Joel Tyner- Rebuilding The American Dream
Momentum now building all over the 20th Congressional District!
220+ total signed on -- join us today and sign on here:
-- Dutchess County Democratic Elections Commissioner Fran Knapp
-- Columbia County Democratic Elections Commissioner Virginia Martin -- Folksinger/Activist/Living Legend Pete Seeger
-- "Gasland" Director Josh Fox -- Author/Activist/Professor Cornel West
-- Former Hyde Park Town Board Member Doris Kelly
-- Dutchess County MoveOn/RebuildtheDream.com Coordinator Matt Rosenberg
-- Claverack Democratic Chair Deborah Shakotko
-- Stockport Democratic Chair Carl Roby
-- Roseboom Town Clerk and Democratic Otsego County Rep. District #7 Beth Rosenthal
-- Rosendale Town Boardmember Manna Jo Greene
-- Dutchess County Legislator Steve White (D-Poughkeepsie) -- Dutchess County Legislator James Doxsey (C-Poughkeepsie)
-- Rhinebeck Democratic Committee Co-Chair Barbara Hugo
-- Former Rhinebeck Village Boardmember Barbara Kraft
-- Former Rhinebeck Village Boardmember Kevin Rheden
-- Clinton Democratic Chair and Assembly Candidate Alyssa Kogon
-- Former Amenia Town Supervisor Janet Reagon
-- Former Dutchess Interfaith Council Executive Director Rev. Gail Burger
Four-term Dutchess County Legislator Joel Tyner (D-Clinton/Rhinebeck), a proven progressive now running unopposed for a fifth term in the Dutchess County Legislature (in a district that was rock-ribbed conservative GOP for decades), needs your help to work with him to take back the 20th Congressional District from the special interests pulling Chris Gibson's tea party puppet strings (the same way Kathy Hochul just scored a win in the 26th Congressional District)-- and enact these ten common-sense reforms below:
[Note-- this is also essentially the same ten-point Contract for the American Dream embraced last summer by over 130,000 Americans at over 1600 house parties-- members of the national RebuildtheDream.com coalition include MoveOn, AFL-CIO, SEIU, Working Families Party, Campaign for America's Future, Planned Parenthood, True Majority, Progressive Congress, Progressive Democrats of America, United for a Fair Economy, Yes Magazine, Move to Amend, and dozens of other prominent progressive organizations from all over the country; see http://www.RebuildtheDream.com ;
http://moveonorgnfo.blogspot.com/2011_08_01_archive.html ;
https://civ.moveon.org/contract_release/o.pl?id=29649-10220574-m1T1ehx&t=5 .]
1. Tax millionaires and billionaires at least a bit more to solve our federal budget problems.
[81% of Americans agree, according to a March NBC/Wall Street Journal poll earlier this year:
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/7333/what_americans_want_the_peoples... .]
2. Protect Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, our schools, our hospitals, our nursing homes, home care, and our environment from any more budget cuts and layoffs that will only make the current recession we're in worse.
[78% of Americans agree, according to an April ABC News/Washington Post poll earlier this year:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/poll-shows-americans-oppose-entit... ; http://www.PetitionOnline.com/ILikeIke ]
3. Expand Medicare to cover all of us-- and save Americans $400 billion a year.
[59% of Americans agree, according to a 2009 CBS/New York Times poll ( http://www.PNHP.org ):
http://www.healthcare-now.org/another-poll-shows-majority-support-for-si... .]
4. Make sure Planned Parenthood is fully funded-- for reproductive justice and women's health care.
[53% of Americans agree, according to March NBC/Wall Street Journal poll and Feb. Quinnipiac poll:
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/node/15708 .]
5. Revitalize our economy by raising the minimum wage to $10 an hour to put more money into the pockets of working class New Yorkers-- even the Wall Street Journal has stated that 70% of our economy is driven by consumer demand.
[67% of Americans agree, according to an October 2010 ABC News/Washington Post poll:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/06/americans-minimum-wage-poll_n_7... .]
6. Make sure that hydrofracking is completely banned at least here in New York to protect our drinking water-- not just in the New York City and Syracuse watersheds-- green jobs possible instead from solar; Germany has much less sunlight that we do here in NY-- and yet has much more solar-- and green jobs.
[Most New Yorkers agree, according to a July Siena poll and a May Marist/YNN poll:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/15/new-york-gas-drilling-rul_n_900... ; http://www.nylcv.org/solar ; http://www.cleanenergyauthority.com/solar-energy-news/?p=117 ]
7. Make sure that our trade policy is reformed to truly protect American workers-- and not facilitating American corporations offshoring jobs-- end NAFTA, GATT, and WTO.
[69% of Americans think free trade has cost U.S. jobs and hurt us (2010 NBC/Wall Street Journal poll):
http://www.americablog.com/2010/09/majority-of-americans-believe-free.html . As Thom Hartmann notes, "when Ronald Reagan came into office, the U.S. was the world's largest importer of raw materials, the world's largest exporter of finished, manufactured goods, and the world's largest creditor. After thirty years of Reaganomics, we've completely flipped this upside down; we've become the world's largest exporter of raw materials, the world's largest importer of finished goods, and the world's largest debtor." (from Hartmann's "Rebooting the American Dream: 11 Ways to Rebuild Our Country") http://www.thomhartmann.com/users/democratease/blog/2010/10/follow-money... ]
8. Clean up Washington to remove the pervasive influence of wealthy special interests-- amend the Constitution to make it clear that corporations aren't people, and enact Clean Money Clean Elections campaign finance reform.
[80% of Americans support amending the Constitution to make it clear-- corporations aren't people.
79% of New Yorkers support Clean Money Clean Elections-- real campaign finance reform:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenumbers/2010/02/in-supreme-court-ruling-on-c... ; http://www.freespeechforpeople.org/node/75 ;
http://rochesterturning.com/2008/04/28/poll-says-3-of-4-new-yorkers-supp... .]
9. Make sure that greedy speculators on Wall Street can no longer game the market and unfairly drive up gas and oil prices-- enact Rep. Maurice Hinchey's End Excessive Oil Speculation Now Act. "Even energy experts from Exxon Mobil, Delta Airlines and Goldman Sachs have recently indicated that excessive speculation is responsible for 20 to 40 percent of the price of a barrel of crude oil. Gas prices nationwide are hovering at $4 per gallon, even though supply is greater and demand lower than two years ago when prices averaged about $2.44 a gallon nationwide. The End Excessive Oil Speculation Now Act would force the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to establish strong position limits to eliminate excessive oil speculation. It also would impose margin requirements so investors would have to back their bets with real capital. In addition, bank holding companies, investment banks or hedge funds that engage in proprietary oil trading would be classified as speculators. "
[90% of Americans agree that Wall Street speculation is responsible, according to a May CNN poll:
http://hinchey.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1666&... ;
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/05/09/164920/9-in-10-americans-bla... .]
10. Bring our troops home now from Afghanistan/Iraq; save lives-- and $125 billion a year for taxpayers.
[59% of Americans support our troops coming home from Afghanistan and Iraq now without delay:
http://www.thinkprogress.org/2011/05/11/afghanistan-get-out-59-percent ;
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/991 .]
Last but not least-- and perhaps most importantly-- as your representative for the 20th Congressional District, Joel would stand up and fight for legislation like Rep. Jan Schakowsky's "Emergency Jobs to Restore the American Dream Act" (see below).
From http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/08/11-10 ...
Published on Thursday, August 11, 2011 by Huffington Post
"Jan Schakowsky Announces New Budget Plan With Focus On Jobs"
by Jordan Howard
WASHINGTON -- Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, announced on Wednesday that she will introduce a progressive-minded budget outline aimed at putting more than two million people to work.
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, announced on Wednesday that she will introduce a progressive-minded budget outline aimed at putting more than two million people to work.
Titled the "Emergency Jobs to Restore the American Dream Act," the plan would cost $227 billion and would be implemented over two years. It would be financed by separate legislation introduced by Schakowsky called the "Fairness in Taxation Act," which would raise taxes for Americans who earn more than $1 million and $1 billion. It would also eliminate subsidies for big oil companies while closing loopholes for corporations that send American jobs overseas.
The congresswoman said that her plan would create 2.2 million jobs and decrease the unemployment rate by 1.3 percent.
"If we want to create jobs, then create jobs," Schakowsky said in a press release. "I'm not talking about "incentivizing" companies in the hopes they'll hire someone, or cutting taxes for the so-called job creators who have done nothing of the sort. My plan creates actual new jobs."
Schakowsky's proposal reads more like a progressive wishlist than legislation likely to be signed into law. But it does provide a template of sorts to help Democrats frame their budget argument as lawmakers enter the high-stakes super committee negotiations.
Under her plan, the following policies would be implemented:
* The School Improvement Corps would create 400,000 construction and 250,000 maintenance jobs by funding positions created by public school districts to do needed school rehabilitation improvements.
* The Park Improvement Corps would create 100,000 jobs for youth between the ages of 16 and 25 through new funding to the Department of the Interior and the USDA Forest Service's Public Lands Corps Act. Young people would work on conservation projects on public lands including the restoration and rehabilitation of natural, cultural, and historic resources.
* The Student Jobs Corps would create 250,000 more part-time work study jobs for eligible college students through new funding for the Federal Work Study Program.
* The Neighborhood Heroes Corps would hire 300,000 new teachers, 40,000 new police officers and 12,000 new firefighters.
* The Health Corps would hire at least 40,000 health care providers, including physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurses, and health care workers to expand access in underserved rural and urban areas.
* The Child Care Corps would create 100,000 jobs in early childhood care and education through additional funding for Early Head Start.
*The Community Corps would hire 750,000 individuals to do needed work in communities, including housing rehab, weatherization, recycling, and rural conservation.
In addition, the bill would give priority to the longterm unemployed -- the so-called "99ers" who have exhausted both their state and federal unemployment benefits. Federally extended unemployment benefits are set to expire this year, even though nearly 14 million Americans remain out of work and it takes the average worker nine months to find a new job.
"The worst deficit this country faces isn't the budget deficit," Schakowsky said. "It's the jobs deficit. We need to get our people and our economy moving again."
