November 7, 2007
Democratic presidential
hopeful Sen. Barack Obama is rolling out a cradle-to-grave tax-and-benefit
program aimed at women and working-class families.
The sweeping subsidies and
mandates reflect his past as a community organizer.
Campaigning on Wednesday in
Iowa, the only early-voting state where polls show him competitive with
Sen. Hillary Clinton, the senator from Illinois proposed a 50 percent
match on the first $1,000 a year of retirement savings for families
earning up to $75,000, an expansion of the current “saver’s credit.”
He also proposed:
•Requiring all companies —
except those in their first two years of operation or with fewer than 10
workers — to enroll employees in retirement plans or direct-deposit
individual retirement accounts. Workers could opt out.
•A $4,000 annual
college-tuition tax credit.
•A major expansion of the
federal Family and Medical Leave Act, which ensures that workers can take
time off for health or family reasons.
Obama’s latest proposals
would cost $26 billion a year, his advisers estimate.
He said he could offset the
$26 billion by capping congressional earmark spending, requiring more
competitive bidding on federal contracts and closing capital-gains tax
loopholes.
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