Draft GPUS Platform Amendment Community Economic Involvement

2004 PLATFORM ON COMMUNITY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Reforms that allow communities to have influence in their economic future should be implemented. Such reforms include the following:

1. Locally owned small businesses, which are more accessible to community concerns.

2. Local production and consumption where possible.

3. Incentives for cooperative enterprises, such as consumer co-ops, credit unions, incubators, micro-loan funds, local currencies, and other institutions that help communities develop economic projects.

4. Allowing municipalities to approve or disapprove large economic projects case-by-case based on environmental impacts, local ownership, community reinvestment, wage levels, and working conditions.

5. Allowing communities to set environmental, human rights, health and safety standards higher than federal or state minimums.

6. A national program to

invest in the commons;

to rebuild the infrastructure of communities;

repair and improve transportation lines between cities, and;

protect and restore the environment.

A federal capital budget should be put in place and applied in a process that assesses federal spending as capital investment.

7. Applying direct democracy through town meetings, which express a community’s economic wishes directly to local institutions and organizations.