Candidate Jose Vega proposes space Conservation Corps to revitalize South Bronx

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LaRouche Party congressional candidate Jose Vega said he hopes to be a different kind of politician, the kind who is unafraid of speaking his mind.

Vega’s social media pages host videos of him confronting various politicians and journalists on their responses to both foreign policies and homegrown problems. 

One of Vega’s more recent encounters was directed at Paul Krugman, economist and New York Times columnist. 

Vega’s commentary was about the residents of North Carolina, who were at the time dealing with the repercussions of Hurricane Helene. He asked the economist how hurricane victims as well as residents of the South Bronx must feel about the current economy that has left them sidelined.

“Maybe North Carolina should rename itself Israel so it’ll get $20 billion in aid, or maybe Ukraine so it can get $300 billion in aid,” Vega said during the confrontation.

Vega said he is vocal about his desire for residents of the Bronx to receive proper funding and assistance, as the South Bronx is labeled one of the most poverty-stricken areas in the country, with a median income of $32,381 according to a city comptroller report. 

Vega said one policy he hopes to bring to a vote is the Space Civilian Conservation Corps, a spin-off of President Franklin Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps program from the 1930s and 40s.

The decades-old Civilian Conservation Corps was a program created to offer employment to millions of young men during the Great Depression. The project planted more than three billion trees and constructed trails and shelters in more than 800 parks nationwide. Conservation Corps workers also helped fight forest fires, re-seed land, build bridges and develop further infrastructure.

While the program employed a large number of younger men, veterans, skilled workers and Indigenous people were also hired.

The program ran for nine years and changed the state of the country’s parks. 

Vega said he believes Roosevelt’s program is a viable model for the South Bronx and beyond, citing data from the state comptroller’s 2022 report that found the Bronx to have the highest poverty rate in the state, and the South Bronx with more than 40 percent of children living in poverty. Vega said his policy includes the re-vitalization of existing infrastructure, abandoned military bases, manufacturing facilities, shopping centers and unused land across the country, which would all be rebuilt as central locations that offer food and care to the population. 

A large part of the program in the 30s was the implementation of an educational curriculum for the hired men that taught a high number of the participants to read and write, an element Vega has
incorporated into his proposed policy. 

The space portion of Vega’s idea comes into play with a plan to provide further funding for space exploration. According to Vega, only .48 percent of the national budget is assigned to NASA currently, while the 60s saw a percentage of 4.4, which he believes benefited the country as the agency earned roughly $10 for every $1 spent. 

The idea behind the overall proposal is to address the trillion-dollar national debt while educating and providing people with workable skills Vega said he believes could be used to support ideas like building a cross-borough train from Bay Plaza to Washington Heights and into New Jersey.

If elected, Vega said he wants to see a complete restoration and reconstruction of the American physical economy. For him, this includes measuring wealth differently, stepping away from the stock market.

Vega said he thinks the country’s value should be measured according to its number of active hospitals, schools, facilities available for people to get re-educated, and centers for those needing to be reintegrated into society after serving time. 

Vega said his belief is the country needs to be rebuilt by first rebuilding public services, with the funding funneled into the entities providing the work. 

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