Bowles' Campaign Plans Fall Short for Meeting N.C. Needs

After reading Thursday's edition of The Daily Tar Heel, I was surprised to learn just how much U.S. Senate candidate Erskine Bowles has in common with the average UNC student.

Apparently Erskine is the only candidate who will help our grandparents because he favors legislation that would supposedly help prescription drugs come to the market more quickly to make medicine more available to senior citizens.

Too bad this program would cut into the profits of drug manufacturers and discourage them from taking the major risks necessary to develop newer and better medications.

Although Bowles' proposal could marginally increase the availability of prescription drugs to seniors, it would end up costing the rest of us, including UNC students, billions in additional taxes.

His opponent, Republican candidate Elizabeth Dole, has a better plan that will help the elderly and the rest of us who have to foot the bill. Her plan strikes at the heart of what has caused the prices of health care and prescription drugs to be so high in the first place: trial lawyers.

Dole favors medical malpractice reform that would limit the amount of punitive damages that could be sought against health-care providers. She also wants to expand community health-care centers in all areas of the state that would provide health care to all, regardless of their ability to pay.

Bowles also has used scare tactics against seniors to distort his opponent's record by claiming to be the only candidate who will protect Social Security. He has erroneously claimed that Dole's plan will decrease the guaranteed benefit for senior citizens by privatizing the program.

In reality, Dole's plan would do no such thing. Instead, it would allow younger workers like us to invest a portion of what we pay into Social Security in the private sector while leaving the benefits of current retirees untouched.

Bowles complains the Dole's Social Security plan would cost too much money. At campaign stops, Dole frequently holds up a blank sheet of paper to illustrate Bowles' plan for Social Security. According to the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan grassroots organization that advances ways to keep Social Security secure for all generations, the do-nothing Bowles plan would cut the guaranteed benefit for the average 20-year-old (read: college student) by 29 percent. One would think that Bowles would know that since he once served on the organization's board of directors.

Dole is the only candidate whose vision for saving Social Security is broad enough to help both seniors and younger generations.

She also favors protecting the environment by enacting a permanent ban on oil drilling off the Outer Banks, funding aggressive clean energy research and demanding that polluters pay to clean up environmental accidents. These are programs that stand to make significant strides in keeping the environment clean while not stymying business and job growth.

She is also the candidate who has a legitimate plan that will bring jobs to the state by lowering the tax burden, expanding North Carolina's ability to trade in foreign markets and encourage businesses to report their financial status fairly and accurately.

Bowles wants to keep the United States from being able to market goods abroad by opposing fast-track trade negotiations and says he will keep N.C. textile jobs at home.

But I honestly have to wonder how successful Bowles would be at that since he couldn't even convince his own wife Crandall, the CEO of textile giant Springs Industries, to latch on to his plan. She closed an N.C. plant last December, sending nearly 300 jobs to Mexico.

It is clear from looking at the facts that Elizabeth Dole is the only candidate in this year's U.S. Senate race who will look out for the interests of UNC students and the rest of North Carolina.

 

Reach Michael McKnight at mmcknigh@email.unc.edu.