The Dow is plummeting. We are in the throes of an historic financial meltdown because Wall Street and George Bush gambled with our future. Families are struggling with a long-running economic squeeze, the totality of which is still unknown. So what is John McCain’s response? He thumbs his nose at the real issues facing working people – issues for which he has no good answer because his record of support for the Bush financial agenda is indisputable. He turns to Bush fear-mongering tactics to try to change the subject.
The McCain/Palin tactics are not just false, they’re offensive. Sadly, they’re more of exactly what we’ve come to expect from the Bush White House – neglect of the economic issues that are reshaping working families’ lives. Perhaps it should not come as a surprise from the presidential candidate who voted with George Bush 90 percent of the time.
We have entered a genuinely scary time, but not because of the McCain-Palin scare tactics. Working people aren’t buying them. And here’s why. Three days ago, Americans woke up to the news that in August, we lost another 159,000 jobs – 760,000 since the beginning of the year. That same day, it became clear that the taxpayers who took on the burden of bailing out Wall Street would not get extended unemployment benefits or a job-creating stimulus package – measures George Bush said he would veto. Nearly 50 million are without health care. In August alone, more than 300,000 Americans lost their homes to foreclosure. Families are worried about putting food on the table, putting gas in the tank and being able to retire with the security that few feel these days.
John McCain has no good answers to these painfully real problems. He supported the Bush policies that have run up one of the worst jobs records of any president. His solution to health care is to tax our health benefits and push us into the private marketplace to buy insurance on our own.
But working people are not just offended because our problems are being ignored – again. These attacks are a deep offense to our belief as Americans that we can make things different. Millions of us are ready to believe we can turn our country into something better than it has become under Republican control. We’re ready to elect leaders who’ll work for an America that works for all, with decent wages and benefits and good jobs that can support a family. What we don’t believe is that a candidate for president is willing to go as low as McCain and Palin to distract us from what is actually happening in our lives.
Paid for by the AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education (COPE) Political Contributions Committee, www.aflcio.org (http://www.aflcio.org/ ), and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.
Contact: Alison Omens (202) 637-5018
