Wisconsin Workers Fight Back—We All Have The Option To Fight Back

Citizens are flooding the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison to protest efforts by Republicans to almost completely restrict the right of public employees in Wisconsin to unionize and to collectively bargain.

(Above–Protests at the Wisconsin state capitol.)

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker says these changes are needed because Wisconsin has a budget crisis.

Yet it would be easy to ask unionized workers to pay more for their benefits, without also passing legislation that makes simply maintaining a public employee union from year-to-year very difficult.

The point of Republicans in Wisconsin is union busting.

Is this what working people in Wisconsin who voted Republican wanted last November? Don’t we have any respect for each other as working people in this country anymore?

It is one thing to ask public employees to pay more for benefits. That does not have to be the same thing as union busting.

It is good to see working people fighting back in Wisconsin. People all across the nation have the option to fight back against Republican assaults on hard-working Americans.

Two Weeks After Election, Republican Focus Remains On Everything But Jobs & Economy

It has been two weeks since Republicans made significant  gains across the country on Election Day.

The focus of the election was jobs and the economy. 56% of folks in a recent CBS News poll say the most important issue for the new Congress is jobs and the economy.

Yet as millions of Americans still deal with unemployment and underemployment, the Republican focus is on everything but jobs and the economy. Where incoming Republican governors have addressed jobs, it is to kill jobs by refusing already approved federal dollars for high-speed rail infrastructure projects.

Examples—

* Republicans in control of the House of Representatives are planning nearly 300 investigations of President Obama. The last time a Republican House went after a Democratic President, it led to a destructive impeachment process. What excesses will we see this time?

* Newly-elected Republican Governors are killing high-speed rail projects that will create jobs. In Wisconsin, soon-to-be Governor  Scott Walker received large amounts of campaign cash from road builders who have a direct interest in stopping rail projects. Wisconsin had an unemployment rate of 7.8% in September.

* The Republican President of the Kentucky State Senate, David Williams, declared his allegiance to the Tea party and said  he supported repeal of the 17th Amendment to the Constitution. This amendment allows for the direct election of  U.S. Senators. Mr. Williams believes that returning election of Senators back to state legislatures would move our nation back to the limited measure of popular sovereignty first written into the constitution.  Many Tea Party supporters back this position.

Do you want to give your vote for United States Senator away? This is Tea party extremism in action.  In September of 2010, Kentucky had an unemployment rate of 10. 1%. Yet what the Republican President of the State Senate is discussing is no longer allowing the public to vote for U.S. Senate.

* In Texas, Governor Rick Perry and Republicans in the state legislature are considering pulling out of Medicaid and out of the Children’s Health Insurance Program. This is being considered even though 3.6 million Texans use these programs. You can be certain that many in Republican rural Texas use these programs. Is this what these folks were voting for earlier this month? We’ll see about that when people find out that benefits are being cut.

What about all the people in Texas who work in jobs connected to health care? With such drastic cuts in funding, where will these people find work? Isn’t it good and honest work to be employed in health care so people can get better and go on with life? Where will we have any jobs in this society if we go after everything?

* The leader of the U.S. House Tea Party Caucus, Rep. Michele Bachmann, spent her time spreading a lie that President Obama’s trip to India was costing 200 million dollars a day. This assertion was simply not true.

What exactly  is the point of undermining the President of the United States as he goes to visit a globally important nation like India?

For Republicans in Washington and in states across the nation, this election was not about jobs and the economy. Instead, the election was about extreme ideology that puts the jobs and the health of the American people at risk.

Anger at Washington is not going to get you a job. It is not going to pay the bills if you get sick. The Republican bait-and-switch is in already in evidence. These folks have no constructive thoughts.  It is the same anger-driven politics that led to President Clinton’s impeachment and to the placement of Sarah Palin on the national ticket two years ago.

It’s up to all of us to be aware of what is taking place, and to make sure that Congress is focused on jobs and the economy and not on sideshow hearings and ideological tangents.

Republicans Kill Job Creating Rail Projects

Newly elected Republican Governors are saying no to high speed rail projects that have federal backing and that will create jobs.

(Above–Republican rail plan.)

We are seeing this in Wisconsin with Republican Governor-elect Scott Walker.

We are seeing this in Ohio as well with Republican Governor-elect John Kaisch.

These job-killing actions are consistent with the decision of Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to stop a much needed and job-creating New York-New Jersey railroad tunnel.

What people need and want are jobs.

Republican extremists are putting ideology before job creation.

What’s wrong with the federal government helping people have jobs?

Will ideology pay your bills and send your kids to college?

Many private firms are making strong profits and yet not hiring. Private firms will do what is best for their profits and shareholders. They will create more jobs when it serves their purpose to do so.

Why can’t government help its own people without it being seen as some type of Marxist plot?

What Republicans appear to want is for the economy to not get better before President Obama is up for reelection in 2012.

I guess that is why Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said his most important priority was making sure Mr. Obama serves only one term.

Mr. McConnell said—“The most important single thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”

It seems that instead of working on the economy for the next two years, every effort Republicans make will be tied to politics.

On the other hand, newly elected Democratic Governors Jerry Brown of California and Andrew Cuomo of New York are going to build the rail project for their states.

Because of this, jobs are going to be created in California and New York.

At the same time, China has just built the fastest train line in the world.

People have anxieties about finding good jobs and about America falling behind in the world.

What Republicans seem intent on offering with their newly won power appears to be ideology and efforts at political gain.

What will any of that accomplish of lasting worth for the average American and for the future of our nation?