Op-Ed: Grimes pledges to raise minimum wage, reduce student loan debt

By ALISON LUNDERGAN GRIMES
Democratic Candidate for U.S. Senate

ALISON LUNDERGAN GRIMES

Monday, Sept. 22, 2014, 1:45 p.m. — When Mitch McConnell speaks to the Koch brothers and the other billionaires who bankroll his campaign, he pledges to them what he will NOT do. He will not permit votes, or even debate, on raising the minimum wage. He will not permit votes, or even debate, on extending unemployment insurance. He will not permit votes, or even debate, on easing student loan debt.

I prefer to tell Kentuckians what I WILL do.

I will fight for you and for Kentucky every day that I am in the United States Senate. I will put benefits for Kentucky ahead of partisan gain. And I will hit the ground running on Day One.

I pledge that I will tackle these six issues as soon as I take office:

Create jobs in Kentucky and raise the minimum wage.

In the aftermath of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, and in the face of population gains, Kentucky is running a jobs deficit of 80,800, leaving tens of thousands of Kentucky families struggling to make ends meet.

What I understand – and what Mitch McConnell long ago lost sight of – is that this tragedy is not just a set of numbers. The Kentuckians who suffer the hardships of unemployment and underemployment are the same Kentuckians who share our neighborhoods, schools and churches.

I will fight on multiple fronts to create jobs in Kentucky.

I will push for research and development money for clean-coal technology. I will make leveling the playing field with China a top priority, to end currency manipulation and unfair trade practices that cost hundreds of thousands of American manufacturing jobs. I will pursue public-private partnerships to diversify the economy in depressed areas. I will search tirelessly for the funds needed to rebuild our infrastructure. I will be an unwavering supporter of a national farm policy that helps Kentucky agriculture to expand to its full potential.

I will also work day and night to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour.

It should not be seen as a minimum wage; it must be a living wage. The current wage doesn’t lift a wage-earner’s family of four out of poverty, even with a full 40-hour week. That is bad for these families, bad for the economy and bad for Kentucky.

The increase I will fight for would lift the wages of more than one in four Kentucky workers and increase by an average of $2,369 the annual earnings of the nearly 30 percent of Kentuckians who make minimum wage or just above.

End tax loopholes that ship Kentucky and American jobs overseas.

Mitch McConnell votes for measures that offer firms actual encouragement to avoid taxes by moving American jobs to other countries. I will fight relentlessly to end these tax breaks and to replace them with incentives to bring jobs home. That will be a large step toward reversing the jobs drain, and toward creating new jobs here in Kentucky and in America.

Protect and strengthen Social Security and Medicare.

I will never vote to reduce benefits or eligibility for Social Security or Medicare. I will never support means-testing for Social Security, which is a back-door route to reduced benefits. I will never vote to privatize Social Security or Medicare, or to convert either program to a voucher system.

Social Security and Medicare are essential to the welfare of our seniors. They represent a promise made by our society, and they must always be a promise kept.

Champion equal pay for equal work.

Equal pay for equal work isn’t just a women’s issue; it’s a family issue. Kentucky women earn only 76 cents for every dollar paid to men, amounting to an annual gap of almost $10,000.

Unlike Mitch McConnell, I support the Paycheck Fairness Act, which will help protect women against gender-based pay discrimination. In the Senate, I will also support employment and education legislation that prepares women for good jobs.

Ending workplace discrimination and eliminating the wage gap will make Kentucky women’s families stronger.

Sponsor legislation to provide access for our veterans to good-paying jobs.

I will work to make permanent the VOW to Hire Heroes Act, which provides businesses a one-time tax credit of up to $5,600 for every unemployed veteran they hire. The tax credit rises to as much as $9,600 for every disabled veteran a business hires.

There is much else that we must do to honor our national commitment to our veterans. As the shameful scandal at the Veterans Administration hospitals made clear, we must act immediately to improve access to first-rate health services, including mental health and prosthetic care. I will also work in the Senate to push our officials to end the backlog in veterans’ compensation claims.

Our veterans have sacrificed so much to preserve our freedoms. They were in the front lines for us. In the Senate, I will be in the front lines for them.

Fight to reduce Kentucky students’ loan debt.

Kentucky students graduate with average loan debts of over $20,000. That debt is an anchor tethering the dreams of young graduates to absurdly unreasonable loan balances and interest rates. It inflicts grievous harm on the economy, as money that young people could spend buying homes, starting families and purchasing cars is swallowed by their student loans.

In the Senate, I will support legislation proposed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren to give our students the same great deal on government loans that are given to big Wall Street banks. That would mean allowing new student borrowers for one year to obtain a federally subsidized Stafford loan at 0.75 percent, as opposed to the current student loan rate of 4.66 percent.

I will also work across party lines to champion a proposal to allow borrowers with older student loans to refinance at the rates established in 2013 for new, taxpayer-backed student loans.

This is the agenda I will begin pursuing on my first day as your next United States Senator. Where Mitch McConnell will serve only the needs of billionaires and partisan extremists, I promise to fight for Kentucky families. I will fight for you.

Thirty years is long enough. Kentucky deserves a new senator.

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