Syracuse University

U.S. Sen. Charles E. Schumer will sign copies of his new book, "Positively American: Winning Back the Middle-Class Majority One Family at a Time" (Rodale, 2007), Saturday, Feb. 3, at 1 p.m. at the Syracuse University Bookstore, located in the Hildegarde and J. Myer Schine Student Center, 303 University Ave.

Copies of the hardcover book ($24.95) will be available for purchase.

Members of the public may park in the University Avenue Garage; those using the garage should inform the attendant that their destination is the bookstore for the Schumer book signing.

Schumer is widely credited as a principal architect of the Democratic Party's successful election run last November that shifted the balance of power in the Senate. In "Positively American," Schumer describes where he believes the Democrats went wrong in the first few years of the 21st century and how they began turning things around in 2006.

Schumer introduces readers to a fictional family, the middle-class Baileys -- Joe, Eileen and their three children -- who have served as his guides since he was a local politician in southern Brooklyn. With the Baileys, he recounts his past


campaigns and offers a strategy by which Democrats can win back middle-class families, laying out 11 issues and benchmarks -- his "50% Solution":

• increase reading and math scores by 50 percent
  
• reduce property taxes that fund education by 50 percent
  
• increase the number of college graduates by 50 percent
  
• reduce illegal immigration by at least 50 percent and increase legal immigration by up to 50 percent
  
• reduce America's dependence on foreign oil by 50 percent
  
• reduce cancer mortality by 50 percent
  
• reduce childhood obesity by 50 percent
  
• reduce abortions by 50 percent
  
• cut children's access to Internet pornography by 50 percent
  
• reduce tax evasion and avoidance by 50 percent
  
• increase America's ability to fight terrorism by 50 percent