Crossposted from Hillbilly Report.
Mitch McConnell thinks the tax issue is over. He fully plans on using the upcoming debt ceiling fight to enact draconian cuts to our social safety net. In his long career he has been instrumental in enacting the policies that no only redistributed our wealth upwards but crashed our economy with the greed of the very few. Now he will use all his power to desperately try and keep folks like himself from paying their fair share towards cleaning up the mess they made, while once again asking the middle and lower classes in America to foot the bill.
In well over two decades in Congress Mitch McConnell has consistently proved one thing to the American people. He is a huge part of the problems that have beset America. Whether it is bought and paid for elections, skyrocketing healthcare costs, outsourcing, loss of jobs, or income inequality, Mitch McConnell has been right there to insure all the problems that have crippled our country continue.
But it does not have to be this way. While some folks wait for bigger names to jump in against McConnell one thing a lot of folks do not realize is this. We already have a fine Democratic candidate running against Mitch McConnell. A middle-class grassroots Kentuckian who shares our values and like us is fed up with the goings on in Washington. His name is Ed Marksberry.
Ed is not a career politician. He realizes the challenges facing working Americans and Kentuckians because he is one of us:
As a 4th generation Kentuckian, Ed is well known and admired for the legacy of his family and the business he runs. He is a carpenter, a home builder and a consultant in the building of homes. He is a leader in his community, nominated in 2010 by the Kentucky Democratic Party to run in the Second District (KY2) for Congress.
As a business owner, Ed knows all too well the challenges of running a business successfully and providing quality benefits for his employees. As a citizen, he is an advocate for the best quality of life for our citizens and the cooperation between business and government.
When his country needed him, Ed was there. He is a decorated Air Force veteran with experience in Grenada. Ed’s great-grandfather farmed in the area, and was involved in rural electrification.
http://marksberry2014.com/...
To me, it sounds like Ed Marksberry is not only the kind of person we need in Washington, but the kind of person we need to run against Mitch McConnell. A businessman that actually believes in treating his employees fairly and providing a living wage with benefits. I recently asked him his opinion on the fiscal cliff fiasco and the upcoming debt ceiling fight, and Mitch McConnell's role. Here was his response:
Another fiscal cliff has come and gone and Americans are tired of paying the salaries for the likes of Mitch McConnell who does nothing but enrich himself while the middle class suffers.
Mitch says that we don’t have a tax problem, we have a spending problem and I say he is half right and fully bought and paid for from the corporate welfare recipients.
We need more revenue that can come from the wealthy paying their fair share and close the unfair tax loopholes that the wealthy use to skirt paying their fair share.
On spending; we need to address today’s sky rocketing healthcare cost for everyone and also ask ourselves why do we spend as much on defense as the next thirteen largest defense spending countries do?
With the looming Baby Boomer’s enrolling in Medicare, we can’t afford to ignore the explosion of healthcare costs. Why is it we pay twice to four times as much for healthcare than Japan, Canada, Germany and other industrialized nations do?
Why is it that a family pays more for healthcare insurance than their mortgage costs? We used to say the American dream is “to own a home”, but how can we afford either with the stagnate wages the middleclass has endured for decades?
Today’s defense of our nation has changed from the past military buildup of the cold war that created cozy relations with defense contractors lining the pockets of our leaders and donating millions to their re-elections. We now face different times with protecting our country and those that are our allies. I served in the 1st Special Operations Wing of the Air Force under President Reagan and witnessed the turn towards smaller conflicts and terrorism as being the future defense of our nation. Now here we are thirty years later with unchecked defense spending that harms our country’s economic stability because of the bought-and-paid-for-politicians like Mitch McConnell.
What do we do? The answer is easier than you might think; Career Politicians like Mitch McConnell that is out of touch with the challenges of America’s middle class have to be replaced by someone that America can trust and get behind. Mitch has already bankrolled over $9 million toward his re-election campaign and that money didn’t come from the middle class workers, it came from those who want to influence and corrupt our democracy by the “Pay to Play’ system that Mitch McConnell protects.
I am running for US Senate because I know the voices of our Middle Class have been stifled by the greed and incentivized inactivity of bought-and-paid-for politicians like Mitch McConnell.
People are looking for more from their elected officials. They want honesty, they expect integrity and they need results. I’m not beholden to Wall Street firms and I refuse to prop-up my campaign with money from financial interests. People should vote, not money!
I can say one thing from experience. Ed Marksberry is a fine man. He knows the problems we face because he is one of us. He has been in the trenches working hard to make a living. He has created jobs that pay good and do not pass his responsibilities to his employees off on others. As Americans we can constantly complain about career politicians in Washington being elected over and over again and being out of touch with average Americans like us, or we can do something about it.
The only way for grassroots candidates like Ed Marksberry to ever make it to Washington and enact real changes in the way things operate there is if we support them. Ed has no Corporations or big money PACs lining up to fill his campaign coffers. He must rely on all of us.
And we can help Ed. We can show the pundits and elitists that candidates like Ed Marksberry can indeed make a difference for the working people of this country. We can do this by supporting them.
So there are a few things I am asking you to do. If you want to see McConnell put on the sidelines where he belongs we can start early by showing America we are serious about defeating him. Even if you believe you may support someone else later you can send a message by helping Ed Marksberry get off the ground and begin the defeat of Mitch McConnell.
First, you can go to Ed's Facebook page and like it to show your support:
https://www.facebook.com/...
Next, you can go to Signon.org and "sign on" to show your support for a grassroots Democrat who is determined to defeat McConnell and fight for working Americans:
http://signon.org/...
Finally, you can show America that we are serious about defeating Mitch McConnell by helping Ed out with the resources he desperately needs to get his message out. No contribution is too small for this grassroots Democrat and he will put them to use immediately to defeat Mitch McConnell:
http://marksberry2014.com/...
There is nothing wrong with the American system. What is wrong is that we insist on sending the wrong people to Washington. What America desperately needs is to send qualified grassroots Americans to Washington who understand the problems we face because they have faced them with us.
Please join me in supporting a grassroots Democrat and a fine American that is determined to fight for the right thing. All Americans.