The Green Party of NY State questioned President Obama's campaign swing through Albany, NY today, asking the President "where are the jobs?" With the U-6 unemployment rate, a fairer measure of unemployed and discouraged workers, at 14.3% in New York State, the Green Party believes President Obama's economic plans have after three years proven to be bankrupt. Instead, the Green Party proposes a Green New Deal with massive investment in public works and renewable energy with a target of full employment, raising taxes on the wealthy and collecting the stock transfer tax on Wall St., and closing tax loopholes so U.S. corporations actually carry their share of the burden.

"Obama came to New York promoting his economic plan. In the last 4 years we have a national jobs deficit of nearly 10 million – 6 million lost and 4 million not created - according to the Economic Policy Institute. Obama's policies outlined today, largely the same trickle-down austerity that Gov. Cuomo has been pushing, are a mix of tax credits and empty rhetoric that will do nothing to reverse the dire situation many Americans find themselves in today. The Green Party proposes that instead of giving corporations that don't pay any taxes more tax breaks, we create living-wage, unionized public jobs to build and install renewables, retrofit houses, upgrade infrastructure and revitalize public services with a stated goal of full employment and cutting carbon emissions to net zero by 2025. The Nanotech facility at SUNY Albany and those like it will never create enough jobs to fully employ New Yorkers. We know from our history that WPA-style public jobs programs can employ millions to produce needed public goods and services and that the Obama, Cuomo, and Romney policies of public budget austerity and private tax cuts for the rich just prolongs economic stagnation.", said party co-chair Howie Hawkins.

"Instead of proposing minor fines on companies that take jobs overseas, we should close tax loopholes that allow businesses to pay no taxes in the United States while placing profitable parts of industries in countries with little or no respect for human rights. Workers should be allowed and encouraged to take over companies that threaten to move and run them as worker-cooperatives. A nationwide financial transactions tax would make Wall St. and the financial industry pay for their own mistakes in crashing the economy, and reduce speculation that blows up bubbles in different sectors of the economy. Income taxes should revert to highly progressive rates of the pre-80s period: the 1% should be paying 50%, 60%, or 70% marginal tax rates on the highest incomes and the rest of the US should get tax breaks. The money to fund social programs and jobs exists in our $14 trillion economy, but Obama, the Democrats and Republicans refuse to tap it because their real base is the wealthy. It's time for real change, and that doesn't mean Obama or Romney: it means the Green Party," said co-chair Peter LaVenia.

Related articles

• 
  Obama visits Albany high-tech center (newyork.newsday.com)