Jobs and the Economy
Too many families in this district and around the nation have seen their home values go down and neighbors get laid off. Too few have found jobs, and many are working for less than they were making last year. That’s why it’s not enough to have short-term solutions to patch over problems with the economy or bailouts for Wall Street—success in our economy needs to be measured less by earnings-per-share and more by sharing the earnings through secure jobs.
The American economy will only truly recover when good, stable jobs are created and sustained for the middle class, but the private sector will not create jobs until there is demand for their goods and services.
If we rely on the private sector alone, it would take 5 years of 5% quarterly GDP growth to get the unemployment rate down to 6%. We can’t wait that long to get Americans back to work. We need to look to what FDR did during the Great Depression, and invest in our future while putting people back to work.
18,000 jobs are created for every $1 billion spent on public infrastructure. The American Society of Civil Engineers projects that there is an estimated $2.2 Trillion in repairs that need to be made to our bridges, roads, schools and water infrastructure. Think how many jobs those investments would create. And that is before we even start work on new projects like building wind turbines, installing solar panels and laying broadband lines all across the county. Only by making these investments will we create a foundation for long-term growth.
As your Congressman, Jim will:
• Fight to maintain the safety net for those who’ve lost their jobs. We shouldn’t play politics with unemployment benefits and food stamps. We need to help people keep food on the table and shelter over their heads.
• Look at creating a modern day WPA or Civilian Conservation Corps to put people back to work right away, rather than paying unemployment benefits endlessly.
• Support proven methods of job creation like Senator Franken’s bill to directly subsidize wages for small businesses through a federal program similar to the MEED program that worked to create thousands of jobs in Minnesota in the 1980s.
• Oppose job creation gimmicks like tax credits for companies who are hiring. No company will hire a new employee simply for a $5,000 tax credit. Those who benefit from such credits are companies who were planning on hiring anyway. Those measures are neither practical nor cost-effective.
• Fight to repeal tax benefits to corporations who move jobs outside of the United States.
• Oppose new trade agreements that lack worker and environmental protections. Free trade has been a raw deal for American workers. We need fair trade.
• Continue the fight for real health care reform, because health care costs are killing jobs and hurting American companies trying to compete globally.
