Why Small Business Needs Kucinich

In an age of corporate consolidation and dispropotionate power, Dennis Kucinich is the candidate most willing to face the problems threatenting the American dream head on by leveling the economy and supporting growth and stabalization in the small business sector. As Kucinich notes:

The challenge before us today is whether we can maintain a government of the people, by the people and for the people, or whether we will timidly accept the economic, social, and political consequences of a government of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations.

As with the entire Kucinich platform, his solutions are intricately weaved throughout his policies and holistic view of government, however, Kucinich's benefits for small businesses can be seen in three main area of his policy:

1.) Economic Policy

2.) Jobs/Energy Program

3.) Healthcare

Dennis' program for the economy is one marked by balance. His plan will:

create a more level playing field for small businesses by reconstituting the trust-busting powers of the Justice Department and breaking up the monopolies that make competition next to impossible for small businesses in many industries. Repealing corporate trade agreements -- NAFTA and the WTO -- that currently give further advantages to large corporations at the expense of small businesses and local economies are central to this goal.

Kucinich will repeal the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, double the tax refunds for American families making less than $80,000, and ensure that corporations pay a fair tax rate, which now pay over three times less than in the 1950's.

He will also work to make it possible for small media and agricultural businesses to compete by busting media monopolies and

requiring country-of-origin labeling; by actively enforcing existing anti-trust laws; and by enacting new laws to force divestiture in concentrated markets, breaking apart monopolistic agribusiness companies and shifting farm economics towards higher commodity prices for farmers. To increase competition in the livestock industry, I strongly support a national ban on packer ownership of livestock.

Our country must shift USDA funding and focus away from the promotion of concentrated intensive and industrial agribusiness. A new focus will benefit family farmers, rural communities, the environment, and consumers, with policies crafted to enable farmers to earn a fair price and to provide safe, nutritious food.

By cutting our bloated Pentagon budget by at least 15%, Kucinich will then use that money for a universal education program, as well as his Jobs Program.

In this more balanced framework of competition, the Kucinich Jobs Program will create millions of new working/middle class jobs, and huge opportunities for small businesses, while simultaneously addressing our crumbling infrastructural problems and energy needs. Through his Works Green Administration, or WGA, Dennis is investing in the environment, as well as our future, while stimulating the national economy.

Inspired by FDR's Works Progress Administration, the WGA utilizes the Environmental Protection Agency to put millions of Americans back to work rebuilding our schools, bridges, roads, ports, water systems, and environmental systems. Not only does the bold practicality of the plan lie in putting Americans back to work by investing in the national wealth of our own infrastructure, but the plan also incorporates environmental and energy concerns to further create wealth for the country and save individual families more money. For example, not only will the public works projects stress green building and renewable energy technology, but the plan will enable homes to be retrofit with green building, solar and wind microtechnology which will save families money on their energy bills. And this shift from oil, coal and nuclear energies will open up opportunities for emerging small businesses developing renewable energies.

Dennis will also institute a National Housing Trust Fund to provide affordable housing to millions of Americans and have consistently shown to stimulate the economy, as well as small businesses.

Finally, the Kucinich Healthcare plan, H.R. 676, will not only support the health of the 47 million Americans without any care and the 50+million who are underinsured, but also the health of our economy-particularly small businesses, as the Mercer report recently showed.

Employer provided healthcare coverage-under the current private, for-profit system-places a heavy burden on businesses: The average employer contributing $2,600 per employee. Under H.R. 676 the average would drop to about $1,600. This financial strain handicaps large U.S. businesses competing in the world market and small businesses here at home. Small businesses end up with larger cost sharing, often pushed off on the worker, and less comprehensive benefit packages. More and more often small businesses cannot even offer healthcare at all.

Under a Kucinich Administration, small businesses receive an equal and much greater opportunity in this country. Under a Kucinich Administration, the American dream becomes and equal and greater opportunity. Please support Dennis Kucinich!

Workers' Rights and Trade Agreements

The decline in workers’ rights and representation, as well as the redistribution of wealth and power toward corporations at the top, has been evident ever since The Taft-Hartely Act. So, Kucinich, the most labor progressive and only Union member among the candidates, will repeal the Taft-Hartely Act as President.

However, the steady trends of declining workers’ rights, increase in outsourcing of trade and technical jobs, and our massively growing trade passage of NAFTA and the WTO. In fact, the passage of NAFTA and the WTO. In fact, these trade agreements are written in such a way as to encourage these trends and, as previous attempts have shown, any such reforms are doomed to fail by the binding authority of these agreements.

Thus, Kucinich is the only candidate offering a comprehensive solution to this issue: withdrawing the U.S. from these trade agreements (NAFTA/WTO). Once the U.S. withdraws from these agreements, we will renegotiate bilateral trade agreements, based upon human rights, workers’ rights, equal rights and environmental principles. This will save millions of jobs currently being outsourced. But, Kucinich will go further by creating millions of new jobs and more wealth among the middle/working classes and small businesses, while simultaneously addressing our crumbling infrastructural problems and energy needs, through his Works Green Administration (WGA).

Inspired by FDR's Works Progress Administration, the WGA utilizes the Environmental Protection Agency to put millions of Americans back to work rebuilding our schools, bridges, roads, ports, water systems, and environmental systems. Not only does the bold practicality of the plan lie in putting Americans back to work by investing in the national wealth of our own infrastructure, but the plan also incorporates environmental and energy concerns to further create wealth for the country and save individual families more money. For example, not only will the public works projects stress green building and renewable energy technology, but the plan will enable homes to be retrofit with green building, solar and wind microtechnology which will save families money on their energy bills.

He will also look at the use of H-1B and L-1 visas, which have had a negative effect on the workplace of Information Technology workers in America. It has caused a reduction in wages. It has forced workers to accept deteriorating working conditions and allowed U.S. companies to concentrate work in technical and geographic areas that American workers consider undesirable. It has also reduced the number of IT jobs held by Americans.

Kucinich will ensure that the government provide adequate funds for the enforcement of visa regulations -- including much-ignored regulations prohibiting the use of foreign nationals in critical infrastructure -- and appoint a special investigator to examine the extent and nature of H-1B and L-1 visa fraud. We need an industry fact-finding commission, including representatives of major U.S. investors, U.S. tech workers, and business leaders who have been competitive in the international marketplace without use of the H-1B / L-1 program. These representatives can make suggestions as to a new policy on the immigration of people with specialized knowledge or unique skills.

Under Dennis Kucinich, Americans goes back to work with better wages and better conditions to build a better country.

Kucinich at The Urban League With "Strength Through Peace"

Americans are fed up; fed up with the war, with healthcare, with our approach to the environment. Citizens are fed up with unconstitutional "patriotism", with unitary executive "order", with a "Vice-President" using unprecedented power, with "wars on terror"; with a now neurotic sense of national identity that reflects a broken constitution and that foreboding sense of irony that comes with these endless quotations!

We are fed up with a Legislative lack of constitutional integrity, of a Congress democratically elected to end a war and refuses to, of a government with a fundamental disconnect at the "representative" level. We are fed up with a corporate media controlled by so few shaping our elections, with lobbyists, bundling and hedge funds, with politics as usual.

America is fed up with our standing, both nationally and internationally, and desperate for real change: change that addresses not only policy, but citizens. Americans needs to feel connected again; to the world, their government and themselves. And this is what Dennis Kucinich is offering in his candidacy to represent the uNited States at the Presidential level: Strength Through Peace.

Strength Through Peace is not a simple anti-war campaign slogan, but, rather a holisitc approach to foreign and domestic policy that will take this country in a whole new direction.

Strength through Peace means restoring American leadership in diplomacy and respecting International Law and treaties. It means creating jobs at home and providing true universal and comprehensive healthcare for all Americans. It means ending the occupation in Iraq and preventing future strikes in Iran, while recognizing the link between global warring and global warming. It means then breaking our dependence on oil, as well as coal and nuclear, to aggresively pursue renewable and sustainable energy sources at home. It means ending disastrous wars, wasting hundreds of billion of dollars, and focusing money on domestic needs to provide universal pre-kindergarten and daycare. It means repealing unfair trade agreements like NAFTA and WTO to bring jobs back to this country.

Strength Through Peace is Dennis Kucinch reaching out to all Americans in order to reclaim this country from special interests like the insurance and drug companies, the oil industry and the military-industrial complex. The most outspoken and consistent critic against the war from the beginning and the only candidate to offer single-payer healthcare system that eliminates the wasteful private insurance industry, Kucinich recently spoke at the Urban League about his domestic policy and how he uses Strength Through Peace within it. If you haven't yet seen Kucinich speak at length, I would urge you to go here. He is a dynamic and passionate speaker who is utterly different than the image created in our media and many may be struck by the soberness of his views and bright promise he offers for this country. He appears about 1/4 of the way through the video and speaks about the things I have outlined above as well as his plans to create a works program, similar to FDR's WPA, repairing our national infrastructure like roads, schools, and water systems and incorporating sustainable energy solutions that would create even more jobs and save more money to families, retrofiting homes with solar and wind technology.

In the end, Strength Through Peace means creating the conditions for peace to manifest. Peace is a pragmatic issue, not a blindly idealistic one. Peace grows out of material conditions and relationships structured upon fairness and respect, not thin air or fantasy. And until this country implements policies to create conditions favorable to peace and conducts its relationships based upon fairness and law, our problems will remain the same.

Please notice I say this country and not politicians. Politicians can offer us platforms and leadership, but ultimately the country is in the hands of the people. And I'd rather hear no more media induced fear from our people. No more talk of "electability". No more anti-war voters who support candidates that won't faithfully pursue its end. No more avoiding policy answers that are in the best interest of the country because of the little hope that it can be passed through and become law.

Elections are decided by votes from an active citizenry. Representatives are elected by, and answer to, an active citizenry. And politically unpopular policies will only become law through this active citizenry.

We have to recognize the disconnect between our Representatives and citizens, stare it straight in the face, and begin our struggle to change it. What should be an outrage and treated as any other threat, has only become a deadened response to pain, a cynical shrug of the shoulders. For this disconnect has become so pronounced that what is politically unpopular often has very little to do with what is popular with the majority of the people. Yet, we don't vote to change it because of media fears like "electability", policies that won't pass...

As far as I can see, this really IS the problem. Nothing else. We have the power to change this country, but only if we take action. We can change this country by voting for what matters to us: by voting on the issues and nothing else. For if we voted on issues I can't help but wonder how different this country would be. If we voted on issues we may have a very different election.

I'll leave you with this final link: here. It is from an independent website poll taken by over 67,000 participants and voted strictly by the issue, without any refernce to the specific canidates. In the poll Kucinich is the first choice of 53% of those participants, dwarfing the next highest at around 12% (and, no it wasn't any of the "frontrunners").