Jill Stein announced her campaign for the corner office to the media and about 50 supporters in front of the State House on Monday morning. She directly confronted the corruption that rules the day on Beacon Hill, vowing to open up the doors of the State House to get the lobbyists out and let the people in. Her prepared remarks are below. Read the Boston Globe’s coverage here. Read the Boston Herald’s coverage here. Read Open Media Boston’s coverage here. Then check out Jill’s website and Facebook page and show your support!
Prepared Remarks of Jill Stein
Candidate for Governor of Massachusetts
February 8, 2010 at the State House, Boston, Massachusetts
INTRODUCTION
Thank you so much for being here today. This is the year we the people regain control of our Commonwealth and our common future. It’s time for a Commonwealth that listens to the people, works for the people, and answers to the people. It’s time to bring the voices of ordinary people into this election and into the halls of power. It’s time to break the stranglehold of lobbyists and insiders, and get Beacon Hill back to work for the families and communities of the Commonwealth. It’s time to start building the healthy, secure green future we so urgently need, richly deserve, and is within our reach. My name is Jill Stein and that’s why I’m running for governor.
THE STAKES
As you know too well, this is crunch time for ordinary people – workers, small businesses, students, seniors and just about everyone in between. We’re facing double digit unemployment, skyrocketing health care costs, cruel home foreclosures, crumbling schools and unaffordable higher education, costly, counterproductive CORI and drug laws, regressive taxes, crushing costs of wars, and climate threats to our economy and our children’s future. And these hardships fall much harder on the most vulnerable – low income, seniors, workers, the disabled, and communities of color. There are effective and achievable solutions to all these problems. But politicians are too busy doing favors for campaign donors with deep pockets, so they are not changing the failed policies of the status quo. So it’s time for us – ordinary citizens of the Commonwealth – to stand up and stand together for a new vision in Massachusetts, a vision of the healthy, just, sustainable prosperity we all deserve, and that we can achieve.
That is what this campaign is all about. It will take all of us to make it happen. We are the engine of a new democracy that will make this happen.
JOBS & THE GREEN ECONOMY
To accomplish that change, my first priority as governor will be reviving our local economy – the small and medium sized businesses and cooperatives that are locally owned and integrated into the fabric of the communities. These are the generators for creating secure, good-wage jobs, especially green jobs that won’t be off-shored, outsourced or downsized. Building a strong local green economy enriches our communities – because it keeps profits here instead of sending them out of state. It makes every dollar count for more because it re-circulates wealth as dollars move from business to business within the community. A green energy-efficient economy is not only a jobs bonanza, it’s an insurance policy protecting us from Wall Street speculators, rising prices at the gas pump, and the disruptions of climate change.
HEALTH CARE
My next priority is to fix the health care crisis. As an ordinary citizen and as a medical doctor, I know that health care is truly in crisis. The Massachusetts mandate has expanded care, but it’s bankrupting state and municipal budgets. It forces working families to bear the costs of insuring low income families, and it adds unbearable burdens to small businesses – preventing new job creation. People are forced to buy expensive, stripped down, high-deductible plans that don’t protect health or financial security when you get really sick. What we need is affordable, quality health coverage. We can provide that by moving to an improved Medicare-for-all system that pays for itself simply by cutting out the red tape. And it will put an end to insurance company meddling in your choice of doctor and your personal health decisions. Your health care should be between you and your doctor or nurse, not dictated by an insurance company bureaucrat.
THE HEALTH DIVIDEND
In addition to cutting insurance waste and bureaucracy, we can give a huge boost to our economy by bringing home a multi-billion dollar health dividend that’s just waiting for us to claim it. This is the money we can save by integrating illness prevention into the fabric of our communities and into our lives. By prioritizing common sense interventions like safe sidewalks, bikepaths, healthy nutrition, and clean air we can start to tackle the exorbitantly expensive public health epidemics that cause needless and tragic illness and death – like obesity, diabetes and asthma. These have all skyrocketed in recent decades to where 2/3rds of adults are obese or overweight, and 40% are diabetic or prediabetic. These and related chronic diseases – like heart attacks and strokes – consume about 75% of the health care dollar. Considering the roughly $79 billion spent on health care each year , that comes to about $59 billion dollars spent every year in Massachusetts on illnesses that are largely avoidable. Yet these diseases are overwhelmingly preventable through good nutrition, healthy lifestyle including active transportation, and clean air (through clean energy). By putting prevention to work at the community level, we can transform our unaffordable, inefficient “sick care” system into a true “health care” system that can vastly improve our health, and save us billions of dollars each year.
FAIR TAXES
Another key priority is to provide real tax relief from the unfair burden of taxes and fees – a burden that falls too hard on middle income and working families. When you consider all taxes and fees, regular families in Massachusetts are paying at about twice the rate of the wealthiest few. This has to stop. Our budget problems should be solved, and can be solved, by shifting that unequal burden off the backs of working families and asking more from those at the top. Towards that end, I will ask the Department of Revenue to prepare a plan that will in effect eliminate the income tax on earnings up to a living wage income. This means that, in effect, government will never reach into your wallet and take the money your family needs just to pay the full cost of food, housing, clothing, health care and k-12 education for your family. We can take an important step in this direction by dramatically increasing the personal exemption. We’ll have much more to say on this during the campaign.
ELIMINATING THE CORRUPTION TAX
In addition, I will work with the rest of the Executive branch to bring our total tax burden down by rooting out the waste, corruption and special interest favors in state government. These inflate the cost of government and ultimately, drive up our taxes and fees. I call this the “corruption tax”, because its costing us all big time. I’m talking about waste like the $600 million dollars we pay every year for the inflated Big Dig debt incurred by the Weld-Celluci administration while they were raking in campaign cash from Big Dig contractors. I’m talking about the extra $1.3 billion we’re paying for a health insurance plan written behind closed doors by the well connected insurance companies that are now rolling in the dough brought in by that plan. I’m talking about hundreds of millions in interest free loans for luxury real estate benefiting developers with inside connections on Beacon Hill. I’m talking about payoffs for layoffs like the $58 million that went to Evergreen Solar only to have them pack up their manufacturing plant and move it to China. These favors for lobbyists and campaign donors are breaking the back of our budget. And in this election, already the checks from these special interests are pouring into the pockets of the candidates to make sure they stay the course once elected. Well, I don’t take their money. And this corruption tax will come to an end when we take Beacon Hill back for the people.
WHO CAN WE TRUST TO CHANGE BEACON HILL?
So, if we’re going to put an end to this corrupt culture on Beacon Hill – that puts lobbyist favors ahead of your critical job and health needs – we need real change. And the question voters have to ask themselves is who do you trust to make that change. Unlike the other candidates we expect to face in the general election, I have never been a CEO or a Beacon Hill insider. I have never huddled with the health insurance companies that have denied people coverage. I have never met in back rooms with predatory lenders, casino gambling executives, or real estate schemers. I don’t owe favors to any machine bosses or big money donors looking to buy influence.
I am a mother and medical doctor, an educator, an advocate for healthy people, healthy communities, and a healthy economy. I have been in the communities supporting, and engaging ordinary people in the democratic process so that together, we can achieve better health, better jobs, a responsible budget, safe communities, and better life. I know that if we open the doors on Beacon Hill, get the lobbyists out, and let the people back in, we can cut these problems down to size and solve them. So if you’ve had enough of business as usual, of the culture of influence, if you’ve had enough bailouts, layoffs, ripoffs and payoffs, this is the campaign for you. This is the campaign for real change – change not just to believe in, but change we can accomplish. So join the team to take our government back, and let’s start building a healthy, secure, green future we urgently need and this is within our reach.
Now let’s get to work and win this race!