Press Release

Peg Luksik, Constitutional Party Candidate for Governor of Pennsylvania, has scheduled a PRESS CONFERENCE on Wednesday, September 9, 1998 at 10:00 a.m. in front of CLARK'S CORNER STORE at 1003 Menoher Boulevard in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.

"Family-owned business (like this one in my own neighborhood) are burdened with a growing number of state and federal mandates regulating nearly every aspect of their daily operation. This adds significantly to the cost of doing business and makes it even more difficult for them to compete against large corporations. This may be part of the reason why Pennsylvania has witnessed so many bankruptcies in recent years, particularly among small business owners who cannot afford to move to Mexico under the protective cloak of NAFTA and GATT," Mrs. Luksik concluded.

"We keep hearing that the economy is healthy, and jobs are up," said Peg Luksik, Constitutional candidate for Governor. "Then why do Pittsburgh and Philadelphia rank as the bottom two cities in the nation for job growth? Why is personal bankruptcy growing at its fastest rate ever, with Pennsylvania leading the growth rate? Why does Pennsylvania rank 42nd of the 50 states in its rate on new job growth? And why does the Keystone Research Center report that a third of Pennsylvania's workers earn wages below the poverty level? That's not a picture of economic growth - it's a picture of coming economic disaster."

"People are now working two jobs, and using plastic, to maintain the standard of living they used to have with one income," she continued. "As the plastic stretches past its limit, bankruptcies follow. The results of such policies are not just economic - families suffer when financial stresses take their toll." she continued.

"We need to change things. First, it's time we recognized that small business is the Big Business of Pennsylvania. Too often, we use the carrot and stick approach to economic development - the large corporations get the carrot and small business gets the stick. Yet the small business invests in its community, builds relationships with its employees, shops locally to fuel the local economy, and weathers the storms of economic ups and downs. Sound economic development recognizes that helping small businesses will produce long term positive results."

"I propose ending corporate welfare - as soon as corporation A gets a government handout corporations B through Z line up to get theirs too. And when one corporation gets a government handout, another gets a government holdup to pay for it. Instead, we need long term policies that reward positive economic development evenly - policies like forgiving a company's unemployment compensation for one year if they have increased their number of full-time permanent employees by 20% the previous year. A business with 5 employees only needs to hire one more person to qualify - allowing small business to take advantage of the program as easily as the big one." Luksik said.