Issue Position: Economic Justice

Issue Position

Today, following years of deregulation and irresponsible fiscal policy, the U.S. financial system remains in a state of crisis, and middle and working-class Americans are left to pick up the pieces. In New York, where working families face unique challenges because of an extremely high cost of living, thousands of Jerry's constituents have been suffering.

For years, Jerry has worked both on the local front -- supporting intelligent governmental approaches to creating economic development and jobs -- and nationally to reign in corporate excesses, promote consumers' rights and protect the rights of working men and women. With the economy mired in the worst recession since the Great Depression, he knows that it will take every resource in the federal government's arsenal to get the nation back on track. Jerry also opposed the Bush-era tax cuts for the mega-rich, believing that such tax breaks for the most affluent Americans are not only harmful fiscal policy but misguided and morally wrong.

Jerry has worked hard to pass stimulus and job creation bills, which have successfully put Americans back to work, provided assistance to the states, and inserted dollars back into the economy nationally. In his role as the senior Northeastern member on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Jerry is New York's "go-to guy" responsible for bringing home billions of dollars in key transportation funding to create jobs repairing and rebuilding our nation's roads, bridges, mass transit and general infrastructure, while fomenting sustainable economic development and strengthening our aging infrastructure.

And Jerry has pushed for years to make New York City's economic base as diverse and dynamic as possible. In addition to our essential white collar industries -- finance, real estate, insurance -- he believes that New York also needs manufacturing, maritime business and development, and technology to sustain it through the ebbs and flows of markets, to employ all classes of New Yorkers, and to maintain the types of economic development that truly make the city a varied and vital place. He has also consistently supported labor and opposed trade agreements and policies that would adversely affect U.S. workers.

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