GRAVEL LAYS OUT DOMESTIC AGENDA AT HOWARD UNIVERSITY PRESIDENTIAL

Former US Senator Vows to End the War on Drugs, Abolish the Income Tax, Guarantees Right of Return to Katrina Victims

June 29, 2007

WASHINGTON D.C. – Former US Senator and current Democratic Presidential candidate Mike Gravel appeared at the Howard University Presidential forum and wasted no time in laying out his domestic agenda. Gravel began the evening discussing his plan to end the war on drugs.

"One of the areas that touches me the most and enrages me the most is our war on drugs that this country has been putting forth for the last generation. In 1972, we had 179,000 human beings in jail in this country. Today it's 2.3 million and seventy percent of them are African Americans. I hope my colleagues will join me in standing up and saying like FDR did with prohibition, 'We'll do away with that' and FDR did it."

"If I'm president, I'll do away with the war on drugs which does nothing but savage our inner cities and put our children at risk. There's no reason for this. There's not an American that doesn't understand that culture and the understanding that prohibition was a failure, so we repeat it again like we repeated Iraq after we had the failure of Vietnam."

"When will we learn that the issue of drugs is a public health issue? Addiction is a public health issue and not a criminal issue where we throw people in jail and criminalize them to the no advancement to the people. If there's one group of people in this country that needs to face up to that problem and we have had to face up to it, that is the African American community."

Gravel then responded to a question from contest winner Crecilla Cohen Scott on poverty and education.

"The Democratic party hasn't done appreciably better than the Republican party in solving these problems. It has to be solved by the people, not by your leaders. Twenty-one million Americans could have a four-year college scholarship for the money we've squandered in Iraq. 7.6 million teachers could have been hired last year if we weren't squandering this money. Now how do you think we got into this problem? The people on this stage, like the rest of us, are all guilty and very guilty and we should recognize that because there is linkage."

Ruben Navarette Jr. asked why the rich aren't paying their fair share of taxes which prompted Gravel to refer to his experience in the US Senate.

"I want to say that none of you are going to live in your lifetime to see our system of taxation change based upon what you've heard here. I was eight years on a Finance Committee. None of them have served on that committee and, I'll tell you, the code stands that high and there's not a human being alive that understands it. You think it's an accident that all of a sudden we wake up and the wealthy aren't paying a fair share? The only way they're going to pay a fair share is wipe out the income tax. It is corrupt. It is corrupting our society. Begin to put a place a tax that everybody will know what everybody is paying, and that's a retail sales tax. You can make it as progressive as you want. Keep in mind, a tax where everybody will know what everybody is paying."

Panelist DeWayne Wickham quoted FBI incarceration statistics showing African Americans arrested at a disproportionate rate, prompting the following response from Gravel; "Is it a surprise to anybody in this room that, if you don't have any money, you don't get any justice? Is that a surprise to you all? My gracious, the only way you're going to get justice is to turn around and empower yourselves to become lawmakers so you can change the system, and there's no thought of really changing the system today. It's politics as usual."

When panelist Michael Martin asked if he supported a federal law guaranteeing the right to return to New Orleans and other Gulf regions devastated by Hurricane Katrina, Gravel responded, "Yes. Just keep in mind that, if we weren't squandering our treasure on this terrible war that we didn't have to start, we would have four million housing units available and a good portion of them could go to Katrina residents.

In response to a question concerning outsourcing of U.S. jobs, Gravel responded with his disapproval of the implementation of US trade agreements.

"The problem is our trade agreements that we have that benefit the management and, of course, the shareholders and have neglected on either side of the issue whether it's in Mexico or in other countries or the United States. That's the problem that must be addressed."

He went on to say,

"I would add to it that it's the way all these people want to finance health care on the backs of businesses that make them noncompetitive in the world. That's part of the problem and our system of taxation is also part of the problem because it makes us noncompetitive in the world."

With his closing statement, Gravel turned back to the Iraq War,

"Very simply. If we have a president, he has to have moral judgment. Most of the people on this stage with me do not have that judgment and have proven it by the simple fact of what they've done."

"Senator Gravel showed again why he should be the Democratic nominee. No one will take the fight to the Republicans like Mike Gravel. He continues to advance the political discourse by discussing the issues that the other candidates will not address" said campaign spokesperson Shawn Alexander Colvin. "Mike Gravel will not be bought by the corporate interests that control electoral politics. Unlike other candidates, he is beholden only to the American people."