Thanks to the efforts of AFSCME activists across the nation, AFSCME scored an important legislative victory when the House passed an economic stimulus package (H.R. 7110) by a vote of 264-158 on Friday. Forty-one Republicans supported the package despite a veto threat from the Administration.

The eight Democratic members who voted against the bill were: Representatives Marion Berry (D-AR), Allen Boyd (D-FL), Jim Cooper (D-TN), Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-SD), Nick Lampson (D-TX), Jim Matheson (D-UT), Collin Peterson (D-MN), and Gene Taylor (D-MS). The roll call vote can be found on the House website.

The bill would provide states with $14.4 billion in fiscal relief by providing temporary additional federal support of state Medicaid programs. The bill would also grow our economy and create jobs through a $30 billion investment in infrastructure. It would help maintain a basic standard of living for families by extending unemployment benefits for Americans looking for work and providing $2.6 billion for additional food stamp assistance.

Earlier in the day, by a vote of 52 to 42, Senate Republicans blocked consideration of an economic recovery package by threatening a filibuster. The bill, stymied by Republican Senators, would have provided $19.6 billion in temporary additional federal support for state Medicaid programs. The bill would have provided $490 million for Byrne Justice Assistance Grants to support state and local communities and other important assistance to state and local governments. It also included funds to avert staffing cuts for child support enforcement. The roll call vote can be found on the Senate website.

Congress will hopefully address the need for real economic assistance as soon as possible in the new Congress which will convene in January with a new president in the White House. The strong bi-partisan vote in the House should lay a foundation for swift congressional action.

From the Economic Policy Institute:

The financial services industry paid its CEOs an average of $18,876,000 in 2007 – the highest of nine industries surveyed by the Hays Group for the Wall Street Journal. Oil and gas companies followed close behind, with average total compensation of $18,406,000 per CEO, according to an EPI analysis of the data. In contrast, the Social Security Administration reports that the average wage in 2006 (the latest year available) was just $37,078.

Said EPI President Larry Mishel: “Congress should make sure that the bailout does not further enrich these already overpaid and underperforming executives.”

This entry by AFSCME President Gerald McEntee was originally posted on The Huffington Post.

After days of silence from the White House, President Bush emerged last night to tell a national television audience that his request for a $700 billion blank check for bankers was dead. Instead, the president capitulated on some of the key points that Democrats, labor and progressive groups have been demanding in any federal financial bailout, including the need for oversight, limits on executive compensation and protection for the taxpayers who will be footing the bill.

The threat to Wall Street clearly got the president’s attention. That’s great. But it’s hard not to be amazed at the threat to working Americans that he’s ignored all year long. After all, we’ve lost more than 605,000 jobs this year, while Bush echoed John McCain that the economy was fundamentally strong. 9,800 people lose their homes to foreclosure every day, while Bush and McCain opposed federal assistance. 45 million Americans go without health insurance, while Bush and McCain ignore the country’s demand for quality, affordable health care for all.

They insist they oppose “big government” - except when their friends on Wall Street ask for help! The struggles of America’s working families don’t cut it for them. Nope. Problems on Main Street are to be ignored. However, led by President Bush and his anti-regulation, pro-market, anti-government, free-market-cheering corporate cohorts, the federal government is swiftly coming to the rescue of the financial markets.

The mess on Wall Street does need an urgent fix and it is an appropriate role for government. It’s also the government’s role to help prevent these kinds of crises in the first place, and to make sure that this week’s solution tackles the whole problem, because the problem is bigger than Wall Street.

But last night, Bush agreed to several of the common-sense proposals given by those who want to resolve the crisis but ensure that tax dollars won’t be given without strings attached. However, the president continues to ignore the needs of American workers laid off this year, state and local governments that are reeling under the failed Bush economy, and families who are losing their homes and savings while Bush has been in charge.

For working families, the Bush message is clear: “You’re on your own.” So too are state governments, who have to meet their responsibilities to their citizens no matter what the federal government does. Not only is that approach not right, it also won’t work.
As Bush drove the national economy over the cliff, state and local governments have been put into an ever-tightening vice grip. Their budgets are bursting at the seams while their cash flow is drying up.

This creates another real crisis - just when citizens’ needs are greatest - our state and local governments are least able to provide that assistance. But throughout the last year, George Bush and John McCain have turned a blind eye to those who are struggling to keep their homes, their health care and their jobs during this economic downturn. Back then they were talking about “market correction.” Only now are they talking about government intervention.

While the federal government comes to the aid of Wall Street, it also needs to help the families on Main Street. States need immediate assistance to prevent cuts in health care and vital services. They need more resources to create jobs and complete infrastructure repairs. They need funds to help families maintain a basic standard of living. Federal assistance for programs such as Food Stamps and Medicaid are especially important right now. While we must restore accountability and stability to our nation’s financial institutions, we also can’t turn our back on the urgent needs of millions of hard-working Americans who struggle to pay the bills, feed their children and seek health care if they fall ill.

This is America - we know how to take on tough challenges. And we can do more than one thing at a time. We have to rescue the economy and our state governments and the working families who depend on them.

There are tough choices to be made and Congress should make them. They should insist on fairness for all rather than a bailout for the wealthy few. They should help our state governments along with the Wall Street firms. They should insist on a bailout that’s accountable, transparent and prevents these problems in the future. Congress should remember that the goal here is not to bail out Wall Street but to rebuild the economy and rebuild America’s middle class.

Just kidding. Only Wall Street gets to write itself a check – and a $700 billion one at that. Yep, that’s $700,000,000,000 (11 zeroes!).

That’s what the Bush administration (i.e. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, himself a former Wall Street executive) is trying to ram down our throats. The Bush administration allowed Wall Street firms to act irresponsibly and do whatever they wanted. As a result, we now face the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Now the administration wants to hand over $700 billion dollars. What?

Wall Street firms got rich beyond belief in an era of deregulation and freewheeling greed. Now, average folks like you and me are being asked to foot the bill – and with no structural changes to the system that allowed for this to happen and with no oversight provisions.

What’s more, there’s been no help to our states and local communities that are facing historic budget deficits. Where’s our bailout?

No bailout for Wall Street without help for Main Street! The massive state budget deficits that will mean severe cuts to services and infrastructure that will affect all of us. Congress must not allow the Bush administration to bail out Wall Street without bailing out Main Street and helping working families.

Any bailout legislation passed by Congress must include some very basic, common sense principles:

• Aid to the States – An economic recovery and jobs package, including extended unemployment benefits, fiscal relief for state and local governments and a major investment in our nation’s crumbling infrastructure.
• Fairness – A moratorium on home foreclosures that gives homeowners a chance to stay in their homes by restructuring their loans;
• Protection – Strong public oversight and transparency at the agency created to oversee the bailout and ensure no purchase of assets at inflated prices.
• Accountability – An immediate strengthening of current financial regulations and a commitment to increase corporate accountability to protect the public’s money when it is given to private companies;
• Transparency – An independent public agency must administer the bailout plan;
• Restrictions on CEO Pay – No golden parachutes or rewards for the CEOs who caused this crisis.

To join AFSCME’s effort to stop the no strings bailout, go to: http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/blank_check

This entry by AFSCME President Gerald McEntee was crossposted on The Huffington Post.

On Monday of last week, John McCain discussed the economic crisis facing Wall Street before an audience in Jacksonville, Florida. Reflecting on the turmoil then engulfing the economy, McCain reassured the crowd that “the fundamentals of our economy are strong.” It is a line he has used repeatedly throughout the past year. McCain spoke at the beginning of a week when the financial markets began to implode. Major American business institutions that had survived the Great Depression failed to survive the week, brought down by the mismanagement and excess of the Bush years. One might ask Senator McCain to explain why a country whose economy is fundamentally sound is now facing the greatest economic crisis in 70 years. And why are hard-working citizens being told to pick up a tab of $700 billion to pay for the huge mess that the greedy, Republican free-marketers have left after their disastrous experiment with “look the other way” regulatory policies?

Senator McCain wants to continue the experiment, this time on health care. Writing in the magazine of the American Academy of Actuaries, Senator McCain suggests that we should apply the same hands-off approach that he encouraged throughout the past decade on Wall Street to the health care industry. McCain wrote, “Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.” I am absolutely certain that the American people have had enough Republican-generated “innovative products” to last a lifetime. What we need is quality, affordable health care for all.

American families have already seen what unregulated corporate gurus can do to workers’ pensions and investments, including their depleted 401(k) accounts, yet John McCain wants the insurance industry to enjoy the same kind of unregulated excess that he gave the investment bankers. We already know the havoc insurance companies can inflict on families - denying coverage and care - with the limited regulations they face today. As it is, they run roughshod over consumers. Why would John McCain want to make things worse?

Senator McCain talks tough about the economic disaster facing Wall Street and investors across the country, but his talk doesn’t match the deregulation agenda he’s pushed during his many long years in Washington. Yet, even when he’s talking tough, he reveals how little he knows about the economy. Last week, as the depth of the crisis became clear, he said that if he were President, he would fire former Congressman Chris Cox, who George W. Bush appointed to head the independent U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Unfortunately, no one told Senator McCain that the U.S. President cannot fire the chairmen of independent agencies. That’s why they are “independent.” As chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, you would think McCain would know this.

AFSCME has been leading the fight for shareholder “say on pay proposals,” and we’re battling to make sure that restrictions on excessive executive compensation are included in the bail-out legislation heading to Congress. John McCain says he thinks executive salaries are too high, but he hasn’t done anything about it. On the campaign trail, he’s taking on a populist tone: “That same executive got $21 million of your money,” McCain said of Fannie Mae’s CEO Jim Johnson. “And the other CEO [Frank Raines] . . . got $25 million of your money. Let’s tell them to give it back. Let’s tell them to give it back.” Both Frank Raines and Jim Johnson were outrageously overpaid, but they were paid with shareholder funds, not tax dollars. It is shocking to learn that Senator McCain, who claims that his decades on the Commerce Committee is valuable economic experience, was unaware that until last week, Fannie Mae was owned by shareholders, not by taxpayers.

Senator McCain may not know the details of Fannie Mae’s structure, but he should know more about his staff’s close connection to the failed company. News reports today indicate that Washington lobbyist Rich Davis, Senator McCain’s top campaign aide, was paid $30,000 a month for five years by Fannie Mae. It seems Fannie Mae paid that money to Davis because of his closeness to Senator McCain. Perhaps the senator should spare us his newly found populist rhetoric and simply fire Davis. While he’s at it, he might ask him what he did to earn $30,000 a month. He might also ask him to “give it back.”

Working families and Main Street businesses are suffering because of the misdeeds of Wall Street profiteers. We are seeing what happens when the government doesn’t adequately regulate financial markets and corporate boards are not accountable to shareholders. Eight years of increasing deregulation have exploded into a global financial crisis. This is why, for years, AFSCME has fought to make Wall Street more open, accountable and responsible.

The latest headline, an $85 Billion bailout of AIG is a good example of what went wrong. AFSCME sued AIG several years ago to force them to accept an independent director on their board. We won the court case, but the SEC stepped in and reversed our rights helping to lead to this mess. People with AIG insurance and other service products don’t need to worry because those businesses are safe and coverage will stay in effect. But individual and pension fund investments in AIG are basically wiped out. Pension funds can afford to absorb the losses, people relying on IRAs and 401k plan may be badly hurt.

Robert Willumstad, the latest AIG CEO who contributed to the crash of the company has just been paid an estimated $14 million golden parachute for three months of work. Martin Sullivan, the prior CEO of AIG, walked away with nearly $50 million. Because the system is out of control, big-time corporate CEOs get paid outrageous sums whether or not they do a good job. For them it’s the Heads-I-Win-Tails-I-Still-Get-Rich system.

AFSCME is fighting every day to protect the interests of working men and women. If you’d like to learn more about what working families should know about investments click here.

Richard Ferlauto, AFSCME’s Director of Corporate Governance and Pension Investment was interviewed addressing these issues in the Wall Street Journal.

On the seventh anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and United Airlines Flight 93, we remember the nearly 3,000 people killed that day. Some 600 union members were lost, including nine AFSCME members: Yvette Anderson, Florence Cohen, Harry Goody, Marian Hrycak, Dorothy Temple, Chet Louie, Rev. Mychal Judge, Ricardo Quinn and Carlos Lillo.

AFSCME President Gerald W. McEntee spoke at a press event today to highlight the urgent need for a second major economic recovery package and announce details of an aggressive campaign effort to push one through Congress. Americans United for Change hosted the press conference, which included U.S. House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel and leading labor and progressive organizations.

Below is McEntee’s statement:

Our states are in the midst of a fiscal crisis. For this past budget cycle, 29 states have had to deal with a combined deficit of close to $50 billion. As the economy slides downward, new budget gaps have opened up and shortfalls are expected to keep growing. States are making cuts in health care, education and other services.

The policies of the last eight years have driven America into a recession and made it hard for working families to make ends meet. State and Local governments are getting crushed by budget shortfalls. Congress needs to act fast to protect services and jump-start the economy by passing short-term aide to states.

Cuts in critical services are coming at a time when working families need those most.

Just look at the unemployment rate. It jumped to 6.1 percent in August – the highest level in five years. We know that when the economy goes south, demand goes up.

Because state and local governments are cutting services, raising taxes – or both – the economic crisis is worsening.

The shortfalls driving the budget cuts are a consequence of the faltering national economy. But they also contribute to the problem. It is a downward spiral – and Congress needs to step in with a proven fix that is guaranteed to put America back on track towards financial stability.

In 2003, Congress wisely provided states with a short-term increase in federal assistance for Medicaid. It prevented additional cuts in health care and was a major stimulus to the economy. It is time for Congress to act again.

Congress must pass a short-term increase in federal support for state Medicaid programs to stave off additional cuts and help revive our economy.

The federal government has moved to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, an action which AFSCME President Gerald McEntee calls “unprecedented but necessary” to protect the thousands of homeowners on the brink of foreclosure.

But in his latest entry on the Huffington Post, McEntee reminds us that this mortgage crisis is just one disastrous effect of President Bush’s failed economic policies.

Yesterday’s federal action tells Congress that it must come together and step up to the plate to stabilize our nation’s economy. America deserves a real stimulus package — not more tax cuts for the rich — but a stimulus program that targets job creation and pumps money into the pockets of working people so they can stop falling deeper into debt just to make ends meet.

Read the full post.

Since January, more than 600,000 Americans have lost their jobs. The jobless rate is at a five-year high. Home foreclosures are at a 30-year high. Food and fuel costs are skyrocketing. On Thursday the Dow plunged more than 300 points. In his latest entry on the Huffington Post, AFSCME President Gerald McEntee points out that, “John McCain spoke last night for close to an hour and failed to offer a single solution to the real problems facing American families.

Read the full post.