For far too long people have been falsely led to believe that progressive values and policies that promote business growth are counterintuitive, my priority in the Senate will be putting people back to work, lowering the unemployment rate, and helping new businesses get off the ground. I see these as core tenants of any good progressive plan because providing good jobs are essential to allow all our citizens to succeed.
Small businesses are the unequivocal engine of the U.S. economy - they are our innovators, our creators, and our entrepreneurs, and they account for the vast majority of our new jobs. I intend on being a forceful voice in the United States Senate for investments in cutting-edge job training and providing tax credits for businesses that create new jobs that will benefit the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
About a week ago I read a post here about the benefits of jobs that a casino would create. http://bluemassgroup.com/diary...
By now many of you are well aware of my strong opposition to casino gaming in Massachusetts. My opposition is not just out of moral or social concern. It is rooted in a strong belief that we can and must do better for the citizens of our state. The jobs that casinos create are not skilled positions worthy of the tremendous talent of the people of Massachusetts.
I believe if we invest in job training and technology, and reward and incentivize job creation, we will be worthy of our status as the greatest state in the country. We were the leader in the effort to reform our health care system and just this week Congress has begun to follow our lead. I want to take the lead at the national level and bring the values and know how of our Commonwealth to create meaningful change in the Senate.
My six-point Jobs Plan:
1. Stimulate and reward job creation wit Job Creation Tax Credits:
• Pass a temporary new job creation tax credit that will refund 15
• 15% of wage costs in 2010 and 10% of new wage costs in 2011 to employers creating new jobs or increasing the wages of existing employees.
• A team of economists at the nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute estimated that NJTC's would create as many as 5.1 million new jobs over the next two years or between 50,000 and 100,000 jobs in Massachusetts.
2. Support entrepreneurs and small businesses:
• Offer higher new job tax credits for small businesses.
• Extend the recent temporary changes that doubled expense write-offs for small business investments up to $50,000 and allow accelerated depreciation of 50% for new plant and equipment over the first year.
• Increase access to capital and small business support services.
• Establish a Federal Commission to encourage and support women- and minority-owned businesses.
3. Pass clean energy legislation to create new clean energy and energy efficiency jobs:
• The Markey-Waxman and Kerry-Boxer Climate bills will drive large scale investments in clean energy and energy efficiency.
• Research by the University of California, University of Illinois and Yale University concluded that passing these bills would create between 22,000 and 40,000 jobs in Massachusetts.
4. Invest in clean energy, biotech and other research-intensive industries by supporting programs to accelerate the time from research to new job creation, including:
• Create innovation funds to accelerate the commercialization of ideas from research and development universities, including grants and loans matched with investments from private funds.
• Support the development of incubators to facilitate start-ups, pilots and demonstration projects.
• Enable full scale commercialization of new "first of a kind" technologies by co-investing with private funds to finance the roll-out of new businesses with high fixed costs.
5. Support the growth and development of the social entrepreneur and nonprofit sector:
• Increase investments to scale promising nonprofit models and measure the return on taxpayer investments in these to develop best practices that can be shared with other programs.
• Fully fund the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, which will provide up to 250,000 service jobs.
6. Invest in a 21st Century work force development:
• Fund Alan's Comprehensive Education Plan to provide every America with a quality education.
• Develop programs to connect community colleges with local employers to ensure academic programs will fulfill business needs and students will have job opportunities after graduation.
• Reauthorize the federal Workforce Investment Act to incentivize programs to partner with employers and reward successful job placement. |
