Cantor Cancels Speech as Occupy Philly Plans Protest
Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) supposedly wants to talk about the nation’s inequality—but not to just anyone. Cantor, at the last minute, canceled an appearance this afternoon at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was slated to speak. Curiously enough, Occupy Philadelphia had organized a march from City Hall to the campus to protest Cantor’s speech. But Cantor’s not giving a reason for the cancellation.
Earlier this week, we noted that Cantor had shifted his rhetoric to seemingly take a softer line on the Occupy Wall Street movement. But despite changing his tactics from calling protesters “mobs” to suddenly going on the circuit to discuss inequality, Cantor’s “solution” is the same old rhetoric backed by the 1 percent: Don’t create jobs. Cut taxes on the rich.
Occupy Philadelphia and the rest of us 99 percenters around the country aren’t fooled.
House Kills China Currency Bill and Chance to Create U.S. Jobs
House Republicans killed another jobs bill tonight, with nearly all of them casting a vote on a procedural motion that buried the Currency Reform for Fair Trade Act (H.R. 639). The bill, which would have held China accountable for its job-killing currency manipulation, was passed last night by the Senate. The motion to bring the bill to the floor was defeated 192-236, with only four Republicans joining 188 Democrats in supporting the move to bring the legislation to a vote.
Had anti-worker Republicans supported the bill, it would have:
- Created at least one million manufacturing jobs in the United States.
- Leveled the playing field for American workers and businesses.
- Enhanced our economic and national security by cutting our trade deficit with China, at no cost to taxpayers.
Eric Cantor: Job Creation Dead on Arrival
Last week, we had a great Twitter campaign pointing out how House Speaker John Boehner is failing to create jobs.
Looks like Rep. Eric Cantor has now joined the Republican jobs fail crowd, saying President Obama’s American Jobs Act is “dead on arrival.” As AFSCME President Gerald McEntee put it:
Rep. Cantor just doesn’t get it. The country needs jobs, not another out-of-touch politician.
Enough with the grandstanding, Rep. Cantor needs to get to work. Get his party to work, to do the job they were elected to do, stand up for their constituents. It is time for politicians in Washington to come together and rebuild our economy and pass the American Jobs Act now.
Yesterday, the Republican Majority Leader in Congress, Eric Cantor, said that right now, he won’t even let the jobs bill have a vote in the House of Representatives. He won’t even give it a vote.
Challenging Cantor’s statement, President Obama said today in Dallas:
Well I’d like Mr. Cantor to come down here to Dallas and explain what in this jobs bill he doesn’t believe in. Does he not believe in rebuilding America’s roads and bridges? Does he not believe in tax breaks for small businesses, or efforts to help veterans?
Come tell Dallas construction workers why they should be sitting home instead of fixing our bridges and our schools.
Come tell the small business owners and workers in this community why you’d rather defend tax breaks for millionaires than tax cuts for the middle class.
Take action and tell Cantor—America Wants to Work. Tweet this:
Another #jobsfail. @EricCantor wants to kill American #Jobs Act. Tell him we #want2work.
Chinese Currency Bill Could Lead to More than 2 Million Jobs
Next week, the U.S. Senate will take up consideration of a bill to address Chinese currency manipulation. The Republican-controlled House is holding up its version of the legislation, even though it passed the House with overwhelming bipartisan support in 2010, with 99 Republicans supporting it.
Unlike other currencies, the Chinese yuan does not fluctuate freely against the dollar but is artificially pegged in order to boost China’s exports. Bringing the Chinese yuan to its equilibrium level—a 28.5 percent appreciation—is essential to creating much-needed jobs in this country. The Alliance for American Manufacturing says addressing Chinese currency manipulation would lead to:
Killing Workplace Rights: ‘Un-American’
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Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) gave a powerful statement this morning on the House floor in which he described the real agenda of anti-worker governors, state lawmakers and Republicans in Congress who are targeting America’s working families through the guise of budget-cutting. Some snippets below, but you gotta watch his full speech.
The Republicans are taking a real problem, a serious problem, that of the budget deficits and long-term debt in this country, and they are assigning it to a fake cause. Under the guise of cutting deficits, they say the working people’s union rights and workplace protections must be eliminated.
…they are now using their new-found political power to relaunch the attacks—to attack the guarantee to a decent wage, to attack the rights to ensure a safe workplace so when the workers leave home in the morning, they know they will return safely at night. They attack the right to have access to affordable health care and secure retirement. And, yes, they are even attacking the rights of working people to join together and to bargain for a better life and better conditions in the workplace.
They (Republicans) want their union, they want their rights in the workplace to be terminated. It’s un-American.
Amen.
Republican Budget Proposal Attacks Middle Class, Destroys Jobs
How bad is the Republican federal budget proposal? AFL-CIO Legislative Director Bill Samuel describes it as an “all-out assault against middle-class Americans.”
In a letter to House members, Samuel summarizes some of the most egregious elements of H.R. 1, the Full Year Continuing Appropriations Act of 2011. Among them, is a proposed funding level for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that is so draconian, it potentially would defund the agency completely through the end of the fiscal year in September. Chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), who as chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee wields considerable power, added the amendment to defund the NLRB.
Slashing the NLRB is just one of many examples of how the Republican-backed budget attacks the middle class and working families by taking away job safety protections, employment training opportunities and by slashing hundreds of thousands of family-supporting jobs. Here’s more: Read the rest of this entry »
Boehner: No Reason for Unions
Well, this is ugly. But then, look at the messenger….
From today’s New York Times profile of House Minority Leader John Boehner (R):
“We were self-insured, so we were anxious to see our people wear seat belts, and at that point John was in the ‘Let’s leave the government out of things’ stage,” Mr. [Jim Webb, Boehner's business associate] recalled. (Mr. Boehner did eventually vote for a law requiring seat belt use.) Mr. [Bob] Hagan, the [Ohio] state legislator, who served with Mr. Boehner on a Labor and Commerce Committee, said, “He thought there was no reason for organized labor.”
Boehner knows one big reason unions exist: To protect America’s workers from lawmakers like Boehner, who dance to the tune of their corporate paymasters like Goldman Sachs, the American Bankers Association and Big Pharma.
And that’s why he opposes America’s unions.
Big Insurance, Pharma, Wall Street and John Boehner
Stacia Haley in Seattle worked all her life and raised a child as a single parent. Yet she has no retirement income other than Social Security.
[Social Security] is all many of us will have, if we live long enough to retire.
Stacia is right. Some 64 percent of America’s retirees rely on Social Security for 50 percent or more of their income.
Yet the man Wall Street wants to make speaker of the House supports raising the retirement age for Social Security, lowering the hammer even more on low- and middle-income Americans, who die earlier than the rich. (And what about that income gap? Well, never mind.)
This is just one of the extreme positions John Boehner holds while he salivates in the wings as House minority leader, angling for a Republican takeover of Congress bought and paid for by corporate America.
Call Your Rep. Now on State Jobs Bill
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The U.S. Senate on Thursday voted for a bill giving essential aid to state and local governments that would save or create nearly a million jobs for teachers, public employees, police officers, firefighters and others. The measure is fully paid for, in part because it closes tax loopholes for multi-national corporations that send U.S. jobs overseas.
The House will vote on the bill tomorrow TODAY. Speaker Nancy Pelosi called representatives back from their August recess to vote because of the importance of this bill to America’s workers.
Please take a moment right now to urge your representative to vote for state aid and teacher funding to save these essential jobs. Call 877-442-6801.
House Democrats Push ‘Make It in America’ Agenda
With the economy tanking, jobs as scarce as a real U.S.-made product in Wal-Mart and an election in three months, Congress has finally begun to pay attention to the massive decline of American manufacturing.
In the past week and a half, the U.S. House passed a handful of bills to boost domestic manufacturing. The bills are part of the House Democrats’ “Make It in America” initiative, a 17-bill package designed to help manufacturers recover from the Great Recession and the loss of 5.6 million manufacturing jobs in the past decade.
After the six-week August recess, the House Ways and Means Committee will hold important hearings on the issue of China’s manipulation of its currency. The AFL-CIO has been urging Congress to take quick, strong action to stop the unfair and illegal advantage against U.S. producers that China and other nations gain by undervaluing their currency.
