Does It Really Matter Who’s President?
From William Lucy, AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer
Despite all the hype about the upcoming November election, does it really matter who wins? When George W. Bush ran the first time, he didn't have a Presidential record. Now he does. Reviewing some of his policies might help answer that question.
Who is hurting?
If our children are the hope of the future, that hope is fading under the current administration's education policies. It's fading for over 5 million disadvantaged children without books, lessons and other assistance under Title I; for nearly 4 million English-language learners without English-language instruction; for 3 million pre-schoolers without Head Start; and for 3 million college students without Pell Grants. All because Bush's “Leave No Child Behind” act is underfunded by $26 billion.
Meanwhile, one in four of our schools needs serious repair — more than 15 million students sit in schools with falling roofs, inadequate heating, bad ventilation and decrepit plumbing. How do we expect them to learn, much less excel, under these conditions? Yet Bush's budget doesn't include funds to address the $127-billion school repairs needed. We're talking about our children!
America's roads, bridges, sewer systems and dams are also crumbling. We can't even maintain the substandard roads we have, much less improve them. In 2000, 27.5 percent of our bridges were structurally deficient or out of date — and they're getting worse. We're talking about our infrastructure.
Energy transmission is a mess. Last August, the Northeast and Midwest experienced an electrical grid failure that left tens of millions in the dark. Emergencies like this are going to get more and more frequent if the administration doesn't make repairing and rebuilding our infrastructure a priority. We're talking about our safety.
And decades of civil rights progress is being undermined. This administration, with its three tax cuts for the rich, has greatly widened the racial and ethnic wealth-and-income divide. It has burdened us with a recession and jobless recovery in which the unemployment rate is now over 10 percent for African Americans, compared to 5 percent for whites. A disproportionate number of African Americans, Latinos and Native Americans lack health care — reflecting lower rates of employer-based coverage — and they are more likely to die from an illness. Bush also wanted to halt affirmative action at the University of Michigan, which could only hinder minorities' attempts to get ahead through education. We're talking about our civil rights.
Walk the walk
In the 2000 race, candidate Bush said he was a compassionate conservative. Where, then, is his compassion for those under-served schoolchildren, for those unemployed or under-employed workers or for those who are sick and cannot afford decent health care? In 2000, candidate Bush said he was a uniter. But he has divided America so deeply that it will take years for us to come together again. In 2000, candidate Bush said that we should respect other countries and not tell them what to do, so we wouldn't "end up being viewed as the ugly American." If that's true, what are we doing in Iraq with minimal international support — pursuing policies that have tarnished our reputation throughout the world?
In the 2004 election, George Bush is running not on promises but on his own record. So does it really matter who is elected President this November? You bet it does. That's why it's so important for all of us to register to vote if we haven't already, and to exercise that most precious right — voting for President. It makes all the difference in the world.
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and not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.
