Butterfield to Emphasize the Need for Economic Development and Jobs in the First District

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For Release: Immediate     Date:  April 5, 2012

Contact: Kezmiché "Kim" Atterbury   Office:   (202) 225.3101 Mobile: (202) 465.5125

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Butterfield to Emphasize the Need for Economic Development and Jobs in the First District

 

WASHINGTON, DC — Congressman G. K. Butterfield (NC-01) will continue to promote the theme of jobs, economic development, health care access, and education for First District residents through a series of public appearances next week. 

 

Monday, Butterfield will join a Wayne County JobLink Career Center forum to speak about the challenges of securing employment in the District.  During the discussion, Butterfield will highlight new proposals to help displaced workers back to work, including funding for job training for current and prospective trade sector workers.

 

Addressing the importance of economic development in the District, Butterfield will assist in presenting a $2.7 million check to construct two new fire stations in Kinston from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) American Recovery and Reinvestment Act fund.  The new stations, which will replace a two-bay building that was built more than 30 years ago, will be centrally located and fitted with a training area, storage space, and sleeping quarters.

 

Wednesday, Butterfield will return to the broader theme of increased job opportunities, health care, and education by engaging in a dialogue with many influential members of the First District’s Latino community at a Latino Listening Session.  The meeting is intended to facilitate appreciation and understanding of North Carolina’s fastest growing demographic group and develop solutions to issues affecting the Latino community.

 

On Thursday, Butterfield will join USDA in awarding $2.4 million to improve water access for more than 300 potential water customers in eastern Warren County.  The residents across the construction area have recently been troubled with their private ground water wells going dry, and have historically been impacted by very poor water quality.  With the funds, Warren County can ensure that its residents will have uninterrupted service and better water quality.  In addition, a reliable water source will allow local businesses to now consider eastern Warren County as a potential site for growth.

 

The Congressman’s full public schedule follows.

 

 

WHAT:                                 Butterfield to Emphasize the Need for Economic Development and Jobs in the First District

 

WHEN and WHERE:

Monday, April 9

10:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.

Workforce Training in a Changing Economy

Wayne County JobLink Career Center

303 South Roxboro Street

Durham, NC

 

Tuesday, April 10

10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Kinston Fire Station Check Presentation

Fire Station #3

1247 Hill Farm Road

Kinston, NC 

                                                                                            

Wednesday, April 11

Latino Listening Session

9:00 a.m. – 9:30 a.m.

Wilson Public Library

249 Nash St W

Wilson, NC

 

Thursday, April 12

10:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.

Warren County Water & Sewer Check Presentation

Warren County Library Committee Room

119 South Front Street

Warrenton, NC

 

1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.

Glen Raven Fabrics Tour

US Highway 1 South

Norlina, NC

               

Friday, April 13

9:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

We Can’t Wait…for Jobs!

Edgecombe Community College

Tarboro, NC

              

1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.

Aviation Industry Workforce Development Forum

Telephonics

1014 Consolidated Road

Elizabeth City, NC

 

 

http://Butterfield.House.Gov

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Congressman G.K. Butterfield

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Response: So where are the jobs? Folks on unemployment has to be taxes on that money but rich folks are exempt? What a strange world we live in. Curmilus Dancy II – The Political Agitator

Breaking Their Promise To Focus On Job Creation, House GOP Proposes Slashing Job Training Programs – Source: Think Progress

House Republicans yesterday released their draft budget proposal for labor, health, and human service, which in one fell swoop revives the assault on all their favorite bugaboos, including Planned Parenthood, National Public Radio, the National Labor Relations Board, and President Obama’s health care reform law. The GOP also targeted heat subsidies that prevent low-income families from freezing in the winter, and slashed education funding by $2.4 billion. The bill also eliminates the Administration’s “Race to the Top” education reform program and reduces eligibility for Pell Grants for low-income college students. (Read more)

NC Forward Jobs Tour

Curmilus,

We have spent this week traveling across North Carolina on the “NC Forward” Tour with several of our colleagues from the House and Senate. The Republican budget has cut 6,308 education jobs in our public schools including teachers and teacher’s assistants. Our universities have seen more than 3,000 layoffs to date and out community college continue to lose support and have to increase tuition. This is why we have hit the road.

Our tour continues through Friday evening, but we wanted to take a moment to update you on our trip and tell you a bit about what we are hearing. So far, we have visited 15 cities and the concerns and questions from citizens have remained consistent from location to location.

Here are only a few of the highlights from our trip so far:

Highlight #1

Teachers, parents and students have all expressed concern about the impact of Republican budget cuts on public education in North Carolina. At almost every location it has been noted that North Carolina now ranks 49th in the nation in per pupil spending, below even Mississippi and South Carolina. Without fail, each time someone mentions this statistic, we hear a collective gasp from the audience. In Sanford, a local teacher called it embarrassing. We agree.

Highlight #2

We have also heard outrage about the Republican budget’s elimination of dropout prevention grants. In New Hanover County, school board member Elizabeth Redenbaugh noted how these dropout prevention grants had been working and how they were seeing marked improvement in their graduation rates as a result. It is unconscionable and short-sighted that Speaker Tillis and Senator Berger cut this program. North Carolina gains a significant economic impact by placing more graduates into the workforce, this should be a priority of our state, yet the GOP budget decided to reverse this progress.

Highlight #3

We were fortunate to be surrounded by an engaged group of high school students at Lumberton High School. The students were receptive and thoughtful. At one point, we asked the seniors in the room to raise their hands if they were considering becoming a teacher after college graduation. Rows and Rows of hands went up. We then asked how many had planned on applying for the North Carolina Teaching Fellows program and saw students raise their hands. It was painful to realize and share with these students that they won’t have the chance to apply to this wonderful program, as the Republicans completely eliminated it this year.

Highlight #4

Time and again we’ve heard from Superintendents, School Board members and local teachers about the devastating education job losses that have resulted from the GOP budget. Republicans continue to look citizens in the face and claim they didn’t cut a single teacher or teacher’s assistant. From report after report they are simply playing rhetorical word games.

In Winston-Salem, Forsyth County Superintendent Don Martin explained the situation by noting that the Republican budget handed down a $5 million cut to his budget. Education personnel account for 70% of his budget, meaning it is impossible for him to balance his budget without firing teachers and TA’s. Legislative Republicans are now trying to pass the buck and wash their hands of the mess they created. We won’t let them. The public won’t let them.

It has been a thrill to be on the road, listening to and learning from the citizens for North Carolina. We are looking forward to continuing the tour this morning in Western North Carolina and hitting eight more cities before wrapping up on Friday. We hope you will come join us if we stop by your community.

Sincerely,

Rep. Becky Carney

Rep. Earline Parmon

Rep. Ray Rapp

Copyright 2010 North Carolina Democratic Party
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A day after Obama laid out before Congress his plan to kick-start job growth, many blacks hoped it would translate into reduced misery for them over the coming months. While the country’s unemployment rate stands at 9.1 percent, black unemployment has hit 16.7 percent, the highest since 1984. Unemployment among male blacks is at 18 percent, and black teens are unemployed at a rate of 46.5 percent. (Read more)

See related:

President Obama Jobs Speech

Congressman Butterfield Comments on President Obama’s Speech to a Joint Session of Congress

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For Release: Immediate

Date: August 8, 2011

Contact: Tonya Williams
Phone: (202) 225.3101

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Congressman Butterfield Comments on President Obama’s Speech to a

Joint Session of Congress

Washington, DC – Congressman G. K. Butterfield (D-NC) made the following statement regarding the President’s speech to a joint session of Congress:

“I believe that the President is on the right track, and I am pleased with his proposal to make crucial investments in education and infrastructure; investments that must not be delayed. The American Jobs Act will create jobs, provide a much needed jolt to our ailing economy and provide small businesses and hardworking Americans with the tools they need to compete in the 21^st century economy.”

President Obama Jobs Speech

The question is will "they" support him? He didn’t say he could do anything alone but asked them to support it so this should make all those who want to make it about the President not doing his job understand how the process works. What damn more do one need to understand that he can’t do it by himself. I am so sick of folks not understanding how the process works.

Jeanne Milliken Bonds – JOBS JOBS JOBS – If you think getting more people working is worthy of consideration by the NC General Assembly, then read on

Jeanne Milliken Bonds

Press Conference at the NC Legislative Building

Thursday, Sept 8, 10 am

Please come and support a challenge to the current leadership’s policies on the eve of yet another Legislative Session.

16 West Jones Street

And, share this link with those concerned about education, jobs, State Employees and the future of NC.

Representative Bill Faison

405 Legislative Office Building

N.C. General Assembly

Raleigh, NC 27603-5925

Legislative Office: 919-715-3019

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Press Contact: (919) 518-4786

NC Policy Watch: More jobs lost because of budget that was supposed to create jobs – Source: NC Policy Watch

Fitzimon File

The Follies

Posted on 8/19/2011 by Chris Fitzimon

More jobs lost because of budget that was supposed to create jobs

That Republican state budget that was supposed to create all those jobs continues to have exactly the opposite effect. The Employment Security Commission announced today that the state’s unemployment rate increased to 10.1 percent in July.

The headline of the news release says it all. "Public Sector Losses Lead to Net Jobs decrease."

State government jobs decreased by 300 and 11,800 local government jobs were lost the release said, most of them in education, including teachers.

Those would be the teachers that Republican legislative leaders promised that they protected in the budget.

The panicked push poll

The folks at the Pope Civitas Institute are trying their best to keep voters confused about the budget and effect it is having on jobs and education.

That is not a surprise. The Civitasers aren’t exactly famous for the running the most objective issue poll in the world. Even many conservatives privately admit that many of the Civitas poll questions are obviously written in a way to all but guarantee the desired result.

Then the slanted findings can be trumpeted in press releases to media outlets around the state who often print the results without any qualification at all and voila, the public is misinformed.

But the Civitasers managed to outdo themselves and reach a new level of absurdity in their July poll with a question about the state budget.

Here is the question:

The Legislature recently passed a state budget that eliminated North Carolina’s $2.5 Billion budget deficit, added 1,100 new teachers over two years to decrease class size in 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade and lowered taxes by $1 billion. Some of the savings came from reducing spending and the number of state employee positions, though some of those positions are currently vacant. With that in mind, Would you be more or less likely to vote for a legislator who voted for this budget?

With that in mind indeed. That is not a poll question, it is a right-wing propaganda statement. The Republican budget slashed teachers, as the new unemployment figures show, and it made massive cuts to everything from services to crime victims to help for people with a mental illness.

It made the biggest cuts in history to the community colleges and the university system, and abolished popular and effective programs like the N.C. Teaching Fellows and the drug treatment courts. It cut funding for early childhood programs that even Republicans admit are effective and crippled the state’s efforts to protect the environment.

There’s plenty more of course and none of it showed up in the question in the Civitas push poll.

The folks on right-wing avenue know people don’t like the budget decisions the General Assembly made this summer and are desperate to get some headlines saying that the majority of voters approve of the budget or in this case say they would be more likely to vote for a legislator who supported it.

A recent survey by Public Policy Polling shows the reason for their concern, asking simply if voters supported or opposed the budget the General Assembly passed.

Forty-seven percent of voters said they opposed it while 20 percent supported it. The rest were not sure.

The same poll found that 45 percent of voters thought the Republican budget would lead to job losses and 18 percent thought it would create jobs.

The 45 percent are right. The budget is costing the state jobs, thousands of them. So far, the push polls are having little effect.

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