Issue Position: Jobs

Issue Position

My number one priority will be to get us back to work.

The current employment situation is unacceptable. We must focus on job creation both in short-term growth and long-term fundamentals.

* End Wall-Street bailouts and focus resources on debt reduction and small-businesses.
* Participate in national job creation programs to make sure our district is not left behind.
* Provide tax credits and other incentives for job training and continuing education, especially for those unemployed and looking for work.
* Address disparities in education opportunities between areas with high and low unemployment and rural and urban areas.
* Make sure Kentucky is an integral part of the US energy strategy, both in terms of current production methods and new energy jobs.
* Cut our debt to China so we can gain back our leverage to enforce fair trade policies.
* Promote workers' rights in terms of job security, adequate pay, and benefits.
* Fight for the expansion of high-speed internet into rural and other underserved areas

For the entire United States, unemployment stands at almost 1 in 10 (9.7%). As you can see, only one of our 24 counties had unemployment less than the national rate, and that was by only 6/10 of a percent. For the most part, Kentuckians are fairing far worse than the rest of the nation. In some places unemployment is as high as 18.5%, nearly TWICE the national figure.

Much of our current problems stem from the crises brought on by the reckless behavior of the mega-banks. Haphazard and predatory lending, followed by bets on imaginary products called derivatives, have resulted in hardships across the board. The effects are staggering.

In just the next hour another 493 homes will have gone into foreclosure. Another 3,150 people will have lost their jobs. Another 575 will have been unemployed for 6-months, and 220 people will have filed for bankruptcy.

These figures speak for themselves. There is absolutely no excuse for any member of congress, who sees these numbers every single month, not to be focused like a laser beam on job creation. Our current representative, Geoff Davis has never introduced a bill dealing with job creation. In fact, Davis has introduced a total of 22 bills during his time in office and only one has ever passed into law. His sole accomplishment is naming a post office.

When federal stimulus projects were being passed in the house, Geoff Davis put his party first by opposing the efforts just to criticize the President. When the stimulus brought projects and jobs to our district, Geoff Davis, tried to take credit for it. He had nothing to do with it, and one has to wonder if we missed out on other projects and jobs because he was too childish to compromise or negotiate on our behalf.

As congressman I will be proactive and I will focus on the most important issues. I can assure you that I will work to see that Kentucky is benefitting from national job creation efforts and that we are not left behind.

I will fight to create new jobs by finally enforcing our own trade laws to ensure countries like China can no longer cheat us out of a future. The US currently owes China 987 billion dollars. Over the past ten years, since China was admitted to the World Trade Organization, Kentucky had lost more than 32-thousand jobs to China. For the United States, the number is 2.4 million.

China suppresses wages, worker's rights, and they manipulate their currency and export policies to gain strategic advantages over the United States. Our ability to push for a more equitable resolution is obviously hampered by the fact that we owe the Chinese almost a trillion dollars. It is too difficult to simultaneously press for fairness while asking the Chinese government to also finance our debt.

We simply must reduce our debt to China or we are never going to have the ability to bring back the jobs we've lost. Geoff Davis serves on the Committee on Trade and he hasn't done a thing. In fact, he voted against helping workers who had lost their jobs due to globalization and he voted against a bill designed to deter sending arms to China.

I will also push to create new jobs by ensuring we begin to invest in manufacturing and in our own domestic energy to ensure we are no longer dependent on foreign oil. We have the resources here at home to produce more domestic energy. We have natural gas and we have coal and we should be using whatever we have available to get us off foreign oil.

China is investing 10 million dollars a day in green energy technology. While we are finding ways to better use our own resources, we must not deny that the future is clear and one day we will drastically cut our dependence on all fossil fuels. I will fight to make sure that our children do not see our energy jobs also go to China by insisting that investments in these technologies be centered on current energy hubs, such as the coal-producing areas of Kentucky. We need to use the people with the most knowledge and history of our current energy system to move us from one energy source to the next. Training centers, incentives for investment, and programs aimed at transitioning to new production can be an instrumental part of job creation right here.

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