Embraces Obama policies, says Bill’s role to start from kitchen table
Embraces Obama policies, says Bill’s role to start from kitchen table
Democratic presidential candidates clashed in their final debate before first votes are cast in Iowa, with Hillary Clinton saying she’s ready to take on the “world’s hardest job” as she sparred with her surging rival Bernie Sanders.
Ms Clinton embraced the policies of the Obama administration from healthcare to economy and foreign policy in particular Iran during her party’s first presidential debate this year.
The pair, along with former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley, met in Charleston, South Carolina, late Sunday aware that their performance could be the best opportunity to reshape the Democratic nomination race ahead of the Iowa caucases, which will be held two weeks from Monday.
Ms Clinton is ahead in national opinion polls among Democrats, but Mr Sanders has surged in recent weeks and threatens her narrow lead in Iowa.
Ms Clinton wrangled with the leftist Vermont senator, sometimes intensely, over plans for universal health care, guns, battling Islamic State (ISIS) jihadists and reining in Wall Street.
She emphasised her vast experience as former secretary of state, senator and point-woman for her husband ex-President Bill Clinton’s efforts to reform health care in the 1990s.
“I understand that this is the hardest job in the world. I’m prepared and ready to take it on,” she said.
She also insisted that she was best qualified to “bring our country together” during politically polarising times.
Mr Sanders shook up the issue of health care when just hours before the debate started he unveiled a universal health care proposal he says can save American families thousands of dollars each year by no longer paying insurance premiums.
But the plan would require a 6.2 per cent health care payroll tax on businesses, while slapping taxpayers with a 2.2 percent “premium” based on income.
Mr Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, claims his plan would save $6 trillion over 10 years compared with the current system.
Ms Clinton criticised his plan claiming it would shred President Barack Obam Affordable Care Act, which has helped 19 million new people get health insurance.
“To tear it up and start over again... I think is the wrong direction,” Ms Clinton said at the debate broadcast by NBC News.
Perhaps her sharpest attack against Mr Sanders was her claim that he is weak on gun control.
“He has voted with the NRA (National Rifle Association), with the gun lobby numerous times,” including against legislation mandating background checks for gun sales, she declared. And Ms Clinton wryly congratulated Mr Sanders for flip-flopping on a proposal she has advanced to end gun makers’ immunity from lawsuits. In 2005 Mr Sanders voted for legislation that gave gun manufacturers legal immunity.
Ms Clinton also said that if she wins the November elections, the role of her husband Bill Clinton would start at the “kitchen table” and she would ask for his ideas as a former President of the US.
“It'll start at the kitchen table, we'll see how it goes from there,” the 68-year-old said when asked what the role of her husband Bill, 69, would be if she is voted to power.
“I'm going to have the very best advisers that I can possibly have,” she said.
“When it comes to the economy and what was accomplished under my husband’s leadership and the ’90s — especially when it came to raising incomes for everybody and lifting more people out of poverty than at any time in recent history — you bet, I’m going to ask for his ideas, I’m going ask for his advice,” Ms Clinton said.
