"Sen. McCain’s record shows he’s in lockstep with President Bush and the Administration’s corporate allies," said AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker in a press statement today responding to John McCain's June 3rd speech in Louisiana.
In that speech McCain insisted on not being linked to George W. Bush and put himself forward as the candidate of change.
Holt Baker hit back. "McCain supports Bush tax giveaways for corporations, Big Oil and the wealthy while opposing an increase in the minimum wage and an extension of unemployment benefits," she said.
John McCain has no plan to fix the health care crisis, she added. In fact, what he has proposed would make it worse. "His health care plan," Holt Baker pointed out, "would saddle working families with an additional tax while doing nothing to address the deep flaws in the system or provide coverage to the 47 million Americans who have no insurance."
Holt Baker also expressed anger over McCain's decision to speak in New Orleans. "John McCain has some nerve going to New Orleans, site of the Bush administration’s do-nothing approach to Hurricane Katrina," she stated. Holt Baker headed the AFL-CIO Gulf Coast Recovery Program before being elected to her current position.
A recently surfaced video shows John McCain sharing a cake with George W. Bush to celebrate his birthday on the day it became clear that the aftermath to Hurricane Katrina would be an enormous human catastrophe.
When it comes down to it, McCain is no maverick, Holt Baker added. "In the more than 25 years he’s been in Washington, McCain has shown himself time and time again to be a dyed-in-the-wool, right-wing Republican who’s beholden to special interests and corporate lobbyists, and dangerously out of touch with working families’ priorities," she emphasized.
Writer and former political strategist Cliff Schecter recently revealed in his new book, "The Real McCain," that more than 100 members of the John McCain campaign staff are lobbyists, while many other lobbyists outside the campaign are funneling money to him.
Holt Baker called on John McCain "to shelve the empty rhetoric and, instead, reject the failed policies that led to a devastating calamity like the Katrina aftermath, a disastrous economy and a seemingly endless war."
In a separate statement, Florida AFL-CIO President Cindy Hall expressed similar sentiments. “Working people are reeling from the damage done by the Bush Administration,” she said. “Sen. McCain’s proposals, from the economy to healthcare to the war, are as bad as or worse than President Bush."
"Working people can’t afford another four years of a Bush-like economic policy – that’s the message they’ll be delivering to McCain as he hop scotches through Florida this week," Hall concluded.
Members of the Florida AFL-CIO has pledged to protest McCain's visits to their state. Demonstrations are planned for St. Petersburg, Orlando, Ft. Lauderdale, and Miami where John McCain is scheduled to hold fundraisers.
The AFL-CIO also recently launched its "national campaign to expose Sen. John McCain's economic record and plans to continue the failed Bush economic agenda" at McCainRevealed.org.
