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Whitney: I Will Construct a New Deal Resulting in Growth |
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by Anonymous
(No verified email address) |
07 Aug 2006
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The Green Party is devoted to the goal of "genuine full employment, at wages and with benefits that will allow every working person to be able to support a family."
To meet this goal, we cannot continue to rely on the tired old strategy of the last several governors: offering tax incentives, subsidies, free enterprise zones and other "corporate welfare," to try to "attract" big business to Illinois. |
Forty-nine other states - not to mention low-wage competitors like China, Mexico, India, etc. - are always striving to outdo us in that particular "race to the bottom." The only real winners in that game are the multinational corporations. We give up huge tax revenues and rarely gain stable, quality jobs in return.
Don't get me wrong. We do need strategies to attract solid, socially responsible businesses to Illinois. But we shouldn't be giving away the store to do it. We also need strategies that will help us grow our own businesses and promote positive alternatives to the corporate model, such as employee-owned firms and worker cooperatives.
I don't know where politicians get the idea that all businesses care about are tax breaks and government giveaways. Most businesses care a lot more about the soaring cost of healthcare, soaring energy costs, having an efficient infrastructure that can get employees to work on time without sitting in traffic for two hours and having a well-educated, productive and creative work force.
We can be successful by enacting:
1. Single-payer healthcare in Illinois;
2. My job-creating "New Deal" to promote sustainable energy, energy efficiency and sustainable transportation in Illinois, and
3. Badly needed tax and budget reforms to provide adequate funding to our schools, colleges and universities, while providing badly needed property tax relief to our farmers, businesses and homeowners alike.
A single-payer, universal healthcare system would operate like Medicare - but for everyone, not just the elderly. It will require a modest payroll tax. However, that tax will cost far less than what most businesses and workers are paying now for poor or mediocre private insurance when they can afford it at all. With single-payer heathcare, we will not only attract businesses looking to reduce their overhead; the savings to existing businesses, healthcare providers and workers alike will further stimulate economic growth.
My New Deal energy package will not only clean up our environment and combat global warming. The promotion of solar, wind, biomass and geothermal energy will create tens of thousands of new manufacturing, construction and service jobs and generate new farm income from wind turbine leases and biomass energy crops. New energy-efficiency standards and conservation measures will drive energy bills down, leading to more savings for businesses and consumers. New high-speed rail and modernized public transit will not only reduce traffic congestion; they will create more jobs than equivalent expenditures on highway construction.
As for education, it has been proved time and again that this is the best "investment" government can make, paying back every dollar spent several times over. That's because better-educated people are more productive, earn higher incomes and create more new businesses. They also tend to stay out of trouble, reducing the costs of our criminal justice and prison systems and social service agencies. My plan to end the budget crisis and improve funding for our schools and colleges, based on House Bill 750, will help our economy flourish.
These are just a few of my ideas for reaching the goal of full employment at jobs that pay a living wage (or better!). I have more!
Rich Whitney is a Carbondale attorney and Green Party candidate for governor.
Please visit our Web site at whitneyforgov.org for more information. |
See also:
http://www.thesouthern.com/articles/2006/08/07/opinions/guest_columns/17129365.txt
http://www.whitneyforgov.org/
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