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Tuesday, February 10, 2004
Contacts:
Nancy Allen, Media Coordinator, 207-326-4576, nallen@acadia.net
Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-518-5624, mclarty@greens.org
Current policies, including Bush's tax cuts for
the wealthy and attacks on wages, benefits, and the social net, are
driving more and more working people into poverty, charge Greens.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Citing the fall in incomes,
benefits, and living standards for millions of working Americans, Green
Party leaders called for a drastic reordering of economic priorities.
"The $2.4 trillion FY2005 budget plan released
by President Bush on February 3 sacrifices domestic 'social safety net'
programs and fiscal relief for states, for the sake of defense
boondoggles and tax cuts for the wealthy and for corporations,"
said Marnie Glickman, Oregon Green and co-chair of the Green Party of
the United States. "Especially affected are housing, job training,
and educational programs for low-income people. President Bush and his
Democratic challengers for the White House drone on and on about their
dedication to families and family values. But in 2003, President Bush
and Congress excluded low-income working families from the increased
child tax credit benefits, while giving Americans who earn $1 million or
more an average tax cut of $93,000."
Greens note that more than 30 million Americans, one
in four workers, are stuck in low-wage jobs, especially drudge work with
minimal chance for advancement, that do not provide for a decent
standard of living. Middle-income jobs are becoming like low-wage jobs,
thanks to layoffs, outsourcing, unaffordable healthcare, and
disappearing benefits and pensions. Funding for jobs training has been
cut, perhaps out of recognition of the lack of jobs creation resulting
from Bush's economic policies. Despite assurances of economic
growth, the poverty rate continues to climb, especially for children,
older Americans, African Americans and other ethnic groups, and people
who dwell in urban and rural areas.
"While most people associate child poverty with
inner-cities, the most extreme child poverty is in the frontier, the
most isolated communities of rural America," said New Mexico Green
Carol Miller. "All of the 50 counties with the greatest child
poverty rates are frontier, sparsely populated rural areas."
Greens have called for several steps to reverse the
nation's economic direction:
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Make the eradication of poverty a major national
goal, equal to fighting terrorism, beginning with elimination of
child poverty. "There is no national policy to address child
poverty in the U.S.," said Miller. "The difference in
rates across the country illustrate the disparity. New Hampshire has
the lowest rate of child poverty at about 4% while New Mexico and
Mississippi compete for last place at 38%.
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Repeal President Bush's tax cuts for wealthiest
Americans and tax breaks and loopholes for corporations, and
establish a progressive system that ensures relief for people in
lower income brackets. Greens note that both Republicans and
mainstream Democrats alike have now embraced Reagan's discredited
'trickle-down' economic theory.
-
Guarantee living wages. "In New York State,
the current minimum wage of $5.15 an hour, which falls far short of
the goal of allowing full-time workers to achieve a modest standard
of living," said Mark Dunlea of the Green Party of New York
State. "The 700,000 New Yorkers receiving the minimum wage,
three quarters of whom are adults, are often forced to make choices
between rent, heat, health care and food for their families.
According to a Hunger Action Network study, 40% of the guests who
use food pantries and soup kitchens in our state have a job. If the
state minimum wage had merely kept pace with inflation, it would be
$8.83 an hour today."
-
Ensure democratic workplaces and strengthen the
power of democratic unions, especially through repeal of the
Taft-Hartley Act's restrictions on union organizing.
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"The unequaled prosperity of America in the
late 20th century wasn't because of the generosity of corporations,
it was because by the late 1940s about half the workforce belonged
to unions that demanded good wages, benefits, vacation time, and
pension plans," said said Michele Tingling-Clemmons, chair of
the national Black Green Caucus and former shop steward with the
FRAC Employees Association, UAW Local 2320, National Organization of
Legal Services Workers. "With only about 10% of working
Americans claiming membership, unions today have less power, and the
hierarchy of some of the larger unions seem to regard their
partnerships with management more important than the needs of
workers or of organizing them."
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Withdraw from international trade pacts and
institutions that have favored corporate interests over the
democratically enacted rights and protections for working people.
The Green Party has emerged as the electoral arm of the movement to
globalize democracy and workers' rights.
MORE INFORMATION
The Green Party of the United States
http://www.gp.org
1711 18th Street NW
Washington, DC 20009.
202-319-7191, 866-41GREEN
Fax 202-319-7193
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