The Green Party of Pennsylvania (GPPA) has nominated community economic developer Paul Glover as its 2018 candidate for Governor of PA. Glover says, "The struggling middle class can escape treadmills of debt by uniting to become a powerful mutual class."

"Pennsylvania's middle class is struggling, no matter how hard they work. While good jobs evaporate, banks foreclose and rents rise," Glover explained, "We're a rich state with a lot of poor people. Yet there are many solutions to these problems."

Paul Glover for Governor of Pennsylvania
http://www.paulglover.org/governor

News Release
For Immediate Release
Saturday, July 14, 2018

CONTACT:
Campaign Manager Brittany Anuszkievwicz, (410) 440-4188 and [email protected]

"Pennsylvania's middle class is struggling, no matter how hard they work. While good jobs evaporate, banks foreclose and rents rise," Glover explained, "We're a rich state with a lot of poor people. Yet there are many solutions to these problems."

There are four reasons that the middle class has declined, according to Glover. "First, the middle class has lacked solidarity, so households can be picked off one by one. Second, the middle class has been a consumer class, spending its economic power into landfills. Third, the middle class needs a poor class below it so that it could be in the middle. Controlling and subsidizing the poor has been costly. Fourthly, the middle class has become dependent upon the large corporations that are now squeezing it. Corporations do not pay their fair share of taxes."

Glover proposes that middle class and poor citizens collaborate to create what he calls the "mutual class," by joining member-owned organizations that will enable them to live well with less expense. He explains, "Just one hundred years ago, hundreds of such member-owned organizations built hospitals, old folks' homes, orphanages and recreation centers. They owned farms, made interest-free loans, and paid sickness and death benefits. Membership cost pennies per week."

Glover would shift the state budget to strengthen mutual aid organizations and co-operatives currently serving our state. He would establish a PA State Bank to prioritize small businesses that create green jobs by investing state tax revenue and pension funds. "Commercial banks that make predatory loans or send our jobs abroad should not hold our taxes," insists Glover. "The PA State Bank would make loans that strengthen local communities."

He also encourages formation of "import replacement programs," which will ensure that PA-based enterprises are at the table when state or corporate contracts are offered.

Glover also advocates formation of community currencies. He was founder of Ithaca HOURS local currency, a local cash system that has traded millions of dollars value among thousands of residents and 500 businesses in Ithaca, NY. "This is money with a boundary around it," he says, "which encourages trade, trust and cooperation."

Glover is author of the books "Deep Green Jobs" and "Green Jobs Philly," which detail how to create 100,000 green jobs in Philadelphia. "Philadelphia has a 26 percent poverty rate and a 38 percent high school dropout rate," he notes. "These people will not likely get STEM jobs. We need to create "stem" jobs, constructing greenhouses on our vacant lots, planting orchards, installing solar panels, removing excess paving, building low-cost tiny houses, and so forth."

Paul Glover is founder of the Philadelphia Orchard Project (POP), and more than a dozen other green organizations, PhilaHealthia medical co-op, and Citizen Planners of Los Angeles. He is author of five additional books on community economic development. Glover taught urban studies at Temple University, and ecological economics at Philadelphia University.

For more information about Paul Glover's candidacy please visit http://www.paulglover.org/governor.html and http://facebook.com/glover4governor. To volunteer with the Paul Glover Campaign for Governor of PA, please visit http://www.greenwaveofpa.com/home.

The Green Party is an independent political party that stands in opposition to the two corporate parties. GPPA candidates promote public policy based on the Green Party four pillars: grassroots democracy, nonviolence, ecological wisdom, and social justice/equal opportunity. For further information about GPPA, please visit www.gpofpa.org. Follow GPPA on social media: Facebook and Twitter.

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