MUST be Pres Obama doesn't want to be elected to a second term and the Democrats don't want to hold on to control of the Senate. From HuffPost.......
WASHINGTON -- The debt ceiling bill set to be voted upon Monday evening has left labor advocates in yet another precarious -- and deeply frustrated -- position. A president who began his term with the promise to not only stem the tide of job loss but also reconfigure the wealth disparity in the country has been bitten by the austerity bug. Moreover, there seem to be fewer and fewer legislative or political outlets for unions to explore.
In the immediate aftermath of the announcement Sunday evening that a deal had been struck, the nation's major labor unions bit their tongues, choosing to either carefully craft press statements or remain silent altogether. In private, however, the discontent was palpable. And it wasn't just driven by fear that massive spending cuts –- $26 billion in 2012 and $2.4 trillion over ten years –- would adversely affect workers or the unemployed. It was a touch more personal than that.
"We have now had at least three or more experiences of the president explaining to people that he has a plan and it is under control but the results don't match," said Andy Stern, former president of the Service Employees International Union. "He has an unreasonable Congress that doesn't respond to reason. So why continue to reason with them?"
"The sad part so far, which wont be as obscure later, is that everyone talks about spending in the abstract but behind every billion here is kids with disabilities or cities and states that have programs that people rely on," Stern added. "So when the appropriators get to work, I think people will appreciate that all the glee with which we made progress on spending will come up against the question of: at what cost?"
Despite no longer serving as president of his union, Stern's frustrations with the administration are still noteworthy. Among labor leaders, he still enjoys one of the tightest, if not the tightest, relationships with the president and his administration.
That his former counterparts declined, at least initially, to speak up in a similar fashion was a curious development, pointed out by more than one Democratic source. But it gets at the recurring frostiness of the relationship between labor unions and President Obama. Labor advocates, while consulted, didn't have a seat at the table during the debt ceiling debate, sometimes learning information only through press reports or secondhand accounts. But when the deal was struck -- decidedly against their favor -- they were asked to stay silent and look on the bright side.
According to several sources, Jon Carson, director of public engagement for the White House, made several calls to progressive organizations and labor groups before the deal was announced on Sunday evening. His pitch was simple: The debt ceiling forced the White House to confront a brutal situation, made more difficult by some factions of the Republican Party's willingness to witness a default. The president, Carson added, would now be able to "pivot" to job creation, including the creation of an infrastructure bank. By Monday morning, Carson's pitch was refined a bit further. Obama had protected Medicaid and Social Security from the first round of cuts. And while extending unemployment insurance wasn't in the final deal, as one White House official told The Huffington Post, "we will absolutely keep pushing for that."
"The slogan of this administration is 'it could have been worse.' Seriously, that is what they stand for," said one incredulous labor official. "They say that they protected those programs."
"I think it was unclear last week what the president and members were going to do," the official added. "Now we know. They did provide some protection to social insurance programs. They didn't cut them, at least not yet. But it is hard for us to look happy at this wreckage that was created."
As the labor leader noted, in the end, the administration added a touch of sweetener to the much larger, sour dish that it served the unions.
Specifically, union officials said on Monday that they are deeply concerned about the potentially steep cuts to entitlement programs that could result from the creation of a deficit-reduction congressional committee with fairly substantial procedural powers. But except for Stern's comments, those concerns were confined to anonymous quotes or off-the-record observations. Only when the House was on the precipice of voting Monday evening did another major player choose to weigh in.
"The deal forced upon the White House and the nation represents a form of economic malpractice," said AFSCME president Gerald McEntee. "At the least, it will slow economic recovery and impose more joblessness, wage cuts and hardship on America’s working families. The tea party held the nation hostage in order to advance an extreme ideology – at the expense of what is good for the nation and our economy."
BUCKNACKT'S SORDID TAWDRY BLOG We should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive & well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate, bier or wein in hand, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WHOO-HOO, WHAT A RIDE!!!!!!"
Showing posts with label AFSCME. Show all posts
Showing posts with label AFSCME. Show all posts
23 October 2010
AFSCME Responds To Critics: Unlike Chamber There's "No Mystery" With Us
ANSWERING charges from right-wing fanatics that labor funding of progressive and Democratic candidates is the same as the u.s. chamber of commerce funding of right-wing tea-baggers and gop candidates.
The public employees union American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), defended itself on Friday from charges that the massive funds it has devoted to the 2010 elections diminish the Democratic Party's argument that conservative donors are overwhelming the system.
On Friday morning, the Wall Street Journal reported that the $87.5 million that AFSCME had spent on election activities (the majority of it on voter contact efforts) made it the biggest dog in the 2010 fight. The union was, with one week to go, outpacing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ($75 million), American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS, ($65 million) and fellow union, SEIU, ($44 million). Within labor circles the Journal article was initially hailed as a badge of honor. But pundits jumped on the revelation as proof that Democrats had either trampled on their talking points or been crying wolf over conservative mega-donors all along.
Lost in the analysis, AFSCME noted, were important distinctions.
"[T]here's no mystery about who we are or where the money comes from," Chris Policano, a spokesman for AFSCME, told the Huffington Post. "Unlike the Chamber of Commerce, we play by clear rules of transparency -- we report our spending to the Department of Labor and every month we provide the FEC a list of our members who contribute more than $200 for political activities.
"We believe these midterm elections are too important to hand over to rich, right-wing extremists who have declared war on public services and the men and women who provide them. Billions of dollars are going to be spent this election cycle -- clearly, the biggest dollars are not coming from labor. But we have people who care enough about our country to knock on doors, call their neighbors, contact their friends and work their hearts and souls out to protect working families and Main Street, USA."
Perhaps the clearest sign that the Chamber and AFSCME are operating with different mindsets, Policano noted, is that the union was comfortable working with the Journal's reporters.
"The Wall Street Journal asked about spending and we told them -- there's no mystery about who we are or where the money comes from," he said.
By contrast, an article that the New York Times ran Friday morning on the sources of the Chamber's funding seems to have been culled through painstaking research of different tax and filing forms.
There are, in addition, two other points worth noting with respect to the (occasional arcane) analogies between interest-group funding and spending. As Time magazine points out, when it comes to AFSCME, the implication is pretty clear who is supporting the political activity. They're union members whose dues go to the union's account. With respect to the Chamber, the funding sources aren't evident. As the Times reported, different companies have donated various amounts depending on what policy battle it wants to influence.
Finally, as Greg Sargent points out, when it comes to the issue of who is operating off of anonymous donations, the balance is heavily tilted towards conservative organizations.
The public employees union American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), defended itself on Friday from charges that the massive funds it has devoted to the 2010 elections diminish the Democratic Party's argument that conservative donors are overwhelming the system.
On Friday morning, the Wall Street Journal reported that the $87.5 million that AFSCME had spent on election activities (the majority of it on voter contact efforts) made it the biggest dog in the 2010 fight. The union was, with one week to go, outpacing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ($75 million), American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS, ($65 million) and fellow union, SEIU, ($44 million). Within labor circles the Journal article was initially hailed as a badge of honor. But pundits jumped on the revelation as proof that Democrats had either trampled on their talking points or been crying wolf over conservative mega-donors all along.
Lost in the analysis, AFSCME noted, were important distinctions.
"[T]here's no mystery about who we are or where the money comes from," Chris Policano, a spokesman for AFSCME, told the Huffington Post. "Unlike the Chamber of Commerce, we play by clear rules of transparency -- we report our spending to the Department of Labor and every month we provide the FEC a list of our members who contribute more than $200 for political activities.
"We believe these midterm elections are too important to hand over to rich, right-wing extremists who have declared war on public services and the men and women who provide them. Billions of dollars are going to be spent this election cycle -- clearly, the biggest dollars are not coming from labor. But we have people who care enough about our country to knock on doors, call their neighbors, contact their friends and work their hearts and souls out to protect working families and Main Street, USA."
Perhaps the clearest sign that the Chamber and AFSCME are operating with different mindsets, Policano noted, is that the union was comfortable working with the Journal's reporters.
"The Wall Street Journal asked about spending and we told them -- there's no mystery about who we are or where the money comes from," he said.
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There are, in addition, two other points worth noting with respect to the (occasional arcane) analogies between interest-group funding and spending. As Time magazine points out, when it comes to AFSCME, the implication is pretty clear who is supporting the political activity. They're union members whose dues go to the union's account. With respect to the Chamber, the funding sources aren't evident. As the Times reported, different companies have donated various amounts depending on what policy battle it wants to influence.
Finally, as Greg Sargent points out, when it comes to the issue of who is operating off of anonymous donations, the balance is heavily tilted towards conservative organizations.
According to data from the nonpartisan Sunlight Foundation, conservative groups that have spent significant sums have plowed nearly $75 million in undisclosed donations alone into this election.
By contrast, liberal groups have spent under $10 million -- around one eighth that sum. And much of that is coming from groups that weren't set up just to influence elections.
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