From Rose Ann DeMoro of National Nurses United, AFL-CIO & the CNA

Nurses Offer to Buy President's  Shoes to March With Workers

The following commentary on developments in Madison, Wisconsin, appeared
first on the Huffington Post.  Rose Ann DeMoro is the Executive Director
of National Nurses United, AFL-CIO, and of the California Nurses
Association.  She is a member of the AFL-CIO Executive Council.

Nurses Offer to Buy President's Shoes to March With Workers

Posted: February 28, 2011 08:18 PM

By Rose Ann DeMoro

The past two weeks have been a "Where's Waldo" moment for President Obama.

He's been largely a bystander while tens of thousands of American workers,
joined by students, and community allies, marched in Madison's snow and
freezing temperatures, and slept on the floors of the capitol to defend
their most fundamental right to freedom of assembly and a collective
voice.

On Monday, the President told U.S. governors, "I don't think it does
anybody any good when public employees are denigrated or vilified or their
rights are infringed upon."

But the President never addresses the heart of the problem, a clear
statement of who is responsible for the crisis -- the corporate class and
the right, aided by those like President Obama, who enable them. That's
the giant elephant in the room that remains missing in the 'blame the
workers' paradigm so often repeated by politicians and mainstream media
alike.

Many of us recall the pledge made by candidate Barack Obama in
Spartanburg, S.C. on November 3, 2007 when he declared:

"Understand this. If American workers are being denied their right to
organize and collectively bargain, when I'm in the White House, I'll put
on a comfortable pair of shoes myself. I'll walk on that picket line with
you as President of the United States because Americans deserve to know
that somebody is standing in their corner."

We're waiting. Nurses, who have been on the ground every day in Madison
and at support rallies across the country, will buy his shoes.

Standing with the embattled workers would be an important symbol (and
might even get more of the media to show up). But we need far more from
this administration -- and for that matter from the Democratic leadership
on Capitol Hill.

We need a clear message that public workers and union members in general
did not cause the economic crisis or unbalanced budgets. Public pensions
did not spark a meltdown on Wall Street. It wasn't workers exploiting tax
loopholes or off shoring their bank accounts that depleted public
treasuries.

Over the past three decades there has been a massive shift of federal
revenues. Individuals now account for nearly five times the federal tax
receipts as do corporations, numbers that were roughly equal when Ronald
Reagan took office.

The states are no better. Overall, taxes on individuals produce about four
times the revenues for states that corporations do. In Wisconsin, the
ratio is about five to one -- and that was before Gov. Walker gave
corporations $117 million in tax cuts in January to create his current "I
need to break the unions" $137 million deficit.

It's well and right for the President to criticize "an assault on unions,"
as he did in an initial statement two weeks ago.

But he undercuts that message by conceding the Republican and tea party
rhetoric about the "tough fiscal situation we are in" while calling for
even lower corporate taxes, and making deals to extend tax cuts for the
wealthy, and expressing sympathy for governors, like Walker, who want to
put their entire burden on workers and the poor.

Every time you hear the President or any other politician call for "shared
sacrifice," think about this:

• Corporate taxes as a percent of the gross domestic product are at
historical lows.
• Corporate profits per employee are the highest on record. At $1.6
trillion, third quarter corporate profits were the highest figure ever
recorded since record keeping began 60 years ago.
• The top 1% of the population had 17.1% of total after tax income in
2009, the highest figure for at least 30 years.
• A one-time 14% surcharge on the super-rich would more than pay for the
$1.6 trillion budget deficit projected for 2011 (according to the National
Nurses United's research arm, the Institute for Health and Socio-Economic
Policy).
• And, finally, workers' wages have been stagnant or falling for at least
30 years.

What more and more people are saying in Madison and elsewhere is that this
is not about public workers. It's about politicians funded by far right
zealots like the Koch brothers who want to privatize all publicly owned
institutions in the U.S. and shift even more resources to Wall Street.

Let's recall it was the finance sector, especially the big banks, not
workers, who created the economic crisis in the states and nationally
through wild economic speculation concentrated in the mortgage industry.

The 'Deficit Hawks' on the far right are exploiting that crisis to push
severe cuts in federal and state spending to 'balance the budget' on the
backs of those that can least afford it -- people of color, women, the
long term unemployed and the millions caught in the mortgage debacle --
when their real goal is to engage in a private sector hostile takeover of
federal and state government. At the same time, they are pushing more tax
breaks for corporations and the wealthy which adds to the debt.

The real issue is a responsibility crisis. Those responsible for the
economic crisis are being rewarded and workers are being asked to
sacrifice.

Here's what we'd like to hear the President say:

Bringing the deficit into balance requires a just rebalancing of the
responsibility of the corporate elite and the rich. As a start, corporate
profits need to be fairly taxed. Taxes on the rich need to be increased
not decreased, and wages should be raised to a living wage, which would
raise tax revenues and workers' ability to purchase goods and services in
the long term.

Until then, we'll continue to say this President is missing in action.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rose-ann-demoro/missing-in-madison--where_b_829457.html


Distributed by:

All Unions Committee For Single Payer Health Care--HR 676
c/o Nurses Professional Organization (NPO)
1169 Eastern Parkway, Suite 2218
Louisville, KY 40217

(502) 636 1551
Email: nursenpo@aol.com
http://unionsforsinglepayer.org/
03/03/2011