Statement by AFL-CIO President John Sweeney On Pres. Bush's State of the Union Address

January 29, 2008 -- President Bush’s rose-colored glasses need a new prescription - - he is blind to Americans’ day-to-day economic realities and the truth about our nation’s standing in the world.

The fact is that under President Bush, our nation’s economy has not been working for working people for years. As our nation worries about a recession, for the first time ever, working people still haven’t recovered from the last one. Since 2000, the median household lost $1,000 in inflation-adjusted income. Families are losing good jobs, homes and hope in the future.

Working families deserve better – they deserve an economy that works for all. But instead, whether it was health care or education or fair trade, working families got hypocrisy and tired pseudo-solutions.

Our nation’s health care system is broken. Forty seven million Americans are without healthcare - - that’s 8.5 million more than when President Bush took office. One in four Americans say their family has had a problem paying for medical care during the past year – and two-thirds of them had insurance.

It’s past time for President Bush to acknowledge the reality of the huge trade-off we are making by sending troops indefinitely to Iraq, while neglecting real terror threats elsewhere as well as the urgent needs in America. As our sons and daughters continue to make the ultimate sacrifice, the two trillion dollars spent could have funded a return to the best public education in the word, the massive reduction of poverty, or retirement security for generations.

President Bush’s fervent plea for Congress to pass the Colombia Free Trade Agreement this year only reinforces how out of touch he is with economic reality and America’s working families. He is blind to the gross human rights abuses against workers in Colombia and the continuing violence and threats that union activists face. Passing the FTA will not make life safer for Colombian working people, but it will reward a government that has done too little to protect them and bring their killers to justice.

President Bush’s flawed trade policies have contributed to the loss of millions of good jobs in the United States, a colossal trade deficit, and growing international debt. President Bush didn’t even mention our growing trade imbalance with China. This is not too surprising – because in seven years in office, he has simply failed to put forward a viable economic strategy to confront the Chinese government’s unfair trade policies and repression of workers’ rights.

As the middle class continues to lose ground, the President has greased the slide. He’s chipped out the unemployment benefits of the economic stimulus package, along with food stamps and much needed state fiscal relief. And he’s gutted the protections for workers to form and join unions. At a time when union workers earn 30 percent more than their non-union counterparts, President Bush should be working to ensure that workers have the freedom to choose to form and join a union to bargain for a better life. It’s past time for the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill that will place the freedom of choice back in the hands of workers, to become law.

This November, working people will turn out in droves to elect a President and Representatives at all levels who will work with working families, not against them. Across the country, Americans cite the economy as the number one issue. In November, they’ll vote for someone who stands with them, who can clearly see the need to create an economy that works for all.

Source: AFL-CIO

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