Election 2008: We Don’t Get Fooled Again
By Region 8 Webmaster and LUPA Advisory Council Chair John Davis

Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I’ll get on my knees and pray
We don’t get fooled again
Don’t get fooled again
By Pete Townsend recorded by the Who

Back in the 70s the British Rock group the Who recorded an anthem about “Don’t get fooled again.” This could easily be the theme for the 2008 Presidential Elections, for surely we don’t get fooled again. Four years ago and eight years ago enough working class Americans were fooled into voting for an anti-worker candidate that rained destruction on America’s working class families. Now, John McCain is posed to give Americans the third Bush administration, just under a different name.

In his early campaign ads, McCain has stated that Americans are worse off than they were four years ago. This is a true statement, but why then is he proposing the same old tired rhetoric of favoring big business? Because like Bush, McCain is totally out of touch with the struggles that America’s working families have had to endure. His platform for America is the same old tired trickle down economics plan that failed under Reagan, under George Bush the first and now George Bush the second.

Trade
John McCain told the Des Moines Register on November 27, 2007 “NAFTA was a good idea. It’s created millions of jobs and it’s helped the economies of all three of these nations. All you’ve got to do is go to Detroit and see the thousands of trucks lined up every day or to our Southern border. There have been losers and that’s the problem, but free trade is something I think is vital to the future of America. Have people lost jobs? Yes, they have, and they’re gonna lose jobs.” McCain has stated that he wants a trade deal with every country on the face of the Earth.

How many more jobs should we lose? How many more families destroyed? How many more workers must have their wages cut or benefits eliminated because of the threat of moving the jobs off shore. John McCain is totally out of touch with the destruction of caused by the current trade deals. McCain voted for NAFTA, for CAFTA, for Permanent Trade Relations with China and supports a proposed trade deal with South Korea that opens our markets to their vehicles while allowing theirs to stay closed to ours.

Social Security and Medicare
John McCain like his pal George Bush favors privatizing Social Security. John McCain voted FOR “privatizing” Social Security, slashing benefits and setting up risky individual accounts.

“As part of Social Security reform,” McCain told the Wall Street Journal, “I believe that private savings accounts are a part of it—along the lines that President Bush proposed.” John McCain voted for deep cuts in our Medicare program and voted for raising the eligibility age for Medicare from 65 to 67, making it harder for senior citizens to get benefits. In addition John McCain voted against legislation that would have guaranteed good prescription drug coverage for all seniors through Medicare.

Health Care
The health care crisis has reached epic proportions in this country. For the past six years the number of uninsured Americans has risen each year, with today 47 million American having no insurance. Another 61 million Americans are underinsured, meaning they have insurance but it isn’t sufficient to provide the coverage they need. There are 14.3 million Americans who spend 25% of their income on health care. Most economist recommend spending 25% of their income on the home mortgage, so this explains part of the housing crisis in the country. The U.S. spends more on health care than any other nation on the face of the Earth – as a matter of fact twice that of their nearest competitor. Between
2000 and 2004 health care premiums for individual polices rose 59% while wages rose 12% before they are adjusted for inflation.

So with individuals who buy their own health care seeing their cost go through the roof, what does John McCain propose to correct the problem? He thinks EVERYONE should buy their own health care.

With the cost of individual policies rising at four times the rate of inflation and our pacing wages by 400%, McCain thinks the answer is for all Americans to have to buy their own policy.

McCain touts his idea of “health care savings accounts that include tax incentives.” What this means is that McCain wants to give families without employer provided health care a “tax incentive” to help purchase health care. Then, he intends on eliminating the employer tax credit for providing health care and tax individuals for their employer provided health care. What this means to YOU is that those benefits you have worked so hard to earn over the years now become taxable income. So, if you benefit package is estimated at say $10,000 a year, under McCain’s plan you would pay federal income taxes on it. At 28% which is what most working class Americans pay, you now owe $2,800 in income taxes on your benefits. The average GM/Delphi retiree would be paying one pension check a year on income tax for your benefits. With employers losing the tax credit for providing it, more and more companies would drop their benefit plans.

So who benefits from this plan? Insurance companies, that’s who. The same people who have funneled billions into Republican campaigns. According to opensecrets.org, since
1990 the insurance industry has made 63% of their political contributions to the Republicans. John McCain has already received $1.4 million in contributions from insurance companies.

McCain voted AGAINST a guarantee of health care coverage for retirees of bankrupt companies and OPPOSED expanding the State Children’s Health Insurance Program,
to provide health insurance to millions of American children. McCain told CNN that President Bush’s veto of the bi-partisan bill was “the right call.

Worker’s Rights
From day one George Bush launched a war against America’s workers, repealing the OSHA ergonomic standard, eliminating the 40 hour work week, filling every board, judge’s seat and committee with friends of big business. Bush appointed an anti-union lawyer to head the National Labor Relations Board, the very organization that was founded to stand with working people – became an institution that worked for business. It isn’t enough they have all the money, the lawyers and the lawmakers – no they had to have the NLRB too.

While Bush was waging war on workers, one of his closest allies was Senator John McCain. Each step of the way John McCain has been there to take care of his many corporate lobbyist and big bucks contributors. Then he has the nerve to release a TV
ad that says Americans are not as well off as they were four years ago.

He is right – and he gets the lion’s share of the credit for that. He voted with Bush 95% of the time. Some maverick he is. Here is a laundry list of McCain’s anti-worker, Bush supporter votes:

This laundry list of McCain’s weaknesses doesn’t even begin to cover where he is wrong on tax reform, use of the military, basic human rights, American’s rights to privacy and elevation of the wealthy.

John McCain lives the life of a billionaire playboy with his wife who is worth over $100 million dollars and the heiress to a multi-million dollar beer distributorship. McCain claims he has excused himself on votes around alcohol issues, but his voting record shows otherwise. He supports the alcohol industry on one hand they tries to court the religious right on the other. The man is a walking contradiction.

So, will we get fooled again?

Will working people listen to the lies and innuendoes and fall for another candidate whose mission is to destroy their lives while lining his wealthy pockets and the pockets of his wealthy friends? We can only hope not. We can’t fooled again and hopefully we won’t. John McCain is wrong for America, wrong for working families and wrong for future generations. Your vote is your right, your responsibility and your obligation. Please make an informed choice and DON’T get fooled again.