SPECIAL COMMENTARY: GOP GOVERNORS ARE SYSTEMATICALLY DISMANTLING THE AMERICAN DREAM FOR OUR NATION'S WORKING FAMILIES

UNIONS BUILT THE MIDDLE-CLASS ECONOMY AMERICA LOVES

American middle-class families are the "whipping boy" of GOP Governors. What they fail to understand is that our government should work for it's people and not for profit.  Organized labor faces it's biggest challenge yet.  photo:  Ove Overmyer 

Rochester, N.Y. -- In the simplest terms possible, public workers and middle-class folk are not the cause of the global economic crisis that our nation’s governors would like you to believe-- but we are going to suffer anyway as the drama continues to play out on a daily basis in the statehouses across our great nation. And, I might add, this includes our very own likable New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Under the Cuomo administration, New York's public employee unions agreed to “givebacks” and found a way to compromise at the negotiating table while anti-labor forces continue to bash us incessantly in the court of public opinion. Unions and middle class families are still being attacked in every state of the nation-- and undeservedly so.

Texas Governor Rick Perry, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, New Jersey’s Chris Christie, Ohio’s John Kasich, Maine’s Paul LaPage, Nevada’s Brian Sandoval and Florida’s Rick Scott are just a few GOP anti-labor pols who are waging war against their own constituents.  You can add every GOP Governor to this list too-- and throw in the support of the Koch brothers and Karl Rove's GPS Crossroads for good measure.  

The national Republican master plan-- which is being implemented in every state with a Republican Governor is to lower wages for all working people-- union and non-union, get rid of pension plans, health care plans and all other benefits that all Americans currently receive thanks to union bargaining over the last 100 years.

Then, their vision includes to privatize everything under the sun.  This will allow various companies and corporations, the very ones that put these governors into office in the first place thanks to the Citizens United v. FEC court decision, can profit off of cheap labor and your hard earned tax dollars. You will no longer have to worry about companies and corporations hiring illegal immigrants because Republicans and the corporations they work for are creating their very own 3rd world workforce made up of what use to be America’s middle-class. 

Under GOP rule, your government will no longer be accountable to you the resident taxpayer-- you will have to suffer with the products and services delivered by a private company-- a private company only motivated by profit off of your tax dollars.  Think about that the next time you want a pothole filled on your street.

What is so perverse about this trend is just how vastly it misunderstands what went wrong with the American economy in the first place. And, what makes this go-around extraordinary is that national political leaders from both major parties have been pushing that same agenda.  You would think having a Democratic President, he would be setting the agenda and national debate in Washington.  But no, he seems to only respond to the ridiculous notions of the House GOP and plays right along with the "I can top your reduced spending idea and deficit reduction plan."

Cornel West recently said this about Obama:  "He should be the thermostat, not the thermometer."  

In contrast, the biggest global corporations and the richest citizens of New York were precisely the culprits and major players in the financial excesses and speculations that caused our financial meltdown in the first place. That's the truth-- no spin.

A genuinely progressive governor, like Mr. Cuomo professes to be, would begin work on the state budget by correcting unfairly low levels of taxation of huge global corporations, reducing regressive taxes, and increasing the progressivity of personal income taxes. Instead, Gov. Cuomo chooses not to raise taxes on those whose wealth insulated them from the worst effects of the economic crisis-- the same people who got most of the stimulus "recovery" spending since 2007.

Can you imagine New York State or America without a strong middle class? If you can, would our nation still be recognizable? What we would be left with is a plutocratic system rooted in state-corporate capitalism and the prioritization of never-ending accumulation of wealth over all other interests, such as public health, education, the environment or the common good of all people.  Crime, homelessness, poverty and host of other societial ills would plague us endlessly.  Haven't we learned anything from our nation's history?

Where are the jobs?

Today, one in five Americans is unemployed, underemployed or just plain out of work. One in nine families can't make the minimum payment on their credit cards. One in eight mortgages is in default or foreclosure. One in eight Americans is on food stamps. More than 120,000 families are filing for bankruptcy every month. The economic crisis has wiped more than $5 trillion from pensions and savings, has left family balance sheets upside down, and threatens to put ten million homeowners out on the street (see sources). Here is a wake-up call-- this is exactly what union households are going through as anti-labor forces continue to demonize us.

At the same time, the biggest global corporations seem to be doing just fine with the help of our bailed-out middle class tax dollars recording huge profits in 2010, shipping our jobs overseas (where the profits are) and giving out huge bonuses to a select few.

How would America's governors answer these questions?

Here are two basic questions for Governor Cuomo and the rest of America's governors: Where are the worries about the economic consequences that result when decimated family budgets cut short children's educations, reduce family members' visits to doctors, and shape a thousand other family decisions? And where are the worries about similar consequences from freezing public workers' wages and cutting state payrolls?

Neither economic efficiency nor the people's welfare motivates the current attack on New York's public workers. Rather, the pressure is on state budget policies to serve the biggest businesses and the richest citizens who own or manage those interests. Using the profits their workers make possible, they force our state government to meet their self-serving needs while placing the burden on others, especially the private and public employees who pay the personal income, sales and excise taxes that ultimately benefit the privileged minority.

On a personal note, some may say that I am just finger pointing and directing blame-- well, you are right.  Let set the record straight here.  The reason why our economy is so fragile right now is because we are depleting the spending power of the American consumer.  And, there is plenty of wrongdoing and blame to go around.  But if we want to fix the problem, we have to investigate the facts and find out whose is responsible and how to recover.  My determinations are based on reasoned facts, data and statistics not conjecture-- all of which most sane nonpartisan economists agree with. 

So, please-- enough already of the spin and insults about how our so-called "big government" and public sector workers are responsible for our budget woes and the national deficit. Government salaries, the goods and services we provide and our pensions are not killing federal, state and local government budgets-- crazy GOP lawmakers, Tea Party nut-jobs and the corporate lobbyists plus the big donors who put these extreme bureaucrats into public office are to blame for wreaking havoc on our economy-- not working families. 

-Ove Overmyer

Rochester, New York

The opinons expressed here do not represent the views of CSEA as an organization.