Those of us who support John Edwards know that not only does he have more backbone to fight for our values, but he will fight for the expansion of the American phenomenon known as the Middle-Class. No compromise, no excuses, but real policies that uplift American workers. Today, New Hampshire voters are hearing that message of real hope and change for workers, not continued capitulation and timidity or "hopeful" talking points with no policy to back them up.
All one has to do is hear John Edwards speak on this issue to know it is more than important to him, it is personal:
"I take it very personally when I see powerful, well-financed interests taking over this democracy, and taking it away from regular Americans," Edwards said. "We've got to stand right and reclaim our democracy to make absolutely certain that America rises again.
"Every time that we stand up for 135,000 people in New Hampshire who have no health care coverage, America rises. Every time we speak up for the 85,000 Granite Staters living in poverty, America rises. When we make sure that a high school graduate in rural New Hampshire knows that college is in the cards for them, and that they'll be able to find a good job in their community, America rises.
"And I'll tell you this," Edwards continued. "You can feel the New Hampshire voters rising up right now and giving voice to all those in this country who deserve a voice – for the poor, for the disenfranchised, for the working middle class in America. That's what this election is about."
Yes, to millions of Americans like me, John Edwards knows more than anyone what this election is about. It is not about raising ungodly amounts of money while and ignoring that is part of the problem. It is not about letting the MSM select the candidate that most fits their agenda for us. It is about average, everyday working Americans having a leader that will allow them to rise up into the American dream. To do this you must have more than millions of dollars and plenty of media hype, you have to have real concrete plans that get the job done, and offer the American worker more than talking points. You have to understand the problem:
The social compact with the middle class is under siege because big corporations and special interests have taken over Washington. That compact says that if you work hard and do what's right, you'll get some security and the chance to build a better life for yourself and your family. But today, middle class families are not rising, and the gap between the haves and everyone else has grown wider than at any time since the great Depression.
The American middle class is struggling. Wages are stagnant even though the economy is growing, while the cost of middle-class essentials like health care and child care continues to grow. The basic American bargain is breaking down.
Indeed. Now how about concrete policies that offer more than hype and talking points? Edwards has them:
Invest in the Industries of the Future
Renewable sources of energy – including ethanol, biodiesel, wind and solar – can create new industries and at least 1 million new jobs. Edwards will establish the New Energy Economy Fund to jumpstart renewable energies with start-up capital and train over 150,000 workers for Green Collar jobs. He will also invest in other sources of innovation such as life sciences, technology and private-sector research.
Now, this part of the Edwards agenda is pure genius. Lets use one problem to solve another!! Lets use American workers and ingenuity to not only raise people into the middle-class, but end our dependence on foreign oil. It all starts with a leader who cares, and will lead.
It also takes a leader that cares as much about the American worker as they do about the profits of multi-national corporations:
Enact Smarter Trade Policies
Iowa has seen the results of unfair trade – losing more than 17,000 jobs in the last six years due to growing trading deficits with China. Trade deals need to make sense for American workers, not just corporations. Edwards will reject NAFTA-style trade deals and make sure any new trade agreements include strong labor and environmental standards and will vigorously enforce American workers' rights in existing agreements. He will also expand trade adjustment assistance to do much more for the workers and communities that are hurt by global competition. [EPI, 2007]
With their current votes on the Peru Free Trade Agreement, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have clearly shown that they just don't get it. They will allow more high-paying American jobs to be outsourced in the name of Free Trade. Edward believes in Smart Trade.
To nail that last point home:
Eliminate Tax Incentives to Move Offshore
The U.S. tax code encourages multinational corporations to invest overseas by allowing them to indefinitely defer taxation on their foreign profits. In practice, this means that multinational companies pay little or no tax on their foreign profits. Edwards will eliminate the benefit of deferral in low-tax countries, ensuring that American companies' profits are taxed when earned at either the U.S. rate or a comparable foreign rate, to eliminate any incentive to move overseas.
This is an idea whose time has come. We must let American corporations know that if they insist on killing American jobs and industries to exploit third world workers, even children, that they will not profit one red cent from it. Again, Edwards just gets it, and attacks the problem with more than talking points.
Edwards also understands that if you outsource high-paying jobs for service type jobs, they simply must pay enough to support a family:
Make Work Pay by Raising the Minimum Wage
Under Gov. Culver, Iowa has been a leader in raising the minimum wage. But even at its 2008 level of $7.25, the earnings of a single parent with two children will still be $2,000 below the federal poverty line. Edwards will set a national goal of a minimum wage that equals half the average wage. He will raise the minimum wage by 75 cents a year until it reaches $9.50 in 2012 and then set it to rise automatically with average wages, ensuring that all workers share in America's growth. [HHS, 2007]
It is past time in this country that low-wage workers have some hope. Edwards vision of One America does not leave them behind.
Next, we simply must insure that working people get a fair tax code:
Reform the Tax Code to Reward Work, Not Wealth
As a result of President Bush's regressive tax policies, the share of the federal tax burden borne by taxpayers in the middle and fourth quintiles is increasing while the share of taxes paid by the top 1 percent fell. Edwards will overhaul the tax code with new tax breaks to strengthen the middle-class pillars of saving, work, and family. He will also ensure that the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes by raising the tax rate on capital gains to 28 percent for the most fortunate taxpayers and repealing the Bush income tax cuts for individuals making more than $200,000 a year. [Tax Policy Center, 2006]
Again, this is long past due.
Edwards also addresses the needs to give people the skills they need to enter the middle-class:
Build Career Ladders
Two of the fields with the largest predicted job growth – health care and education –have both low-end and high-end positions and offer the potential for mobility. Edwards will invest in career ladders in these and other fields, helping low-wage workers to train on the job, gain new skills, and move into better jobs. For example, health care aides could become certified nurse assistants and registered nurses.
Again, this is an idea whose time came yesterday.
And of course, any change should allow workers to organize and negotiate more easily:
Strengthen Workers' Right to Organize
Union families earn up to 30 percent more than non-union families, but union membership has fallen from 30 percent of private-sector workers in 1973 to just 8 percent today. The right to choose a union is poorly enforced, full of loopholes, and routinely violated by employers. Edwards will enact the Employee Free Choice Act, vigorously enforce labor laws, and ban the use of permanent replacements for striking workers. [BLS, 2007; Census Bureau, 2007]
As a worker who has led two efforts to organize that failed, I see how the current system is set against workers, and for corporations. Edwards is dedicated to ending this system. It is no wonder millions of union workers support him, he supports them.
Unlike other candidates who agree with Republicans that Social Security should be toyed with, Edwards attempts to supplement it:
Create Universal Retirement Accounts that Move from Job to Job
Only 27 percent of households within 20 years of retirement have adequate retirement savings. Americans who retire with a pension have nearly twice the annual income of those who depend only on Social Security and personal savings, but too few middle-class families are able to start saving. Edwards will create a new universal retirement account available to all workers without another pension. Workers will be able to build up these savings accounts over the course of their careers, regardless of how many times they change jobs. Edwards will match worker contributions up to dollar-for-dollar on the first $500 with a new Get Ahead tax credit, far more valuable than the 10 percent or 15 percent tax deduction that many workers get today on retirement savings. [EPI, 2006; PRC, 2007; Gale, Gruber and Orszag, 2006]
Anyone who has tried to save for retirement can relate to this much needed reform.
Edwards also meets the housing crises head on, and has real solutions:
End the Housing Crisis
Edwards has proposed a comprehensive plan to lead us out of the foreclosure crisis and help families keep their homes, without bailing out irresponsible investors and speculators. He will go further than the Bush-Paulson plan to give every family an opportunity to renegotiate the terms of their mortgage, with counseling and small amounts of aid from a new Home Rescue Fund. He will also let families adjust the terms of their mortgages in bankruptcy, like investors can on their second homes and investment properties. Edwards will prevent future crises by passing a strong national law against predatory lending and creating a new federal regulator for financial services products.
And he goes on...:
Rein in Credit Card and Other Abusive Lending
Half of Americans say they live paycheck to paycheck – meaning millions of families rely on short-term credit just to pay the bills. Middle-class families are facing a radically transformed credit environment because interest rates were deregulated in 1978, which has led to looser lending standards and higher rates and fees. Edwards will require minimum protections on credit cards, such as restoring a 10-day grace before late fees and applying interest rate increases to future balances only. He will also create a new consumer watchdog agency – the Family Savings and Credit Commission – whose sole purpose will be to crack down on these kinds of predatory practices. [[MetLife, 2003; Draut, 2006]
Again, the time has come!!
Edwards also speaks on and offers real plans to help American families by removing the burdens they face:
Make College More Affordable
The three-quarters of Iowa's graduating college students who have debt owe $23,700, on average -- 25 percent more debt than the national average. Roughly one in five young adults reports that student debt caused them to delay starting a family and forced them to change careers. Edwards will create a national College for Everyone initiative to pay public-college tuition, fees and books for students who work part-time, take a college-prep curriculum in high school, and stay out of trouble. [TICAS, 2007; Nellie Mae, 2003]
Offering real hope, not merely talking points to our young is essential.
Edwards also offers real hope to their parents:
Offer Universal Preschool and Expand Affordable Child Care
More than two-thirds of mothers are working, most of them full time, but our workplace practices and public policies have not kept up with this new reality. Child care costs more than a rent for a family with two children. Edwards will create a Great Promise early childhood education program for every four-year-old. For younger children, he will more than double the child care tax credit and create a national Smart Start initiative to work with local nonprofits to make child care higher quality, more available, and more affordable. [BLS, 2005; NACCRRA, 2006]
Create Paid Family and Medical Leave
Edwards will create a $2 billion National Family Trust to offer paid family and medical leave benefits to all workers by 2014, and he will make the federal government a model employer with a generous paid leave benefit. He will also expand the Family and Medical Leave Act to cover 13 million more workers by reducing the threshold for exemption for the law from 50 workers to 25 workers and help long-term part-time workers. In addition, Edwards will require businesses to offer their workers seven paid sick days a year, with pro-rated leave for part-timers.
Excellent ideas!!
Of course, we must help those who can't even keep warm because of rising heat costs:
Help Families with Rising Home Heating Costs
John Edwards has championed the need to take on big oil and gas companies to halt global warming and build a new energy economy based on efficiency and renewable energy. Edwards has called on Congress to release some of the nation's home heating and oil reserves to bring down prices and finally fully fund the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which could help more than 3 million more families. He has also proposed more than doubling assistance for weatherization programs and called on neighbors to help weatherize the homes of vulnerable seniors this winter. Finally, he has proposed helping states and non-profits offer low- or no-interest emergency loans so that squeezed families do not fall prey to high-cost lenders.
Finally, Edwards unlike some candidates is serious about making sure that ALL Americans have access to healthcare:
Guarantee True Universal Health Care
Forty-seven million Americans live without health insurance. Edwards will take on the big insurance and drug companies and guarantee true universal health care for every man, woman and child in America. Employers will have to help cover their employees, the government will make insurance affordable with new reforms and subsidies, and all Americans will have insurance. His plan offers every American the option of a public plan that could evolve to a single payer system. [Census Bureau, 2007]
The Edwards plan offers a public plan that forces the Insurance companies to compete. It is our best hope for an eventual single payer system. Unlike others, it makes sure all Americans are covered.
Lastly, Edwards addresses the waste in the healthcare system:
Deliver Better Care at Lower Cost
Health care costs have consistently grown faster than wages for almost 50 years. Over the past five years alone, families have seen premiums grow by 90 percent while benefits have been cut. Edwards will take on the insurance and drug companies to cut needless waste in the health care system. He will also take much needed common-sense steps such as emphasizing preventive and primary care, requiring electronic medical records, and identifying and publicizing the most cost-effective treatments. Together these steps will save the average family $2,000 to 2,500 a year. [Kaiser Family Foundation, 2006]
http://www.johnedwards.com/...
To talk about change is easy, but to propose policies that address the problems and bring about Progressive change is a lot harder than speaking in generalities. Edwards passes both tests with flying colors. He not only speaks out on the disgraces that have ravaged our middle-class, he offers hope to American workers in the way of policies that raise their fortunes once more.
It is clear to see that as far as electibility, fighting spirit, and policies, John Edwards is way out in front of the others. I hope you will join me in nominating John Edwards for President. We can change this country without compromising the values we all hold dear, we just need a leader who not only believes in us, but isn't afraid to fight for us when needed!!