Our Alliances

▪ Engage Our Allies in Meeting Our Common Security Challenges: America's traditional alliances, such as NATO, must be transformed and strengthened, including on common security concerns like Afghanistan, homeland security, and counter terrorism. President Obama and Vice President Biden will renew alliances and ensure our allies contribute their fair share to our mutual security.

 

▪ Organize to Help Our Partners and Allies in Need: The

Obama-Biden Administration will expand humanitarian activities that build friendships and attract allies at the regional and local level (such as during the response to the tsunami in

South and Southeast Asia), and win hearts and minds in the process.

 

Reform Contracting

▪ Create Transparency for Military Contractors: President Obama and Vice President Biden will require the Pentagon and State Department to develop a strategy for determining when contracting makes sense, rather than continually handing off governmental jobs to well-connected companies. They will create the transparency and accountability needed for good governance, and establish the legal status of contractor personnel, making possible prosecution of any abuses committed by private military contractors.

 

▪ Restore Honesty, Openness, and Commonsense to Contracting and Procurement: The Obama-Biden Administration will realize savings by reducing the corruption and cost overruns that have become all too routine in defense contracting. This includes launching a program of acquisition reform and management, which would end the common practice of no-bid contracting. Obama and Biden will end the abuse of supplemental budgets by creating a system of oversight for war funds as stringent as in the regular budget. Obama and Biden will restore the government's ability to manage contracts by rebuilding our contract officer corps. They will order the Justice Department to prioritize prosecutions that will punish and deter fraud, waste and abuse.

Seniors & Social Security

(Left) President Obama and (Right) Vice President Biden.

Protect Social Security

President Obama and Vice President Biden are committed to ensuring Social Security is solvent and viable for the American people, now and in the future. Obama and Biden will be honest with the American people about the long-term solvency of Social Security and the ways we can address the shortfall. They will protect Social Security benefits for current and future beneficiaries alike, and they do not believe it is necessary or fair to hardworking seniors to rise the retirement age. Obama and Biden are strongly opposed to privatizing Social Security. As part of a bipartisan plan that would be phased in over many years, they will ask those making over $250,000 to contribute a bit more to Social Security to keep it sound. Obama does not support uncapping the full payroll tax 12.4 percent rate. Instead, he and Joe Biden are considering plans that will ask those making over $250,000 to pay in the range of 2 to 4 percent more in total (combined employer and employee).

 

Strengthen Retirement Savings

▪ Reform Corporate Bankruptcy Laws to Protect Workers and Retirees: Current bankruptcy laws protect banks before workers. Obama and Biden will protect pensions by putting promises to workers higher on the list of debts that companies cannot shed; ensuring that the bankruptcy courts do not demand more sacrifice from workers than executives; telling companies that they cannot issue executive bonuses while cutting worker pensions; increasing the amount of unpaid wages and benefits workers can claim in court; and limiting the circumstances under which retiree benefits can be reduced.

 

▪ Require Full Disclosure of Company Pension Investments: Obama and Biden will ensure that all employees who have company pensions receive detailed annual disclosures about their pension fund's investments. This will provide retirees important resources to make their pension fund more secure.

 

▪ Eliminate Income Taxes for Seniors Making Less Than $50,000: Obama and Biden will eliminate all income taxation of seniors making less than $50,000 per year. This will provide an immediate tax cut averaging $1,400 to 7 million seniors and relieve millions from the burden of fling tax returns.

 

▪ Create Automatic Workplace Pensions: The Obama Biden retirement security plan will automatically enroll workers in a workplace pension plan. Under their plan, employers who do not currently offer a retirement plan will be required to enroll their employees in a direct-deposit IRA account that is compatible with existing direct-deposit payroll systems. Employees may opt-out if they choose. Experts estimate that this program will increase the savings participation rate for low and middle-income workers from its current 15 percent level to around 80 percent.

 

▪ Expand Retirement Savings Incentives for Working Families: Obama and Biden will ensure savings incentives are fair to all workers by creating a generous savings match for low and middle-income Americans. Their plan will match 50 percent of the first $1,000 of savings for families that earn less than $75,000. The savings match will be automatically deposited into designated personal accounts. Over 80 percent of these savings incentives will go to new savers.

 

▪ Prevent Age Discrimination: Obama and Biden will fight job discrimination for aging employees by strengthening the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and empowering the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to prevent all forms of discrimination. Affordable Health Care

 

▪ Provide Cheaper Prescription Drugs: Our seniors pay the highest prices in the world for brand-name drugs. To lower drug costs, Obama and Biden will allow the federal government to negotiate for lower drug prices for the Medicare program, just as it does to lower prices for our veterans. They also support allowing seniors to import safe prescription drugs from overseas, and will prevent pharmaceutical companies from blocking cheap and safe generic drugs from the market.

 

▪ Protect and Strengthen Medicare: Obama and Biden are committed to the long-term strength of the Medicare program. They will reduce waste in the Medicare system in part by eliminating subsidies to the private insurance Medicare Advantage program and tackle fundamental health care reform to improve the quality and efficiency of our healthcare system. They support closing the "doughnut hole" in the Medicare Part D prescription drug program.

 

▪ Provide Transparency to Medicare Prescription Drug Plans: Many seniors are enrolled in Medicare prescription drug plans that are actually more expensive for them than other available plans. Obama and Biden will require companies to send Medicare beneficiaries a full list of the drugs and fees they paid the previous year to help seniors determine which plans can better reduce their out-of-pocket costs and improve their health.

 

▪ Strengthen Long-Term Care Options: Obama and Biden will work to give seniors choices about their care, consistent with their needs, and not biased towards institutional care. They will work to reform the financing of long term care to protect seniors and families, and to improve the quality of elder care by training more nurses and health care workers. Protect and Honor Seniors

 

▪ Ensure Heating Assistance: Obama and Biden will increase funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) which helps low-income citizens many of them seniors  pay their winter heating and summer cooling bills.

 

▪ Support Senior Volunteer Efforts: Retired Americans have a wide range of skills and knowledge to contribute to local and national public service efforts. Obama and Biden will engage more seniors that are interested in public service opportunities by expanding and improving programs like Senior Corps to connect seniors with quality volunteer opportunities.

  

Veterans

"Keeping faith with those who serve must always be a core American value and a cornerstone of American patriotism. Because America's commitment to its servicemen and women begins at enlistment, and it must never end."

 

Barack Obama, Speech in Kansas City, MO - August 21, 2007

 

As a member of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Barack Obama fought to end benefit disparities, bring homeless veterans in off the street, strengthen mental health care, add billions of dollars in additional Department of Veterans Affairs funding, and reform a system that often places barriers between veterans and the benefits they have earned. President Obama and Vice President Biden will ensure we honor the sacred trust to care for our nation’s veterans.

 

A Sacred Trust

Barack Obama and Joe Biden are committed to creating a 21st Century Department of Veterans' Affairs that provides the care and benefits our nation's veterans deserve. They will:

 

▪ Allow All Veterans Back into the VA: Reverse the 2003 ban on enrolling modest-income veterans, which has denied care to a million veterans.

 

▪ Strengthen VA Care: Make the VA a leader of national health care reform so that veterans get the best care possible. Improve care for poly trauma vision impairment, prosthetics, spinal cord injury, aging, and women's health.

 

▪ Combat Homelessness among Our Nation's Veterans: Establish a national "zero tolerance" policy for veterans falling into homelessness by expanding proven programs and launching innovative services to prevent veterans from falling into homelessness.

 

▪ Fight Employment Discrimination: Crack down on employers who commit job discrimination against guardsmen and reservists. Help Returning Service Members

Obama and Biden will improve the quality of health care for veterans; rebuild the VA's broken benefits system, and combat homelessness among veterans. They will:

 

▪ Ensure a Seamless Transition: Demand that the military and the VA coordinate to provide a seamless transition from active duty to civilian life.

 

▪ Fully Fund VA Medical Care: Fully fund the VA so it has all the resources it needs to serve the veterans who need it, when they need it. Establish a world-class VA Planning Division to avoid future budget shortfalls.

 

▪ Fix the Benefits Bureaucracy: Hire additional claims workers, and improve training and accountability so that VA benefit decisions are rated fairly and consistently. Transform the paper benefit claims process to an electronic one to reduce errors and improve timeliness.

 

Improved Treatment for Mental Health and TBI

Obama and Biden will improve mental health treatment for troops and veterans suffering from combat related psychological injuries. They will:

 

▪ Improve Mental Health Treatment: Recruit more health professionals, improve screening, offer more support to families and make PTSD benefits claims fairer.

 

▪ Improve Care for Traumatic Brain Injury: Establish standards of care for Traumatic Brain Injury, the signature injury of the Iraq war.

 

▪ Expand Vet Centers: Expand and strengthen Vet Centers to provide more counseling for vets and their families.

Additional Issues

Faith

In June of 2006, then Senator Obama delivered what was called the most important speech on religion and politics in 40 years. Speaking before an evangelical audience, then Senator Obama candidly discussed his own religious conversion and doubts, and the need for a deeper, more substantive discussion about the role of faith in American life.

 

Senator Obama also laid down principles for how to discuss faith in a pluralistic society, including the need for religious people to translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion specific, values during public debate. In December 2006, President Obama discussed the importance of faith in the global battle against AIDS.

 

ARTS

Our nation's creativity has filled the world's libraries, museums, recital halls, movie houses, and marketplaces with works of genius. The arts embody the American spirit of self definition. As the author of two best selling books Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope President Obama uniquely appreciates the role and value of creative expression.

 

CHILD ADVOCACY

President Obama and Vice President Biden are committed advocates for children. They will make sure that every child has health insurance, expand educational opportunities for low-income children, and extend resources for low-income families, support and supplement our struggling foster care system, and protect children from violence and neglect.

 

KATRINA

President Obama will keep the broken promises made by President Bush to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. He and Vice President Biden will take steps to ensure that the federal government will never again allow such catastrophic failures in emergency planning and response to occur.

 

President Obama swiftly responded to Hurricane Katrina. Citing the Bush Administration's "unconscionable ineptitude" in responding to Hurricane Katrina, then Senator Obama introduced legislation requiring disaster planners to take into account the specific needs of low-income hurricane victims. Obama visited thousands of Hurricane survivors in the Houston Convention Center and later took three more trips to the region. He worked with members of the Congressional Black Caucus to introduce legislation to address the immediate income, employment, business, and housing needs of Gulf Coast communities.

 

President Barack Obama will partner with the people of the Gulf Coast to rebuild now, stronger than ever.

 

SCIENCE

In the past, government funding for scientific research has yielded innovations that have improved the landscape of American life technologies like the Internet, digital photography, bar codes, Global Positioning System technology, laser surgery, and chemotherapy. At one time, educational competition with the Soviets fostered the creativity that put a man on the moon. Today, we face a new set of challenges, including energy security, HIV/AIDS, and climate change. Yet, the United States is losing its scientific dominance. Among industrialized nations, our country's scores on international science and math tests rank in the bottom third and bottom fifth, respectively. Over the last three decades, federal funding for the physical, mathematical, and engineering sciences has declined at a time when other countries are substantially increasing their own research budgets. President Obama and Vice President Biden believe federally funded scientific research should play an important role in advancing science and technology in the classroom and in the lab.

 

SPORTSMEN

President Obama did not grow up hunting and fishing, but he recognizes the great conservation legacy of America's hunters and anglers and has great respect for the passion that hunters and anglers have for their sports. Were it not for America's hunters and anglers, including the great icons like Theodore Roosevelt and Aldo Leopold, our nation would not have the tradition of sound game management, a system of ethical, science based game laws and an extensive public lands estate on which to pursue the sport. The President and Vice President recognize that we must forge a broad coalition if we are to address the great conservation challenges we face. America's hunters and anglers are a key constituency that must take an active role and have a powerful voice in this coalition.

 

TRANSPORTATION

As our society becomes more mobile and interconnected, the need for 21st-century transportation networks has never been greater. However, too many of our nation's railways, highways, bridges, airports, and neighborhood streets are slowly decaying due to lack of investment and strategic long-term planning. President Obama and Vice President Biden believe that America's long term competitiveness depends on the stability of our critical infrastructure. They will make strengthening our transportation systems, including our roads and bridges, a top priority.

▪ Strengthen VA Care: Make the VA a leader of national health care reform so that veterans get the best care possible. Improve care for poly trauma vision impairment, prosthetics, spinal cord injury, aging, and women's health.

 

▪ Combat Homelessness among Our Nation's Veterans: Establish a national "zero tolerance" policy for veterans falling into homelessness by expanding proven programs and launching innovative services to prevent veterans from falling into homelessness.

 

▪ Fight Employment Discrimination: Crack down on employers who commit job discrimination against guardsmen and reservists. Help Returning Service Members

Obama and Biden will improve the quality of health care for veterans; rebuild the VA's broken benefits system, and combat homelessness among veterans. They will:

 

▪ Ensure a Seamless Transition: Demand that the military and the VA coordinate to provide a seamless transition from active duty to civilian life.

 

▪ Fully Fund VA Medical Care: Fully fund the VA so it has all the resources it needs to serve the veterans who need it, when they need it. Establish a world-class VA Planning Division to avoid future budget shortfalls.

 

▪ Fix the Benefits Bureaucracy: Hire additional claims workers, and improve training and accountability so that VA benefit decisions are rated fairly and consistently. Transform the paper benefit claims process to an electronic one to reduce errors and improve timeliness.

 

Improved Treatment for Mental Health and TBI

Obama and Biden will improve mental health treatment for troops and veterans suffering from combat related psychological injuries. They will:

 

▪ Improve Mental Health Treatment: Recruit more health professionals, improve screening, offer more support to families and make PTSD benefits claims fairer.

 

▪ Improve Care for Traumatic Brain Injury: Establish standards of care for Traumatic Brain Injury, the signature injury of the Iraq war.

 

▪ Expand Vet Centers: Expand and strengthen Vet Centers to provide more counseling for vets and their families.