Little Rock--Perennial presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche told black lawmakers Monday that improving transportation infrastructure, such as the railway system and the air transportation industry, is key to rebuilding the U.S. economy. LaRouche, a guest of Rep. Hank Wilkins, IV (D-Pine Bluff), at the Legislative Black Caucus, said the United States and Europe are in a ‘terminal general financial crisis' that is not being addressed because of homeland security concerns and a pending war in Iraq.

To correct the sagging economy, he suggested pumping money into infrastructure projects, like Franklin D. Roosevelt did during the Depression. He said states could pool their resources and borrow money from the government for such projects.

After brief remarks to the caucus, LaRouche, 80, later met with some lawmakers at a small reception. Sunday, he was Wilkins' guest at a town meeting at the Pine Bluff Convention Center.

‘Much of this has to be done at the state level,' he said. ‘That is, many of the programs which are required to bring the level of the tax revenue base of the state up to a durably manageable level will require large-scale basic economic infrastructure programs as a leading feature. This means transportation, this means water management, this means generation and distribution of power, this means health care, which is a disaster now, and it means areas of education.'

LaRouche got 22 percent of the vote in the 2000 Democratic state primary, won by Vice President Al Gore. Despite qualifying for the state ballot in Arkansas as a Democrat, LaRouche was not recognized by the national Democratic Party.

LaRouche ran as an independent presidential candidate in 1976 and since then has run as a Democrat every four years.

His federal conviction in 1988 was related to political fund-raising. He was paroled in 1994.

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