Mel Levey's Top 3 Priorities

By Mel Levey

A summary of my top three priorities to get our country and our Valley going in the right direction.

2. Prioritizing Job Creation The Central Valley continues to suffer from one of the highest unemployment rates in California and little has been done in Congress to help bring relief to our communities. Even projects like High Speed Rail that are supposed to bring to jobs to our community cause more harm than good. Furthermore, employers are still reluctant to hire workers due to uncertainty about future economic conditions and a lack of stability provided by leaders in Washington. One major concern is the full implementation of the Affordable Care Act and how it will affect business' costs once the employer insurance mandate comes into effect. An unfortunate side effect of the law has been many workers are only able to find part-time jobs because companies, already struggling to make ends meet, are concerned about the mandate to provide insurance to all full-time employees. I believe the only way forward is to repeal the Affordable Care Act and start over with a new healthcare reform effort. The disruption the current law has caused to the insurance market has been overwhelming and the problems it has created far outweigh its benefits.

3. Improving Water Supply Reliability for the Central Valley Farmers begin every year unsure of the amount of water they will have available for their crops. Aging water infrastructure and environmental regulations have led to an ongoing water crisis in the Central Valley, yet little has been done to address this crisis. California continues to let huge amounts of fresh water flow out to sea because of harmful environmental regulations and lack of storage. Building additional storage will help capture water in wet years to utilize in years of drought. Congress must make it a priority to fast-track construction of new dams and help finance their construction. It must also ease pumping restrictions on the Delta that have taken thousands of acres of prime farmland out of production. Our water crisis has caused thousands of workers to lose their jobs and has severely hurt our economy. The situation was already very bad before this year's record drought began. The time for action in Congress is now.