The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

This morning's Massa press conference immediately followed a joint press conference with Democratic candidates Dan Maffei [NY-25] and Jon Powers [NY-26]. The subject of the conference was jobs and the future of children in Western New York.

I've asked for a copy of the plan, and when I receive it, I'll share the details with readers. In the meantime, here's Massa's take on it:

Our solutions focus on creating educational resoruces her and using them for our families. Our solutions talk about retaining our educated young people and offering them reasons to stay here in New York State.

Massa spoke of a "public/private partnership" between colleges and other educational institutions (including BOCES) and the federal government. Though Massa believes that it isn't the government's role to solve all of our problems, he does believe that government can help people solve their problems on their own. Massa, who often calls himself a "FDR Democrat", said this is a central theme of his candidacy and others who have similar aims.

"When FDR was elected, he swept in 70-plus new members of Congress who had the courage, bravery and smarts to put in the New Deal." Massa mentioned a number of accomplishments of that group, including saving the US from the Great Depression, building an Arsenal of Democracy, creating the FDIC, and creating Social Security. "Now, from that greatest generation is the legacy we stand up to recreate."

We need to stop creating barriers to higher education, such as Washington's high-interest student loans. We need to stop leaving college students behind by stacking the deck against them. We need to return to the heady days of the GI Bill when education was part of the American Dream. We need to stop exporting jobs to China, and instead lock local education to careers, to every American's benefit.

Both Rob Montana of the Hornell Evening Tribune and I asked for specifics. Those will be posted on the Massa website soon. In the meantime, Massa said:

I've talked all along about something called opportunity education that marries our local educational institutions [...] with those who are looking for trained human resources for specific jobs. If you go to a student and offer him a scholarship, and say that the benefit at the end is either a public or private employment opportunity -- I think our young people would jump at that.