Representative Paul Holvey - Kucinich Speech

Kucinich Speech

Kucinich Event Speech

By Rep. Paul Holvey

@ Lane Community College

March 28, 2004

I. INTRODUCITON

I have been a carpenter for most of my working life. For the last 7 years, I have been a labor organizer for the United Brotherhood of Carpenters. I have been called a union insider and a special interest because I am a union member, and believe in living wages, healthcare, retirement and safe working conditions for all who work for a living. That’s what unions work for - the interests of working people - and they are special. I have seen the rights of working families chipped away. I remember when health insurance was a right, not a privilege; and was an expected part of any job package, public or private. Now as a State Representative, I am seeing the rights of all working people being further eroded.

Do you remember when local labor was valued and when working families could afford health care for their children?

Do you remember when a worker could retire without worrying if their benefits would cover their basic living expenses?

As a State Representative, I have been appointed to the House Committee on Business and Commerce. Do you remember when it was called the Committee on Business Labor and Consumer Affairs?…and when the laws of this committee protected the rights of workers and not corporations?

II. PROBLEM

Economic injustice pervades Oregon as well as the Nation. As a newly appointed legislator, I took my seat in District 8 facing one of the worst budget crises in Oregon’s history.

As a long time Labor Democrat and as a Representative, I am shocked by the fact that, from 1970 to the Century’s end, retail profits and worker productivity rose by two thirds, while only the top 20% of Oregon wage earners have seen an increase in their income.

We are all saddened that Oregon’s working families make up 70% of the families living in poverty.

I am sickened by the fact that Our Seniors, Children and Disabled are asked to survive without having their most fundamental health care needs met.

Since Ballot Measures 5 and 28, local coffers have been stripped of their funding for public health and safety services. With the failure of Measure 30, even fewer tax dollars will cross the public threshold. Undoubtedly, there will be increased pressure by Republican leadership to further slash state funding;…funding for education, senior and disabled services, healthcare and public safety.

Oregon’s social services have been, and will continue to be dramatically cut, resulting in more of the fundamental needs of the community going unmet. Cost effective prevention programs are dissappearing, patients with basic healtcare needs are lining up at emergency rooms, and are being turned away; criminals are not punished and being turned loose on our streets.

Faced with these distrubing facts, Oregon ahs the tough task of rebuilding its economy. Thinking only about the bottom line has no place in grovernment. The notion that our budget should be balanced by reducing wages and stealing healthcare and retirement benefits from working families while half of our tax dollars are given away in breaks, loopholes and subsidies for big business and corporate welfare in atrocious and unaccpetable.

Taxpayers must be treated, not as a cost to our community, but as a benefit; holders of a vested interest in a fair tax system, with access to fundamental services, living wage jobs and a quality educaiton. This philosophy can be realized through legislation that advances living wage jobs, training and education, and legislation that provides for fundamental public health and safety, and legislation that does not tax its citizens regressively. We must work to build a better Oregon.

III. SOLUTION “A PROGRESSIVE VISION FOR BUILDING A BETTER OREGON”

A. LIVING WAGE JOBS

A good life in Oregon depends on good family wage jobs. Good jobs depend on a trained and skilled workforce for industries present in Our Community and emerging industries. Community colleges, like LCC, lie in the wake of devastating budget cuts. Yet they are fundamental to developing the workforce essential to our state and local economies and deserve a larger share of state revenues. Educational institututions must be able to increase and maintain enrollment in order to provide the opportunities for all families to improve their skills and their quality of life. If, as voters and policy makers, we shrot change industry-based training and educaiton we become part of the problem…We Need To Be Part Of the Solution!

B. AFFORDABLE AND ACCESIBLE FUNDAMENTAL SERVICES

A healthy community begins with healthy, not hungry, families. Health care is a right, not a privilege. Oregon needs a health care system that truly leaves no one behind! Oregonians have a fundamental right to expect their State to adequately respond to the public health and safety of its people. As a community, we have a right to expect that the needs of the society will be met with the greatest possible support from the state.

C. TAX FAIRNESS

The road to good jobs and services is paved with progressive tax reform that no longer shifts the burden to the growing ranks of the working poor.

While it is true that communities rely on incoming industries to survive, corporations have far too little accountability to the public infrastructure needed for their own needs and the needs of our communities. I am a strong proponent of a new tax structure that raises enough revenue to meet the needs of its citizens. I propose a tax system that compels large corporations to pay their fair share of taxes. I want to fight against tax breaks and giveaways, and for disclosure and written guarantees when tax dollars are being given away. Taxpayers should be able to get their money back when these guaranties are not met, or maybe we shouldn’t hand those tax breaks out until those guarantees have been met. I want to see communities hold large corporations and big business responsible instead of giving our tax dollars away to corporate welfare. Oregon’s tax structure encourages corporations and big business to accumulate wealth. Trickle down is a lie in Oregon.

IV. PLAN OF ACTION

As a legislator for the State of Oregon, I am working to accomplish the aims fo funding Oregon, ensuring living wage jobs and holding corporations accountable to Our Community. I take my background in labor and my commitment to social justice and the rights of working families to Salem. I will not stand by and allow the wholeslae slaughter of basic state services. I will not stand by and allow a small but wealthy minority reap the benefits of huge tax breaks while so many Oregonians suffer from the worst recession in over 75 years.

I propose Oregon hold our surplus tax revenues. This is the rainy day and there is no fund. Elimination of the kicker would go a long way toward refunding our state. The argument that the kicker puts more money into the pockets of families is flawed. As public services are slashed, a working family must pay these costs out of pocket, reducing their disposable income far more than our tax system does.

I want to ensure that future budget cuts to higher education, community elleges and K thru 12 does lessen the quality or the availability of education and job training. I plan to fight for funding so that schools like LCC are no longer forced to hike tuition, precluding the working ppor from obtaining a quality education or the possibility of being trained for a new job.

Our future is in schools today. It can be seen in every classroom at every public elementary, middle, and high school. It can bee seen in every community college classroom and workshop, and in our universities. We cannot afford to loose this future for the sake of reducing taxes. Our children are the future, and must therefore be among our top priorities.

V. CONCLUSION

Is it too much to ask that a community’s fundamental needs are met?

Is it unreasonable to expect working families to earn true living wages?

Is it beyond the pale to expect those who can, to contribute a greater share to those who cannot?

I don’t think so!! Again, as voters and policy makers we have an obligation ot ourselves, our families and our future, and to stand up to efforts to bankrupt Our State. We cannot afford to loose our future for the sake of reducing taxes. We must support legislation that provides more, not fewer benefits to working and retired families.

I will try with all my heart and strength to make a difference within our state. With your help we will see a better Oregon, one in which Oregonians are proud of their state. I’m a carpenter and I want to build a better Oregon for our future and I need your help.

Oregon’s crisis is being worsened by forces outside our state as well. These forces are preaching the same corporate welfare and other pressures to bankrupt our nation. George Bush has created deficits that will hurt working people for decades to come. His approach to balance his lack of financial responsibility is to cut services to America’s citizens, and take wages and benefits from working people in a race to the bottom. Carpenters and farmworkers depend on overtime wages to get them through long winters. So I say Mr. Bush leave our wages alone. Free Trade may sound good philosophically, but in reality without enforcible labor and environmental standards we are not raising standards overseas, but we are exporting American jobs and improting povery, lowering wages at home, and exploiting labor and the enfironment overseas. I’m a union carpenter who believes it is in the best interest of America to remove George Bush from the presidency in November. I admire those who bring progressive ideas to the presidential race and ask the hard questions of the current administration. We need a dialogue that presses a progressive platform for the future of the Democratic Party. And there is one who stands out in pressing a progressive agenda. I’m honored to present Dennis Kucinich candidate for the President of the United States.