Where I Stand

TN 2.0: REBUILDING, FROM THE FARM TO THE FRONT PORCH

Once proud Main Streets and town squares across Tennessee today are sagging under the weight of a struggling economy. Many a storefront in our small towns have nothing in them but a "For Lease" sign. Opportunity has shriveled up and scattered.

Senator Alexander has been part of the problem - a yes vote for nearly every bad policy his party and his president have sent down Pennsylvania Avenue. He has jealously guarded tax breaks for the wealthy and the oil industry, and he consistently voted against raising the minimum wage. All this, while working Tennesseans struggle to make ends meet. For those Tennesseans who like the way things are going, I say: Vote for the other guy.

But for the rest of Tennessee, stand with me, and I will work to create the OPPORTUNITIES that will REBUILD the Main Streets, from farms to front porches all over our great state. Here's how:

Better OPPORTUNITIES make better lives

Meet basic needs first:

  • Make the minimum wage a livable wage by making it 50 percent of the average wage, or about $8.40 (based on 2006 figures, latest available from the Social Security Administration). Doing so would help nearly 15 million workers. (As proposed by the Center for American Progress's "Half in Ten" campaign)
  • Provide tax relief for middle-class workers, such as permanently ending the marriage penalty, extending the special 10 percent tax bracket, making the $1,000 child credit permanent and working to eliminate the estate tax for 99.7 percent of estates.
  • Get serious about investing in and expanding rural technology and broadband. (Broadband should be considered a necessary part of the infrastructure - like water and roads - because it is so fundamental to attracting businesses to an area.)
  • Traditional infrastructure - clean public water, the roads that industries need to transport goods and supplies - must be assured for our rural areas to attract good jobs and thrive.

Bring the businesses here:

Tennesseans need look no further than Governor Bredesen's playbook to find an idea that works: the Bredesen Orange Carpet Tour. Why not take it to the federal level and put federal dollars into promoting rural areas for business and industry locations? Give rural communities the professional tools to sell themselves when the site selection consultants come around.

Build homegrown businesses:
Pass the bipartisan New Homestead Economic Opportunity Act. This bill would help local entrepreneurs in counties where the population is dropping. Individual Homestead Accounts would get matching money to start a small business, pay for education, make first-time home purchases and pay medical expenses.

Put research within reach:
Partner with the state and put money into Tennessee's state colleges and at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory for specialized research that will attract industries the same way strong infrastructure does.

Train a Tennessee workforce:
Provide training that brings Tennessee workers into the 21st century. Fund programs that work with businesses to design training in high schools and community colleges. The result: real jobs for real employers' needs. (A good example would be specialized IT training tailored to meet the needs of health-care employers in a given area.) These kinds of programs exist in several states, and I'd like to find a way to network and share the ideas in Tennessee.

New energy means new OPPORTUNITIES

Fuels from our fields:
Alternative energy sources aren't just about saving polar bears. They are about saving our family budgets - especially in remote areas - from being eaten alive by our dependence on expensive foreign oil. And they are about new economic opportunities for our rural communities.
Whether it's biodiesel, sugar cane, switchgrass, hydrogen fuel cells, wind or solar, new energy sources will make it cheaper to drive our vehicles or heat our homes. And whether it is a new crop that makes a family farm profitable or a new factory that offers good-paying energy-related jobs to our young people, alternative energy is the ticket for rural Tennessee.
And we don't have to make our food expensive in the process. That's why I believe we should look beyond corn-based ethanol, as we know it. Funding must favor the farmers who use acreage unsuitable for food crops or livestock when they cultivate biofuel crops. We must not pit food vs. fuel.

A way to get started:
Expanding the new energy economy will require start-up money. I will support a corporate income credit for renewable energy-based businesses that start up in or relocate to rural areas and create new jobs. Governor Bredesen already has gotten funding passed at the state level to encourage alternative energy innovators, and I will draw from this idea at the federal level.

Nuclear means good pay:
Safe nuclear power can be a piece of our clean and independent energy economy - as long as waste disposal questions are settled. With funding for the right training, it also can mean lucrative jobs for rural Tennesseans.

Protect our OPPORTUNITIES

Trade must be fair, or it isn't free:
Unfair international trade has cost Tennessee nearly 70,000 jobs, as work has been outsourced and offshored. Rural manufacturing has taken the hardest hit. I will support legislation requiring that NAFTA and trade deals with China be renegotiated - with labor representatives at the table - to require protection of American jobs.

Make it profitable to keep jobs here:
I favor tax law that will reward employers that create jobs in this country and penalize those who send jobs overseas. Tax incentives for companies that outsource must stop.

An adequate cushion:
Any worker who already has lost a job due to poor foreign trade policy needs a little extra breathing room. I favor extending the unemployment benefit period to help families ease the transition to new jobs.

Return OPPORTUNITY to the family farm

Basic rules of fair play will give farmers a chance:

  • We must enforce country-of-origin laws that require labels to show where food was raised. Consumers want to know, and American farmers will benefit.
  • Limit farm subsidies to $300,000 per person, so that help goes to the farmers who need it and not big agribusinesses.
  • Farmers need help maintaining their land so that it will remain profitable, and I will support conservation programs that help them - both on their own land and in areas that affect farmland.
  • We must pursue new markets - in this country and abroad - for Tennessee-based agricultural products. We should do more exporting and less importing.

Good schools are the best OPPORTUNITY

Basic rules of fair play will give farmers a chance:

It all starts with a teacher:
I believe the key to good schools is attracting good teachers, and I will vote for improved pay and incentives for teachers in rural and other hard-to-staff schools. One such incentive: Take over student loan payments while a teacher teaches in a rural area.

Better schools attract jobs:
Not only do better schools benefit our children, but they are fundamental to attracting business and industry here. Companies want a well-educated employee pool, and they want good schools for the children of employees they'll bring in.

Options can make the difference:
There should be good job-training for students who choose to enter the workforce instead of going to college. A good start would be a targeted skills curriculum in high school. I would support funding for meaningful programs with real results. Partnerships - including businesses, local labor unions, high schools and community colleges - would have much to offer in this area. In particular, I would favor win-win incentives to encourage businesses to invest in training that will yield the kind of workers they need.

I Want to Hear from You!