Simply the Wrong President
From Gerald W. McEntee, President
Web Editor's Note: This article has been edited to comply with Federal Election Commission regulations.
Not since the days of Herbert Hoover has our nation had a President with a job-loss record as bad as that of George W. Bush. Not, that is, in almost seven decades. Not since the Empire State Building was completed. Not since American workers earned an average annual salary of $1,236. Not since then has our nation lost as many jobs as we have since Bush took office.
This summer, the unemployment rate rose to 6.4 percent in June, meaning 9.4 million Americans were unemployed. Nine million Americans are now unemployed. One million of them were thrown out of work in the past three months. In fact, under the Bush administration, our economy has lost jobs at the rate of 83,000 every month. Contrast that number against the record of the Clinton/Gore administration, which gained jobs at the rate of almost 240,000 every month.
Unemployment numbers are released by the U.S. Department of Labor once a month. When the numbers were released in July, Sec. Elaine Chao claimed the high unemployment rate was actually a sign that job seekers have a renewed "confidence" in the economy, since the data released in July included 600,000 people who tried to get jobs in June.
BEHIND THE NUMBERS. The sad reality is that fewer than half — only 250,000 — were able to find a job. Even more important, the cold numbers don't portray real people who are having trouble feeding their families, keeping a roof over their heads and paying their bills. Wonder how much confidence they've got in America's economy right now.
Since January of 2001, the Bush administration has pushed through three tax cuts that have primarily benefited the wealthy. Each time, they've said the purpose was to create jobs. With thousands of people joining unemployment lines across America every day, that strategy is clearly not working.
Plus, the tax cuts left state and local governments fending for themselves against the worst fiscal crisis they've seen since World War II. The cuts have left the nation unable to absorb the billions of dollars spent in the war effort, while shouldering a historic $455 billion deficit.
The fact of the matter is that for everything that ails this country — record job losses and skyrocketing health insurance costs, crumbling schools, our at-risk Social Security and Medicare systems — George W. Bush has but one policy: more tax cuts for corporations and the very rich.
This union has begun the process of determining the candidate with the commitment to stand by working families — and the skills to put America back on track.
We will make our endorsement this fall. As part of that process we are conducting an online poll to find out who you'd like to see in the White House.
