John Kerry announces that he will hold a series of discussions on the Economy
johnkerry.com
Wednesday July 30, 2003
Sets Goal to Restore the 2.7 Million Jobs Lost in the Bush Economy in the First 500 Days of His Presidency
Today in Conway, New Hampshire John Kerry announced that he is going to hold a series of discussions over the next several weeks on the economy, including stops at diners, union halls, living rooms and places of employment. Kerry will use these meetings as an opportunity to listen to ideas from workers around the country and to develop a comprehensive plan to restore the economy and create new jobs. He also announced a new goal to restore the more than 2 million jobs lost in the Bush economy in the first 500 days of his Presidency. Kerry outlined a series of issues his economic plan will focus on including:
Expanding Efforts to Train and Retrain Workers. A highly trained workforce is a vital resource and the only real economic advantage America can have in a fast moving international economy. John Kerry believes that we need to make it easier for workers to get the training they need with tax credits and loan programs and we need to assure that our large corporations are doing their part to invest in their workers.
Ending Policies That Starve States and Cause Them to Layoff Workers, Raise Taxes. States are struggling under the worst fiscal crisis in decades and are facing a cumulative budget gap of $90 billion next year. New York State alone is facing a $10 billion shortfall next year. Across the country critical education and health programs have been slashed, workers have been laid off and taxes have been raised in order to balance state budgets. John Kerry has made it a priority to get fiscal help to the states and was a champion of the recent effort to provide New York State with $2.2 billion in immediate relief, which he believes is just a down payment on further relief.
Make Investments in Homeland Security, Infrastructure, and Transportation. Kerry also believes that improvements in infrastructure are long overdue. It's how you create jobs. It's how you move products. It's how you make our cities work. This includes building high-speed rail where it makes sense, which can create jobs, reduce traffic and help people and products get where they need to go.
Replacing the Current Hodgepodge of College Savings Programs and Tax Credits with a Financing Plan that Means Every Student Can Afford to Go to College. Americans cannot get the skills they need in a 21st century economy in an education system that was based on the American economy at the start if World War II. The current patchwork of tax credits and grant programs to help pay for some of college expenses should be replaced by a comprehensive plan to make four years of college affordable for all.
Assuring That Every Worker Gets the Unemployment Insurance They Deserve. Nearly 9 million workers are currently unemployed. Kerry believes that providing unemployment benefits to all Americans who have lost their job is the right thing to do for workers and for America's economy. Unlike President Bush, Kerry also believes that the over one million workers who have already exhausted their unemployment benefits without finding a job should get relief. These workers, including 103,000 in New York State, are not eligible for President Bush's unemployment insurance extension, even though they would have been eligible during every other recession in the last 40 years. These workers are growing desperate because jobs are simply not available and they are especially likely to have fallen into poverty and into debt.
Helping Employer and Employees Alike By Stopping Spiraling Health Care Costs. Health care costs are increasing by double digits making it hard for employees and employers alike to afford health care. In fact, in some small businesses health care premiums are rising 20 times higher than wages. John Kerry has a comprehensive plan to stop spiraling health care costs that are strangling small businesses and making it hard for families to make ends meet. This includes allowing small businesses to buy into the same plan their member of Congress gets today, closing loopholes and unfair financial incentives that keep the cost of prescription drugs high, and cutting paperwork and reducing errors that saves costs.
Helping America's Small Businesses Become an Engine of Growth to Create New Jobs. John Kerry believes that small business can help create jobs and help revitalize the economy. He supports incentives to help businesses invest, expand, and create jobs. For example, he supports addressing the capital funding gap for those fast-growing small businesses by allowing them to defer tax liability if the funds are reinvested in the business. An independent economic analysis shows that this tax change alone would create more than 600,000 jobs in the first three years by facilitating business growth. He also supports a temporary job creation tax credit for employers who hire new employees or increase existing salaries.
Bolstering Parts of the Country Particularly Hard Hit By the Bush Economy. Kerry knows that particular parts of the country have been hit particularly hard, and will need special, focused attention: farm states, our inner cities, and smaller cities that were heavily dependent on manufacturing. Part of the goal of Kerry's town hall meetings on the economy is to hear these concerns and develop responses to them. For example, he has supported a tax credit for wages of up to $3,000 per employee, available to businesses that locate in communities experiencing population loss and low job growth rates similar to that of upstate New York.
Reducing Dependence on Foreign Oil and Creating New Jobs With a Bold New Energy Policy. John Kerry believes that by promoting alternative sources of energy and developing smarter ways to use energy we can create thousands of well-paying new jobs in research, technology and manufacturing sectors. By reducing our dependence on foreign oil, our economy will also be less vulnerable to supply interruptions and price instability.
Ending the Fiscal Recklessness of the Bush Administration. This Administration has the worst economic record of any modern President. No President since World War II has seen job losses during his tenure, but President Bush is poised to be the first.
Under his stewardship, more than 75,000 jobs have been lost per month. The economy grew at a rate of 0.3 percent in 2001 and 2.4 percent in 2002 -- the worst two years of economic growth since 1990-91. Yet this President's answer has been the same: cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans and run up the deficit to starve the government. John Kerry believes we need to restore fiscal discipline and focus tax cuts on middle class Americans.
Cutting Reckless Government Spending and Closing Corporate Loopholes. John Kerry believes that we should start restoring fiscal discipline and our economy by cutting corporate welfare and closing corporate loopholes that allow large companies to avoid paying taxes. He also supports Senator McCain's idea to have a bipartisan commission to review and get rid of wasteful spending. |
