I support encouraging regenerative agriculture practices like incentivizing cover crops and reducing tillage.
Joni Ernst: Yes. Co-sponsored National Right to Work Act bill.
Theresa Greenfield: No. Supports PRO Act, "which would strengthen workers' rights."
Theresa Greenfield: Politicians bailed out big corporate donors and opposed paid sick leave. Prioritize "urgent economic relief to working families and small businesses," not large companies. Expand benefits for laid-off workers.
Joni Ernst: Supports direct payments, tax credits for caregivers of adult dependents. Helped secure $383 million for Iowa hospitals and medical centers through CARES Act. Opposed paid sick leave.
Mike also supports raising the federal minimum wage to transform it into a true living wage. Additionally, a universal guarantee of paid family leave will help working families and keep women in the workforce.
Hubbell: Yes. Raise at state level, while allowing cities and communities to go higher as needed.
Reynolds: No. Supported bill keeping state minimum wage at $7.25 an hour and preventing counties and communities from raising it.
Hubbell: Yes. Raise at state level, while allowing cities and communities to go higher as needed.
Reynolds: No. Supported bill keeping state minimum wage at $7.25 an hour and preventing counties and communities from raising it.
A: Strongly oppose. The state should protect people from discrimination in government employment and contracts.ÿ It should never favor one group over the others or make gender or race a condition of employment.
A: People who are best suited for a job should be chosen to matter who they are as an individual. Companies with diverse workforces succeed. The incentive is there.
Patty Judge: The U.S. economy has recovered since the 2008 recession, however wages for working families remain stagnant. We have to increase wages and give working families a fair shot. To strengthen the economy, I support an increase to the federal minimum wage. We must also take action to end gender discrimination in pay once and for all.
I support raising the minimum wage to $15.00/ hour across Iowa. And as counties vote for higher minimums those should stand as well.
Senator Grassley, she said, has supported tax breaks and loopholes for the wealthy and big corporations, including the Bush-era tax cuts for those at the top. Grassley has a history of supporting tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas, and has opposed bills aimed at protecting American jobs, Judge added.
Rather than more tax breaks, she notes in a TV ad, the special interests "need to pay their fair share, because Washington is giving those at the top too much and it's time someone stood up for the rest of us."
SANDERS: No public policy doesn't have negative consequences. But what you have right now are millions of Americans working two or three jobs because their wages that they are earning are just too low. It is not a radical idea to say that if somebody works 40 hours a week, that person should not be living in poverty. It is not a radical idea to say that a single mom should be earning enough money to take care of her kids.
Q: Are job losses an acceptable consequence?
SANDERS: Real unemployment in this country is 10% because the average worker in America doesn't have any disposable income. You have no disposable income when you are making $10 or $12 an hour. When we put money into the hands of working people, they're going to go out and buy goods, they're going to buy services and they're going to create jobs in doing that. That is the kind of economy I believe in: put money in the hands of working people.
O'MALLEY: $10.10 was all I could get the state to do. But two of our counties actually went to $12.80 and their county executives would also tell you that it works.
CLINTON: I do take what Alan Krueger said seriously. He is the foremost expert in our country on the minimum wage, and what its effects are. That is why I support a $12 national federal minimum wage. But I do believe that is a minimum. And places like Seattle, like Los Angeles, like New York City, they can go higher. It's what happened in Governor O'Malley's state.
O'MALLEY: Didn't just happen. Yeah, but look. It should always be going up.
CLINTON: You would index it to the median wage, of course. Do the $12 and you would index it.
O'MALLEY: This was not merely theory in Maryland. We actually did it. Not only were we the first state in the nation to pass a living wage. We were the first to pass a minimum wage.
Q: You're calling for a $15 an hour wage now but why did you stop at $10.10 in your state?
O'MALLEY: $10.10 was all I could get the state to do by the time I left in my last year. But two of our counties actually went to $12.80 and their county executives would also tell you that it works. The more our people earn, the more money they spend, and the more our whole economy grows. That's American capitalism.
During the 2012 recall election pushed by public employee unions, Democrats repeatedly said that Walker would eventually take on private-sector unions as well. The governor dismissed that talk about right-to-work legislation as political spin. "It's not going to get to my desk," Walker said in May 2012. "I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure it isn't there because my focal point [is] private-sector unions have overwhelmingly come to the table to be my partner in economic development."
When Senate Republicans committed to moving forward with the measure on Feb. 20, however, Walker quickly said he would sign it.
Back in 2012, such conspiracy theories became known as unemployment or "BLS trutherism," in reference to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the division of the Labor Department that's responsible for producing the unemployment rate. After some surprisingly upbeat jobs reports that bolstered the campaign of President Barack Obama, skeptical conservatives either implied or said outright that the numbers couldn't be trusted.
As explained at the time, the BLS is devised in such a way that the White House cannot meddle in its math, be it a Democratic or Republican administration. [But BLS truthers compare the official jobless rate of] 5.6% to alternate BLS measures that include discouraged and involuntary part-time workers.
Instead of responding directly, Ernst said Braley's proposal to raise the minimum wage would not improve the economy. She said her state Senate record shows the right way to boost the economy.
Hatch sought to criticize Branstad's administration over a recent revelation that some former state workers were given confidential settlement payments. He also promised to cut taxes for the middle class, raise the minimum wage and increase the state gas tax to fund infrastructure spending. "There needs to be new leadership and there needs to be a fresh start in education and job development and taking care of rural Iowa," Hatch said.
Branstad said he wanted to come up with a plan for repairing crumbling bridges and roads that didn't include raising the gas tax, which he said would hurt poor Iowans.
Perhaps the best example of our state's turnaround and of our policies working for middle-class families is seen in Lee County, which had the highest unemployment rate in the state when I took office in 2011. Iowans in Lee County are getting back to work, thanks in part to the largest on-shore purchase of wind turbines in history and a world-class fertilizer plant bringing much needed jobs and investment to the area.
"Jobs and economy," said State Senator Joni Ernst.
"Balancing the budget," answered former State Attorney Matt Whitaker.
"Grow the economy," said Dr. Sam Clovis.
With an ever growing list of Republican candidates the biggest challenge, right now, may be standing out in a crowded field. "I am a strong conservative and I have a proven record in the Iowa State Senate. Others may say that having a record is a good thing, but in this case I will gladly put up my conservative record," said Ernst.
"I am certainly not the status quo, and I won't rep
A: Absolutely. Let me tell you how the real economy works. When I was at Bain Capital, we invested in about 100 different companies. Not all of them worked. I know there are some people in Washington that doesn't understand how the free economy works. They think if you invest in a business, it's always going to go well. And they don't always go well. In those 100 businesses we invested in, tens of thousands of jobs, net-net, were created. I understand how the economy works. And, by the way, as the governor of Massachusetts, when I came in, jobs were being lost. We turned that around. Our unemployment was below the federal level three of the four years I was in office.
A: Unemployment benefits, I think they've gone on a long, long time. But I would rather see a reform of our unemployment system, to allow people to have a personal account which they're able to draw from as opposed to having endless unemployment benefits. Let's reform the system, make the system work better by giving people responsibility for their own employment opportunities and having that account, rather than doling out year after year more money from an unemployment system.
Q: Would you sign a bill to extend unemployment insurance if you were president right now?
A: If I were president right now, I would go to Congress with a new system for unemployment, which would have specific accounts from which people could withdraw their own funds. And I would not put in place a continuation of the current plan
[We'll] eliminate impediments to job growth. While tax policy can take us a significant way forward in our effort to compete for new jobs, much of that work can be undone by a bureaucracy that fails to understand the critical relationship between burdensome regulation and job creation. The rules and regulations identified throug this process will be the first subjected to our proposed rolling sunset and I will further order all future proposed rules and regulations to contain a jobs impact statement so we can identify those that cost jobs before they impact our Iowa employers.
Legislative record:Bill Passed House, 87-7-6; Passed Senate, 32-18-0 Feb. 16, 2009; signed by Governor April 28; Sen. Hogg voted YEA
Legislative outcome: Passed Senate, 32-18, Feb. 16, 2009; Passed House, March 18; signed by Governor Chet Culver, April 28, 2009
Legislative outcome: Passed Senate, 32-18, Feb. 16, 2009; Sen. Kim Reynolds voted NAY; Passed House, March 18; signed by Governor, April 28
Legislative record:Bill Passed House, 87-7-6; Passed Senate, 32-18-0 Feb. 16, 2009; signed by Governor April 28; Sen. Hogg voted YEA
A: Well, first, we need a president of the United States who’s actually willing to walk on the White House lawn and say the word “union.” Second, we need a president of the United States who will explain to the American people that the union movement helped build the great middle class in the United States of America and they will be crucial to building the middle class and strengthening the middle class in the future. We have well over 50 million people in this country who would like to join a union. If we really want to strengthen and grow economic security, we must strengthen and grow the organized labor movement. In order to do that, we need to change the law. If you can join the Republican Party by signing your name to a card, every worker in America should be able to join a union by signing their name to a card.
That miraculous sounding statistic is way off. It has taken since the end of 1978 for total employment in the US to grow by 50 million jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But total employment for the 15 core members of the European Union (those who joined before 2004) grew by well over 33 million between 1978 and 2005.
Romney was misquoting an outdated and highly dubious figure, which was used by an author who no longer stands behind it. Romney cited a 2005 article in The American Enterprise magazine, which said, “Since the 1970s America has created some 57 million new jobs, compared to just 4 million in Europe (with most of those in government).” The article’s author told FactCheck.org he wouldn’t use the figure today.
SHARPTON: We must be honest about discrimination and have a president that will enforce anti-discrimination laws. We still have institutional discrimination in this country, which is worse than blatant discrimination. What is hurting us is that 50 years ago, we had to watch out for people with white sheets. Now they have on pinstripe suits. They discriminate against our advancement and our achievement.
MOSELEY-BRAUN: I think the answer lies in providing capital for the development of jobs and businesses in communities where people live. Because if you give someone the ability to create a business, provide equity capital, give people the ability to begin to create those businesses that will help lift up communities, that will go a long way to solving the endemic problem of institutional racism, of discrimination and of the lack of jobs in African-American and Hispanic communities.
A: I have proposed throughout this campaign a $250 billion five-year plan to create jobs that are necessary: infrastructure redevelopment, roadways, highways, bridges, tunnels, school buildings and -- in the name of homeland security -- ports. We ought to be investing in creating jobs. That’s what Roosevelt did with public works programs. Kucinich is right, we must go after A, what is necessary, and B, what will create jobs.
SHARPTON: We must be honest about discrimination and have a president that will enforce anti-discrimination laws. We still have institutional discrimination in this country, which is worse than blatant discrimination. What is hurting us is that 50 years ago, we had to watch out for people with white sheets. Now they have on pinstripe suits. They discriminate against our advancement and our achievement.
MOSELEY-BRAUN: I think the answer lies in providing capital for the development of jobs and businesses in communities where people live. Because if you give someone the ability to create a business, provide equity capital, give people the ability to begin to create those businesses that will help lift up communities, that will go a long way to solving the endemic problem of institutional racism, of discrimination and of the lack of jobs in African-American and Hispanic communities.
A: My target would be zero. At the end of the Clinton administration we had unemployment in the country down to 3 percent. We did things that really got people to be employed. We increased the minimum wage, and that’s the first thing that I would do. I’d also ask the WTO for an international minimum wage. My health care plan would create 750,000 new jobs by getting everybody covered with health care insurance.
A: The reason that exists is because we have an indifference, a casual indifference in the leadership of our country that ignores the fact that we have a separate and unequal school system in the US. We need a president who is going to fight against those special interests. We’ve got to change our attitude about how you raise kids in America, how you provide opportunity.
MOSELEY BRAUN: Unlike [the elder] George Bush, who said no new taxes, this Bush seems to think the answer is no new jobs. We need to create jobs in America again, and the way that we do it is to focus in on the fundamentals. While the short-term numbers look good-the stock market has gone up and the like-our fundamentals are really in trouble: huge current account deficits, huge budget deficits, a trade deficit with China alone of $100 billion. We are going to have to take steps to reverse those trends that are sinking our economy and sinking our ability to create jobs.
What would I do? First, health-care reform. That not only solves a social problem, but also a way to take the costs of health care off of the back of our productive sector, our manufacturers, our small businesses, so that we can create jobs here at home. Second, environmental protection. Creating whole new industries with technology transfer. That’s the direction in which I’d head.
MOSELEY-BRAUN: [Bush is] the worst president on the economy, in terms of jobs, 6 million jobs lost.
FACTCHECK: Actually, the economy hasn’t lost anything close to 6 million jobs. As of the latest figures released last month, the economy had 2.3 million fewer total jobs in November than when Bush took office. Even at the worst of the job slump last July, the job loss was just 2.7 million. Note: Many Democrats like to cite the loss in private sector jobs, not total employment. Focusing only on private-sector jobs ignores the tens of thousands of new government workers hired-including teachers, policemen and federal airport security workers-and makes the job slump sound worse than it was. But even the loss of private-sector jobs under Bush now stands at 2.7 million according to most recent statistics. It did go to 3.2 million at the worst of the slump.
DEAN: The way to support American farmers is to change the American farm bill so that big corporations don’t get the majority of the money that goes out of the farm bill. We can support small family farms, and we should. But the money ought to go to the farmers, not the big corporations.
LIEBERMAN: First, agriculture is a critical part of American economic life and American history. Second, the 2002 farm bill, which I supported, improved the previous program with a series of counter-cyclical subsidies that I think are appropriate. So right now I would say, no. It’s very hypocritical when Europe criticizes us for our farm subsidies when, in fact, they have larger subsidies than we do.
ANALYSIS: Te economy shed just over 2.7 million payroll jobs in the current slump. But that’s 124,000 fewer jobs than were lost than between July, 1981 and December, 1982, when Ronald Reagan was President. And at that time the economy was much smaller. It now seems likely that Bush will end his term with the economy employing fewer payroll workers than when he took office. If that happens, Bush’s critics will be able to say correctly that he’s the first since Hoover to have ended an entire term with a net job loss. But it’s premature to say that now. Even Reagan’s bigger job loss was erased less than two years after growth resumed. And [it’s possible] that job gains in the next 12 months that would leave Bush with a net gain in jobs.
SHARPTON: The first thing the president must do is have federal laws that protect workers. How did we get civil rights? How did we get gender rights? We stopped relying on states wit a states’ rights argument to do it state by state. If we had strong enforceable federal laws giving workers the right to organize, then we could go in Florida and other states and say they are in violation of the federal government and the federal law.
As president, I will invest in our people. As president, I will assure that we will not have the corporate greed which is paying bonuses in the suites while the workers are being fired in the basement.
As president, I’ll issue an executive order which will say that anyone who gets a federal contract will have to provide that when 50 percent of the workers sign up for a union, there’s an automatic union.
GEPHARDT: Health care for everybody is the best way to stimulate this economy. To do it we’ve got to get rid of the Bush tax cuts. Secondly, a minimum-wage increase for the American people would be a great way to get this economy moving again. And finally, I’ll go to the WTO and ask for an international minimum wage. We’ve got a race to the bottom going on. Jobs are going from Mexico to China. It’s time to bring those jobs back here.
| |||
| 2020 Presidential contenders on Jobs: | |||
|
Democrats running for President:
Sen.Michael Bennet (D-CO) V.P.Joe Biden (D-DE) Mayor Mike Bloomberg (I-NYC) Gov.Steve Bullock (D-MT) Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D-IN) Sen.Cory Booker (D-NJ) Secy.Julian Castro (D-TX) Gov.Lincoln Chafee (L-RI) Rep.John Delaney (D-MD) Rep.Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) Sen.Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) Gov.Deval Patrick (D-MA) Sen.Bernie Sanders (I-VT) CEO Tom Steyer (D-CA) Sen.Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) Marianne Williamson (D-CA) CEO Andrew Yang (D-NY) 2020 Third Party Candidates: Rep.Justin Amash (L-MI) CEO Don Blankenship (C-WV) Gov.Lincoln Chafee (L-RI) Howie Hawkins (G-NY) Gov.Jesse Ventura (I-MN) |
Republicans running for President:
V.P.Mike Pence(R-IN) Pres.Donald Trump(R-NY) Rep.Joe Walsh (R-IL) Gov.Bill Weld(R-MA & L-NY) 2020 Withdrawn Democratic Candidates: Sen.Stacey Abrams (D-GA) Mayor Bill de Blasio (D-NYC) Sen.Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) Sen.Mike Gravel (D-AK) Sen.Kamala Harris (D-CA) Gov.John Hickenlooper (D-CO) Gov.Jay Inslee (D-WA) Mayor Wayne Messam (D-FL) Rep.Seth Moulton (D-MA) Rep.Beto O`Rourke (D-TX) Rep.Tim Ryan (D-CA) Adm.Joe Sestak (D-PA) Rep.Eric Swalwell (D-CA) | ||
|
Please consider a donation to OnTheIssues.org!
Click for details -- or send donations to: 1770 Mass Ave. #630, Cambridge MA 02140 E-mail: submit@OnTheIssues.org (We rely on your support!) | |||