Penn Action - Advancing Progressive Values and a Progression Vision for Pennsylvania

Invest in America's Future

Earlier this year, Penn Action participated with US Action and the US Action Education Fund in the nationwide launch of a major effort for 2008: "Invest in America's Future."

There has been a recession for years among working people in America's middle class, but Bush and his economic advisers only took notice when the wave of economic problems began to crash into the board rooms and trading floors of Wall Street.  

Under President Bush, all of the benefits of economic growth have gone to a tiny fraction of Americans. As a result skyrocketing gas prices, falling home prices and spiraling home foreclosures  have combined with the stagnant wages  to squeeze working families to the breaking point and that has tipped the whole economy into recession.  

For the last seven years President Bush has done everything in his power to give tax breaks to big corporations and the wealthiest Americans - and in the end he will spend trillions on the War in Iraq. Yet at the same time he has cut spending on education, health care and other critical programs that benefit average Americans, tightening the vice further on working families.  

The Invest in America's Future agenda begins with a fundamental change in the upside-down priorities that have become a hallmark of the last seven years. With rising concerns about an economic slowdown and continued spending on a disastrous, endless war in Iraq, the American people are eager for congressional and presidential leadership for Investment in America's Future.  

These investments would include expanding access to quality child-development and preschool programs; strengthening public schools; expanding college aid; and providing access to high quality, affordable health care for all. The initiative also would promote safe, clean energy to help end our dependence on foreign oil. In order to pay for these investments, the plan calls for Congress to eliminate recently passed tax cuts for corporations and for those with incomes exceeding $200,000 per year, and enact new measures to hold government accountable and reduce corruption and waste. The Invest in America's Future agenda is deficit-neutral because it roots-out waste and would save billions of dollars by ending the war in Iraq.