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THE BUCK STOPS
HERE NOT THERE – LABOR MUST WIN
By Edward Gorham
President
Maine AFL-CIO
In some ways writing this column is like the old saying about “preaching
to the choir.”
I must assume there is hardly anyone reading this who has the
slightest doubt that, after almost four years in office, President Bush
has proven beyond any shadow of a doubt to be the most anti-union,
anti-worker, anti-working family president in the last 100 years.
Destructive Actions
But his insidious and destructive actions and plans reach much further
than destroying the rights of unions and workers – they erode and
undermine the entire social structure of the nation.
Bush and his Administration have in just one term in office launched
an all-out attack on every beneficial social, environmental, safety,
health and economic program put in place since the time of Franklin D.
Roosevelt and the Great Depression.
Do they admit this? Of course not. As someone said “One can smile and
smile and still be a villain.”
Facade of Fairness
All of the Bush proposals and actions are concealed behind a facade of
“freedom” and “fairness” but the truth is they are actions being taken to
dismantle and destroy everything we have come to believe this nation
stands for.
The actions and the results speak for themselves, whether we look at
labor issues or the much broader social issues that impact us all.
Just to read a mere part of the total list is enough to dismay and
discourage any thinking American.
More Live In Poverty
Between 2001 and 2003 more than 1,270,000 more American
children are living in poverty.
More than 5,150,000 Americans are without health insurance.
Now a total of nearly 45 million Americans have no health insurance –
this is a 13 percent increase since Bush took office. In 35 states from
2000 to 2004, including Maine, the average premium for health care rose at
least three times faster than average earnings.
Higher Drug
Prices
Medicare has been forbidden to
negotiate prescription drug prices and the new Medicare prescription drug
bill creates a huge coverage gap that costs seniors thousands of dollars a
year. The Bush Administration opposes the importation of low-cost
prescription drugs from Canada and other nations.
Cuts
College Grants
College Pell Grants are essential to help low-income families pay for
the college education of many students. Bush cut millions of dollars from
the federal Pell Grant Program and dropped more than 84,000 students.
Bush opposes spending to modernize and repair crumbling school
buildings attended by some 14 million children.
Bush has emptied the Social Security Trust Fund of $507 billion to
try and offset his fiscally irresponsible actions.
Cuts Veterans Benefits
Bush has reduced veterans’ benefits and has worked to cut our troops
combat pay.
The share of the national income going to the middle class is the
lowest on record going back to 1967.
Households with income over $1 million will this year receive tax
cuts averaging $123,600.
Sea of Federal Red Ink
Bush has created a sea of federal red ink as far as the eye
can see.
When Bush took office, the government was forecast to run a $5.6
trillion surplus over the next 10 years. The non-partisan Office of
Management and Budget now forecasts a $7.8 trillion deficit over
the next 10 years. Bush and his cronies have managed to dig a black
financial hole more than $13 trillion deeper in his time in office. This
will put a huge burden on us, on our children and on our grandchildren – a
massive family burden and a severe threat to the future of the entire
American economy for decades to come.
The Bush tax cuts are the biggest flim-flam “leave no millionaire
behind” program in American history. It makes the “robber barons” of the
1890s look like a bunch of penny ante pikers.
Tax Cuts for Rich
Over the ten-year period, the richest Americans—the
best-off one percent—are slated to receive tax cuts totaling almost half a
trillion dollars. The $477 billion in tax breaks the Bush administration
has targeted to this elite group will average $342,000 each over the
decade.
By 2010, when (and if) the Bush tax reductions are fully in place, an
astonishing 52 percent of the total tax cuts will go to the richest one
percent—whose average 2010 income will be $1.5 million. Their tax-cut
windfall in that year alone will average $85,000 each. Put another way, of
the estimated $234 billion in tax cuts scheduled for the year 2010, $121
billion will go just 1.4 million taxpayers.
Although the rich have already received a hefty down payment on their
Bush tax cuts—averaging just under $12,000 each this year—80 percent of
their windfall is scheduled to come from tax changes that won’t take
effect until after this year, mostly from items that phase in after 2005.
Boom Time for Billionaires
The Bush tax policies and actions have transferred income share from
99 percent of Americans to the top one percent. Even the Wall Street
Journal notes that the Bush tax cuts on estates, capital gains and
dividends have “helped bolster the fortunes of the fortunate.” Bush has
made it “boom time for billionaires” helping to create 51 more
billionaires for a national total of 313.
These billionaires overwhelmingly support Bush, give him large
donations, receive corporate tax cuts (or pay no corporate taxes at all),
get federal help in sending jobs overseas, and move corporate profits off
shore. This is while teachers, firefighters and police get pink slips and
Americans can’t afford health care or afford to send their kids to college
- or, in many cases, can’t afford to buy medicine, pay their bills or
heat their homes.
America at Risk
Are these the priorities we want for America?
Is this the American dream?
Do we really want full time workers living in poverty and a rapidly
shrinking middle class in four more years of a Bush boom time for
billionaires?
And all of these broad social issues don’t emphasize what Bush has
done to harm working families and destroy their future.
When Bush took office there were 132 million jobs in the nation. Today
there are just over 131 million for a net loss of a million jobs. When we
look at private sector jobs there has been a loss of 1.7 million jobs.
And when we look at the manufacturing sector alone - the United States has
lost 2.8 million manufacturing jobs since President Bush took office in
January 2001. In fact, manufacturing employment in the United States fell
to14.3 million in March 2004, its lowest level in 54 years, according to
the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. As a share of total U.S. jobs,
manufacturing has declined since its peak of 40 percent just after World
War II to 27 percent in 1981 and now stands at about 12 percent.
Huge Job Losses
We have seen the impact in Maine, at least as much as any other state.
Since 2000, imports and outsourcing alone have caused 11,430 workers to be
laid off at 163 manufacturing facilities across Maine. Under the Bush
Administration Maine has lost roughly 20 percent of our manufacturing jobs
– a greater percentage loss than any other state in the nation.
The latter figure for the loss of manufacturing jobs is particularly
important since these are good jobs with higher pay and benefits, such as
health insurance. When these jobs are lost they are usually replaced with
much lower paying Wal-Mart type jobs at close to minimum wage with few, if
any, benefits.
Hoover and Bush
We can truthfully say that Bush will be the first President
since Herbert Hoover, more than 70 years ago, to presided over a net job
loss. We can put this in perspective by noting that when Clinton took
office there were 109 million total jobs in the nation and
three-and-a-half years later there were 120 million jobs – a net growth of
11 million jobs.
As all of us know by now, I am sure, job loss is only one part of the
anti-labor Bush actions.
The Bush Administration has been startlingly unsympathetic to the
jobless. Millions have either have exhausted their unemployment benefits
or were denied them because they earn too little or work too few hours. As
a result, official unemployment numbers understate the total number of
unemployed, underemployed and discouraged men and women.
Overtime Pay Fight
The fight to preserve overtime pay for millions of workers continues
even now as the Bush Administration continues to push regulatory rules
that would remove the right to overtime for millions of American workers.
The Treasury Department plans to allow the conversion of existing
traditional pension plans to cash-balance accounts that, according to the
General Accounting Office, could cost millions of older employees up to
half of their long-expected retirement benefits.
The President refuses to support proposals to increase the minimum
wage, which will soon be at its lowest real value in 50 years.
Anti-Labor Record
In Congress, House and Senate leaders have constantly opposed fully
funded infrastructure legislation that could rapidly generate tens of
thousands of jobs. Why? The legislation would ensure that workers on
federal projects are paid at least the prevailing wage in that community,
a longstanding wage policy that Republican leaders oppose.
The Bush record on workplace safety is abysmal, overturning the
long-sought ergonomics injury standard, halting action on 30 additional
safety initiatives, and canceling federal safety and health grants. The
nonpartisan OMB Watch concluded that the administration is quietly
scuttling work on a host of other protective standards.
The administration is also: pushing trade policies that would continue
job-flight to low-wage countries with weak labor laws, attempting to
privatize nearly a million public sector jobs, denying collective
bargaining rights to certain federal employees, and imposing crushing
reporting requirements on local and national labor unions while rejecting
similar disclosures for corporations.
Whether it is in the area of broad based, traditional American social
programs such as Social Security, Medicare, college grants for low income
students, Head Start or in the area of programs and legislation more
directly related to labor, such as minimum wage, the right to organize,
job safety, pensions and overtime pay – Bush has written a record that
leaves no room for dispute. The Bush record is clearly opposed to any help
or fairness for both middle class America as a whole and is against
working families.
Clear Choice
Nov. 2
On November 2 we have a clear choice.
John Kerry has made his position clear in all of the areas in which
George Bush has destroyed or greatly weakened the nation. Kerry has spoken
repeatedly on the issues of concern including plans for 10 million new
jobs, workers right to overtime pay, union organization free of employer
intimidation, rapid expansion of health care. These positions in support
of working families have been made clear for many years in an outstanding
pro-labor voting record, more than a year of campaign speeches and
detailed information on the Kerry web site.
With his constant blaming of everyone but himself for the mistakes of
the Administration, it is obvious that the “buck” will never stop on
Bush’s desk. On November 2 it is clear the buck will stop in the voting
booth. Workers and working families simply cannot allow George Bush to
continue to dismantle America for four more years. We have now a short
period to work, to donate time and money, to talk to friends and
co-workers and, above all, to vote to elect John Kerry President of the
United States and to keep our hard working, dedicated Congressmen Tom
Allen and Mike Michaud in office to assist us and the new President Kerry
to forge a better future for us all.
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