Keyes, Obama present voters with clear differences on issues

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. -- No one has ever accused Alan Keyes of being a RINO -- a Republican In Name Only. And you don't hear many people complaining that Barack Obama is a wishy-washy "Republicrat."\nThe two U.S. Senate candidates offer voters stark choices on everything from education to health care to gun control -- choices often stemming from two very different views of government. Obama argues government can be a tool to help people, while Keyes sees it as a hurdle that people must overcome.\nTake their positions on education.\nKeyes accuses public schools of "politically correct brainwashing of our children" and calls for organized prayer in schools and giving parents more choice in how to educate their children. He supports issuing vouchers to pay for education at any school, public or private, secular or religious.\nHe also criticizes sex education in schools, saying that should generally be left to parents.\nWhen Obama discusses education, it's usually to criticize President Bush for not coming up with more money to help schools meet the tough requirements of the president's "No Child Left Behind" Act. He promises to fight for more funding.\nAnother Obama proposal is a series of academies that would train 5,000 new teachers a year. The teachers would agree to serve six years in troubled schools and in exchange would get $30,000 a year and a master's degree.\nObama also wants the government to stop issuing some college loans through banks, which costs the government money because the lenders get a guaranteed rate of return. Obama says if the government issued all loans itself, costs would drop $4.5 billion and that money could be used to help more would-be college students.\n"We need more money for public schools because the classes are too big and the students need too much help. But what is also true is that that money will not make a dime's bit of difference unless we change attitudes about the importance of learning, especially in minority and low-income communities," he said at one appearance.\nWhen it comes to health care, Keyes favors creating tax-deductible savings accounts that people could use to set aside money. Those would be combined with health insurance to protect people against the cost of catastrophic illness or injury.\nKeyes endorses letting people buy cheaper prescription drugs from other countries and says overall health care costs could be reduced by limiting awards in malpractice lawsuits. He also argues costs would drop if people were encouraged to pay more attention to diet and exercise.\nObama suggests making sure more people have health insurance by expanding existing federal programs, such as Medicare and the Children's Health Insurance Program. The expansions would provide coverage for 25 million of the nation's 44 million uninsured, Obama says, and should cost $68 billion. He would pay for it by reversing some of Bush's tax cuts for the most wealthy.