Now leading the nation, President Gore’s Cabinet finds progress and setbacks

WASHINGTON D.C. — Faced with challenges inherited from the previous Clinton and Bush administrations, President Al Gore’s Cabinet along with key members of Congress have spent the day holed up in the West Wing, encountering both bipartisan agreement alongside gridlock in a series of several debates.

Addressing the national budget, UN Ambassador George Mitchell has partnered up with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., to guide the nation to a debt-free 2012. One of President Gore’s major tenets of his campaign platform, it promises to provide residents of federal low income housing with the opportunity to gradually purchase ownership these properties. “We need to decrease government spending and give the American people a more balanced, debt-free budget,” McCain said. Hoping to fulfill the promise made on the campaign trail while mitigating an already tight budget, Cabinet members voted in favor of the proposal.

Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, discusses her plans to ban Political Action Committee spending on the national election campaign level.

To limit unfettered political spending on the national campaign level, Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, proposed a ban on Political Action Committees (PACs). In a speech to the Cabinet, Snowe said, “[PACs] are a big source of corruption, and the money they put into politics can lead people like us to betray our constituents and their values.” As Chair of Senate Committee on Appropriations, Snowe’s plan was successfully implemented and received ardent support from individuals including Vice President Joseph Lieberman as well as Secretary of the Treasury Richard Parsons.

On the topic of healthcare, Secretary of Health and Human Services Howard Dean spearheaded the concept of universal care under GoreCare. His plan incorporates refundable tax credits coupled with federal subsidies to cover costs for low to moderate income families lacking insurance, as well as increased care for children and pregnant women.

“[GoreCare] is just like what we’ve implemented in my home state of Vermont, and 99% of children have healthcare there,” Dean said, “Some might say it will put strain on the economy, but we were able to simultaneously have a surplus in our budget.”

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., came out in fierce opposition to this proposal. “We won the Cold War just 10 years ago. We don’t want to support a policy just as red as Russia,” he said. This impasse has led to much discussion amongst the Cabinet, with the majority of liberal members in favor of GoreCare and most conservative members attacking the idea.

Although Gore’s Cabinet has seen several cases of members finding common ground, heated debate continues.