[GPCA Updates] GP RELEASE Greens, responding to Obama's speech, call Green New Deal the key to job creation

[Green Party of California Updates]

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

For Immediate Release:
Friday, September 9, 2011



Green Party, responding to President Obama's Sept. 8 address, calls 'Green New
Deal' the key to job creation

• Greens urge public works programs to provide millions of jobs and help
convert America to a secure green economy

• Green Party Speakers Bureau: Green leaders available to speak on economic issues
http://www.gp.org/speakers/speakers-economic-sustainability.php
http://www.gp.org/speakers/speakers-economic-justice.php


WASHINGTON, DC -- Responding to President Obama's speech Thursday night, the
Green Party today called for a 'Green New Deal' to put Americans back to work
while helping the US transition to a carbon-free green economy.

"We need a Green New Deal that will put all of the unemployed to work
rebuilding America on the basis of an economically and ecologically
sustainable prosperity.  The green in the Green New Deal means we must go
beyond the old New Deal and bring an environmental focus to our public
investments, including clean manufacturing processes, to not only address the
crisis of climate change but to build the foundation of a sustainable green
economy," said Jill Stein, co-chair of the Green-Rainbow Party of
Massachusetts (http://www.massgreens.org) and author of "Jobs for All with a
Green New Deal" (Green Papers, September 5, 2011,
http://www.greenpapers.net/?p=164).

"Other countries are already making major investments to position themselves
for this future carbon-free economy.  America needs to catch up.  A Green New
Deal offers the opportunity to revive and reinvent American manufacturing, so
we can have good jobs by making the solar panels and wind towers and transit
cars right here in America," added Dr. Stein.

More on the Green New Deal:
http://www.greenpartywatch.org/2010/08/11/62-green-candidates-endorse-green-new-deal

Green Party leaders said that President Obama's new jobs proposal will fall
far short of finding enough jobs for the 25 million Americans who need
employment.  They sharply criticized the president for failing to call for
revenue measures needed to finance a robust jobs creation program, including
taxes on Wall Street speculation, off-shore tax havens, millionaires and
multimillion dollar estates, as well as a 30% reduction in the trillion-dollar
bloated military-industrial-security complex budget.

"President Obama refused to address the massive problem of income inequality,
a major cause of the economic recession.  The wealthiest 1% of Americans now
take home 24% of the national income, up from 9% in 1976.  The last time the
US had such massive income inequality was in 1927, which pushed the country
into the Great Depression because of the loss of consumer spending," said
Laura Wells, Green candidate for the 2010 governor’s race in California.

Green leaders said that a payroll tax cut for working Americans will at best
provide a modest economic stimulus, but agreed with President Obama's support
for extended unemployment benefits.

Greens have long advocated the establishment of an infrastructure bank, noting
that North Dakota's successful public banks have granted cheaper and easier
access to credit to small businesses, nonprofits, and local governments.

"The path to full employment in America lies in building a green economy, not
in caving to polluters as the Obama administration has done recently.  The New
York Times reports that the recent surge of the Green Party in many European
countries was due to the recognition that building a green economy is the key
to job creation
(http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/02/world/europe/02greens.html).  Politicians
in the US love to campaign on a green jobs agenda, but once elected, its back
to pushing more tax cuts and handouts for large corporations," said Starlene
Rankin, co-chair of the Green Party's national Lavender Green Caucus.

"A Green New Deal will establish government's responsibility to guarantee the
right to a job for every American willing and able to work.  Let's turn the
unemployment office into the employment office.  If the private sector fails
to provide you a job, you go down to the employment office to get work.  We
need to build ecologically sustainable energy and transportation
infrastructure and production systems -- clean renewable energy generation,
retrofitting buildings and homes and other projects for energy efficiency,
intra-city mass transit and inter-city railroads, 'complete streets' that
encourage bikes and pedestrians, regional food systems based on sustainable
organic agriculture, and clean manufacturing of the goods needed  to support a
sustainable economy," said Howie Hawkins, co-chair of the Green Party of New
York State and Green candidate for Common Councilor in Syracuse, New York.

Green leaders noted that the White House launched several successful public
works programs since the 1930s.  The Works Progress Administration (WPA) in
the 1930s and Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) in the 1970s
employed millions to provide necessary public infrastructure and public
services like education, health, child care, elder care, youth programs, and
arts and cultural projects.

The net cost of a WPA-style jobs program to create 25 million new jobs would
be $666 billion, only about 50% more than the $447 billion President Obama
proposes and less than the $825 billion in the 2009 stimulus -- and miniscule
compared to the trillions in Wall Street bailouts in 2008 and 2009.  (See
"Learning from the New Deal" (draft) by Philip Harvey, Professor of Law and
Economics at Rutgers School of Law,
http://www.njfac.org/HarveyLearningND.pdf).  Assuming that a public jobs
program would stimulate about one private job for every two public jobs
created, we would need about 17.5 million public jobs the first year.  With
pay between $14 to $17 per hour, plus benefits, the net cost per job would be
only $28,600, compared to $228,055 per job cost of Obama's initial 2009
stimulus, which mainly consisted of tax incentives.

Greens warned that Obama's proposals also fail to provide enough relief from
housing foreclosures. A July 2010 report from the International Monetary Fund
shows that the foreclosure crisis account for more than 10% of the
unemployment rate (http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2010/cr10248.pdf).
  Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-run mortgage companies, must
aggressively reduce the principal balances on underwater loans and make
refinancing easier for underwater borrowers.

The cost of a Green New Deal jobs program would be covered through a
combination of carbon taxes to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, increased
taxes on the wealthy and Wall Street, and major cuts in the military budget.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the top four contributors to the
federal deficit are (in order of importance) the Bush tax cuts, reduced
revenues in the wake of the 2008 economic meltdown, bank bailouts, and the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Defending America doesn't require a globally deployed military, with bases in
over 100 countries and full-scale occupations and wars on several fronts.  The
military budget has doubled over the last decade. The US spends over $1
trillion a year on the military-industrial complex.  If we cut military
spending by two-thirds to fully fund an Employment Assurance program in the
depths of the current Great Recession, we would still spend three times more
than China, the world's next biggest military spender, China," said Mark
Dunlea, New York Green and chair of the Green Educational Legal Fund, Inc.


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

"Critics Still Wrong on What’s Driving Deficits in Coming Years: Economic
Downturn, Financial Rescues, and Bush-Era Policies Drive the Numbers"
By Kathy Ruffing and James R. Horney, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities,
June 28, 2010
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3036

Press conferences, forums, and other events at the Green Party's 2011 Annual
National Meeting in Alfred, NY, broadcast and archived on the Green Party's
Livestream Channel http://www.livestream.com/greenpartyus
• 2011 Annual National Meeting http://nygreenfest.org

Green Pages: The official publication of record of the Green Party of the
United States (Summer 2011 issue now online)
http://gp.org/greenpages-blog


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