Economic Recovery
Green Jobs:
There doesn’t need to be a conflict between economic recovery and environmental protection. We need jobs that don’t make people or the planet sick. We need to transition away from dirtier energy sources like coal, and towards creating alternative energy infrastructure in the 3rd district. Green jobs must be a key aspect of economic recovery in southwest Washington.
Green jobs are more than science or engineering jobs, they’re also construction, landscaping, manufacturing, and service jobs. Habitat restoration, low-impact design, and environmental mitigation projects will put people of all education levels to work and protect the environment we cherish.
Send me to Congress and I’ll vote to fund alternative energy investment and habitat restoration projects that will protect the environment and put southwest Washington back to work.
New Sources of Revenue:
Government budgets at every level are in dire straits. City, county, and state governments are cutting basic services to people who need them most. We need creative new sources of revenue that don’t hurt small businesses and working families.
I’ve worked both as a real-estate agent and a stock-broker, and I’ve seen the unfairness of the current system first-hand. Someone selling a $300,000 house in Washington State pays over $5,000 in state excise taxes, while their neighbor selling the same amount in stock pays no excise tax. One way to fix this is a financial transaction tax. A small fee could be collected each time a stock, bond, credit default swap, etc. is traded. This could be pennies per trade or a small percentage of the value. Such a tax could be structured progressively, so that those paying most of the tax would be those who can most afford it. The billions of dollars generated could fund health care, environmental restoration and alternative energy investment, or crucial services at the local level.
A financial transactions tax is already the funding mechanism of H.R. 676, which would create a single-payer health care system, and is being suggested by current members of Congress and leading economists.
Send me to Congress and I’ll work to find new sources of revenue that can fund vital government services without hurting those hit worst by the recession.
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