Original source: With the nation’s economy sinking deeper and deeper into recession and more and more workers losing their jobs, Senate Republicans are playing a partisan game of ideological chicken over President Obama’s economic recovery package. They appear to be saying, “Give us even greater tax cuts for big business and millionaires, or we will do all we can to kill this bill.”
Says AFL-CIO President John Sweeney in a statement this afternoon:
Hardworking families across America are losing their jobs, their health care, their homes and their pensions. They desperately need an economic recovery plan that directly and quickly stimulates the economy—not a continuation of the failed policies of the past that gave tax cuts to millionaires. The future of our nation’s middle class isn’t a blue issue or red issue—it’s a jobs issue, plain and simple, and we need more of them fast.
It is time for those who are attempting to obstruct real change to step beyond ideology and partisanship and to think about the families and communities that need help now.
Senate debate on the bill is expected to last for several more days as Republicans offer a series of amendments that not surprisingly reflect the same failed polices that drove the economy into its steepest decline since the Depression—policies that voters soundly rejected in November.
Says Sweeney:
This past election offered voters a clear choice. President Obama strongly advocated a new direction that would help working families, including creating jobs with direct spending to repair our crumbling infrastructure, producing green jobs while addressing climate change and providing universal health care.
Voters overwhelmingly chose Obama and voted for policies that will help working people, create jobs and rebuild the middle class. They rejected special favors for moneyed interests and tax breaks for multinational corporations—and the Senate should, too.
The House passed its version of the recovery package last week.
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