Ready to Make America Happen. Again.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH – Speaking last year at a political rally in Akron, Ohio, hosted by AFSCME Local 1360 (Council 8). “We’re going to fight like hell to win this election,” McEntee told attendees.
Photo Credit: Joe Weidner
Message from the President
By Gerald W. McEntee
Throughout our nation’s extraordinary presidential campaign, Pres. Barack Obama encouraged us to embrace our power to change America and to change the world. We responded with a resounding “Yes We Can.” Our nation, as President Obama said in his Inaugural Address, “chose hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.” It is time for us to meet the challenges at hand with energy and creativity.
We worked hard to elect our new President. Now, we face a task that is no less important: fighting for an economy that supports working people and gives everyone a chance for a better life.
The Make America Happen Campaign
We are experiencing the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Most states are coping with severe budget deficits. Our nation lost 2.6 million jobs in 2008. Unemployment is at its highest level since 1993. People are losing their homes at an unprecedented rate.
But with President Obama in the White House and a new Congress in place, working families have an historic chance to bring about a major shift in American politics. In the 1930s, Pres. Franklin Roosevelt’s leadership inspired Americans and helped get our economy back on track. Barack Obama offers similarly courageous leadership and new solutions to address our current crisis.
To reinforce the President’s efforts, AFSCME has launched the “Make America Happen” campaign. The effort has three main goals: revitalizing our economy through a comprehensive recovery package that aids state and local governments and maintains public services; providing quality, affordable health care to all; and strengthening the middle class by passing the Employee Free Choice Act, which will make it easier for workers to join unions and bargain for better wages and benefits.
In the months ahead, we will build grassroots support to overcome resistance to these goals and enact the kind of bold programs that are needed to address the national crisis we face today.
The Challenges Ahead
None of this will be easy — yet, we are hopeful that with the President’s leadership, we can all work together to “Make America Happen” again. As President Obama said, our challenges may be new and unprecedented in their scope, “but those values upon which our success depends — hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism — these things are old….What is demanded is a return to these truths.”
President Obama told the nation that he wants to fix our crumbling infrastructure by building roads and bridges, electric grids and digital lines to “feed our commerce and bind us together.” He has also said that he wants to provide a tax break for working families. And he wants to sensibly withdraw from Iraq and commit more resources to our fight in Afghanistan.
Moving Forward
After eight long years, we finally have a President who respects public employees and believes that the question we should ask about government is not whether it is too big or too small, but “whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified.” His positive tone will give us leverage to pressure leaders of state and municipal governments to follow his lead, and our “Make America Happen” campaign will give him the support to make the changes our nation needs.
Barack Obama was not elected to tread carefully; he was elected to move boldly and decisively. From the voters, President Obama got the mandate. It’s up to us to build the movement.
