Honor and dignity in work

So many of us have worked hard at our jobs and businesses for decades to provide for our families, enjoy some recreational time, and retire with dignity. If our incomes go up the increase is eaten up by the higher cost of food, energy, housing, and healthcare. There is honor and dignity in hard work. We improve our schools, transportation, and water infrastructure, helping our communities in ways that benefit everyone. We are losing teachers to retirement and other jobs and districts are having a hard time attracting new ones. We are losing workers in public safety and corrections due to many factors, including on-the-job safety. We all want to go home at the end of the day to our families. I will fight to increase state funding for these community assets along with the wages, benefits, and pensions for those who toil to improve our lives.

Some might look only at their portion of the economy, the policies that only affect them. The danger in this as that we are all interconnected. If we don’t have children in school, we might think that education is not a priority. Yet the children who are in schools are the ones that will work in all sectors of the economy someday. They will be future doctors, nurses, engineers, carpenters, pipefitters, teachers, police officers, etc. We want them ALL educated and doing a good job. We want builders to know how to construct safe buildings that we or our descendants might live in. Our communities work when we make sure we have the resources to be the best we can be.

Please join me in this fight, we can’t get there alone. Together we can do this!