Fix the Economy, NOW!

Fix the Economy, Now!

Layoffs, home foreclosures, stagnating wages, benefit cuts, bankruptcies, vanishing retirement security and more, OH MY. We are facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Jobs with Justice and other groups have been mobilizing to demand strong, immediate action to create jobs and restructure our economy to work for everyone, not only the people at the top.

President Obama and Congressional leaders are developing a recovery and reinvestment plan that addresses immediate economic needs, creates jobs and invests in the infrastructure America needs for recovery. It will also invest in America's families and America's workforce by ensuring that states can fund the services they depend on, including health care, public safety and education.

We have already seen and heard much regarding the Patterson’s proposed budget cuts to education and we already know what devastating affects these cuts will have on a city like Buffalo. The depletion of State funding stream to Buffalo has and will continue to cut essential programming, hurt our already floundering public schools, and inevitably grow the already staggering 7.2% unemployment rate. We are hit hardest in Buffalo, a city already deep in it’s own depression, and we need a Plan that prioritizes the People

This plan will not fix all our problems and is not the end of the campaign, but it is an essential immediate step that will create jobs and invest in renewable energy, energy efficiency, transportation, schools and health care.

While some progressive economists believe this plan will not be big enough or bold enough to stem the crisis, conservatives in Congress are trying to block the plan, apparently copying the Herbert Hoover strategy of responding to crisis by doing less, rather than more. Some Republicans have argued for more CEO tax breaks, rather than funding for unemployment insurance or food programs for hungry children.

Don't let them block the first step towards recovery. Don't let Congress sit idly by while millions more Americans lose their jobs and homes.

Already the politics of Congressional negotiations have plagued the Recovery and Reinvestment Plan. We need a strong economic stimulus package, and caving to narrow special interests is a surefire way to stall the process and prolong the passage of a much needed plan!

Late last week the House Appropriations Committee approved an amendment in the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009" that would require all businesses and public private entities that contract to receive money from the stimulus package to use E-Verify, the flawed federal program that is riddled with error and has been documented to promote workplace discrimination.

The E-Verify provision in the stimulus will:

• Harm workers who are either falsely denied work or are targeted by employers abusing the E-verify program;
• Create substantial new burdens for businesses, especially small businesses, at precisely the wrong time;
• Send the wrong signal to new voters that the Congress prefers to play politics by enacting symbolic and ineffective immigration "enforcement" measures over serious and effective economic stimulus or serious immigration reform.

Please call your Congressional Representatives and tell them you SUPPORT a Stimulus package for the rest of us, for all of us!