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“America is suffering from the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression. During this time, I have supported legislation to create and save millions of jobs throughout New York and the country while encouraging investments in American infrastructure, clean energy technology and small businesses, and providing relief for those out of work. I have also advocated for greater protection of the middle class through a strong consumer financial protection agency and eliminating banks deemed ‘too big to fail.’ I will continue to fight for legislation that ensures American taxpayers will never again need to bailout Wall Street or be beholden to its systemic reckless behavior.” - Maurice
- Laying the Groundwork for High Tech Green Energy Jobs: Maurice has worked to deliver hundreds of green energy jobs in the emerging solar, biomass and battery technology industries. He led the effort to establish The Solar Energy Consortium, delivering over a dozen solar companies and more than 600 jobs in three years. He also fought to secure $100 million in Department of Energy loan guarantees to construct and operate a biomass energy facility in Orange County, creating 480 jobs. In addition, Maurice has secured substantial federal investments for Binghamton University's Center for Advanced Microelectronics Manufacturing (CAMM) and the Center for Autonomous Solar Power (CASP), creating and saving 562 jobs in three years.
- Restoring Manufacturing Jobs: Maurice has consistently opposed unfair trade deals, such as NAFTA and CAFTA, which ship American jobs overseas and endanger the environment. He has touted a “Make it in America” campaign, and supported legislation to close exploited tax loopholes, encourage lending to small businesses, reduce the trade deficit, increase exports of clean energy technology, and require federal agencies to purchase goods made in America by American workers.
- Helping Small Businesses: Maurice helped pass the HIRE Act, which provides a new payroll tax exemption to employers that hire and retain new employees. The bill provides businesses with an exemption from Social Security payroll taxes for every worker hired in 2010 who has been unemployed for at least 60 days. The law also provides an additional $1,000 business income tax credit for every new employee retained for 52 weeks. Part of the continued economic stagnation has been because of the refusal of big banks to lend to small businesses, which is why Maurice also supported the Small Business Jobs and Credit Act, which establishes a $30 billion Small Business Lending fund for small and medium sized community banks to be used to leverage up to $300 billion in lending to small businesses.
- Investing in America: Maurice supported The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which included targeted investments to stimulate jobs. Since February 2009, the Congressional Budget Office estimates as many as 3.3 million jobs have been saved or created and unemployment has been lowered by 1.8%. This legislation also provided tax cuts for 95% of American workers, established an $8,000 credit for first time homebuyer tax credit, and made vital investments in America’s infrastructure.
- Reforming Wall Street and Protecting Consumers: Maurice opposed bailing out the megabanks and strongly supported the effort to regulate Wall Street. The Wall Street Reform legislation regulates many of the risky behaviors of the financial industry, including ending predatory lending practices that occurred during the subprime lending frenzy, shutting down “too big to fail” financial firms before risky and irresponsible behavior threatens to bring down the entire economy, and reining in egregious executive compensation and retirement plans by allowing a ‘say on pay’ for shareholders. It also ends the TARP fund, also known as the bank bailout, which Maurice opposed in 2008. This legislation also created the Consumer Financial Protection Agency to protect families and small businesses by ensuring that bank loans, mortgages, and credit cards are fair, affordable, understandable, and transparent.
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