I am Joe Galdo, Green Party candidate for Congress in Virginia’s 11th Congressional District. I am running to give voters a choice – a candidate who will work to reduce income inequality, end corporate welfare, protect the environment and stop military interventions that damage our national security.
In a recent conversation with Salon, Senator Elizabeth Warren says, “The system is rigged…I am watching America’s middle class get hammered. They just keep sliding further down.” She blames her fellow Democrats. She criticizes the Obama White House, “They protected Wall Street. Not families who were losing their homes. Not people who lost their jobs. Not young people who were struggling to get an education. And it happened over and over and over.”
And we have to blame, as well, the New Democrats in Congress who supported these policies, over and over and over again. It’s no wonder that in 2010, the first year of the recovery, 93% of income gains went to the 1%. The rest of us shared what little was left.
New Democrats embrace a political philosophy that has been described as created by Wall Street and run by Wall Street for Wall Street.
As vice-chair of the New Democrat Coalition, our Congressman leads the way to increasing income inequality, sending more American jobs to Asia and abandoning the middle class for Wall Street and the 1%. This is why he joins Republicans in proposing to double the H-1B program for temporary foreign workers, a program that supports the outsourcing of American engineering and technology jobs to Asia. It is why he voted to exempt venture capitalists and wealthy investors from paying capital gains tax. Why he voted to reduce requirements for subcontracting to small businesses on federal contracts. Why he voted to reduce retirement benefits for federal employees. He calls this bipartisanship, compromising, a “hold-your-nose and vote yes vote.”
If you want change, then I ask for your vote. I will work to get money out of politics, to focus policy on its impact on the average American rather than benefiting Wall Street and the 1%, and to return jobs to America. If legislation is so bad that you can smell it, you can count on me to vote against it.
Don’t hold your nose when you vote either. This year you have a choice. Vote to make a difference.
Working for a better Virginia and a better America,
Joe Galdo