1% Senators Blocked Consumer Protections for the 99%
Today, obstructionists in the Senate blocked an up-or-down vote on the nomination of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Fifty-three senators voted for Cordray, while 45—all Republicans—voted against ending debate on his nomination. Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown (R) voted for Cordray, and Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe (R) voted present.
The new agency, which was created by the Wall Street Transparency and
Accountability Act, is limited in its powers and cannot fully protect
consumers—until a director is confirmed. Which is exactly why 44 Republican senators have no intention of letting any director be confirmed. In May, they signed a letter to President Obama threatening to block any nomination to head the agency.
The 44 GOP senators who would not allow an up-or-down vote on Richard Cordray’s nomination have received millions from Wall Street this year. And they are shameless in admitting their goal is to force “structural changes” that prevent the bureau from doing its job: protecting consumers from Wall Street abuses. This shows just how much Wall Street greed dominates in Washington these days—particularly within the GOP.
Breaking: Senate Set to Vote on Republican Budget Shortly
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Breaking News: Manny Herrmann, AFL-CIO online mobilization coordinator, sends the following.
According to The National Journal, the Senate is expected to vote today on Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) budget that not only permanently extends the Bush tax cuts—but gives even more tax cuts to Wall Street and the wealthy—and pays for them by slashing services for seniors, children and low- and middle-income working families.
The House Republican budget bill would destroy Medicare as we know it and replace it with underfunded vouchers—a dangerous move even former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich called “right-wing social engineering.” When Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) announced he’d vote “no,” on the Ryan budget, he pointed out his fear that “as health [care] inflation rises, the cost of private plans will outgrow the government premium support—and the elderly will be forced to pay ever higher deductibles and co-pays.”
It’s important to note that Ryan’s tea party-inspired budget bill isn’t a deficit-reduction plan—it’s Robin Hood in reverse. While it includes $4.3 trillion in deep budget cuts—perhaps the most wrenching in our nation’s history—it almost completely cancels out these harsh cuts with $4.2 trillion in tax giveaways that disproportionately benefit America’s top earners.
The Tea Party Isn’t Union Friendly
Here’s what a commenter posted recently at the AFL-CIO Now blog:
I am a progressive democrat, former member of three unions and my run was heavily funded by unions. I was beaten by a right-wing Republican because rank-and-file union members voted for my opponent.
And:
Until union members stop drooling over Glenn Beck and his ilk, unions will continue to be rendered impotent.
What was it the immortal Pogo said? “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
Calling on All Working Americans to Stand Up and Fight
The news is out: The Wall Street bankers we bailed out are giving themselves 2009 cash bonuses of a half million dollars on average—not including stocks. Compare that with the $32,390 annual median wage for regular workers, and you find a formula for outrage.
The people who tanked our economy, took $700 billion in taxpayer money and refused to make job-creating loans are getting rewards that range into the millions.
Not bad for a year in which Main Street lost 4 million jobs.
No wonder people are mad.
When Wall Street needs help, elected leaders respond with bold and swift action. When Main Street cries for help, we get gridlock. No health care reform, no financial reform, no labor law reform, and a slow, timid effort on job creation.
The Message of Massachusetts: Jobs
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| Leo W. Gerard |
Bill Clinton saw it clearly when he was running for president against Bush I. It became his mantra: “It’s the economy, stupid.”
Clinton wanted to reform health insurance, too. But he understood that during a recession, the first priority is jobs.
Politicians and commentators continue to blather obtusely about the meaning of Senate candidate Martha Coakley’s loss in Massachusetts to a Republican in a heavily Democratic state. Like Coakley and her advisers, they have failed to see the obvious, failed to learn from Clinton’s victory:
It’s the economy, stupid.
Poll results show that Massachusetts voters punished Coakley—and Democrats—for neglecting the issue most vital to them: jobs. If politicians had studied earlier polls or attempted to actually get in touch with mainstream, Main Street Americans—or just listened to AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka’s address at the National Press Club on Jan. 11—they’d have known to focus on jobs. The message of Massachusetts should be clear: If Democrats want to save their own jobs in the midterm elections this fall, they must create jobs now.
Hey, Democrats, Remember Us?
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| IUE-CWA Local 201 member Alex Reynoso protests a health benefit tax. |
“Jeff, you guys at the Union Hall aren’t listening to us! You’re talking out of both sides of your mouth. We’re fighting the benefits tax, and now you’re telling us to vote for someone who will tax our benefits! The guys here are voting for Scotty Brown.”
That was just one of the calls and e-mails that I received during the week before the Senate vote in Massachusetts. An AFSCME delegate to our labor council calculated the impact of the Obama tax on union plans and e-mailed us all to “Vote Brown!”
For a year and a half, we campaigned against the tax on our health care benefits. We trudged through neighboring New Hampshire with fliers explaining that Sen. John McCain wanted to fund health care expansion by a benefits tax.
Conservative members of my local Executive Board were adamant in saying the outcome of our health care campaign would be a tax on working people to extend coverage to poor people. Recognizing a classic Republican “wedge issue,” we argued that those without insurance include our own children. We could win a plan to tax the wealthiest and cut into the blood money of the health care profiteers.
Ultimately, we were wrong. In the last week of the Coakley campaign, the papers were full of the story: “Obama Supports “Cadillac Tax.” Sen. John Kerry cited an MIT economist who said the tax would increase wages for grateful working stiffs. I can usually figure out which chalkboard equation the classical economists are fondling: Absent merely life itself, they present a circular logic that proves itself. But the MIT argument escaped me.
The Working Class Has Spoken. Will Democrats Listen?
Massachusetts voters sent a strong signal to Washington lawmakers Tuesday that they want results—and aren’t seeing any. Not on health care reform, not on job creation and not on fixing the nation’s economy.
Voters also sent another powerful message for Democrats: Ignore the working class at your peril.
Some 79 percent of voters polled on election night said the most important issue for them was electing a candidate who will strengthen the economy and create more jobs. Controlling health care costs was next on their list, with 54 percent citing that issue as the main determinant of their vote.
The poll, conducted by Hart Research Associates among 810 voters for the AFL-CIO on the night of the election, also found that although voters without a college degree favored Barack Obama by 21 percentage points in the 2008 election, Democratic candidate Martha Coakley lost that same group by a 20-point margin.
Trumka: Massachusetts Voters Say Democrats Haven’t Gone Far Enough
When Massachusetts voters cast their ballots for Scott Brown on Tuesday, they were sending a message to Washington lawmakers that they have not gone far enough to create jobs, reform health care and fix our nation’s economy, says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. In a video message, Trumka says voters showed they don’t believe Democrats have overreached—they think that the Democrats underreached.
You see, they believe that Wall Street’s being taken care of. They believe that corporate America is being taken care of. They believe the insurers are being taken care of. But they don’t think that workers are being taken care of.
Health Care Reform Would Cure Many Ills—and More Health News
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A new study shows the connections between low income, poor health and overall inequality and how providing better access to quality health care—exactly what health care reform is all about—can improve more than just health.
Alexander Hertel-Fernandez of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) explains:
“In their new book, The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger, epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett review the medical and sociological research that links inequality to poorer outcomes, not just in health but also for trust, political institutions, violence, social mobility and education.”
Trumka: Massachusetts Election Shows Need for Results in Washington
The American people are urgently expecting RESULTS from Washington. If elected officials want the support of working families, they need to fight to win legislation on jobs, health care and financial regulation. Americans need champions who will fight for their cause.
Scott Brown’s victory as the next senator from Massachusetts is a giant step backward for working families. Brown has already promised to be the 41st vote for the Republican party of NO on crucial improvements for working men and women.
Let’s just hope, as Jason Rosenbaum warns at the Seminal, that the Democrats don’t take the wrong lessons from this loss.
