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LOUISVILLE /JEFFERSON COUNTY

DEMOCRATIC PARTY NEWSLETTER

Week of January 9, 2009

 

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Updated on a regular basis

The Louisville/Jefferson County Democratic Executive Committee meets the 4th Wednesday of every month at 5:00 pm at Democratic Headquarters,           

640 Barret Avenue .

 

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OFF TO THE RACES

 

How Will Dems Govern On Their Honeymoon?, By Charlie Cook

 

It would be hard to argue with the premise that Congress has become a largely dysfunctional institution, plagued by partisan rancor.

When our nation came together after Sept. 11, 2001, truly a unique period of national unity, President Bush delivered a Sept. 20, 2001, address to a joint session of Congress, with Democrats and Republicans joining together on the steps of the Capitol to sing "God Bless America." But it didn't take long before the venomous partisanship returned, and it has continued since.

 

Similarly, Washington has become something of a pejorative term in the minds of too many Americans, a place where nothing seems to get done. For those of us who have lived in the city for a long time, 36 years in my case, we know that this is not exactly a fact, but we are also painfully aware that there is some truth in those accusations. President-elect Obama ran against the ways of Washington in his campaign last year. As of this past weekend, he has officially become a part of Washington.

 

With the 2008 elections behind us, Democrats have complete ownership of the two political branches of our national government. If things continue to fester, they get the blame.

 

While things hardly begin anew with a blank slate, Democrats must now set the tone for this new Congress. The route they take will in part help determine how successful they will be in addressing our nation's enormous problems.

 

If Democrats begin this new Congress with the arbitrary and capricious attitude of "our way or the highway," Republicans will not only have no incentive to cooperate, but it virtually guarantees an obstinate minority and that the cycle of partisanship and dysfunctionality will continue.

What that means is a policy of not jamming Republicans or shoving things down their throats. Such would be a short-term strategy with long-term costs.

 

The seating of Rep. Frank McCloskey by House Democrats after the contested election in Indiana's 8th District in 1984 was one of the major contributing factors to creating the current vicious cycle and led to the rise of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga. Republicans who had been institutionalists became militants. With what it ultimately cost Democrats, it wasn't worth a single seat.

 

The House is not so much a challenge for Democrats, but they do have to remain mindful that the difference between where they are today and where they were four years ago is a little over five dozen Democrats sitting in seats that had previously been electing Republicans to Congress.

 

For the most part, there is very little liberal about these districts, other than the willingness to take a liberal attitude about throwing out an incumbent the constituents don't agree with.

 

The odds look high today that Democrats will end up with the contested Senate seat in Minnesota. The question is whether Democrats want to force it through now, creating new ill will, or let the process work its way out, with Al Franken seated a week or two late, after Republican Sen. Norm Coleman has exhausted his legal challenges. The temptation for Democrats will be to seat him now, but I believe the more prudent thing would be to not taint the well.

 

Another land mine Obama would be well advised to avoid is card-check legislation, which passed the House in March 2007 but stalled in the Senate.

 

No other issue on the political horizon today epitomizes the split between labor and business better than this one. Nothing else would decimate the coalitions that Obama and Senate Democrats will need to put together to move other legislation that is more essential in turning the economy around.

 

For congressional Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections and for Obama in 2012, re-election and staying in power will be determined more by their ability to get the country out of the economic ditch.

 

Fracturing coalitions of centrists with polarizing measures will only make their jobs more difficult. In Southern and border states, in states and districts with a history of voting Republican and having a sympathetic view toward business, card check is not going to go over well.

 

The argument that Democrats are abolishing the secret ballot in union organizing elections will be a potent one. Is this really the issue on which Democrats want to break their pick?

 

If Obama is going to truly change the ways of Washington, he will have to walk the walk, not just talk the talk. Congressional Republicans are exceedingly skeptical of him and his motives and assume the worst from Democratic congressional leaders.

 

But the public is giving Obama the benefit of the doubt and Republicans have to be careful to avoid being pegged as obstructionists. The Republican Party's stock today is about as low as it can get, but Democrats can hand them a way back by appearing just as partisan and ineffective as the public viewed Republicans when they were in power.

 

So, the question is whether Democrats can hold onto the high ground. The opposition party does not terminate a new president's honeymoon, but the actions of the new president and his party abbreviate their own honeymoons.

 

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The Republican economic fix—all sound-bite, no teeth 

 

Republicans are all flash and no substance—and the truth is that they have always been all shake, no bake. Their response to and solution for the economic crisis proves once and for all, Republicans are all sound-bite, no teeth!

 

Take a look at the Republican Party's religious adherence to trickle down economics. The theory is all about the upper one percent not paying a dime in taxes, while tax revenue collected from the working and middle class is spent to make life all the more easy for the upper one percent, i.e. building roads for corporate trucks to shuttle their products, paying for the police that protect the wealthy neighborhoods, paying for the fire departments that respond to burning mansions, giving huge tax "rebates" to big oil etc., etc., etc.

 

Now, of course, the upper one percent does have a lot of money, but they aren't the engine that runs the economy. Republicans just can't figure out that the working and middle class make up 75 percent of the economy. After all, just how many stoves and refrigerators can one percent of the population purchase? How about one percent! And, how many stoves and refrigerators and cars and footballs and pants and shirts and socks and shoes and so on and so forth, can 99 percent of the population purchase? It isn't exactly rocket science, is it? No, it isn't rocket science but Republicans can't figure it out: By virtue of all the things that they purchase the working people, blue collar people, middle class people are the motor that drive the economy. The upper one percent can only produce and invest in the production of things when those things are being purchased by the masses. It doesn't work the other way around!

 

Still, the Republicans have managed to convince the American people — through the slick use of sound-bites — that trickle down economics is a viable economic policy. When put into practice, however, the GOPs economic voodoo has proven to be all flash and no substance—all shake, no bake.

 

Now, let's examine the GOPs plan to lift the nation out of the current recession-turning-Depression. It is typical Republican madness! They are, as usual, trying to put the cart before the horse. Republicans keep insisting that small business is the answer to our current economic problems. Give small businesses ALL THE MONEY and they will create jobs and lift the economy out of the crisis, say Republicans. First, have Republicans really abandoned their benefactors— the wealthy upper one percent? No, they haven't! Small business is just a distraction. Republicans know that their, "everything for the upper one percent, nothing for the people" philosophy has hurt them in the elections, so they are using small business as a distraction. Who can possibly hate the GOP for fighting for the little-ish guy, small business? In practice, whatever the Republicans conjure will ultimately most benefit the one percenters. Second (and no one has bothered to ask Republicans this) how exactly can small business create jobs when the American people have NO money with which to buy whatever product small businesses might hope to produce?

 

The Republicans might "re-brand" but it will only be a new package, same old product scenario. Republicans are what they are—whores for the upper one percent. Whatever the Republican Party offers working Americans will be all flash and no substance—all shake, no bake; all sound-bite, no teeth!

 

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ECONOMY -- CHAMBER OF COMMERCE STIMULUS PLAN: CUT CORPORATE TAX RATES, ELIMINATE UNIONS: Yesterday, the pro-industry Chamber of Commerce issued its State of American Business 2009 report. It called for a stimulus plan to be enacted "immediately." However, its stimulus proposal is essentially a pro-big business, anti-worker grab bag. The Chamber's main proposals include cutting corporate income taxes, slashing the corporate capital gains tax, and defeating the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which would make it easier for workers to unionize. Cutting corporate taxes is one of the least effective economic stimulus measures; the Tax Policy Center's Robertson Williams opined that "businesses are just trying to profit from the government rescue." Fearmongering on EFCA is one of the Chamber's favorite pastimes -- calling it a "firestorm bordering on Armageddon." It has already spent millions to defeat it. Though unionization is not a form of stimulus, the Wonk Room's Pat Garofalo points out that after a stimulus has been passed, "there needs to be a mechanism in place to ensure longer-term recovery and growth," which unionization helps create by fostering "a competitive, high-wage, high-productivity economic strategy."

 

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Under Bush, OSHA ‘Literally Fell Asleep On The Job’

 

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) mission — as stated on its website — is to “assure safe and healthful working conditions for working men and women.”

 

However, the Washington Post reported today that for the last eight years OSHA has been doing anything but accomplishing this mission. Instead, the agency has become “mired in inaction,” creating only a “legacy of unregulation” — all to the benefit of America’s corporations.

 

As the Las Vegas Sun recently noted, the Bush administration’s “only real priority has been to prevent the agency from doing its job.” In fact, in just its first two years, the administration “pulled 22 items off the agency’s regulatory agenda, its working list of proposed safety and health rules.”

 

During Bush’s tenure, OSHA officials issued 86 percent fewer rules or regulations “termed economically significant” than they did under President Clinton. And while these officials have been sitting on their hands, as many as 13 million people — “or nearly a tenth of the American workforce” — are injured on the job each year.

 

Part of the problem, as the Post reported, is that under Bush, career OSHA officials were shut out by political appointees, and thus “strategic choices were frequently made without input from [the agency’s] experienced hands.” This has turned the agency into “a bureaucratic quagmire, where regulations take a decade or more to make and where priorities consistently shift.”

 

Symbolical of the agency’s shortcomings under Bush, Edwin G. Foulke Jr., a former Bush fundraiser appointed to head OSHA in 2006, “acquired a reputation inside the Labor Department as a man who literally fell asleep on the job“:

 

His top aides said they rustled papers, wore attention-getting garb, pounded the table for emphasis or gently kicked his leg, all to keep him awake. But, if these tactics failed, sometimes they just continued talking as if he were awake.

 

A key goal for the next administration should be to get OSHA back on the side of working people. For starters, this means putting teeth into the agency’s safety enforcement mechanisms. As David Madland of the Center for American Progress Action Fund has noted, “Many worker-protection fines are so low — even for the worst violations — that irresponsible employers have begun factoring them in as part of their cost of doing business rather than complying with labor laws”:

 

In 2007, the median OSHA final penalty for violations that caused a fatality was only $3,675.16. OSHA is one of only five government entities that are exempt from the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act, which directs and authorizes agencies to regularly adjust their penalties for inflation. These civil money penalties were last adjusted by Congress in 1990 and are not indexed to inflation.

 

OSHA — and the Labor Department as a whole — has neglected working Americans for the last eight years, harming not only individual workers, but also costing the American taxpayer $108 billion a year. There is no reason for this willful apathy to continue.

 

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Some U.S. Senators are real corkers. Take Bob Corker, a Republican from Tennessee. Please.

 

He's on the committee overseeing the bailout of America's auto companies and he recently popped his cork over the pay that unionized auto workers earn. He demanded that their wages be slashed as a price of the industry getting a $14 billion bailout. "We need to put in place specific and rigorous measures," he cried.

 

Odd that he was acting so tough toward those blue-collar folks, when he and his colleagues so meekly threw a $700-billion bailout at Wall Street bankers. Just one of those banks, Citigroup, was given $45 billion by the senators – with no questions asked. Indeed, Citigroup's CEO is being paid $216 million this year, yet Corker made no demand that he take a whack in pay.

 

Those who are bashing workers want you to believe that union wages are exorbitant, topping $80,000 a year for a highly-skilled, experienced line worker. But, wait – total wages and benefits add up to less than 10 percent of a car's price tag. Even if the union members worked for free, that wouldn't save the corporations. Detroit's problems aren't on the factory floor, but up in the executive suites, where $10,000-an-hour CEOs have proven to be incompetent, unimaginative managers.

 

Yes, autoworkers make a good living – but isn't that what we want for the families of our country? These workers define America's middle-class ideal. They can afford to buy homes (and cars), send their kids to college, and even pay the taxes that cover Corker's salary. By the way, the senator is paid double what auto workers get, and he doesn't have to have any productive skills, do any heavy lifting, or deliver a product.

 

Someone should send a Henry Ford bobblehead to Corker to remind him of the auto pioneer's wisdom: Good wages are the lifeblood of the industry – and of our economy.

 

"Democrats prepare to pitch auto rescue deal," Austin American Statesman, December 7, 2008.

"Republicans Divided on Aid to Automakers," www.nytimes.com, December 7, 2008.

"$73 an Hour: Adding It Up," www.nytimes.com, December 10, 2008.

 

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Card Check Fight Coming to the States, by Josh Goodman

 

If you follow Congress, you probably know that the preeminent business-labor fault line right now is the rather obscure question of whether workers should be able to unionize through public petitions (a.k.a "card check") or whether they should only be able to unionize through secret ballot votes.

 

Business groups hate card check, unions love it. As greatly expanded Democratic majorities in Congress take office this month, along with President Barack Obama, the chances for the bill to allow card check, the Employee Free Choice Act, will improve greatly.

 

In this context, business groups are pursuing an interesting strategy. They're not just fighting card check in Congress, but also making a push to amend state constitutions to fight it state by state. A new group called Save our Secret Ballot is working for ballot measures to require secret votes for unionization.

 

The group is starting with five states, Arizona, Arkansas, Missouri, Nevada and Utah, but says that more could be added. In other words, one of the hottest topics in federal politics will soon be one of the hottest topics in state politics too.

 

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Santorum On Employee Free Choice: ‘Vito Corleone’s Famous Line Again Comes To Mind’

 

Today, former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) ran an op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer claiming that passage of the Employee Free Choice Act would enable unions to act like mafioso from Mario Puzo’s “The Godfather,” forcing American workers to face an offer they can’t refuse:

 

It is called card check because all union organizers would have to do to certify a union at any workplace is get a majority of employees to sign a card authorizing a union. The legislation even allows union organizers to visit an employee’s house up to four times to “persuade” him or her to sign the card. Vito Corleone’s famous line again comes to mind.

 

Santorum is not alone with these sentiments. In the Wall Street Journal, columnist Kimberley Strassel claimed today that the Employee Free Choice Act “would allow [unions] to intimidate more workers into joining.”

 

These assertions are complete bunk. The Employee Free Choice Act merely puts the decision of whether or not to unionize back into the hands of workers, instead of leaving it up to their employers. Under current law, when faced with a union organizing drive 25 percent of employers fire at least one pro-union worker; 51 percent threaten to close a worksite if the union prevails; and, 91 percent force employees to attend one-on-one anti-union meetings with their supervisors. But Santorum doesn’t seem too worried about this variety of strong-arming.

 

Of course, Santorum may have more behind his views than a genuine desire to keep the pro-employer status quo. During his Senate days, he was considerably aided by Americans for Job Security (AJS), a “faux group of secret corporate dollars” whose top concern right now is derailing the Free Choice Act.

 

Though the organization refuses to disclose its membership, according to Source Watch it spent millions on advertising to support Santorum in his failed 2006 reelection bid. Back in 2005, the Philadelphia Daily News noted that “Santorum doesn’t seem too concerned about who is behind Americans for Job Security, a Virginia-based anti-tax group that refuses to identify contributors. He declined to tell one of our reporters whether his financial backers should step out of the shadows.”

 

For its part, AJS is currently trying to discredit the Free Choice Act by running ads calling it a “union boss bailout.” Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) — who is named in one of the ads — called them “sleazy and intentionally confusing advertisements,” and “unfair to those who deserve an honest, fact-based debate.”

 

So in the end, it seems, it was Santorum who found an offer he couldn’t refuse: siding with a “sham front group that would be better called Corporations Influencing Elections.”

 

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Comments:  

 

Have your comments printed here.  Send them to LJCDP@louisvilledem.com

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DAILY GRILL

 

"I don't believe we violated anybody's civil liberties." -- Vice President Cheney, 1/3/09

VERSUS

"Despite pledges by President George W. Bush and American intelligence officials to the contrary, hundreds of US citizens overseas have been eavesdropped on as they called friends and family back home." -- ABC News, 10/9/08

 

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"On domestic policy, Bush was asked if he made progress in some areas for which he hasn't and probably won't get credit. Topping his list was his unsuccessful drive in 2005 to reform Social Security." -- The Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes, 1/5/09

VERSUS

"I probably, in retrospect, should have pushed immigration reform right after the '04 election and not Social Security reform." -- Bush, 1/6/09

 

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Quotes of the Day

 

The race in Minnesota is not over. ... The way you get sworn in and the way you get seated is to show up with an election certificate. And that is determined under Minnesota law." -- Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), 1/5/09, pushing Minnesota Republican Norm Coleman to fight the results of the U.S. Senate race

VERSUS

"We've had a count, we've had a recount, we've had a recount of the recount. It's been three weeks since the election and it's time for Gore to be a statesman and give it up."  -- McConnell, Lexington Herald-Leader, 11/27/00, urging Al Gore to concede to George W. Bush 

TOP     

 

Recent Senate Votes 

 

No Votes Reported

 

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Recent House Votes 

 

No Votes Reported

 

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TOP

HUMOR    

 

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ETHICS -- ARMY SENDS 7,000 LETTERS TO FAMILIES OF DEAD SOLDIERS ADDRESSED TO 'JOHN DOE': The Army apologized this week after sending approximately 7,000 letters to family members of soldiers killed in Iraq or Afghanistan that were mistakenly addressed to "John Doe." The military sent the letters last month in regards to private organizations "that offer gifts, programs and other assistance to families that have lost" soldiers. As a result, Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey is now sending a personal letter to all the families who received the improperly addressed letters. The Army says the mistake was caused by a printing error from a contractor, and it only became aware of the "glitch" when several families began contacting the service in recent days. "The indication that anyone would perceive that a hero is not significant, that they would not direct this personally to them, is shattering," remarked Merrilee Carlson, whose son died in Iraq.
 

CONSERVATIVE OBSTRUCTION: Despite the urgency after eight years of the Bush administration's do-nothing attitude, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has said that he and his fellow conservatives are in no rush to provide this important economic relief and plan to put the brakes to attempts to quickly pass a package. "I believe the taxpayers deserve to know a lot more about where it will be spent before we consider passing it," he said in a statement last week. According to the Washington Post, McConnell has also "called for a weeklong cooling off period between when the bill is drafted and when it is voted on, allowing time to dissect it for signs of 'fraud and waste.'" Conservatives have the power to filibuster the legislation if they oppose it. (McConnell, however, had no problem quickly passing President Bush's Wall Street bailout, even though that package had almost no oversight safeguards. In fact, he "led the battle" to pass the bill.) The real risk, according to many economists, is in doing too little. Krugman, for example, has said that he would like to see a "bigger" stimulus package -- as high as a trillion dollars. New York University Economics Professor Nouriel Roubini has explained that failure to enact a fiscal stimulus could actually result in wider deficits, which would send the country into a "very severe recession."

 

ECONOMY -- CHENEY: FINANCIAL CRISIS 'DEVELOPED' ONLY 'OVER THE LAST SIX MONTHS': On CBS' Face The Nation yesterday, host Bob Schieffer asked Vice President Cheney whether Americans were "better off now than we were years ago." "I think we've done some very good things in the course of the last eight years," replied Cheney. After listing off policies that he claimed were accomplishments, such as No Child Left Behind, Cheney acknowledged that the Bush administration was leaving incoming Obama administration officials "with their hands full." But he was unwilling to admit any real culpability for the challenges that President-elect Obama will face, saying only that they are a "new set of problems." Cheney even claimed that the turmoil in the financial sector "developed" only "over the last six months." Cheney is following in the footsteps of right-wingers like Rush Limbaugh, who also claim that the country's economic problems only began recently under Democrats. But the financial sector's problems developed over many years and were pushed forward by the economic policies of the Bush administration. As the Center for American Progress's Tim Westrich has noted, the "root cause of the financial mess is the hands-off approach towards mortgage and finance markets by the Bush administration, and its lack of action when a disaster was imminent." Instead of taking responsibility for the challenges that President-elect Obama will inherit, Cheney simply claimed that "each administration has its challenges."

ADMINISTRATION -- BUSH CITES FAILED SOCIAL SECURITY PRIVATIZATION PUSH AS HIS BIGGEST DOMESTIC POLICY ACHIEVEMENT: Yesterday, the Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes reported that he and fellow conservative Bill Kristol met with President Bush last Friday for a lunch in the president's "private dining room adjacent to the Oval Office." Barnes reported that the President cited his push to privatize Social Security as his biggest domestic policy accomplishment. "Bush said his effort showed it's politically safe to campaign on changing Social Security and then actually seek to change it," wrote Barnes. Though it seems odd that Bush cited an unsuccessful effort as his biggest domestic policy achievement, it is understandable given that he doesn't have much else to include on a list of successes. But not only was Bush's drive to privatize Social Security an utter failure, the concept is also widely unpopular with the American public, and if enacted, would have had disastrous consequences for Americans' retirement funds. A recent Center for American Progress Action Fund report found that if a worker had retired on Oct. 1, 2008, after 35 years of contributions to private retirement accounts, that retiree would have lost nearly $30,000 in retirement funds because of the downturn in the stock market over the last two years.

 

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Think Fast  

 

The RNC will select its new chairman this month and the six-way contest is aggravating "intraparty tensions." As one RNC consultant explained to Politico, "Some people are p-ssed off at [Americans for Tax Reform President] Grover [Norquist]. Some people are p-ssed off at the Conservative Steering Committee. Some people are p-ssed off at [current RNC chair] Mike Duncan. Some people are p-ssed off at social conservatives. ... Everyone is basically p-ssed."

 

Obama and congressional Democrats are "planning swift action to overturn a Supreme Court decision that made it much harder for people to challenge discrimination in employment, education, housing and other fields." Since the May 2007 decision, courts "have gone far beyond the facts of that case and cited it as a reason for rejecting lawsuits claiming discrimination based on race, sex, age and disability."

 

Speaking of Leon Panetta’s qualifications to head the CIA, former White House counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke remarked: "He was in the small handful of people who knew there was a terrorism problem long before anybody else had heard of al-Qaeda."

 

"President Bush made another round of last-minute appointments Tuesday, giving 45 aides, supporters and others a parting gift as he leaves office: presidential appointments to boards and councils, with terms lasting three to six years after he leaves office." The appointments included Elliott Abrams, Michael Chertoff, and Michael Mukasey to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council.

 

Former Republican congressman Bob Barr states, "In 1996, as a freshman member of the House of Representatives, I wrote the Defense of Marriage Act, better known by its shorthand acronym, DOMA, than its legal title." But now, he says, "I have come to agree with [Obama] that the law should be repealed."

 

Toyota will be "suspending production at all 12 of its Japan plants for 11 days over February and March," an "unprecedented" suspension for the top automaker. Data released yesterday also showed that the auto industry "capped off 2008 with its worst sales in 16 years as Americans continued to steer clear of dealerships in December."

 

In a speech set to be delivered today at George Mason University, President-elect Obama says that the nation's recession could "linger for years" unless Congress acts to pass a new $800 billion stimulus package. Obama adds that a "bad situation could become dramatically worse," warning of double-digit unemployment and a loss of $1 trillion in economic activity.

 

The House passed a measure yesterday that would require future donations to presidential libraries to be publicly disclosed. The House also passed legislation that would make it more difficult for presidents to restrict access to certain documents.

 

In yet another 11th hour regulation, the Interior Department today "is publishing a rule that would lift a 79-year-old executive order prohibiting oil shale development in Wyoming and Utah." Oil giant Shell had "pressed" Interior to issue the rule.

 

In a Republican conference meeting yesterday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) discussed the "devastating loss of Hispanic voters and how that arose on the rhetoric on immigration," according to a Senate Republican who attended the meeting. The need to reach out to Hispanics "was discussed big time," Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) said. "We have to reach out to Hispanics. We need to go on Hispanic media much more."

 

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TOP  

INTERESTING   

 

A ‘Bottoms-Up’ Strategy Is Needed
To Solve Nation’s Economic Crisis

By Harry Kelber

 

Treasury secretary Henry Paulson and his team of financial experts are operating on the theory that if they can cajole major banks to unfreeze their lending practices by giving them $25 billion “bailout” packages, economic stability and consumer confidence will be restored in due course.

 

The people who don’t enter into Paulson’s equation are the nearly two million who were laid off in 2008, the hundreds of thousands who lost their homes and those who saw some of their life savings disappear in the economic meltdown

 

Consumer confidence is a meaningless, even bitter term, to laid-off people who have just cashed their last paycheck. They’re the last in line to get some “stimulus,” but only while the Wall Street crowd is still gorging on the available billions under Paulson's control.

 

It seems not to have occurred to the financial wizards in Washington that consumers are not spending because they can't afford to. Every type of goods and service is available to please every desire and taste, but not if you can’t even pay the month’s rent or a phone bill.

 

The current recession is a harsh replay of an age-old, economic cycle of capitalism, which victimizes working people at both ends of the process. Here’s how it works:

 

First, employers, to maximize their profits, get their employees to work harder and longer for the lowest possible wage. Second, competition among employers leads to overproduction. Third, workers do not have the purchasing power to buy the oversupply of goods and services. Fourth, employers institute wholesale layoffs and drastic wage cuts. Workers then have little choice but to accept the employers’ terms or wait until the end of the recession. Fifth, when the recession is over, workers are glad to be hired back to a job, while the employers still remain in control. And the cycle begins again.

 

The New Deal Gave Workers Jobs and Buying Power

 

The largest job-creating effort in American history was achieved during the Great Depression, at a time when 25 percent of the working population was unemployed, another 25 percent was on part-time while those lucky enough to have a job worked 60 hours or more, with no labor laws to protect them.

 

Faced with the daunting task of restoring a broken economy, the Roosevelt administration decided that its prime task was to “put people back to work.” A series of national work projects, financed by the federal government, provided useful jobs for the millions of unemployed, not only for construction workers, but also for people in other industries.

 

Painters, musicians and actors could earn a modest income while pursuing their careers. Hundreds of thousands of young people earned $30 a month working on forest preservation projects. High school and college students could earn a stipend that enabled them to continue their education.

 

One of the most remarkable achievements of the New Deal was the social and labor legislation it produced, laws that still have enormous influence on the live of working people: social security, unemployment insurance, the minimum wage, the 40-hour week, with time and a half for overtime, the right to join a union and the abolition of child labor. All this was accomplished in only one decade when America was going through the worst depression in its history.

 

Will the Obama administration follow the “bottoms-up” strategy that was so successfully employed under the New Deal? Is there a better and more humane way to fulfill the dreams of America’s middle-class and working families?

 

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Buy American Mention of the Week, By Roger Simmermaker      

 

Toys Made in America

 

Have you been looking for toys made in America? Then why not visit www.toysmadeinAmerica.com, where you’ll see literally dozens of links to all kinds of toys, games, puzzles, books and sports accessories?

 

At www.toysmadeinAmerica.com, you’ll not only find the types of toys you would normally see in a toy store that happen to be made in USA from companies like Little Tikes, but you’ll also find many, many toys from smaller companies that are Internet based and don’t have the corporate horsepower to get into a big box store like Toys”R”Us, for example.

 

Also provided is a link to the latest toy recalls from the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), but you probably won’t have to worry about one of your toys being linked on this page if you stick with the American-made variety. I quickly browsed the top ten links on the recall page and didn’t even make it out of November 2008. That tells me that even if the toy recalls from China aren’t making it on the front page like they used to, it doesn’t mean it’s not still a real, dangerous and ongoing problem that all too often the innocent American consumer unfortunately has to deal with.

 

Okay, let’s get back to all the great American-made toys and other domestically-produced products waiting to pleasantly surprise you at www.toysmadeinAmerica.com. There are bath boats, swing sets, hobby horses, alphabet blocks and other wooden toys, wood airplanes, board games, baseball bats, art easels, foosball tables, doll houses, doll clothing, teddy bears (not just from Vermont Teddy Bear), stuffed animals, dartboards, log cabin building sets, jigsaw puzzles, children’s books (like Dr. Seuss), western toys, wiffle balls, whistles, puppets, play dough (not the classic but now-imported Play-Doh brand), playhouses, marbles, juggling sticks, organic lollipops and other hard candies, and non-toxic, medical-grade baby teethers and bathtub duckies. There’s even a link for American-made dog toys.

 

Then there are toys that your child might like that some grownups can get into as well. There are toy and model trains, die cast farm tractors, banjos, guitars, metal detectors, hand-crafted musical instruments, trading cards, and playing cards.

 

Not necessarily in the mood for toys, games, hobbies or other entertainment? How about American-made linens and American-made flags? The choices of American flags aren’t just limited to the good ole red, white and blue, but you’ll also discover some really neat patriotic banners that until a few days ago I didn’t think were available from domestic sources.

 

A few months ago, one of the visitors to my website mailed me a “Made in American Bear” garden banner just to show me the hypocrisy of such a banner being made in China. The banner displays a patriotic bear wrapped in patriotic colors holding up a torch similar to the Statue of Liberty with “Made in America” spelled out along the bottom. But now I can order my own American-made patriotic banners by visiting www.toysmadeinAmerica.com and choosing from the Made in USA bear, the Patriotic bear, the God & Country bear or the Liberty bear banners.

 

So next time you have more than just few minutes to do some American-made web surfing (it will take you a while to browse through all the links to all the products), I would suggest giving www.toysmadeinAmerica.com a visit. Even if you don’t plan to make any purchases, you’ll likely come away with a sense of pride knowing that in more cases than you probably suspected, we still do make a lot of things in the USA. Awareness is the key, and this website goes a long way to exposing the awareness that will help make America a more independent and prosperous country.

 

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Roger Simmermaker is the author of How Americans Can Buy American: The Power of Consumer Patriotism and writes "Buy American Mention of the Week" articles for WorldNetDaily.com and his website www.howtobuyamerican.com. Roger is a member of the Machinists Union and National Writers Union, has been a frequent guest on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC, and has been quoted in the USA Today, Wall Street Journal and Business Week among many other publications.

 

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GOOD NEWS

 

Rep. David Obey (D-WI) and Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI) will now require members to post their earmark "requests on their Web sites at the time they make them, and explain the purpose of the earmark and why it is a valuable use of taxpayer funds."

 

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Publication of Louisville/Jefferson County Democratic Party Tim Longmeyer, Chairman Ray Crider, Editor 640 Barret Ave Louisville, Ky  40202 502-582-1999   Paid for by the Louisville/Jefferson Co Democratic Party Charlie Horton, Treasurer Produced & Printed In-House

 

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