Overview:
Community members including Keene State College students made the trip across Main Street and into the Cheshire Historical Society in Keene on Tuesday, November 3 to see Democratic Candidate and Governor of Maryland, Martin O’Malley. O’Malley took questions from the crowd and addressed issues like gun control, drugs, student debt and raising minimum wage. Along with talking about popular issues, O’Malley stressed the message of his campaign, “Actions not words” and focused on the future of America.
“Our country needs new leadership, our country has big challenges and we can’t be this disappointed with how our gridlock congress isn’t working and how many people our economy is leaving behind and think a return to yesterday or old leaders will lead us forward we are people who always wake up facing the future,” O’Malley said.
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He continued, “I believe that we’re all in this together. I believe that we are on the threshold of the new area of american progress. It only requires us to face forward to remember that we are all in this together. If you ever get discouraged about gridlock politics talk to our young people under 30 because you’ll rarely find among them that young people deny climate change is real or who bash immigrants or deny rights to gay couples in their kids.”
Gun Control:
O’Malley said that while every year is historic, this year will be particularly historic for democrats.
“I think we have the potential on this democratic primary to forge the beginnings of a new consensus for the life saving changes we need to make when it comes to gun deaths in our country,” O’Malley said.
O’Malley said that he has teamed up with Senator Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton to put forward a comprehensive plan on gun safety that includes universal background checks, a ban on combat assault weapons, a limit to magazines of more than ten rounds and make the trafficking of guns a federal offense. He continued and said the last part of his plan involved using executive authority.
“As we form this new consensus there are things that the President can do, one of them is that the president could and I believe should require the highest and best gun safety technology and tracing technically,” O’Malley said.
O’Malley said that this would mean all guns and ammunition would have the serial numbers microstamped so they can not be defaced.
Drugs:
As mayor and governor of Maryland O’Malley said that Baltimore was on its way to becoming the most addicted city in America. O’Malley said, however, that there wasn’t a single drug treatment facility in the city.
“ We invested more in drug treatment and greatly reduced overdose deaths in our city because as Mayor there’s no republican or democratic way to do things. There’s no democratic or republican way to fill a pot hole, it’s all about the results it’s all about getting things done,” O’Malley said.
Student Debt:
“Student loans is one of the biggest problems that we have as a nation,” O’Malley said.
He said that back when he was in college most people were able to graduate college debt-free, which is something he said he wants our country to get back to.
“ I put forward a plan to get us to debt- free college within the next five years , how do we do it? Some leading actions like federal and government investing more in programs which has declined over the last ten to fifteen years , creating a matching program for states to keep some of their skin in the game so they stop cutting higher education and shift costs to tuition and fees,” O’Malley said.
He continued, “The third piece is to automatically enroll students to an income-based repayment plan that they can opt of, but make it the norm that no graduate has to pay more than ten percent of their income to serve as their college debt once their out of college and the other thing is to make sure that those who are trapped in that mountain of debt have an option to refinance at lower interest rates and a longer term repayment plan.”
Minimum wage:
O’Malley said that raising the working minimum wage would also help relieve some of the current economic tension.
“I think one of the big challenges in our economy is that while we are creating jobs again thanks to pre -Obama we haven’t seen wages go up. Wages have either flatlined or declined for seventy percent of us. Part of the reason for that is we’ve kicked to the curb the sort of common sense wage and labor policy that our parents and grandparents of both parties practiced. One of them is to make sure the minimum wage always stayed above the poverty line, you have to keep a floor on wages,” O’Malley said.
He continued, “When you keep the floor moving up in a predictable way over time, that keep wages going up for all of us. I’m in favor of raising it to fifteen dollars an hour however and wherever we can. When workers earn more money they spend more and economy grows.”
Kendall Pope can be contacted at kpope@kscequinox.com
