It`s time for Illinois voters to take their turn in the spotlight.
Illinois and Michigan take on added significance in this presidential election as the Democratic candidates move outside their regional
More Top Picks Best Amazon Prime Day Meta Quest Deals 2026
constituencies and vie for votes on what can be considered neutral ground.
In the Republican primary, a sitting president finds himself facing a challenger who continues to attract a section of voters in his own party who feel a need to register a protest.
Following last week`s Super Tuesday showdown between the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates, voters here have become the target of a barrage of political advertising, sound bites and photo opportunities.
Often lost in this press to attract the public`s attention are the positions taken by the candidates.
From health care to taxes to crime, these are the issues that voters say concern them, but sorting through the morass of messages can be a confusing task even for the experts.
The five remaining Democratic and Republican presidential candidates have, by now, staked out well-defined and detailed positions on the pivotal issues facing the American electorate in 1992.
In advance of Tuesday`s primaries in Illinois and Michigan, the Tribune offers a summary of those positions.
HEALTH CARE:
BUCHANAN: Supports providing incentives for employers and individuals to purchase insurance; favors halting new Medicare regulations; would issue vouchers to families to help pay the costs of long-term care of the elderly.
BUSH: Favors a system of tax credits and deductions for middle-income families and the poor to help pay health insurance costs. Families below the poverty line would receive up to $3,750 either as voucher or as credit subtracted from their tax bill. Those earning up to $70,000 annually could deduct up to $3,750 from their taxable income for health insurance or unreimbursed medical bills.
BROWN: Favors a totally government-financed system similar to Canada`s in which private doctors, hospitals and other care givers are paid through higher federal and state taxes. ”We should have a single-payer, universal health care, emphasizing wellness and prevention and including the choice of different healing arts whether it`s acupuncture or chiropractic.”
CLINTON: Favors a public/private insurance plan for all Americans, commonly called ”play or pay,” in which employers and employees purchase private insurance or opt to buy into a public program-by which the poor and unemployed would be covered; supports enacting the Reproductive Health Equity Act to increase the health care resources available to women.
TSONGAS: Favors a comprehensive standard benefit package, without pre-existing conditions, for all Americans. This would include mandatory business coverage for full-time employees; the unemployed, self-employed and businesses with less than 50 employees would get private coverage through a pool administered by a state agency. Tsongas believes ”managed competition” will lower costs by encouraging insurers to bid for the contracts.
ECONOMY & TAXES:
BUCHANAN: Supports cutting in half the capital gains tax for individuals earning more than $50,000 a year; cutting income taxes for the lower and middle classes; phasing out foreign aid and freezing federal spending; favors ”providing investment tax credits for business and manufacturing to create jobs and renew our industrial base.”
BUSH: Supports a reduction in the capital gains tax to 15.4 percent;
providing a $5,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers; increasing personal tax exemptions by $500 per dependent child for every family; eliminating 246 federal programs to cut federal spending; allowing penalty-free withdrawals from individual retirement accounts to pay for medical and educational expenses.
BROWN: Supports a 13 percent flat tax on personal income and a value-added tax on business; allowing deductions only for rent, mortgage payments and charitable contributions; providing tax credits for research and development; cutting foreign aid; initiating federally funded job programs.
CLINTON: Supports cutting middle-class taxes by 10 percent and increasing the taxes of those earning more than $200,000; replacing the current $2,150 dependent`s tax exemption with up to an $800 per-child tax credit;
accelerating current highway spending to create jobs; opening the housing market to poor and middle-income buyers by creating special savings accounts with matching federal funds and lifting the cap on Federal Housing
Administration loans; expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit to create a working wage that would ensure that no American working full-time would fall below the poverty level.
TSONGAS: Supports reducing the capital gains tax for long-term corporate investments and entrepreneurial enterprises; opposes middle-class tax breaks; supports providing tax credits for research and development; increasing federal spending to improve manufacturing; relaxing anti-trust laws to permit joint ventures between large companies; limiting shareholder suits against companies that make long-term investments.
CRIME:
BUCHANAN: Supports the death penalty; opposes all gun-control legislation; supports use of military for interdiction of drug shipments into U.S.
BUSH: Supports the death penalty and limiting of appeals for Death Row inmates; opposes federal gun regulation; supports increasing federal prosecutors and prison capacity. Administration`s crime bill suggests spending 64 percent of $12.7 billion on law enforcement and 36 percent on education and treatment.
BROWN: Opposes capital punishment; believes in mandatory prison terms for use of a gun in a crime, for repeat felons, for heroin pushers, and crimes against the elderly and handicapped; proposes attacking crime by addressing the causes of poverty: ”You`re never going to stop crime unless there is an adequate opportunity for jobs and income for every person.”
CLINTON: Favors the death penalty; supports the Brady Bill, which calls for a waiting period for handgun purchases and the banning of assault weapons; would provide federal matching funds to communities creating effective crime- control policies; would increase federal funding for community-based
”beat” policing; supports tougher criminal penalties for white-collar crimes; favors funding drug treatment for anyone requesting it.
TSONGAS: Supports the death penalty for crimes against society, like drug trafficking; favors a waiting period for handgun purchases and a ban on assault weapons: ”Our times requires a toughness in dealing with crime combined with aggressive commitment to get guns out of the hands of those who shouldn`t have them.”
EDUCATION:
BUCHANAN: Favors a voucher system that allows parents to send their children to the schools of their choice; favors making teachers and their curriculums accountable to local education officials; believes that European and American history and English and American literature should be ”pillars” of the curriculums of all schools.
BUSH: Supports voucher-like system of choice in educational system for all families; favors voluntary standardized national exams; favors using public money to cover tuition at private schools to promote equity; supports awarding some scholarships on the basis of race.
BROWN: Supports funding a Head Start program for all children; supports minimum national standards for all primary and secondary schools; supports restoring work-study programs; favors reducing dependence on federal student loan programs by lowering tuition at public universities and increasing scholarship aid; wants to ”put a computer in front of every child.”
CLINTON: Supports funding Head Start for every child; establishing a national examination system and annual national report card; creating a low-interest national trust fund for students who cannot afford higher
education; supports a GI bill-type of program in which young adults trade community service for a college or vocational school education.
More Top Picks Telescopes
TSONGAS: Favors making schools the ”meeting houses of our society,”
where children, parents, grandparents, teachers, and corporate executives gather to define education standards; favors merit pay and standards of teacher competence; supports school-based management and uniform testing standards; favors funding work training programs.
ENVIRONMENT/ENERGY:
BUCHANAN: Supports ”cleaning up the pollution of America`s popular culture,” more than the environment per se; favors offshore oil drilling and reducing costly pollution restrictions on industry.
BUSH: Proposes to budget $700 million for wetlands protection in 1993;
proposes no net loss of wetlands but wants a definition of wetlands that won`t ”overburden” private property owners; opposes initiatives to address global warming at this time; proposes a National Energy Strategy that provides investment incentives for renewable energy technologies to encourage a reduction in America`s dependence on oil.
BROWN: Opposes loss of wetlands and offshore oil drilling; favors federal spending to clean up toxic-waste dumps and fund fuel-efficient cars and high- speed trains; opposes nuclear energy; favors clean renewable alternate energy sources, such as wind, solar, geothermal, co-generation.
CLINTON: Favors no net loss of wetlands; proposes a national energy conservation strategy, including increasing fuel efficiency requirements;
supports federal tax incentives for renewable energy resources.
TSONGAS: Favors preserving wetlands; supports a 3 to 5 cent a year increase in the gasoline tax for 10 years to reduce energy consumption;
federal funding to support research and development into renewable energy sources; supports research into smaller, safer nuclear plants because of concerns about global warming and diminishing fossil fuels.
DEFENSE:
BUCHANAN: Supports increased research and funding for the Strategic Defense Initiative, or Star Wars; supports cutting overseas troop commitments. BUSH: Proposes a $50 billion cut in defense spending over the next five years; supports increased funding for Star Wars; opposes additional funding for the production of peacekeeping missiles; favors ending production of the B-2 bomber and MX missile.
BROWN: Favors cutting defense spending by half the first year; supports only research and development on Star Wars; favors reducing troop commitments overseas.
CLINTON: Favors cutting defense spending by one-third over five years;
supports research and development only on missile defense within the framework of the anti-ballistic missile treaty; favors stopping production of the B-2 bomber; favors forming a new advanced research agency to provide employment for the human fallout from defense cuts.
TSONGAS: Supports a 30 percent cut in defense spending over five years;
favors a ”new world order of multinational peacekeeping” where the United States is a major, but not the only, player; favors reducing troop commitments overseas but retaining research and development capabilities.
ABORTION:
BUCHANAN: Opposes abortion; supports ban on abortion counseling in federally funded family-planning clinics.
BUSH: Opposes abortion, except in cases of rape, incest or when the mother`s life is endangered; vetoed legislation that would have overturned the ”gag” rule, which bans abortion counseling by federally funded family-planning clinics.
BROWN: Supports abortion rights; supports overturn of ”gag” rule;
supports Medicaid funding for abortions; opposes mandatory parental notification/consent laws.
CLINTON: Supports abortion rights; opposes the ”gag” rule; supports federal funding for abortion for low-income women; opposes spousal consent laws. As governor he signed a law providing for parental notification, but his campaign staff said he has revised his position.
TSONGAS: Supports abortion rights; supports overturning ”gag” rule;
favors federal funding of abortion for low-income women; opposes parental notification/consent laws; favors enacting the Freedom of Choice Act, legislation that guarantees the right to choose abortion as an option.