Issue Position: Economic Security

Issue Position

"We must reject the President's plan of more tax cuts for the wealthy in favor of an economic stimulus that boosts the whole economy, not simply its upper reaches. We need to target assistance toward those most in need- middle and lower income families and ailing state budgets- and make substantial investments in our crumbling infrastructure in order to get the economy moving in the right direction again."

-- Congresswoman Barbara Lee

Since 2001 our economy has lost 2.1 million private sector jobs. States are growing deficits. While in recent years the wealthiest segment of our society has enjoyed substantial growth in wealth and income, the incomes of most individuals have stagnated. In the face of this skyrocketing budget deficit, and as many suffer the worst job losses in a decade, the Bush Administration has pushed through tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% of our society.

Barbara Lee is committed to supporting economic growth and support for those who need it most. She supports tax relief for middle and low income families. She has fought for extended unemployment assistance for the long-term unemployed, whose benefits the administration allowed to lapse on Christmas of 2002. She has pushed for aid to state governments that have been burdened with rising Medicare costs and expensive homeland security mandates as their revenues have plunged. Finally, she has worked to secure investment in housing, transit systems, roads, clean water, and schools to stimulate the economy and create jobs.

President Bush's $674 billion "economic stimulus" plan is fatally flawed. Instead of cutting taxes by $364 billion the Federal Government could:

* Provide 43 million children with school lunches for an entire year

* Provide all recommended vaccinations to 88 million children

* Provide lifetime medical treatment for 156,000 people suffering from diabetes

* Provide dinner every day of the year for 50 million senior citizens via the Meals on Wheels program.

* Treat 3.64 million Americans living with HIV/AIDS

* Fund a new National Institute of Health with enough left over to fund two new Centers for Disease Control

* Fund adequate nursing staff for 728 150- bed hospitals

* Provide enough funds to run almost every emergency room in America

* Provide enough funding to deliver 568,750 healthy babies

* Increase Medicaid funding for HIV/AIDS by 9- fold

* Make our streets safer by putting another 100,000 community police officer on our streets and in our neighborhoods and fully support state and local first responders in their efforts to prevent and respond to acts of terrorism; and substantially increase our border security personnel and technology; and double the federal resources currently expended to fight health care and fraud.

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