AFSCME Pres. Gerald W. McEntee urged President Obama and Congress to “heed the lessons of this poll,” and pass a real jobs bill that includes crucial federal aid to state and local governments to prevent the potentially devastating loss of up to 1 million additional public and private sector jobs.

“This poll confirms that Republican rhetoric in Washington is out of sync with average Americans. By a margin of more than 2 to 1, Americans believe that saving and creating jobs is more important than reducing the federal deficit to move our economy forward. Considering how tone-deaf Washington has become on jobs, it’s no wonder Americans are gloomy about the nation’s economic recovery.

Read the full statement.

When it comes right down to it, said McEntee, while the Republicans have been “recalcitrant” and have done their best to block every attempt to get the economy back on track, the Democrats and Pres. Obama need to do a lot more to fight for working families.

Pres. McEntee said the AFSCME members he spoke with during the union’s 39th International Convention earlier this month were distressed, discouraged and angry about what’s happening — or not happening — in Washington, and he predicted it could have an impact on the upcoming midterm elections.

Bill Press: Do you think the base is going to be there?
Pres. McEntee: Right now? No.

Listen here (9 min. 21 sec.):

Update: on her blog, Digby says Pres. McEntee has “sounded a frightening alarm” and asks: Is unemployment about to go back up?

“We need a new jobs bill that continues to fund our economic recovery. That jobs bill exists right now in Congress. It includes resources to help states avoid massive layoffs. Unfortunately, this bill is on life support. Just last week, Senate Republicans blocked the bill for the second time. They again decided to play politics with our lives and our jobs.”

McEntee also pointed to the recent Senate runoff in Arkansas where AFSCME’s accountability campaign put the incumbent “on the ropes and fighting for her political life.”

“We support the politicians who support working families. But these politicians, whether they are Democrats or Republicans, must understand: We are holding you accountable. You are not above the people who elected you. And if you turn on us you will pay the price!”

McEntee also talked about the hard work of AFSCME members around the country, calling them “unsung heroes from communities across this nation.” Among those were:

• Ralph Miller, president of Los Angeles County Probation Officers Union, Local 685, who helped a young gang member turn her life around to become a medical assistant at the University of California, Los Angeles;
• Theresa Bach, president of Missouri Council 72, Local 2093, for not only working two jobs, but also dedicating herself to helping other home care workers join the union;
• Jean Thompson of Pennsylvania Council 13, Local 2582, who worked with the community food bank in Fayette County to help the sisters and brothers of her union get through a very tough period; and
• AFSCME members from across the nation who traveled to Haiti after the tragic earthquake to help rescue victims and rebuild.

Read more in this press release, and watch excerpts from Pres. McEntee’s keynote address:

In the worst economy since the Great Depression, far too many Americans are out of work. Despite the rising fears of more job losses, the Senate is refusing to do what is necessary to protect and create jobs. On Thursday, the Senate failed to break a Republican filibuster of the jobs bill, meaning that states will not get help with their budget shortfalls; and more than 1.5 million unemployed Americans will lose their unemployment insurance at the end of this week.

At the same time, U.S. companies are sitting on $1.8 trillion, the most cash they have ever hoarded. Stockpiling this vast amount of money means less investment in economic growth, fewer new hires and continued unemployment for millions of Americans. Corporations, the Republican party and so-called ‘deficit hawks’ are prolonging the recession with their irresponsible games. The reckless policies of corporate America put us into the economic ditch. The truth is that investment in America’s economy and its people is the only way to get out.

The more jobs we create now, the less federal debt our children will have to carry later. Jobs not only put food on the table, they put revenue in the Treasury and money in the marketplace. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-huea-boGg

Last month, only 45,000 private sector jobs were created. State and local governments laid off 22,000 employees. More than five job seekers are available for every one available job. Nearly 7 million workers have been unemployed now for more than six months. Those are signals that we may see a double dip recession and more people out of work – that means “it will get worse – much worse.”

Congress must act immediately to avoid the loss of hundreds of thousands more jobs in the coming months. Senators who block the emergency jobs bill are wrapping a hangman’s noose around the state and local governments that cope with increasing demand for vital public services during dire economic times. And they’re making it harder for our nation to get out of the economic crisis.

Failing to pass a jobs bill that contains this important funding would mean more lost jobs, while making it harder to rebuild the economy, cut down the deficit and get our nation back to prosperity.

Unlike the federal government, most state and local governments are required to balance their budgets. As a result, at a time of decreased tax revenues, state and local governments must cut back on the vital services Americans rely upon during troubling economic times. Job cuts come along with the budget cuts. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 180,000 local public-sector jobs have already been lost since August 2008.

Matters may soon become worse. Georgia State Sen. Don Balfour, the Republican who heads the National Conference of State Legislatures, wrote to Senate leaders earlier this month calling for an extension of aid to states. “States continue to address sizeable budget gaps that have compelled state lawmakers to make dramatic programmatic and revenue changes in order to ensure balanced general fund budgets,” he wrote.

The urgent need for action was underscored by a study released recently by the National Governors Association and the National Association of State Budget Officers. The Fiscal Survey of States revealed that while some signs of improvement can be seen in the overall economy, “state fiscal conditions continue to deteriorate.” The report makes a compelling case that state and local governments need help to protect a million jobs in this difficult economy. It also points out that recovery could be a long way off for our state and local governments.

This country’s fragile economy cannot grow if elected officials in Washington refuse to take the action needed to put our country back to work. We intend to make sure that the American people understand what this reckless failure to act will cost in terms of our recovery. If we are to avoid massive additional job cuts and more debt, the jobs bill must include critical funding for states and local governments.

More jobs equal less debt. Congress must act now to protect workers and promote American jobs.

For more than a generation, America’s working families have been under a constant assault from the CEO’s and extraordinarily wealthy members of our society. While median incomes in the U.S. have stagnated since the mid-1970’s, incomes for those in the top five percent have more than doubled. Since the beginning of our new century — and aided by record-breaking tax cuts — incomes for the top 1 percent have tripled, while working families scrape by, working harder and longer and taking home less than they deserve in pay and benefits.

Last week, the very rich once again attacked the middle-class, this time in U.S. News and World Report. Billionaire publisher Mort Zuckerman decided to use his magazine to publish a rabid attack on public employees, the men and women who provide the services that keep our communities safe, teach our children, keep our streets paved and our water clean.

In his piece, Zuckerman would have us believe that the hunt is over and we have found the culprits who trashed America’s financial health. It was our nation’s librarians, corrections officers, teachers, cops and fireman who drove our economy off the cliff. Wall Street and a compliant Federal Reserve had nothing to do with it. There’s really nothing more to see here; it’s time to move on. Zuckerman’s short-sighted assault on public employees appealed to the editors of Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal, who decided to republish it on their op-ed page. The billionaires are happy to amplify their anti-worker screeds in each other’s media empires.

Mort Zuckerman is one of the world’s wealthiest men. While never once mentioning the reprehensible behavior of the investment and banking community in causing an economic collapse that wiped out half a generation of retirement savings (including the home equity that many had counted on), nor acknowledging that wealthy Americans pay less in taxes than they did 60 years ago, Zuckerman launches a rant against public employee unions and the “extraordinary benefits” paid to workers that is long on hyperbole and short on facts.

AFSCME’s non-teaching public employee members earn, on average, $45,000 a year to protect the public and the most vulnerable members of our society. After a career of service, our members retire with modest pensions of about $19,000 per year. And, unlike most private sector workers, our members typically contribute towards this pension benefit. In fact, of the final pension benefit, taxpayers contribute just 25% of the cost. The fact that public employees have decent health benefits and pensions, now scarce in the private sector, is genuine cause for alarm. Zuckerman’s solution is for these benefits to be taken away from public employees. Of course, he has a net worth of over $2 billion, so he’s not much troubled by such a sacrifice.

Zuckerman claims the benefits earned by public employees are “galling” to private sector workers. How would he know? What is truly galling for private sector employees is the outright refusal of our political and economic elites to recognize and deal with stagnant wages and eroding retirement and health security. Our nation’s problem is not that public service workers have decent pensions, it is that so many other employees don’t.

The cause of our fiscal problems is declining revenues, pure and simple. The fact that state governments have cut almost half a trillion in spending over the last three budget cycles is ample evidence of this. Moreover, Zuckerman misrepresents the facts about public pension funds. The primary cause of our pension funding challenges is the failure of state governments to contribute required payments over many years. For example, the political leaders in New Jersey deliberately failed to make required contributions over a period of more than ten years. Of course, employees have been paying in full, year after year. The employees acted in good faith, the political leaders did not.

We have a genuine retirement security crisis in this nation — the average 401(k) balance is just $35,000 — yet we see nothing from Zuckerman or his billionaire buddies like Rupert Murdoch that would even remotely address the problem. Vilification of public employees may fit their anti-working-class agenda, but it won’t create good jobs in our economy. Nor will it solve the problems facing states that have failed to keep up with their pension obligations.

Almost two years have passed since the taxpayers of America gave the titans of Wall Street more than $700 billion to keep the world’s economic system from plunging into another world-wide Great Depression. Yet, the big banks, the Wall Street investment houses, the hedge funds and the CEOs of America’s top companies still have not taken the steps needed to tighten up the shoddy practices that led our economy right to the edge of the cliff.

Even worse, they are fighting common sense reforms being debated in the Senate that would end the insider games that put millions of Americans out of work, stole billions from our retirement plans, and left states and cities with huge amounts of unsustainable debt. They are spending millions of dollars on lobbying to prevent the Senate from enacting tough new rules to prevent another financial crisis and give investors and the public the kind of protection that has been missing for far too long in our economy.

Four years after the stock market crash of 1929, President Roosevelt and New Deal Democrats enacted important reforms to held Wall Street accountable. Those rules kept the financial system operating on an even keel for more than 50 years. But, beginning with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, the New Deal regulations were undermined, giving Wall Street unfettered freedom to turn our financial markets into a casino, where the homes and retirement security of middle class Americans became little more than chips to the traders and the CEOs.

While most Americans think of stocks and bonds as the investment instruments we purchase, Wall Street was busy creating new, risky and unregulated products like “collateralized debt obligations,” and “credit default swaps.” The lack of oversight and accountability in the trading of these new products led to the meltdown of 2008 and economic catastrophe. That is a major reason why we need new rules to regulate transactions of new and complex financial instruments.

All across the country, cities and towns, school districts and even sewer systems have been hit hard by these Wall Street products. Sellers misrepresented these instruments as a way to help reduce the financing costs for public projects, but hidden features were included that ultimately are costing taxpayers billions, if not trillions, in added costs. In Alabama, for instance, Jefferson County sought Wall Street financing for a $250 million sewer system. After purchasing a wide variety of “tools” from Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers, the taxpayers of Jefferson County now owe more than $1 billion, just in interest and fees on their debt.

In every region of the country, Wall Street has sold derivatives that essentially bet on municipalities defaulting on their loans. Using “municipal swaps,” the banks give investors a way to sell short – or bet against – countless cities, towns and states, including California, Michigan and New York. This is nothing short of a potential time-bomb for taxpayers, giving investors an opportunity to make millions while taxpayers might be forced to pay billions to paying off Wall Street gambling bets.

The financial reform bill being debated in the Senate would regulate the derivatives market and provide much-needed transparency to these risky deals. The Senate needs to resist the efforts of Wall Street and their Republican allies and pass this legislation immediately. The debate in the Senate has gone on long enough. It is time to get the job done and ensure that American people are not left paying billions of dollars because of the unregulated greed of Wall Street and the big banks. It’s time for Congress to send a clear message that they will side with Main Street and not cave in to the power and money of Wall Street. It is time to close the casino.

“Many states have lavish programs that allow workers to retire in their 50s with ample pensions — and health insurance to cover them until Medicare kicks in.”

But, as AFSCME President Gerald W. McEntee points out in a response published in the same paper:

“The typical public employee represented by AFSCME earns, on average, about $18,500 a year in retirement after a career of public service. For some, this is their only source of retirement income because they do not qualify for Social Security benefits.”

Are these the lavish programs critics are talking about?

USA Today goes on to say that “some states have simply failed to put away adequate funds to cover” these programs’ benefits. While that may be true, how is it the fault of public employees that politicians have ignored pension contributions, or that – thanks to Wall Street’s recklessness – pension funds got smacked around in the last few years?

Moreover, are these problems unsolvable? Not if you look at the facts. As Pres. McEntee states:

“[O]ur public pension plans are designed for long-term stability, and virtually all of them have sufficient resources to weather this financial storm. More to the point, our pension funds can and will be rebuilt as our economy improves.”

This is why proposals such as converting public pension plans to 401(k)-type programs – a position advanced by the USA Today and many right-wing pundits – are so harebrained. Why would we want to put our hard-earned retirement funds in the hands of the same Wall Street investors that gambled away trillions of dollars and generated the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression?

It is time to debunk these absurd claims and expose them for what they are: yet another attempt at undermining the hard work of public employees and the vital services they provide.

For more information, check out the Three Myths About State and Local Government Pension Plans and other interesting articles about public employee retirement benefits at afscme.org/pensions.

“AFSCME members fought hard to pass President Obama’s health care reform package. We are grateful to President Obama, Senator Reid and Speaker Pelosi for their leadership and commitment throughout this entire process. Health care reform is a remarkable achievement. This victory will protect and improve good union health care benefits. It stops the worst abuses of the insurance companies. It gives workers and families without coverage on-the-job access to affordable health care. It ends skyrocketing premiums and caps on benefits. It helps seniors by strengthening Medicare and helps preserve employer coverage for early retirees. It provides critical new funding to states.

“But working families need more help from Washington. We still have important work that needs to be done. Too many Americans are struggling to cope in the worst economy since the Great Depression. Millions are out of work. State and local governments are cutting services to the bone. AFSCME is going to continue the fight to create jobs and restore our economy. Working together, we had a great victory on health care reform. Now, let’s put America back to work. Let’s Make America Happen.

“AFSCME spent more than $10 million on the largest mobilization campaign in our history to pass health care reform. More than 300,000 phone calls and letters were sent to Congress. We used texting and new media. We put ads on TV, online and in the papers. We marched, we lobbied and we prevailed.”

Michael Steele, the hapless chairman of the Republican National Committee, was asked a while back by Fox News how he would stop health care reform. “I will be the cow on the track,” he answered. Steele believed that President Obama’s historic effort to end the ongoing abuses of the insurance industry could be stopped even after it had passed both the House and the Senate. As a video posted on the DailyKos website makes clear, cows can’t stop trains. Yet this hasn’t stopped Republican officials all across the country from stepping up to be cows on the track now that health care reform has been signed into law.

Republicans are playing political games as the U.S. Senate considers legislation that would make important fixes in the historic health care reform legislation President Obama signed this week. The reconciliation bill would make health coverage more affordable for seniors and the middle class, and dramatically lessen the burden of an excise tax on working families. Now, Republicans are trying to block passage of those important improvements. They have no shame.

They are introducing amendments that serve no purpose except to derail the fix. Let’s be clear. The Senate should reject every amendment that is introduced to this important corrective legislation. Changes in the proposed law, except those mandated under the rules of the Senate, serve no purpose except to delay the implementation of health care overhaul. Amendments to the reconciliation bill are simply “poison pills,” designed to sabotage health care reform. They are tricks concocted by Republicans. They are cows on the track.

There will be more than enough time in the years ahead to address changes and make improvements in the health care law. This week is not the time to do it. My friend Rich Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, was right when he called on senators to vote no on amendments, even on issues that we would otherwise strongly support. “Republicans are going to use a “kitchen sink” amendment strategy, throwing everything they can at the bill to try to sink reform,” Rich notes. “Working families won’t be fooled by dirty tricks from the opponents of health reform out to do the bidding of the insurance companies. And U.S. senators should not be fooled either.”

When we started our work on health care reform three years ago, we set our sights high. But we knew that the final legislation would not include everything we wanted. But this is not new. Major social justice reforms are never achieved in one fell swoop. When the 1957 Civil Rights Act was signed into law, it fell short of what was needed to bring about equal rights. It failed to include key protections like voting rights and access to public places. But it was a start. And it laid the groundwork for future laws that made more progress. Originally, both Social Security and Medicare excluded public sector workers. But over time that has been rectified. The same will be true for health care reform. These bills achieve enormous good and they lay a strong foundation for us to build on.

I was pleased to hear that some supporters of changes in health care reform have decided not to push amendments to the reconciliation bill.

Senator Michael Bennet, one of the Senate’s great supporters of the public option, writes that “the bill before the Senate this week is far too important to use as a political football. This bill would close the senior prescription drug coverage loophole that most people know as the ‘donut hole.’ It would remove the special political deals, like the ‘cornhusker kickback.’ It would further reduce the deficit up to $1.2 trillion over the next two decades and cover even more Americans, bringing the total to 32 million Americans.”

Bennet correctly notes: “This will not happen if the political games continue. That is why public option supporters, including many organizations that have been on the frontline of the fight with me, are urging a vote on the reconciliation bill, without any amendments.”

What we have now is a law that does enormous good for millions of American families by making health care a right for the first time in our history. And it turns out Americans like that idea.

Senate Republicans aren’t the only cows moving onto the track. Just yesterday, Republican attorneys general in more than a dozen states announced that they would challenge the constitutionality of the new law’s requirement that Americans have health insurance or pay a little extra on their federal income taxes. These Republican officials are a disgrace. Every citizen of their respective states is required to buy car insurance before they can drive the car out of the lot. Is that unconstitutional? Of course not. I thought the GOP opposed frivolous lawsuits, but apparently they don’t when they are trying to be cows on the track. What they are doing is wasting taxpayer money to score political points with the extreme and irrational voices that now dominate the Republican Party.

Some prominent Republicans understand that those in their party who have taken extreme positions in opposition to health care reform have done a disservice to our country. Former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum describes it this way: “It’s hard to exaggerate the magnitude of the disaster. We followed the most radical voices in the party, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat.” When will others in his party recognize that Americans want Republicans and Democrats to work together with President Obama to lead this country forward? When will they stop acting like cows on the track?

“Tonight’s historic vote marks a major milestone in the struggle to break the power of the insurance industry and provide quality, affordable health care for millions of American families. Democrats in the House, with the determined leadership of President Barack Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, demonstrated the courage that is necessary to defeat the special interests and do what is right for the American people. AFSCME members will remember those who stood with us and those who stood with the insurance industry. I have told Senator Harry Reid that we intend to continue our efforts as the battle moves to the U.S. Senate. Together, we will not fail. Tonight, we celebrate a monumentally important victory for our country. Tomorrow, we get back to work in the fight to make health care reform happen.”

AFSCME’s Make America Happen campaign for health care reform has been the largest issue mobilization campaign in the union’s history, generating more than 400,000 phone calls and letters to Congress. In addition, the 1.6 million member union has invested in an aggressive $10 million television, online and print advertising campaign, along with an unprecedented use of texting and new media.