Art Voice
by Geoff Kelly
October 28, 2010

If last week’s gubernatorial debate taught New York voters anything (apart from an appreciation of New York City rents), it’s that third party candidates are not all strange agents. Some of them—the Freedom Party’s Charles Barron, the Libertarian Party’s Warren Redlich, the Green Party’s Howie Hawkins—have legitimate perspectives that don’t deserve to be marginalized by our two-party system.

Hawkins will be in town today (Thursday, October 28) at Buffalo State College’s Upton Hall, at 12:15pm, to talk about his candidacy and the Green party, which he helped to found in 1984.

AV’s Stephanie Berberick recently had an opportunity to talk with Hawkins about his platform. Here’s a sample of what he had to say:

On stimulating economic recovery: “There is not enough demand because consumers are over indebted, they lost wealth with housing and stock markets and business is not investing because they don’t see the consumer that will invest. The only entity [businesses] can get demand of is the government…if the government doesn’t spend. we end up in economic stagnation.”

On returning to a progressive income tax system: “During Mario Cuomo’s terms they flattened it out around when you reach the 40th percentile. If they make a million a year, they pay the same amount as someone who makes $32,000 a year. If we just flip that over and make it progressive [again], we will have the money we need to fund jobs, healthcare, and clean energy.”