Central New York YNN
By: Iris St. Meran

UTICA, N.Y. -- The Green Party candidate for Governor brought his message to the Mohawk Valley. Howie Hawkins was in Utica Wednesday.

During his visit, he offered his proposal for putting the 800,000 unemployed New Yorkers back to work. Hawkins said he would use the Works Progress Administration, or WPA, style jobs program and make use of public jobs instead of private ones.

Funding for Hawkins' plan would come three ways:
top rebating billions of dollars annually from the stock transfer
Increasing taxes on the rich
Tax bonuses bankers give themselves

Hawkins said, "Put those three reforms together, you get $34 billion in additional revenue. Subtract the $9 billion deficit that we need to close again next year, you've got $25 billion to fund what we call the green new deal."

Hawkins has run for a number of offices before, including U.S. Senate, Onondaga County Executive and Syracuse mayor.