Play Match Game 2012, Republican Candidates Edition
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We all know politicians will say just about anything to get elected. But sometimes what they say is so outrageous or strange, even seasoned political junkies are left scratching their heads.
In a takeoff on the classic TV game show Match Game, our friends at AFSCME have assembled some of the more out-there statements about working family issues uttered by Republican presidential hopefuls Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul.
Click here to play Match Game 2012: Presidential Primary Edition. Pick a candidate and then from a multiple choice list, pick the correct answer to what he had to say. To give you a little hint, none of the answers involve the Kardashians.
Hillman Foundation Honors Reporter on Penn State Scandal
Sara Ganim, a 24-year-old crime reporter with the Patriot-News of Harrisburg, Pa., won the December Sidney award for her series of investigations exposing the Penn State sex abuse scandal.
The monthly award by the Sidney Hillman Foundation recognizes an outstanding piece of socially conscious journalism. The foundation’s programs honor the legacy and vision of Hillman, a union pioneer who was the founding president of the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union of America and New Deal architect.
Past Tax Holiday Created Corporate Profits, Not Jobs
Evidence continues to mount that a so-called tax holiday for corporations’ overseas profits is a bad idea.
A new study of the tax holiday passed by Congress in 2004 that allowed multinationals to bring back to the United States offshore profits at a reduced tax rate finds it did little to spark the economic and jobs revival that proponents claimed the scheme would. Republican lawmakers are recycling the economic boom theory to boost support for a new corporate tax holiday. According to the study:
In essence, the corporate rich got richer.
The study appears in the latest edition of “The Journal of the American Taxation Association,” published by the American Accounting Association—hardly a group of wild-eyed radicals.
The study’s main author University of Texas professor Lillian Mills says that the result of the 2004 holiday where American multinational corporations brought back about $312 billion at a tax rate that dropped from standard 35 percent to 5.5 percent was Read the rest of this entry »
Wisconsin Recalls Under Way: Turnout’s Key
Turnout will be the determining factor today in the six Wisconsin state Senate districts where working family voters have the chance to recall the Walker 6—Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) closest state Senate allies who spearheaded his move to take away the collective bargaining rights of public employees and ram through a budget devastating to working families.
In a massive mobilization effort, more than 12,000 volunteers have made more than a million voter contacts in the six districts and, just this past weekend, We Are Wisconsin volunteers knocked on more than 125,000 doors.
Wisconsin State AFL-CIO President Phil Neuenfeldt says voters “can’t afford to sit this one out.”
Momentum is on the side of working people but we need everyone who lives in a recall district to get to the polls. We have the historic opportunity to put the brakes on the extreme agenda that has been driving the Wisconsin Legislature since January.
It’s Too Hot! TWU Says Work Safely
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It’s more than just miserably hot across most of the United States. It’s dangerously hot and could be deadly hot, especially for people who have to work outside. The Transport Workers (TWU) has developed a fact sheet on heat stress—in Spanish and English—that outlines some simple practices and warning signs of which you need to be aware.
Life-threatening problems can occur if your body is unable to stay cool enough in hot temperatures or high humidity. Heat stress causes a range of health effects, which can lower your job performance and even become life-threatening if left untreated.
Remember, don’t “tough it out.” A supervisor or coworker must take you to a cooler area immediately if you feel faint, dizzy or confused. It is a medical emergency!
Click here for the English version and here for the Spanish version.
Minn. Republicans Shut Down State to Protect Millionaires
It was simple choice: a small tax on Minnesota’s wealthiest 2 percent or shut down state services and programs. The tax would apply to those making more than $1 million a year, only about 7,700 people.
Republican legislators made the wrong choice last night and now, without a budget agreement, all but the most vital state services have closed their doors and most of the 38,000 state employees are out of work. Just one example: State parks will be off limits this holiday weekend.
Gov. Mark Dayton (D), who had proposed a budget with significant budget cuts but also with the small tax to more fairly spread the burden, said the legislators’ refusal to compromise shows they:
prefer to protect the richest handful of Minnesotans at the expense of everyone else. Read the rest of this entry »
Philadelphia Paid Sick Leave Bill Vetoed
Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter (D) last night vetoed a paid sick leave bill passed by the City Council that would have made Philadelphia the third city in the nation guaranteeing workers paid sick leave. Says AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurers Liz Shuler:
It’s a shame the mayor ignored what the majority of Philadelphians say is the right thing to do for working families. When workers in the city get sick, they are still faced with the awful choice of their health or their paycheck. The mayor could have changed that.
Says Philadelphia Council AFL-CIO President Patrick J. Eiding:
The ability to take a day off when you or your family member is sick is a public health issue as well as a worker rights issue. We’re disappointed in the mayor’s veto and will continue to fight for paid sick days and all legislation that helps workers. Read the rest of this entry »
Not a Happy Anniversary: 10 Years of Bush Tax Cuts
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Today is the 10-year anniversary of President Bush’s tax cuts that went mostly to very rich individuals and big corporations. According to the rosy economic scenario Bush and the Republicans painted, the nation today should be figuring out to what to do with a $5.6 trillion budget surplus and just how to fill the tens of millions of new jobs that were supposed to generate new wealth for all of us.
How’s that worked out? There’s no trace of the $5.6 trillion surplus. Instead we have a record budget deficit.
Jobs? Job creation under Bush, even when the economy was expanding between 2002 – 2007, was dismal, barely keeping pace with population growth and the worst performance in the post-World War II era, says the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
We’re not sharing the wealth either. In fact, the top 1 percent of earners pocketed 65 percent of the income growth during those years, widening even further the income gap between the rich and the rest of us.
Even scarier: Despite all the evidence that the tax cuts not only didn’t work and the outcome was even worse than opponents predicted, congressional Republicans and presidential candidates want to make the Bush tax cuts permanent. That would be a terrible blow to the economy, says the new EPI Policy memo, “Tenth Anniversary of the Bush-Era Tax Cuts: A decade later, the Bush tax cuts remain expensive, ineffective, and unfair.” Read the rest of this entry »
Sixth Republican Senator Faces Wisconsin Recall
Wisconsin activists today filed more than 26,000 signatures today to recall the sixth Republican state senator—Robert Cowles of Green Bay—who voted for Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) bill to eliminate collective bargaining rights of public employees.
All the petitions have carried far more signatures than the minimum needed to qualify, which must equal 25 percent of the total vote for governor in November’s election in each Senate district. The Cowles petition needed just 15,960 signatures and the 26,524 represents 166 percent of the requirement.
Along with Cowles, recall petitions have been filed for Alberta Darling of River Hills, Shelia Harsdof of River Falls, Luther Olsen of Ripon, Dan Kapanke of La Crosse and Randy Hopper of Fond du Lac. Democrats need to win three seats to take control of the Senate.
Republicans targeted eight Democratic senators for recall, but filed petitions for just three and those have yet to be verified. They fell short and missed the deadline for four others. They still have a few days to file against their last target.
Jobs Clock Tick Tocks as Republicans Can’t Find Time for Jobs Bill
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House Republicans talk the jobs talk, but they sure aren’t walking the jobs walk. Here we are, 109 days into the 112th Congress, and House Republicans haven’t produced one piece of jobs legislation. This clock will keep on ticking until we see a real jobs bill. (Click here to get the code so you an embed the clock on your web page or FaceBook page.)
The economy is not going to heal itself. Instead of a jobs bill that could help the more than 24 million Americans who are unemployed or underemployed, Republicans have given us their proposed budget—straight out of Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) horror movie economics laboratory. It could cost between 1.7 million and 2.2 million jobs in the first two years alone.
It’s as if they have shrugged their shoulders, looked at the 24 million in need of work, and said:
So be it. Let’s cut corporate taxes, give the rich a break on taxes, while privatizing Medicare, decimating Medicaid, repealing health care reform—and when we get the chance, privatize Social Security.
It’s time for Republicans to reject their “So Be It” spending plan, which puts ideology before jobs, and make a bipartisan effort to create a plan that reduces the deficit, creates jobs, and strengthens the middle class.
Tick tock. Tick tock.
