

| Ed Fanning New Jersey 5th Congressional District |
| Ed Fanning for US House of Representatives |
| The Issues |

| New Jersey's 5th Congressional District |
| Vote Green Party on November 2nd |
| • Living wage for Americans. Increase minimum wage to $10 in 2011 & $12 in 2013. Support worker & union rights over corporate profits. • Pay for elections directly. Stop paying for favors to big campaign donors. Put officials to work for us, the taxpayer, instead of corporations and the super wealthy. • Provide universal, single payer health care. Health care is a basic human right period. • Consume tax dollars constructively. Reduce military budget 25% in 2012. Savings will fund healthcare, education for the young and unemployed, and the rebuilding of our country’s infrastructure. • Tax the top 1% ($1,400,000+ in income) more and the bottom 90% less. Impose tax on security portfolios in excess of $1,000,000. • Remove all US troops AND CONTRACTORS from Iraq and Afghanistan in 2011. Eliminate new Blackwater government contracts and take all possible steps to rescind existing contracts. • End Obama’s extraordinary rendition policies within first 30 days of the new Congress. Practice our core values. • Rescind the Patriot Act. A law that takes away our rights is not patriotic. • Employed the unemployed in a public works program that combats Global Warming and rebuilds U.S. infrastructure. • Assume leadership to halt Global Warming by investing billions to develop solar, wind, hydro, agricultural and other renewable energy. • Restrict handguns and ban automatic weapons. Institute cooling off period before guns can be purchased. • Implement life without parole instead of the death penalty. • Maintain Internet Neutrality by blocking telecoms attempts to impose a tiered system of fees for our websites. • Institute Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) in elections enabling us to support our true preference rather than the “least worse” candidate. |
| The Facts |
| • A 1998 economics study did not find systematic, significant job loss associated with the 1996-97 minimum wage increase. The low- wage labor market had lower unemployment rates, increased hourly wages, increased family income & decreased poverty rates. Source: Economics Policy Institute • Average winning House race cost $1.3 million. 80% of voters support banning lobbyist contributions and accepting only small amounts. Source: Common Cause • A single payer health care system will save at least $350 billion annually in administrative costs. Source: Physicians for a National Health Program • The US spends more than twice as much on health care as industrialized nations ($8,160 per capita) but life expectancy for its citizens is low and infant mortality rates are poor. Other nations provide comprehensive coverage to their entire populations, while the US leaves 47 million completely uninsured and millions more underinsured. Source: Physicians for a National Health Program • U.S. military spending of $875 billion accounts for 47% of the world’s total. Source: GlobalIssues.org • Monetary cost of Iraq & Afghanistan Wars to NJ's 5th Congressional District: $7.75 BILLION. Calculation: ($3,700,000,000,000 cost of wars/310, 000,000 (population of US) = $12,000 per citizen. 650,000 (population of NJ 5th CD) x $12,000 = $7,750,000,000. Sources: Joseph Stiglitz: Nobel Prize Winner & Linda Bilmes of Kennedy School of Government, Harvard and National Priorities Project. • The US accounted for 16% of 2005 Greenhouse gas emissions . Source: World Resources Institute • 62% of Americans oppose the Iraq war and 56% oppose the war in Afghanistan. Sources: Princeton Research Survey and CNN, Large majorities (over 80%) in 19 large nations support a prohibition against torture. Source: University of Maryland • In one year 30,896 died in the U.S. from guns (84 daily). Of those, 16,883 were suicides. More than 90% of suicide attempts with guns are lethal vs. 3% with drugs or cutting. In 1998, handguns were used to murder 11,789 people in the United States, 19 in Japan, 54 in England, and 151 in Canada. Source: Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence • The richest 1% made over $1,400,000 in 2007, 42 times as much as the bottom 90%. After taxes, the top 400 had $84 billion dollars more in 2007 than in 1955 (in 2007 dollars). Source: Dollars & Sense • 50,000,000 Americans struggled to get enough to eat last year, including 25% of all children. Source: U.S. Dept of Agriculture • "The death penalty is imposed not only in a freakish and discriminatory manner, but also in some cases upon defendants who are actually innocent." ‐Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. Eyewitness misidentification testimony was a factor in 77% of 218 post‐conviction DNA exoneration cases in the U.S. Of that 77%, 48 % of cases where race is known involved cross‐racial eyewitness identification. Studies show people are less able to recognize faces of a different race than their own. Source: The Innocence Project |
| For more on the issues of the Green Party of New Jersey, visit: www.gpnj.org |