January 23, 2003--With about 300 mayors in town for the U.S. Conference of Mayors' 71st winter meeting, the National Conference of Democratic Mayors held its business meeting and a reception.  Sen. John Kerry, Rep. Richard Gephardt, Gov. Howard Dean, Rev. Al Sharpton,  and Sen. Joe Lieberman all spoke at the meeting; Sen. Edwards, tied up with voting in the Senate, arrived later.

Kerry: "...I intend to introduce the largest investment in infrastructure this nation has ever engaged in.  We're going to build high speed rail; we're going to have an effort to build energy independence; we're going to build alternatives and renewables; we're going to excite the country about the possibility of moving in a different direction; and we're going to rebuild the communities of our nation..."

Gephardt: "...I will bring forward an idea that we rescind any and all tax cuts and tax bills and economic plans that this administration has passed by the time we get to 2004 and take those revenues and use them to see that every American family is covered by quality health insurance once and for all in this country."

Dean: "...here's the advantage of my coming from a state that's smaller than most of your cities.  I administer our CBDG program...  I know the CBDG program.  We've used it to create jobs, to build housing.  It's wonderful discretionary money that we can invest that we would never be able to come up with out of our budgets.  I will double the CBDG program from $4.6 billion to 9.2."
 

Copyright © 2003 Eric M. Appleman/Democracy in Action.