From We the People PA (http://wethepeoplepa.org/):
HARRISBURG – Concerned Pennsylvanians representing a broad range of organizations and citizen advocates came together today in the Capitol rotunda to launch We The People, a non-partisan, issue advocacy campaign in support of middle- and working-class Pennsylvania families and marginalized communities.
The We The People campaign aims to make state government work for all Pennsylvanians, not just the rich and well-connected. The campaign, which will spend in the high six figures for grassroots field and communications work, will promote a pro-active issue agenda that was created by people who came together in 13 community meetings all over the state. For the citizens who came together, there was broad agreement on what is wanted from state government: public policies that make poor, working and middle-class Pennsylvanians safer, healthier, and more prosperous. These citizens devised a common agenda unveiled at the launch.
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“For too long we have listened to extremists who tell us that economic growth is created by lower taxes and lowering wages so that we can encourage business investment,” said Marc Stier, Director of the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center. “When we went around the state and listened to what Pennsylvanians want from state government to help their communities thrive, they talked to us about investing in people, not some false notion of cutting our way to prosperity.”
The campaign also released results from a comprehensive, statewide survey of 1,150 registered voters across the state. The poll provides dramatic evidence to support one of the key themes of the We The People campaign: the leadership of the General Assembly is totally out of touch with what the people of Pennsylvania want from government. At a time when that leadership is focused on cutting Medicaid and SNAP, undermining unions, and blocking tax increases on natural gas drillers, the polling results found that, by margins of 30% to 40% or more, Pennsylvanians believe that state government is investing too little, not too much in Pennsylvania communities. The areas in which Pennsylvania support more investment include K-12 education, Pre-K, roads and transportation infrastructure, job training, and combating opioid addiction.
READ A POLLING MEMO AND TOPLINE RESULTS, ALONG WITH AN SLIDE DECK OF POLLING RESULT ANALYSIS HERE: http://wethepeoplepa.org/polling/
The campaign will center on a pro-active agenda comprised of six main areas:
1. Raise wages and improve working conditions by increasing the minimum wage, restoring the 40-hour work week, helping more Pennsylvanians join unions, and guaranteeing everyone earned sick time.
2. Adequately and equitably fund K-12 public education and provide free or reduced tuition for public colleges and job training programs so that all Pennsylvanians have the opportunity to find meaningful, rewarding work.
3. Protect our rights to the necessities of life: food security, decent housing, and, by expanding public health insurance programs, quality, affordable health care.
4. Invest in our infrastructure and safeguard our environment: fix our roads and bridges, expand our transit systems, and protect our air and water.
5. Fix our rigged tax system by asking those with the most resources to do their part: increase taxes on large corporations, the wealthy, and natural gas drillers, while decreasing or keeping the same taxes on working- and middle-class Pennsylvania families.
6. Secure our democracy: end gerrymandering, make it easier to vote, limit the effects of money on our politics, and eliminate all barriers of race and gender to inclusion in our political and economic life.
Beyond the basic agenda framework, the campaign will be releasing a longer list of policy proposals, many of which came directly out of the many Community Conversation held over the past few months. Then, in the following months, we will be developing a set of deeper policy proposals that, again, are based on the ideas that came out of the Community Conversations and the results we saw in the statewide poll,” said Stier.
The campaign will be mobilizing Pennsylvanians around the state to ask candidates to embrace the We The People agenda and take the policy prescriptions with them to Harrisburg as lawmakers.
More information about the campaign is available at www.WeThePeoplePA.org.
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