Hawkins Fights for Green Party's Survival

Press Release

Faced with a tripling of the votes required to keep the Green Party on New York ballots in future elections, Howie Hawkins called upon progressives to vote for the Green presidential ticket in 2020.

"Biden has been consistently ahead of Trump by at least 25% in every poll in New York. Trump is toast here. The question for progressives is his how are they going to use their vote. I support a Green New Deal, Medicare for All, and taxing the rich to save our cities and schools. Biden does not. Shame on progressives who settle for Biden and let him take them for granted when he's president," Hawkins said to a rally of supporters in Albany today.

A new law pushed through by Governor Andrew Cuomo in April increased the number of votes needed by the top of a party's ticket to secure a ballot line from 50,000 votes to 135,000 or 2%, whichever is greater. In 2016, 2% would have been about 155,000 votes.

Only two Green candidates have received over 155,000 votes. One was Ralph Nader, who received 240,030 voters for president in the 2000. The other was Hawkins, who received 184,419 voters for governor in 2018. He also received more than 50,000 votes in 2010 and 2018 as the Greens' gubernatorial candidate to secure the Green Party its ballot line.

Hawkins also blasted at Governor Andrew Cuomo for refusing to support using the Stock Transfer Tax to close the state fiscal gap. The state has rebated 100% of those revenues to Wall Street traders since 1981. Over the last 10 years, Stock Transfer Tax revenues have averaged $13 billion a year. Legislation is pending to retain those revenues for the state budget.

Hawkins, who has campaigned for retaining Stock Transfer Tax revenues since his first run for governor in 2010, said the Stock Transfer Tax alone would nearly cover the two-year $30 billion fiscal gap that the state projects due the coronavirus economic downturn. Cuomo projects 20% spending cuts to schools, hospitals, and local governments without aid from the federal government, which looks unlikely at least until a new president and Congress take office next year.

"Cuomo would rather slash public services that working people need than make his Wall Street donors pay a few pennies of sales tax when they trade a stock," Hawkins

Hawkins ridiculed Biden's energy policy as a "pro fossil fuel, pro nuclear climate bomb. Trump may call climate change a hoax, but Biden acts as if it is a hoax." Hawkins is promoting a 10-year, $27.5 trillion "Ecosocialist Green New Deal" featuring public enterprise and planning in the energy, transportation, and manufacturing sectors to achieve zero-to-negative carbon emissions and 100% clean energy by 2030.

Hawkins also renewed his call for Medicare for All. "We have 4% of the world's population and 25% of the worlds COVID-19 deaths. In the midst of this pandemic, we need a publicly-funded universal health care system more than ever. Look around the world and it is the countries with Medicare for all type systems that have suppressed the virus so they can go back to work and school safely," Hawkins said.

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