A city for all, not the rich
The inefficient pandemic response of the NYC government has had a severe impact on the working people of our city and placed the burden of the pandemic on individuals’ shoulders. New York City is the finance capital of the world, home of Wall Street, and can choose to tax the rich, the corporations, and the real estate developers and cut the $6 billion (or $10 billion depending on how you calculate) police budget to secure the needs of the most vulnerable people.
Instead, they chose not to.
We, the organizers, the workers, the young people, the elderly, have been fighting to meet our needs and devising creative solutions on how to meet them.
Mutual-aid networks have popped up in virtually all neighborhoods to feed and clothe residents of all ages and backgrounds. GoFundMe has become the de facto health-payment provider for people without health insurance. The creative solutions of everyday people have become a lifeline for many who cannot turn to the government for jobs, health care, technology, or rent relief.
Things do not have to be this way.
There is no way the current system — the status quo — can offer a solution because the foundation for the crisis existed before the pandemic spread. The NYPD harassed, wrongly detained, and killed before the pandemic. People were being evicted and there was a homeless crisis before the pandemic. People with and without insurance were drowning in hospital bills before the pandemic. Our schools were underfunded before the pandemic. Rents and tuition were going up before the pandemic. The pandemic only further exposed the inequalities so many of us experience.
Cathy Rojas and the Party for Socialism and Liberation are here to struggle with our communities against injustice and fight for a better future that puts people before profits, the planet before greed. Only a socialist system, a system in which working and poor people hold economic and political power, can prevent these public health and economic disasters where over 31,000 New Yorkers died, 1 million lost their jobs and 200,000 face potential evictions.
The resources exist to meet people’s needs.
- A sustainable city budget for poor and working people: Reorganize the city budget and allocate more funds to meet people’s needs.
- Tax the rich: Impose higher taxes on millionaires and billionaires and reallocate those funds to the most vulnerable populations in NYC.
- Defund the police: Defund the New York Police Department, which has a budget over $6 billion and reallocate those funds to addressing the urgent needs of New Yorkers.
Rojas for Mayor demands:
- Tax the rich
- Provide jobs for all and small business relief
- Defund the police and end police brutality
- Cancel all rents and mortgages
- Guarantee quality housing for all
- Upgrade and protect NYC Housing Authority
- Make the MTA free and public
- Fund quality public education
- End mass incarceration and cash bail
- Expand health care access across the city
- Make NYC environmentally sustainable
- Full equality for women and LGBTQIA+ people
- Full rights for all immigrants
- Stand with all oppressed people fighting against colonialism, imperialism and state repression
With these resources and a full reallocation of the budget, we can:
Tax the Rich
Impose higher taxes on millionaires and billionaires and reallocate those funds to the most vulnerable populations in NYC. Create a Public Bank of New York City to consistently create revenue meant for the public good and put an end to Wall Street banking which promotes the business interests of the rich and the exploitation of poor and working people.
Provide Jobs for All and Small Business Relief
Use the city budget to create employment in NYC, and put pressure on the state and federal government to create employment and ensure a livable wage for all. Protect workers’ right to unionize. Create a comprehensive relief plan to provide $10,000 grants to small businesses that most need aid during the pandemic and prevent large corporations from taking that aid.
Defund the Police and End Police Brutality
Defund the NYPD by $6 Billion dollars over the next three years and reallocate the funding into social services, such as violence interruption programming. Arrest the true criminals--Wall Street bankers, corporate thieves and racist killer cops!
Cancel All Rents and Mortgages
Cancel rents and mortgages and forgive debts of renters and homeowners during the pandemic. Bail out the people, not the banks and corporations!
Guarantee quality housing for all
Fight to make NYC a rent control city: prevent landlords from charging more than 20% of tenants’ household income, and restore former rent stabilized and controlled units. Seize vacant properties to create permanent affordable housing. House all homeless people. End racist developer-led rezoning. Stop all foreclosures and evictions. Prevent the construction of overpriced luxury developments. Take action against backroom deals and tenant rights’ violations. Provide more housing to communities that are disproportionately affected by poverty, gentrification and housing discrimination.
Upgrade and Protect NYCHA
Provide full public funding for public housing. Make all necessary repairs and upgrades to public housing. End the privatization of public housing and land.
Make the MTA Free and Public
Tax Wall Street to recover funds needed to repair and upgrade our public transit, increase accessibility and eliminate the fare entirely. Create more bus lanes, expand bus routes, upgrade buses and increase service. Make employers and corporations pay for congestion pricing. End all arrests and tickets for fare-beating. Fund crisis teams. Fight to make public transit truly public with an elected MTA board management.
Fund Quality Public Education
Provide funding for more social workers, nurses and librarians. Provide funding for the arts and STEM programming for all. Free college and postsecondary training. Get cops out of schools; end the criminalization of Black and Brown students. Provide an anti-racism curriculum and restorative justice programming in all schools. Eliminate standardized testing. End mayoral control. No profit motives in public education!
End Mass Incarceration and Cash Bail
End cash bail and release poor and working people to await their trial dates at home. End Broken Windows policing. Divest $11 Billion from the creation of 4 new NYC jails and invest into community programs. End the racist and classist NYPD gang database.
Expand Healthcare Access Across the City
Fully fund public hospitals and open new public hospitals in low-income neighborhoods & areas most impacted by the pandemic. Invest in and expand NYC Health and Hospitals. Invest in public health awareness campaigns.
Make NYC environmentally sustainable
Create and adapt city infrastructure for a more energy efficient and environmentally sustainable. Create specialized training and thousands of union jobs for working people to develop a safer, greener city. Maintain more parks, gardens and urban farms in poor and dispossessed communities. Make NYCHA energy efficient and free from toxic chemicals. Modernize NYC’s electrical grid and source more electricity from renewable sources. End the construction and use of pipelines and the transport of fracked gas through NYC. Modernize public transportation and make it free. Create more safe bike lanes. Hold corporations accountable for pollution; reparations for communities they’ve harmed. Create more jobs within the sanitation department to expand the sanitation of poor and dispossessed communities.
Full equality for women and LGBTQIA+ people
Ensure protection against discrimination and violence on the basis of gender and sexuality and enforce consequences for anyone who violates human and civil rights laws, including police, politicians and the rich. Create community-based task forces trained in de-escalation and survivor-centered practices. Take action against landlords and employers for discrimination, wage theft and abuse. Close the wage gap and end workplace discrimination. Provide government-funded services and resources to women and the LGBTQIA+ community. Create public education programs, media campaigns and school curriculum to combat transphobia and homophobia. Offer free childcare to all families. Stop all attacks on women and trans people’s autonomy over their bodies. Offer full access to neccessary healthcare, including abortions and gender affirming procedures
Full rights for all immigrants
Fight to abolish all anti-immigration laws. Stop the raids and deportations. Pass a relief bill for immigrants in NYC. Ensure access to quality housing to immigrant families. Equip all schools with bilingual education teachers for English Language Learners. Take action against bosses who fail to pay workers, pay workers less than minimum wage or threaten any worker with deportation. Grant voting rights to residents of NYC regardless of documentation status.
