U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow plans to help Michigan's struggling economy by voting for more federal funding for education and research, stem cell research and reform trade laws if re-elected.
Saving Michigan's jobs and economy must start with a change in health care funding and fair trade laws that lessen expenses for American businesses while making workers a top priority, she said.
"I work in Washington where a president believes the way to compete is by saying, 'If you work for less, pay more in health care and lose your pension, we can be competitive,'" Stabenow said. "And that's a race to the bottom because there will always be someone in another country who can work for less."
One way Stabenow plans to help maintain fair trade is to create a new federal prosecutor's office that "takes action on behalf of American businesses and American workers when other countries cheat."
She also said the government must find an alternative funding method for health care that will "get it off the backs of businesses, which is clearly costing us jobs."
Stabenow said she has introduced a number of ways to improve the health care system, including putting more generic drugs out in the market, which drives down the price of prescription drugs.
Moreover, embryonic stem cell research, although not funded by the federal government, has the potential to save lives and increase jobs, she said.
"We're talking about embryos that either were going to be thrown in the garbage, and I would much rather use those cells to save lives," Stabenow said.
Michigan law bans using embryos left over from fertility clinics for research purposes but does allow embryonic stem cell research.
Investments should be made in research opportunities and higher education in general, she said.
"There's an awful lot that can be done to research," she said, using MSU's National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory as an example.
"A lot of the research dollars that go to the state go to the universities and go toward opportunities for graduates to study," she said.
In Congress since 2001, Stabenow said she has seen continual cuts in federal education funding. But she said the latest cut to education is less than what the United States spends in Iraq in a week.
"We're spending about $100 billion in no-bid contracts for Halliburton in Iraq and tens of billions of subsidies to oil companies who have the highest profits in the history of the country," she said. "There are many ways in which we should be cutting and saving money, but education is not one of them."
Stabenow said she supports American troops overseas but the Iraq war is becoming "incredibly costly in lives and dollars," she said.
Aside from federal funding issues, Stabenow addressed her concerns about Michigan's Proposal 2, an initiative to ban some affirmative action programs in the state.
If the proposal were to pass, it might open a floodgate to other restrictive measures for racial and gender groups, she said.
"Our greatness has been about opening doors for people, not shutting them," Stabenow said. "It really will create a ripple effect that will shut a lot of opportunities for people."
