A Plan for the Future, Part 2: Looking Forward to Jobs, Fairness and a Better Future for Connecticut.

Our nation and state need a strong plan to move forward to a better future, restore prosperity and begin rebuilding an economy in which our middle class grows and prospers rather than shrinks and struggles.

In Part 1 of this article ("A look at the reasons for our current economic and budget mess."), I discussed the fact that it is outsourcing of middle class American jobs to low-wage countries, and the free-trade regime that promotes it, that is responsible for the economic mess we are in and the resulting budget problems for both the federal and state government. And so, if we are to move to a better future, we must begin reversing the damage caused by the the outsourcing away of middle class jobs.

The strongest possible thing that would advance this would be for the federal government to make our nation's trade policies truly fair, so that Americans do not have to accept poverty wages in order to be "competitive" with sweatshops and slave labor abroad.

But I strongly believe that there are strong policies that our state government can undertake to undercut the damage of outsourcing and free trade and to begin rebuilding our middle class economy. Here are plans that I believe would make a real difference:

1. Ensure that our state and local budgets are spent to support middle class jobs in Connecticut - stopping outsourcing with our taxpayer dollars. This would seem to be a basic thing, yet a surprising amount of what you pay in taxes ends up outsourced to low-wage employment. This has to stop. That is why I proposed legislation to promote jobs in Connecticut that would:
1. Withdraw Connecticut from the current state policies that voluntary subject our state purchasing to federal free trade agreements and, instead, change our state policies to require the state and municipalities to purchase from Connecticut companies and workers - with an exception allowing purchases from other states that have laws that protect communities, consumers, the environment and workers at a level similar or superior to our state.
2. In particular, ensure that companies that the state contracts with to provide health care services must employ people in Connecticut for back-office services, like claims processing and customer service. This would mean no more taxpayer funding to redirect customer service calls to low wage workers in another country.
2. Take this a step further, with an organized plan to create jobs in Connecticut by deeply examining what our state and local governments buy to make sure than anything that can be made here in Connecticut is, if at all possible. This would work by:
1. Setting up a process to review current state and municipal procurement practices, to identify opportunities for increasing the use of in-state companies to produce goods and services - especially in the manufacturing of goods.
2. Ensuring sales for these in-state manufacturers and service providers by requiring state agencies and municipalities to purchase from these in-state companies.
3. Further increasing sales for these in-state companies by requiring vendors doing more than a certain amount of business with state agencies, quasi-public agencies and municipalities to purchase from the in-state manufacturers and service providers.
3. To help build the new Connecticut manufacturing created under the plan outlined in step #2, above, as well as to help other Connecticut businesses struggling to find the capital to grow and create jobs, our state should redirect all new investments in public pension funds (and eventually all existing investments) to businesses and community banks here in our own state, rather than in Wall Street.

I will say that none of these ideas is currently being received warmly at the State Capitol. It is hard to convince many politicians that that the way things have been working in our economy is the problem that is causing our economic and budget difficulties and that, therefore, we need to be looking to a new and very different way forward.

But while politicians stuck in the status quo may be uncomfortable with the changes I am proposing, in these tough times, these ideas are pretty basic and common sense:

• Buying from Connecticut companies and workers with our own taxpayer dollars, instead of from China or other low-wage places.
• Investing in jobs in Connecticut instead of worldwide.

If we do not buy from Connecticut companies and invest our money in Connecticut businesses, what are we saying about our own state economy? That Connecticut-made goods and services are not good enough? That Connecticut businesses are not worth investing in? That our own state economy is a bad investment?

If we are going to start truly turning things around, we need to start believing in our own state enough so that buying from and investing in Connecticut is not just something we do for pride and self-interest, but because we believe that the things our own neighbors in Connecticut make really are the best.

The ideas I have outlined here are certainly not the only strategies that our state can use to leverage our state's purchasing, public policy and investment power rebuild Connecticut's manufacturing base and state economy. We should, and I certainly will, look for other ways to accomplish this. But the ideas here would be a real start.

I sincerely hope that the federal government will change course and move away from free-trade and other policies that allow or even encourage the outsourcing away of middle-class American jobs to low-wage places. But I do not think that we, as the people of our state, can wait for that to happen. Action is needed now to create jobs, rebuild our middle class economy and start to undo the forty years of damage Wall Street has done to the American dream.

I hope, for the good of generations to come, that the other elected officials in our state government will agree.