Massachusetts Treasurer candidate Steve Grossman brought his campaign message of putting the state “on the road to financial stability” to Boston University on Thursday.
Grossman, the former chair of the Democratic National Committee and chairman of Grossman Marketing Group in Somerville, called for revitalization of the Massachusetts economy and help for those struggling within the Commonwealth in front of about 20 students at the College of Communication.
As he addressed the group, Grossman cited financial downfall as one of the reasons he entered the race, saying he wanted to make a difference when “the economic tsunami hit.”
He emphasized the impact that the economic crisis has had on college students.
After surveying the crowd and finding that none of the attending graduating seniors would have jobs in the fall, Grossman said “that’s precisely the issue. . . this is a microcosm of what we are facing.”
Although he admitted he didn’t have an answer for how to help students pay increasingly expensive tuition, Grossman said he believes that revitalizing the economy will help.
“The tsunami has had a huge impact on endowment,” he said.
Grossman said that college students are an important part of his constituency.
“I’ve always seen college students as very active,” Grossman said in an interview after the talk.
Because of this, Grossman said he has made sure to keep his campaign as relevant as possible.
Citing President Barack Obama’s successful use of the Internet and social networking, Grossman explained that he has put a lot of energy into his website and Twitter.
“I think that we’re in a revolutionary time in terms of communications,” he said.
One aspect of Grossman’s plan to invigorate Massachusetts is to increase the importance of small banks, he said during his conversation with the students.
“I’m going to move money out of big banks into small banks that are doing good things,” he said.
Grossman argued that big banks have created many of the problems facing
Massachusetts and the United States as a whole and have not done anything to resolve the current crisis.
“They’re not helping families in foreclosure,” Grossman said. “Are they bailing out small businesses?”
Although Grossman said he believes average citizens need to be held accountable, he said that banks do need to be more responsible.
Another problem causing and worsening the economic crisis, Grossman said, was the lack of financial education in people of all ages. In order to resolve this problem, Grossman proposed that financial education be implemented in high schools across Massachusetts.
“I don’t want a single high school student leaving without at least some financial education,” he said. “I want to create an office of financial education.”
When further explaining how this idea would work in the question and answer period that followed the talk, Grossman said that he didn’t believe the treasurer was the right person to serve as the curriculum advisor to the financial education program and that there needed to be a statewide conversation about financial education.
In addition to educating Massachusetts residents in financial education, Grossman said that he also wants to get the state thinking about how to better take advantage of resources.
Grossman said that his campaign is “about creating interesting ways of using the resources we have.”
BU College Democrats and BU Student Union cited the need to get students interested in what is going on in Massachusetts politics as the reason for co-organizing the event.
“We have to start getting involved,” said College of Arts and Sciences sophomore and Union City Affairs Director James Boggie. “Students are very much underrepresented.”
CAS senior and College Democrats President Esha Rakhit said that they brought Grossman to BU in order to get students interested in what is going on in Massachusetts politics.
“He reached out to us and we thought it would be a good idea because it’s an especially important position in this race,” she said.
College of Communication and CAS junior Elizabeth Jones, who is also the spokeswoman for BU College Democrats, said she was excited to have Grossman speak because of his ability to stimulate interest in politics.
“It’s not a glamorous position, but he makes it interesting,” she said.
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