Hello all,
Just thought I would let people know what Edwards stated today, from his website.
Jefferson City, Missouri – During an event in Jefferson City today, Senator John Edwards called on Congress to fix George Bush's flawed economic stimulus plan to include Edwards' proposal for federal financial assistance to states – including up to $375 million to help solve Missouri's looming budget deficit. Missouri is currently projecting a budget deficit in 2010 and beyond.
"States like Missouri need immediate help – or we could see devastating cuts to education, health care and other basic services, along with increases in property taxes," Edwards said. "Providing this assistance to states will not only protect our schools and our most vulnerable citizens, but represents an important and critical step to avoid a recession."
On December 22 – long before Congress, the President, or any other candidate – John Edwards warned about the prospect of a looming recession and proposed an economic stimulus plan that includes extended unemployment benefits, investments in the renewable energy industry to create jobs within 90 days, a Home Rescue Fund to help families avoid foreclosure, and immediate federal financial assistance to states.
Federal assistance to the states provides more "bang for the buck" than almost any other form of short-term economic stimulus. It provides five times more economic benefits than business tax breaks, according to a study by Mark Zandi of Economy.com. Nobel Prize-winning economists reached a similar conclusion in a recent New York Times op-ed essay emphasizing extending unemployment insurance benefits and direct aid to states and localities.
Well to the people that made fun of Edwards when he got 30 economists endorsing him, does it help when a NOBEL prize winning economist states that what Edwards is proposing is a good idea?
Probably not.
All today I wanted to write a rant about how the whole perception of Edwards has been screwy, how people constantly say "HE'S GREAT...but not electable." I don't get it. Would Lincoln, who Obama is compared to be electable today? How about FDR? Somehow I doubt the poor, funny looking Lincoln would get really far these days. Hell, we cannot even seem to elect a good looking guy who started out poor.
I guess I am confused about a few things. Obama graduated from Columbia and was a community organizer for 3 years according to The Nation. I thought he had attended Harvard then community organized. I noticed he organized one voter drive after Harvard and then went to work for a law firm who represented community organizers and then was a con law prof. Obama also grew up in Hawaii, not some inner city, attended all private schools. For those not familiar with Punahou school it is hardly a mean street racially divided school.
In 2006, Punahou School was ranked as the nations "Greenest" school in America.[2]The student body is diverse, mixing the offspring of multimillionaires with children of middle-class parents, and scholarships are often awarded to financially-disadvantaged youth. In 2005, its sports program was ranked by Sports Illustrated as the fourth best in the country.[3]
Along with academics and athletics, Punahou also offers visual and performing arts programs. Students have access to a jewelry studio, photography darkroom, and glass-blowing facilities. The Punahou marching band performs in the Rose Bowl Parade once every four years, and the student yearbook, The Oahuan, has won national awards from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association[citation needed] and the American Scholastic Press Association[4], including the first Columbia Gold to be awarded in the State for the 2002 Oahuan[citation needed].
Tuition is $15,725 a year for the 2007-2008 school year[5][6] (lunch not included), which is still not enough to cover the entire cost of the education of a student. This "deficit" is met by the school's endowment.[7]
What I am trying to get at here is that Obama is hardly the child who survived tons of struggle and heartache to get to where he is now. His few years community organizing while honorable is not anywhere in the line of what people like MLK, Jane Goodall, Steve Irwin, Diane Fossey or the folks at VoteVets have done in their lives. Nor is it as difficult or noteworthy as what the people at Doctors without Borders or the Peace Corps do. In my mind, Obama worked for minimum wage like millions of others do. Did he have to? No with his degree he could have worked in a more lucrative field for sure but I do not see this as an overarching show of dedication and humility. A few years on minimum wage is what we all go through at one point or another in our lives. So to me, the great proof of his willingness to sacrifice and work for the common man is really not all that impressive. It bothers me to think that somehow Obama's few years of minimum wage work equals the dismissal of Edwards upbringing, his building his own law firm that represented the smaller guy for years plus the willingness of Elizabeth to, as she put it "Not take this man away from the country who needs him." when it was discovered she had cancer again.
The other double standard I dislike is that when people question Obama's record in Senate the line of "He's a freshmen Senator" is stated, yet that same line applies to Edwards Senate career as well. I guess I just do not understand why Obama is so much better than Edwards, why his brief history of community organizing outweighs Edwards' whole life, his chosen job of representing people wronged by corporations and the great sacrifice he and his family are making to keep running this campaign to make sure the people in this country who are getting decimated by corporate America are heard.
Edwards will continue his fight, America will vote for the Great Orator with the awesome moving speeches and in 4 years we will have achieved some incremental progress, but nothing like what we could have had. The story of our country it seems.
With respect,
Chaos
UPDATE: From the musical 1776. Opening number: John Adams trying to get the Congress to debate on independence. Does this seem familiar?
- Sit Down, John Lyrics
Congress:
Sit down, John! Sit down, John!
For God's sake, John, sit down!
Sit down, John! Sit down, John!
For God's sake, John, sit down!
Someone oughta open up a window!
It's ninety degrees! Have mercy, John, please
It's hot as hell in Philadephia!
Someone oughta open up a window!
Adams:
I say vote yes! Vote yes! Vote for independency!
Congress:
Someone oughta open up a window!
Adams:
I say vote yes!
Congress:
Sit down, John!
Adams:
Vote for independency!
Congress:
Someone oughta open up a window!
No, no, no! Too many flies! Too many flies!
But it's hot as hell in Philadelphia!
Someone oughta open up a window!
Can't we compromise here?
Adams:
Vote yes!
Congress:
No, too many flies here!
Adams:
Vote yes!
Congress:
Oh for God's sake, John, sit down!
Adams:
Oh, good God! Consider yourself lucky that you have John Adams to abuse, for no sane man
would tolerate it!
Congress:
John, you're a bore; we've heard this before
Now for God's sake, John, sit down!
Adams:
I say vote yes!
Congress:
No!
Adams:
Vote yes!
Congress:
No!
Adams:
Vote for independency!
Congress:
Someone oughta open up a window!
Adams:
I say vote yes!
Congress:
Sit down, John!
Congress:
Vote for independency!
Congress:
Will someone shut that man up?
Adams:
Never!