Contact: Johanna Kichton, press@peoplesaction.org, 202.660.0605
WASHINGTON, D.C.—People’s Action Climate Justice Campaign Director Kaniela Ing today released the following statement in response to President Biden’s American Jobs Plan:
“President Biden’s American Jobs Plan is a strong start. It begins to seriously address some of our government’s past failures, fix our broken down physical infrastructure, and rapidly transition America to a clean energy economy. This plan starts to solve the competing and long-term crises of climate, justice, jobs, and housing, and we hope all future packages share this spirit and move forward in ways that are equitable and sustainable.
“However, impact is more important than intent, and scope is different than scale. And the impact of President Biden’s proposed infrastructure plan is not nearly at the scale we need. In order to actually solve today’s overlapping crises, we need to invest at least three times more over the next decade.
“While President Biden addresses the nation from Pittsburgh, thousands of grassroots leaders across America are taking to the streets and to their screens, to say that it’s ‘time to thrive’, not just survive. People’s Action members and our partners are calling on Democrats—from Maine, to Texas, to Guam, to Alaska—to back a recovery package like the THRIVE Act, which moves $1 trillion each year over the next decade.
“We need to create 15 million good, union jobs including major investments in care jobs, so that workers who take care of their families and neighbors get the support they need. We need to keep people safe in their homes without drowning in debt. We need direct and recurring cash straight to people’s pockets and linked to economic conditions so that everyone can get a basic standard of living. We need more.
“This package is a good start. But to truly help our communities recover, we need President Biden to be fearless in his crusade to build us back better, and seize on this historic opportunity to do so. It’s time for transformation, not just recovery.”
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People’s Action is a national network of 40 state and local grassroots, power-building organizations in 30 states, united in fighting for justice. We operate the largest progressive rural organizing project in the country. People’s Action and its member organizations coordinated one of the biggest distributed organizing programs in rural areas this election season.