it's all about cherry-picking and media manipulation . . . but it's just fine, I suppose, if your candidate isn't the one being discriminated against.***********************
As governor of New Mexico, Richardson has taken steps to combat poverty in the state, one of the poorest states in the nation. He eliminated the state's tax on foods and offered tax breaks to companies paying above the prevailing wage. Richardson has backed a living wage in the state and created tax credits for the creation of new jobs.
http://pewforum.org/religion08/compare.php?Issue=Povertyfrom the Richardson blog:
http://billrichardsonblog.com/?p=74 Gov. Bill Richardson is proposing a $17 million income-tax credit to put extra money in the pockets of lower-income families. … More than 200,000 New Mexico families could qualify for the proposed refundable income-tax credit — called the “working families tax credit.”
To qualify for these tax cuts, you have to be working. (Hence “earned income” or “working families.”) Thus, they target the exact right group of people: families that are working full-time but still having trouble making ends meet. This is far from the only tax cut the Governor is proposing (there’s clean-energy incentives, tax cuts for hospitals, and more) . . .
As you might be able to tell, the Governor has unveiled his new budget for the term. I’ll be posting more about that in the coming days and weeks, of course, since it includes (beyond tax cuts) a substantial number of the “Year of the Child” initiatives and other cool things.
Governor Pushes Multi-Million Dollar Project To Help Homeless (2005):
http://www.kfoxtv.com/news/5369805/detail.html Gov. Bill Richardson has plans to ask the New Mexico Legislature for $2 million for a new program to help the homeless get back on their feet.
The money would be used to set up personal bank accounts that people would use to find a job, home or even create a small business.
If approved, more than 3,000 homeless residents would be helped.
from Tribune interview:
http://www.abqtrib.com/news/2007/feb/06/bill-richardson-tribune-interview/I simply say that we've made progress in education, in per capita income . . .
The economy - we've made dramatic progress. In education, we dramatically changed education. We made full-day kindergarten a reality, started new scholarship programs, tried to narrow the achievement gap.
I feel that through my Roman Catholic beliefs, I care about social justice, I care about improving the lives of those who are destitute, those who are poor.
OK, I make no bones about it: I was influenced to pursue the minimum wage issue recently after a conversation with my local monsignor, my local priest, Monsignor (Jerome Martinez y) Alire. I was talking to him and I said, "Well, what if we increased it with an index?"
He said, "Come on, Bill. Five dollars fifteen cents for a family. You can't live on that. Just do it."
And I said, "You know, I think you're right."
And so I believe I have values, values of equity and human rights. I believe when you're talking about values, it's not just religious values. I think every American has the right to health care, has the right to a number of just basic necessities, human needs.
and, from the Richardson blog:
http://billrichardsonblog.com/?p=82008 general: The public tends to support a living wage if you ask the question in the right way. (”Should people working full time live in poverty?”) Florida had a living wage ballot measure that absolutely sailed. It’s a gut-level no-brainer for most people. It’s also one of those uniquely Democratic issues that Republicans have zero credibility on, even if they wanted to come out for minimum wage increases, which they never do. So it’s good to have a track record on this, and the Gov is taking a leadership role. Good.
John Edwards is on a mission to become this #2 person, and the way he is going to do it is economic populism. It was the theme of his first campaign, but it came at the wrong time–everyone was Iraq-obsessed (and Bush-obsessed; not really possible with the GOP’s open primary), making the central contrast between Dean and Kerry. 2008 is a long way off, but assuming that all stays calm on the foreign policy front, people are going to be thinking less about guns, more about butter.
John Edwards has a strong association with ACORN, a living wage advocacy group. That’s the kind of thing that’s going to work for him. Gov. Richardson is now positioning himself to be able to champion his personal success at implementing a living wage in New Mexico, something no one else in the race will really be able to claim. By doing that, he puts himself into the ring with Edwards, and can leverage his executive experience to take the edge. It’s always better to have personally put a policy into place in a state you run than to simply advocate for it all over the place. “He says he’s for it, I prove I can do it.” That kind of thing.
Now, how about addressing the discrimination of the other candidates? They were excluded because, as the organizer was quoted as saying, the one's he picked have a chance of 'winning'.
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