Maine’s working people need comprehensive and proven policies that will build shared prosperity for everyone in America who works hard and plays by the rules.
It can’t be a nip here or a tuck there. We need policies with the scale and boldness to turn around our economy, so it isn’t run by and for the richest Americans any more.
We are not facing small problems. We lost over 10,000 jobs in the last ten years thanks to U.S. trade with China alone, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Our unemployment rate is still hovering at 7.6 percent. Yet our governor’s solution for our economy is to find new, unprecedented ways to cut Medicaid.
We can do better. Good people can disagree, but America has not had honest and meaningful debate for a long time. Here are some ideas to consider.
There’s a blueprint to work from. It’s called “Prosperity Economics: Building an Economy for All” and was written by two professors from Yale University, Jacob Hacker and Nathaniel Lowentheil. The core idea that underpins each of the policy recommendations is that broadly shared prosperity produces better long-term economic strength than inequality.
“Prosperity Economics” contrasts sharply to the austerity urged by leading Republicans for the past 30 years and endorsed wholeheartedly by Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. Austerity is a failure. It has lowered wages and degraded the wealth of our families.
Decades of government cutbacks have decimated the agencies that protect us. Oil spills and other environmental catastrophes are too common and too destructive. Too many people are being hurt and injured on the job. Food safety has suffered. And austerity endangers core American programs such as Social Security and Medicare.
Why have we followed this path? It’s not a noble mission, we can promise you that. We did it to cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans and to allow Wall Street and corporate CEOs to enrich themselves at our expense.
Our vision is different. It offers a solid program for a bright future. We can rebuild a healthy economy by reconnecting wages to productivity. The key and best way to do that is by protecting the right of working people to organize and bargain collectively through a union on the job.
The time for action is now. Our economy is sagging. To turn this slowdown into growth will require ambitious workforce training and huge investments in basic research in emerging technologies. We’ll need to rebuild crumbling roads, bridges and airports. And we’ll need to restore U.S. manufacturing by reforming our trade policies. We’ll ending tax incentives for outsourcing and give states the financial help to hire back teachers, first responders and other public service workers.
Our main goal should be a path to financial security for everyone in America. Every student must have an opportunity to attend college or acquire the skills needed to reach his or her full potential. We must strengthen Social Security and commit to a secure and dignified retirement and access to quality health care for all Americans.
We can do all of this, and we can clean up our economy. We have the resources. America remains a fantastically wealthy and productive nation.
We can break the lock that Wall Street and the richest one percent have held on our democracy.
Our policies offer a chance for today’s young people — and the generations after them — to inherit good jobs and a growing middle class. These are the solutions that offer a light at the end of our long economic tunnel.
Those seeking the support of working people in November and beyond should take notice. The American public is smart and tough. We have a vision. Will you embrace it?
It’s time for real solutions to the real problems we face. America wants prosperity, not another round of austerity.
Richard Trumka is president of the AFL-CIO. Don Berry is Maine’s AFL-CIO president.
Sorry, but the sad truth is that if it doesn’t fit on a bumpersticker, it probably won’t get public support.
If a thought is too intellectually complex to fit on a bumper sticker, it is FAR to complicated for the likes of Joe The Plumber, Sarah Palin, and George Bush conservative simpletons.
Plenty of room in Joe Biden’s head?
As long as you avoid the hair plugs!
AFL-CIO says it all
The solution to most of our problems does fit on a bumper sticker. “Buy America”. Our total lack of patriotism at the cash register has done as much to hurt our economy as anything those dim wits in Washington have done. We are our own worst enemies sometimes. My dog knows enough about economics to realize that we simply can not keep sending our jobs and our money to China and wonder why our economy is floundering.
Gee, can we all spell N-A-F-T-A or is that too much to expect out of Maine’s educational system ?
Amazing, when you think about it: all that magnificent thinking on campus, and yet no college lets its faculty run its endowment fund.
As for the rest of this, well, yawn. Nothing new, nothing in detail, and nothing not in the interests of the authors.
So let me get this right. The AFL-CIO says “bargain[ing] collectively through a union on the job” allows for “reconnecting wages to productivity?” So they support lower wages, and possibly less job security, for their members who are less productive than their peers? I can get behind that!
The AFL-CIO has Obama, and nearly every Dem in DC, in their pocket. For Change We Can Believe In, let’s follow Eastwood’s advice and put experienced businessmen in charge. This economy will take off like a rocket.
Danny Maine put an experienced businessman in charge. Did I happen to miss Maine’s economy taking off like a rocket. Apparently the US Dept of Labor did. They claim that Maine is one of only 5 States that had a net job loss in 2011. There are other reports that personal income in Maine has gone down since we elected the businessman. Our unemployment numbers are rising under the administration of the businessman. When might we expect to see Maine’s economy take off like a rocket?
I suspect that the other four ‘worst loss’ states have professional politicians for governors. So although (for the sake of argument) our businessman may be inept at governing, he’s not a one-man case for avoiding businessmen and sticking to the pros.
Romney is a job killer for us and a job creator for the Chinese.
And whose pocket are the Rs/TPers in? Try ALEC, Norquist, etc.
Very well said. Put workers first. Move to a clean energy economy. Repair roads and bridges. Educate the workforce. Create jobs. Put people to work.