More than 400 students and faculty attended or tuned in to Levin's conference
MARQUETTE -- They came in search of answers. Over 400 Northern Michigan University students and faculty packed Mead Auditorium Wednesday and tuned in live from Bay College, hoping U.S. Senator Carl Levin could provide some hope for their economic and employment futures.
Levin addressed two crises; the unbalanced budget and the lack of jobs. He says draconian cuts proposed by Republicans are getting in the way of our economic recovery.
"The issues going to be will the Republicans either in the jobs bill or in the deficit reduction bill accept any revenues and those revenues can come from a number of sources," said Levin.
Those sources, Levin says are taxes. He wants to close corporate loopholes and eliminate the Bush era tax cuts for the wealthiest one percent; those with an income above $250,000 a year.
It's fair, the upper bracket the wealthiest 1% have done extremely well in this recession and it's fair that they have that higher three percent restored. He says creating revenue is just as important as making cuts in a budget crisis.
"Every deficit reduction program that we've had since Ronald Reagan has had both additional revenues and spending cuts and we have to have both," said Levin.
A twelve person “super committee” has until November 23rd to come up with a solution to our country's deficit. If not, Levin says expect to see cuts across the board.
"You're talking for instance about education programs major cuts, your talking about infrastructure programs, road programs. If you're talking about healthcare programs major cuts," said Levin.
Levin will travel to Houghton on Thursday.
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