Holt Baker in New Mexico: Protect the Most Vulnerable
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Around the country, states are getting squeezed by the economic crisis, and state budgets are feeling the pressure. It’s imperative that we fight to make sure state budgets are not balanced at the expense of children and the services they need.
Today, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker is in New Mexico, leading a rally of more than 2,800 people to ensure a just budget that protects children and vital public services.
Standing with New Mexico Federation of Labor president Christine Trujillo, Santa Fe Mayor David Coss and four state legislators, Holt Baker said the proposal for big cuts in the education budget will cost the state jobs and competitiveness in the future.
New Mexico’s schools, universities and state agencies could face 3.5 percent cuts in funding, and employees could face pay cuts as well, as legislators seek to avoid a $650 million deficit. Holt Baker said the cuts to education will fall most heavily on families already reeling from the economic crisis.
Congress Passes Obama’s ‘Transformational’ Budget
On the 100th day of the Obama administration, the U.S. House (233-193) and Senate (53-43) approved President Obama’s budget blueprint that rejects the failed economic policies of the Bush administration, makes a major down payment on comprehensive health care reform and signals significant investment in education, clean energy and green jobs.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney called the budget resolution a
transformational blueprint for growing the middle class and making the economy work for everyone again. Now, more than ever, it is crucial that we build an economy that works for working Americans.
Obama’s Budget Will Rebuild Economy on a Solid Foundation
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A new ad (see video) backing President Obama’s budget blueprint hit the airwaves today as Senate and House budget committees unveiled their spending resolutions. Those resolutions followed much of the administration’s outline but made significant changes in some priorities.
Yet while Democratic leaders of the congressional budget panels offered alternatives to the changes they seek in the administration’s proposal, Republican lawmakers sit on the sidelines, offering no alternative, just the par-for-the-course carping criticism that has come to mark their opposition.
The new ad by Americans United for Change—a coalition of unions including the AFL-CIO, community, environmental, progressive and other groups—urges viewers to call Congress to support Obama’s budget because it:
…will rebuild our economy on a solid foundation. Jobs, health care, education, clean energy reform. On this foundation we can build real, long-term economic prosperity for all Americans.
Obama Unveils Budget for America’s Working Families
President Obama’s first budget proposal is a 180-degree turn from the past eight years. It’s aimed at rebuilding the middle class, reforming the nation’s health care system and helping working families educate their children, while asking the nation’s wealthiest to begin paying more of their fair share and ending tax breaks for corporations that ship U.S. jobs overseas.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says the fiscal year 2010 budget shows Obama is “serious” about repairing the economic damage of the past eight years and correcting the incredible imbalance between those very few at the top and the rest of us.
President Obama’s proposed budget takes us in the right direction toward creating an economy that works for everyone. The budget sets out ambitious—but achievable—proposals for bold new reforms in energy, health care, education and infrastructure, while also laying out a concrete plan to fund these programs over the next decade.
