Will Bieber Fever Fire Up Young Voters?
Sure, most Justin Bieber fans are too young to vote, but as savvy and texted-in as they are, they can move a message faster and further than any group. Rumor has it Twitter has its own “Bieber fever” server to handle the traffic for the teen mega-idol.
The folks at Campus Progress hope a new video will leverage that fever to move young people old enough to vote to the polls and get the under-18 Bieberites to tell their older friends, family members and Facebookers to vote. It also hopes to encourage them to learn about the issues.
The group, the college arm of the Campaign for America’s Future (CAF), submitted the video to the Vote Again 2010 get-out-the-vote video contest. Campus Progress’ Sara Haile-Mariam told Politico:
Most of his fans are 12 years old—we acknowledge that….The hope is to create something that goes viral and gets young people to be aware of the election.
Boehner Is Wrong. Americans Don’t Support Social Security Cuts
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Listen up, John Boehner: The public doesn’t like your plan to cut their Social Security so your rich friends can get another tax break. In fact, according to a poll released today by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, 68 percent of probable voters oppose cutting Social Security and Medicare to reduce the deficit. The poll was commissioned by the Campaign for America’s Future (CAF), MoveOn.org, AFSCME and SEIU.
Robert Borosage, CAF co-director, put it this way in a press conference call this morning:
Republican leaders get this exactly wrong. Last week, John Boehner was on television calling for continuing the top-end Bush tax cuts and for raising the retirement age for Social Security to 70. But as [the poll] noted, the vast majority of Americans, including two-thirds of Republicans oppose raising the retirement age and a broad majority, uniting Democrats and Independents, are for ending the Bush tax cuts.
Report Shows Social Security Is Strong for the Long Term
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Despite the nation’s overall economic problems, Social Security is still in long-term strong shape, according to the most recent report by the Social Security Board of Trustees. The trustees project that after 2037, tax revenue will be sufficient to pay 78 percent of full benefits. The projected funding shortfall over 75 years is actually lower than in last year’s report.
Also, a report by Medicare’s Board of Trustees shows that the recently enacted health care reform law will significantly slow Medicare cost growth, thereby extending the life of Medicare’s trust fund for 12 years, reducing Part B premiums and reducing the federal deficit.
Social Security’s $2.5 trillion trust fund will continue to grow for another 14 years and Social Security will pay out full benefits from its own dedicated resources for another 27 years, according to the report.
Says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka:
The reports are a needed comeuppance to right-wing, ideological opponents of Social Security and Medicare who, year after year, twist the facts Read the rest of this entry »
Highlights from ‘Building the New Economy’
Last week, leaders from labor, business and politics came together in Washington, D.C., at the Building the New Economy conference, sponsored by the Alliance for American Manufacturing and the Campaign for America’s Future. A new video shows some highlights from the conference and discussions on the need to rebuild manufacturing in order to strengthen our economy.
Here’s what AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka had to say in his address to the conference:
Our goal must be to develop the best technology and industries that will convert our economy into a greener future, fueled by good jobs right here in America.
The one good thing about the economic collapse is that it lets us—quite frankly, it requires us—to think big.
You can see more comments here from conference attendees like Steelworkers President Leo Gerard, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Gov. Ed Rendell (D-Penn.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.).
More Voices from AFL-CIO Health Care Survey and Other Health Care Reform News
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So far, more than 17,000 people have taken the AFL-CIO’s 2009 Health Care for America Survey and nearly 5,000 have told us their personal stories of struggles with the nation’s broken health care system. There’s still time for you to take the survey and tell your story.
Meanwhile, there are new developments in the fight to win health care reform—or, in the case of corporate health care interests and their allies, defeat health care reform.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) wants the U.S. Department of Justice to launch an anti-trust investigation into the health insurance industry.
- “Harry and Louise”—the health insurance ad campaign against health care reform in the 1990s—may be reborn in North Carolina.
- Robert Borosage warns that health insurers and “Big Pharma” are ready “to scare the hell out of Americans.”
- The Alliance for Retired Americans says don’t forget Medicare in the reform debate.
- Union Plus has a new program to help working families faced with big hospital bills.
Now, here are a few voices from the Health Care for America Survey.
