10-30-05,9:00am
Everywhere you look, the president and his allies are doing an astonishing job of demonstrating just how wrong their priorities are. It’s up to us to turn this around.
Working family activists have forced President Bush to rescind his pay cut for the workers who will rebuild the Gulf Coast, effective Nov. 8. But amazingly, despite the failings exposed by Hurricane Katrina, the administration and its congressional allies are engaged in more of the same. They are using the tragedy of the Gulf Coast hurricanes as an excuse to slash federal spending on crucial programs that support working families, including our brothers and sisters in Gulf Coast states. Medicaid, food stamps, financial aid for college, home heating assistance—they’re coming after them. They want to cut $50 billion from these programs not to rebuild Louisiana and Mississippi—but to offset another $70 billion in tax cuts to the already-rich.
We’re mobilizing union members and other working family activists everywhere to derail this gross pandering to special interests and put working families, hurricane survivors, the poor, the sick and children first. Please take a minute now to call your members of Congress about this atrocity, too. The toll-free number to call about the budget cuts is 1-800-393-1082. Tell your representatives:
America needs a new direction—one that puts people first and invests in good jobs, health care for all, schools, hospitals and highways. DON’T cut $50 billion from vital public programs that families need, such as Medicaid and food stamps. STOP giving tax breaks to the rich instead of investing in working families.
The widespread scandals under investigation at the highest levels of our government—everything from dirty stock sales and money-laundering to leaking CIA secrets—threaten to reinforce deep-seated beliefs by many in the public that all politics and all politicians are corrupt, that no one is worth voting for, that no good efforts can succeed.
We have to disprove those beliefs by demonstrating that working people working together can turn America in a new direction—as we did in winning back prevailing wage protections for Gulf Coast workers. America deserves better—and each of us must work very hard right now to get it.
