YNN
by Scott Fairbanks
October 11, 2010

The Green Party candidate for New York governor was in Rochester Monday talking about his upcoming moment in the spotlight.

Syracuse native Howie Hawkins said he is looking forward to next week's gubernatorial debate. He will have a spot alongside Carl Paladino, Andrew Cuomo and several other smaller party candidates.

Hawkins said this will be a good chance to put topics on the table the larger party candidates have ignored.

"I think the first question I want to ask is, 'Why don't we keep the stock transfer tax?' That's a tax institute in 1915, but we've been rebating it to the dealers on Wall Street since 1981. Last year, it was worth $16 billion. They gave it back and then declared we had a $9 billion deficit. If we'd just kept that money, we'd have a $7 million surplus," Hawkins said.

Hawkins previously made an unsuccessful bid for Congress in 2008.