JWJ Pledge Campaign. Hands off Safety Net Programs. We need jobs!

PDF of petition here

"In this time of economic hardship caused by Wall Street speculation and fraud, on top of thirty years of corporate domination, including outsourcing, privatization, and union busting, it is wrong to ask working people to again tighten their belts.  Real burden sharing means putting the burden on those who have benefited from the recent great shift of more wealth to the wealthy.  It is wrong to cut successful public programs like Social Security and Medicare that provide security and dramatically reduce poverty among the elderly and disabled.  In fact, the cost effective Medicare program should be enhanced in the form of a public option or a Medicare for All single payer system that would dramatically reduce health care costs.

 "Working people should not bear the burden of cuts to programs fought for by our parents and grandparents.  Indeed, in this time of desperate unemployment we need public programs to create millions of jobs, while the global ecological crisis demands that such jobs be green and sustainable to the greatest extent possible. Trade policy should be shifted from the destructive NAFTA model such as the Korea Free Trade Agreement to a fair trade model. History supports and economists agree that short term deficit spending is needed in depressions and recessions, so that deficits can be resolved by the expanded tax base created with new jobs.  To argue against government's proper role in job creation on the grounds that this increases deficits is misguided and harms the interests of ordinary Oregonians and Americans."