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Andy Johnson  Green Party for Pennsylvania Senate District 33 Adams, Franklin & parts of York County (Dover Borough; Dover, Heidelberg, & Paradise Twps.) |
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We all know that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and all to do with corporate profits. We've lost over four thousand good men, with tens of thousands maimed for life, some from our own area, all for higher gas prices. Iraq was never necessary and it's certainly not worth it. As your State Senator, I would immediately introduce legislation demanding that Pennsylvania Guardsmen be refused for Federal service in Iraq, since it is neither a just or justifiable war.YES to Property Tax Reform!
Pennsylvania could easily raise the funds for property tax relief by a small sales tax on high-sugar drinks and plastic products. The PlasTax was tried in Ireland with good results. Considering our consumption patterns, Pennsylvania's addiction to sugar and plastic could generate $2-3 billion a year in revenue. That's two to three times as much as the casinos bring in. We can also cut school costs by making them more self-sufficient, using alternative energy and non-profit fundraising.NO to Selling Off the Turnpike
I totally oppose selling the Turnpike and I-80 off to foreign investors. We need to keep ALL the toll money for our own road systems. Higher tolls means more congestion on our smaller east-west highways, like US 30. It means increased commuter and trucking costs, which we don't need with the price of gas as it is. Tolling I-80 and having to rebuild all the off-ramps would be a huge expense. We can raise more funds for the Turnpike by allowing billboards. The Turnpike Commission is itself an incompetent waste of good money and should be gotten rid of in favor of direct PennDot control of the Turnpike.NO to Out-of-State Garbage!
Pennsylvania has become the dumping ground for the garbage of the entire northeast. No other state takes in more out-of-state trash. Are we really going to let the garbage industry turn our motherland into New York and New Jersey's land-fill? Keep our Pennsylvania beautiful. Keep their trash and all the resulting toxins out of our soil and our waters. We have our own waste to manage. We don't need theirs!YES to Solar Powered Government!
We should experiment with alternative power technologies for state and local government. The various levels of government could generate their own electricity with solar and wind tech and make their own bio-deisel for their vehicle fleets. If done on a large scale, we can substantially cut overall government costs.YES to Safer Foods and Medicines!
Since we can no longer look to the Federal government to protect us from harmful medicines and food additives, it's up to us as Pennsylvanians to look to our own lawmakers to protect us against the snake oil salesmen. My second peice of legislation would be to ban the use of milk hormones on our dairy farms. The chemical used makes the cattle sick and infected and increases the risks of human breast cancer by 700%. We don't need this in our state. We don't need this in our food and our bodies. We don't need this, period. The Green Party is not in the pay of the big chemical and pharmaceutical companies. We WILL protect you and your families from their poisons.YES to Better Schools for Our Children
We can make our schools better by moving the language courses to the elementary schools, freeing up more space for subjects in the high schools. We need more co-operation between our school districts, sharing resources and ideas. We also need to teach more subjects, not less, which is why I oppose the No Child Left Behind program. I'm strongly against Federal involvement in our Commonwealth schools, since they only play party games with the future of our children and they have no constitutional right to be involved in State school systems anyway.So vote YES! on Nov. 4th for a better Pennsylvania!
