Hillary Clinton Campaign Press Release - Shared Prosperity for Ohio Families

Hillary's Agenda to Fight Special Interests and Restore Fairness to Our Economy

With our economy slipping into recession, American families need a President who will fight for their economic interests from day one. For seven years, President Bush has put the needs of special interests first. Hillary believes we need to put power back with families who need help the most. For 35 years, she has been fighting for working families, and has experience fighting tough battles against the insurance companies and drug companies – including for universal health care in the 1990s. As President, she will again take on the special interests and restore the voices of working families. Hillary's plan to reign in the special interests will take back at least $55 billion per year from drug companies, oil companies, and firms that ship jobs overseas and invest those resources to improve the lives of Ohio families:

• Hillary will end tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas and enact a bipartisan Corporate Subsidy Commission to eliminate corporate giveaways. This will raise at least $15 billion per year. Hillary will invest these resources in creating good high-paying jobs in the U.S., including by revitalizing the Manufacturing Extension Partnership and extending broadband to every corner of Ohio.
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• Hillary will create a $50 billion Strategic Energy Fund by ending tax breaks and subsidies for the oil and gas industry and imposing a windfall profit tax on big oil companies. Hillary will invest these resources in clean energy technologies and creating green collar jobs. Hillary's plan to weatherize homes and retrofit buildings alone will create at least 20,000 green collar jobs each year here in Ohio.
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• Hillary will end giveaways to private student loan companies and create a Student Borrowers Bill of Rights to protect against predatory lending practices that are bankrupting students and mortgaging their futures. This will raise about $4 billion per year. Hillary will invest these resources in her College Affordability

  Agenda, which will provide a new tax credit to 615,000 students in Ohio. In 2006, Sixty-five percent of Ohio students graduated with debt - an average of more than $20,000 each.

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• Hillary will force the drug companies to provide lower costs to consumers and reign in excessive payments to HMOs. She will end health insurance discrimination, so that no American is denied coverage or charged excessive insurance premiums. This will raise more than $20 billion per year. Hillary will invest these resources in providing quality affordable healthcare to every American, including the 1.1 million uninsured in Ohio.
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• Hillary will crack down on unscrupulous mortgage lenders to ensure that families are not lured into mortgages they can't afford. This is part of Hillary's comprehensive plan to end the housing crisis, with a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures and a 5-year rate freeze on subprime mortgages, and a $30 billion fund to states and cities to help at-risk homeowners and address the impact of concentrated foreclosures. This fund will be particularly important for Cleveland, which has the 6th highest foreclosure rate of any metropolitan area and approximately 15,000 foreclosed, and now vacant, homes.
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• Hillary will enact a Fair Credit for Families Agenda to protect American families from abusive credit card practices like excessive fees and sudden rate hikes. She will impose a 30 percent cap on annual interest rates and work toward a lower cap that is linked to a standard benchmark. Average household credit card debt is nearly $10,000 in Ohio.