It's Budget Insanity-from the AFL-CIO

Urgent: Tell the U.S. House to End the Budget Insanity This week the U.S. House will be voting on extremist budget proposals that essentially would shut down critical services for working families this fiscal year. House Republicans claim it’s deficit control. It’s not. It’s an all-out assault on America’s middle class and naked political payback to CEOs who poured millions into the 2010 elections. Sign the petition telling representatives to stop wasting time on outrages like this. Then, forward this message to your friends and urge them to sign, too.     This week the House will vote on Republican scorched-earth budget cut proposals that would amputate critical government services working families rely on every day. They want to slash education—from Head Start to Pell Grants for college. Cut food safety inspections. Cut job safety inspections. Cut investments in infrastructure. Cut the money to send out Social Security checks. And eliminate hundreds of thousands of middle-class jobs. This isn’t “fiscal responsibility” or “deficit control.” It’s a bald-faced attack on America’s middle class as political payback to CEOs who poured millions into the 2010 elections. CEOs don’t like job safety regulations, so the politicians they elected will cut the funding and fire the inspectors. CEOs don’t want environmental safeguards, energy improvements or curbs on health insurance companies, so their politicians will just defund the programs. Sign the petition. Tell representatives: Get to work creating jobs and reviving our economy and stop wasting time on outrages like this. Then, forward this message to your friends and urge them to sign, too. The Republican proposals would propel us squarely in the wrong direction—toward an America we do not want to be. If we don’t stop this budget insanity now, services ordinary Americans count on could cease for months or fail to function at all in this fiscal year. Think about what America will be like with no occupational safety and health inspections or investigations of workplace fatalities and disasters. No National Labor Relations Board elections to enable working men and women to have a stronger voice on the job, collectively bargain, or choose whether to form a union. No certainty about when the Social Security checks will arrive. This isn’t about deficit control. It’s about legislating working America out of the way of limitless corporate profits. Stop this budget insanity. Sign the petition. Tell representatives: Get to work creating jobs and reviving our economy and stop wasting time on outrages like this. Then, forward this message to your friends and urge them to sign, too. The budget madness isn’t limited to the federal level. In state after state, Republican legislators and governors whose election campaigns raked in the corporate contributions are ignoring the job crisis and playing politics-as-usual with the lives of working families. They’d rather take modest pensions and collective bargaining rights away from public employees than win them for working families struggling without. Gov. Scott Walker in Wisconsin is so determined to make people with decent middle-class jobs suffer and end collective bargaining for public employees that he’s told the National Guard to be ready in case working people strike or rise up. Wow. And if that’s not extreme enough, a Missouri state senator, Jane Cunningham (R), proposes ending the ban on employing children younger than 14 and limiting the hours children may work. Don’t let the budget insanity go any further. Let’s stop it now. Sign the petition. Tell representatives: Get to work creating jobs and reviving our economy and stop wasting time on outrages like this. Then, ask your friends to sign, too. Thank you for taking action. In solidarity, Manny Herrmann Online Mobilization Coordinator, AFL-CIO