A Stimulus Package That Works for Workers

From Gerald W. McEntee, President

In solidarity with our sisters and brothers in DC 37, the Civil Service Employees Association/AFSCME Local 1000 and Council 1707 — and with the understanding and support of Council 93 — we moved our Eastern Region Women’s Conference from Boston to New York City. There we heard Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) demand that our government, which owes so much to workers, do its part to help those affected by the nation’s hard-hit economy.

She was right. In the past year, 2.2 million workers lost their jobs. Even before Sept. 11, we were headed toward a recession. Now it has officially arrived.

From Florida tourist sites to Detroit auto plants to New York City restaurants, unemployed workers don’t know how they are going to pay their mortgages and feed their children, much less cover their COBRA health-insurance premiums (if they are lucky enough to have insurance) or live on their unemployment benefits (if they are lucky enough to qualify for them).

The war at home

We are issuing a challenge to Congress: Fight the war at home — against rising unemployment — with the same commitment you have made to fighting terrorism here and overseas.

Do not hand us a so-called economic-stimulus package like the one passed by the House of Representatives. It would repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax (supported by Ronald Reagan), which guarantees successful companies always pay taxes. The House package would hand more than $25 billion to companies like Exxon and General Electric. Corporations need to be financially sound to achieve an economic recovery, but this isn’t the way to secure it.

Another bad plan was authored by the Senate Republicans. They want to take individual tax-rate reductions scheduled for 2004 and 2006 and put them into effect now — now, when California faces a $4.5 billion deficit, Ohio confronts being $1.5 billion in the hole, and so on.

Over half of those Senate Republican tax reductions — at that $25 billion cost — would go to the wealthy and Big Business, those least likely to spend the money and stimulate the economy. That just doesn’t make sense. We are being hoodwinked again by politicians who don’t care about being fair to working families.

Whether they’re EMTs, social workers, nurses or FAA security experts, those being left behind by both the House and Senate Republicans are the people doing the work this country now values. They were there on Sept. 11. They’re still there. And they deserve real economic security and a real economic-stimulus package.

Help that helps

No matter what the final bill looks like, fairness dictates that it contain the key elements of the Senate Finance Committee measure (voted out along straight party lines). They include access to unemployment insurance by extending and increasing benefits, covering part-time and low-wage workers, aiding state and local governments, and providing money to help states that face increased numbers of claims. There’s also a 75 percent subsidy for COBRA premiums and a temporary state Medicaid option for a worker who has no employer-provided health care coverage.

As I walked through Ground Zero, visited DC 37 headquarters and talked to rescue workers in New York City, I again realized that our people constitute our nation’s most precious resource. Only a Scrooge could look at the heroism of our working men and women who continue to "ride to the rescue," and not want to help them. Yet, once again, we are facing unfair legislation aimed at helping Big Business and the wealthy — not working Americans. That’s not my idea of patriotism.

So just as the holiday season arrives, just when each and every man, woman and child in this country especially deserves a fair deal, all too many are instead being offered a lump of coal.

Let your congressional representatives know that this is not acceptable. Tell them you won’t take less than an effective yet compassionate economic-recovery package that stimulates the economy for the benefit of all Americans.