[GPCA Updates] GP VIDEO RELEASE Greens at party meeting in NY: Debt deal is a good reason to bolt the Dem & Repub parties in 2012

[Green Party of California Updates]

GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES
http://www.gp.org

For Immediate Release:
Sunday, August 7, 2011



The debt deal is a good reason for voters to give up on the Democratic and
Republican parties in 2012, say Green leaders at the party's 2011 Annual
National Meeting in Alfred, NY

• Video: Laura Wells, former Green candidate for the Governor of California,
on the deficit fiasco http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRfIcz6s-OY

• Press conferences, forums, and other events at the Green Party's national
meeting, broadcast and archived on the Green Party's Livestream Channel
http://www.livestream.com/greenpartyus / More information on the meeting and
Green Fest: http://nygreenfest.org


WASHINGTON, DC -- Green Party candidates, officeholders, leaders, and state
delegates meeting at the party's 2011 Annual National Meeting in Alfred, New
York, said that the Budget Control Act of 2011 should be the final straw for
many voters, and encouraged Democrats and Republicans angry at their parties
to vote Green in the 2012 election.

Greens attending the meeting called the budget deal a surrender by Democratic
and Republican Party leaders to the most extreme elements of the GOP.

• Howie Hawkins, Green Common Councillor of Syracuse, NY; 2010 Green candidate
for Governor of New York: "The budget debate should have been about how to
create more jobs and financial stability for Americans suffering through the
recession.  Greens have promoted the Green New Deal, with a plan to create new
Green jobs with public works programs in conservation, new energy
technologies, reengineering towns and cities and retrofitting homes and
buildings for energy efficiency, and expanding public transportation.  FDR put
millions of people back to work with his New Deal.  Republican presidents like
Eisenhower once understood that public sector projects would generate
prosperity for the middle class.  Instead of 1950s projects like building the
interstate highway system, Cold War defense, and the space program, we have
new priorities in the 21st century -- we need Green jobs in a Green economy."
(More on the Green New Deal:
http://www.greenpartywatch.org/2010/08/11/62-green-candidates-endorse-green-new-deal)

• David Doonan, Mayor of Greenwich, NY (Green): "The focus on the deficit has
eclipsed more immediate problems: job loss, the widening gap between rich and
poor, home foreclosures, huge handouts and tax cuts for favored corporations,
and multiple endless wars that have cost $3.7 trillion without the raise in
taxes necessary to pay for them.  When Congress and the White House called it
a deficit crisis and talked about the debt ceiling and cutting Social Security
and Medicare, they gave Tea Party extremists the upper hand.  A new,
unconstitutional joint committee -- a 'Super Congress' -- will determine the
target of $1.5 trillion in budget reductions to valuable social services.  The
result will be further job loss and deepening economic insecurity for working
Americans, and more economic and political power for corporate elites.
Electing Greens, who take no corporate contributions, will be the first step
in changing the direction of our country.  We
  look forward to 2012 as the year we place some Greens in Congress."

• David Strand, co-chair of the Green Party of the United States: "It's unfair
and immoral to ask ordinary Americans to suffer cuts to services and loss of
jobs while the rich and top corporations get to keep their tax cuts.  The
radical rightwing of the Republican Party proved that they're bent on shutting
down the infrastructure of our republic.  Moderate Republicans and Democratic
leaders proved they're ready to appease the rightwing at every step.
President Obama satisfied the demands of his top financial sector
contributors, the powerful Wall Street and Big Insurance lobbies that want the
White House and Congress to privatize Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
  We need to make the budget deal the final chapter in the history of two-party
rule, a history littered with wrongheaded bipartisan agreements: endless wars,
the USA Patriot Act, No Child Left Behind, warrantless surveillance of US
citizens, the Wall Street bailout, monster military
  budgets, the War on Drugs and record incarceration."
(See "Twelve Corporations Pay Effective Tax Rate of Negative 1.5% on $171
Billion in Profits; Reap $62.4 Billion in Tax Subsidies," Citizens for Tax
Justice, June 1, 2011,
http://ctj.org/ctjreports/2011/06/twelve_corporations_pay_effective_tax_rate_of_negative_15_on_171_billion_in_profits_reap_624_billion.php
and "The Fed Audit," report on $16 trillion in financial subsidies for top
financial institutions and corporations in the US and foreign countries,
revealed in a GAO audit of the Federal Reserve, Bernie Sanders, US Senator for
Vermont (Ind.), August 5, 2011,
http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=9e2a4ea8-6e73-4be2-a753-62060dcbb3c3)

• Anita Rios, Green candidate for City Council in Toledo, Ohio: "Medicare is
the solution, not the problem.  Medicare for All, with 3% overhead, would save
$400 billion a year compared to the current system, in which private health
insurance overhead at 31% is one of the major drivers of skyrocketing health
care costs. Cutting Medicare is fiscally irresponsible, Medicare For All is
fiscally responsible.  The Green Party supports Medicare For All.  Blacks and
Latinos have been hit especially hard by the economic downturn, with loss of
jobs and health care that have pushed many of us out of the middle class.  The
budget deal and attacks on Medicare and other programs have only made the
situation worse -- and enraged many people against President Obama's readiness
to abandon us."

• Tamar Yager, co-chair of the Green Party of the United States, 2011 Annual
National Meeting coordinator: "The bipartisan deal was a vicious defeat for
working people.  We encourage voters to learn about the Green New Deal and
compare Green Party ideas to the Democrats' capitulations and the Republicans'
descent into irrationality and fraud.  The job-killing austerity program in
the debt deal will make future deficits and debts worse, because the stagnant
economy caused by the deal will generate smaller tax revenues.  The two
established parties offer no vision of how they will restore financial
economic security for Americans.  Let 2012 be the year voters wake up and go
Green."


MORE INFORMATION

Green Party of the United States http://www.gp.org
202-319-7191
• Green candidate database and campaign information:
http://www.gp.org/elections.shtml
• News Center http://www.gp.org/newscenter.shtml
• Speakers Bureau http://www.gp.org/speakers
• Ballot Access Page http://www.gp.org/ballotstatus
• Livestream Channel http://www.livestream.com/greenpartyus
• Video Page http://www.gp.org/video/index.php

Green Party's 2011 Annual National Meeting / New York Green Fest
http://nygreenfest.org
• Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/New-York-Green-Fest/71141014224
• Alfred University http://www.alfred.edu
• Green Party of New York State http://www.web.gpnys.com
• Green Party Annual National Meeting Committee
http://www.gp.org/committees/anmc/index.php

Press conferences, forums, and other events, broadcast and archived on the
Green Party's Livestream Channel http://www.livestream.com/greenpartyus

Green Pages: The official publication of record of the Green Party of the
United States
http://gp.org/greenpages-blog


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