Jobs
• Infrastructure: Repair America’s roads and bridges.
• Communications: High speed broadband, coast to coast.
• Energy: A new CCC. Upgrade to a smart grid. Retrofit buildings with green technology.
• Transportation: Light rail to get people to work … heavy rail for factories.
• Water: Upgrade water and sewage systems.
• Education: A new WPA. Reinvigorate our schools by hiring artists, writers, musicians, engineers, math and computer geeks, and returning veterans.
Trade
• China is charging a de facto 30 percent tariff on U.S. goods.
• We have a trade deficit with China that now approaches $1 billion PER DAY.
• If China won’t drop trade barriers, we need to consider imposition of a tariff on all Chinese goods, perhaps 5 percent per year up to 30 percent to match their policy.
(That’s the way to bring back manufacturing jobs in WNC and across our nation.)
• Renegotiate NAFTA and CAFTA to include worker and environmental protection.
Wall Street
• Regulate Wall St. to prevent another financial collapse.
• Protect consumers from predatory lending.
• End corporate personhood; overturn Citizens United.
• Public financing for elections: government not for sale.
• Restore the right to collective bargaining: CardChek.
Education
• Reform “No Child Left Behind.”
• More flexibility and fairness in our accountability system.
• Bigger investment in teachers and principals.
• A sharper focus on schools and students most at risk.
• Free Public Education from preschool through four years of college.
The Social Safety Net
• Social Security: Remove the cap! The wealthy are only taxed up to $106,000.
• Medicare: Remove the cap! No cuts; instead, Medicare for all as the public option.
• Medicaid: No cuts; this program serves the truly needy, especially children.
Women’s issues
• Equal pay for equal work.
• Full funding for Planned Parenthood and domestic violence prevention programs.
• Abortion should be legal, safe and rare.
• Paid parental leave for one parent for the first five years of a woman’s first two children’s lives.
The National Debt
• Allow the Bush tax cuts to expire, implement Financial Transaction Tax.
• Require millionaires, billionaires, and corporations to pay their fair share.
• Cut the Pentagon budget. End the endless wars. Out of Afghanistan, now.
• Cut farm subsidies to agribusiness.
