McCain defends deregulation of Wall Street!

In last night's debate, John McCain called for more regulation and oversight of Wall Street, despite the fact that he led the effort to pass many of the deregulatory reforms that led to the current crisis.

Interviewed on CBS only a few days before the debate, however, McCain said he did not“regret” championing the deregulation of Wall Street, that it was good for the economy:

Q: In 1999, you were one of the senators who helped pass deregulation of Wall Street. Do you regret that now?

McCAIN: No. I think the deregulation was probably helpful to the growth of our economy.

Watch it:

Workers need jobs and a raise-not a psychiatrist

During the last eight years. almost all of the nation's income growth went to executives and investors. As a result, while the productivity increased and the economy grew to more than $13 trillion a year, most Americans fell further and further behind.

Between 1976 and 2006, the numbers of hours worked by the median two-parent household increased by 400 hours per year.

Productivity increased by 18% between 2000 and 2007 alone. Yet middle-income, working-age households—those headed by someone less than 65—lost ground over these years. Their median income, after adjusting for inflation, fell by $2,000 from $58,500 to $56,500 (2007 dollars).

In Wisconsin per capita income has fallen $2500 behind the national average and the gap is growing as Wisconsinites experience the first sustained period of decline in our median wage since the early 1980s.

All real income gains in the last eight years have gone to the richest 5%, those making more than $150,000.

There are several reasons for the growth in economic inequality.

Three of the most important are:

• the Bush era tax cuts that went almost entirely to the very richest Americans (52% went to the richest 1%, averaging $1.5 million a year);


• the systematic dismantling of institutions, public and private, that ensured shared prosperity;


• the Federal Reserve's one-sided focus on fighting inflation which helped keep prices low until recently by maintaining artificially high unemployment particularly in the nation's inner cities.

Republican Presidential candidate John McCain, who acknowledges he knows little about economics, promises to continue these policies. This is not surprising since his chief economic advisor and odds on favorite to be named Secretary of the Treasury, Senator Phil Gramm, recently denied the country was in a recession, arguing that Americans are "a nation of whiners" and that the recession is a figment of their imagination.

Despite McCain and Gramm's assertions, America and Wisconsin's economic problems are real!

Over 600,000 workers have lost their jobs since January. In Wisconsin major employers like Delphi, Midwest Express, GE Medical, General Motors and the New Page Corporation (Kimberly) are laying off thousands.

The nation's 6.1% unemployment rate, the highest since the recession of 1991, actually undercounts the number of unemployed because it does not include those who are working part time because they can't find full time work. If they are included the unemployment jumps to almost 11%.

Nine million Americans have lost their health insurance since President Bush took office. During the first six months of 2008, 343,000 Americans lost their homes, a 136% increase from the year before.

Gasoline, food, college education, heating and health care prices are soaring, increasing 2% faster than wages. The Bush administration's economic policies, including the high income tax cuts which McCain says he will make permanent, are imposing a 2% tax on the nation's working people.

Democratic Presidential nominee, Barack Obama, has proposed an economic program that includes federal aid to state and local governments, public works jobs programs and passing the Employee Free Choice Act. The former would ensure that budget cuts by state and local government, mandated by balanced budget statutes, won't reduce aggregate spending and make the recession worse. The latter would make it easier for workers to form unions which will ensure that productivity gains and economic growth, when they resume, are shared broadly. Public works investment is required to fix the nation's deteriorating infrastructure, a prerequisite to growth and prosperity.

McCain's economic program of more of the same will mean more layoffs, more rising prices, tax breaks for the very wealthy and greater inequality.

American workers and their families, contrary to McCain and Gramm, don't need a psychiatrist, they need jobs and a raise!

John McCain supports shipping jobs overseas

Republican Presidential nominee John McCain admits that "...the issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should.”

His campaign committee co-chair and chief economic advisor was Phil Gramm who made millions on Enron even as the company went bankrupt and thousands of emploees lost their life savings. Gramm recently claimed that the nation's economic problems are in people's heads as he called Americans a nation of whiners!

So it is not surprising that John McCain continues to defend his support for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Americans were promised that NAFTA would generate large numbers of net new good jobs. Instead, over a million jobs that would otherwise have been created were lost, and wages were pressured downward for a large number of workers with less than a college education. Wisconsin lost 25,403 job s, 0.9% of total employment. Michigan was even harder hit losing 63,000 jobs.

On the issue of jobs and trade McCain promises more of the same- job loss and declining wages!

Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama opposed NATFA from the beginning and has promised to rewrite its rules if elected.

There is a clear difference as this new ad makes clear.

McCain advisor: Americans are whiners who suffer from a psychological recesion!

Yesterday, life long Milwaukee resident and safety assistant with Milwaukee Public Schools, Travis Griffin, sized up the dismal state of the economy when he told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "It's the blue-collar kind of thing...You need two or three jobs to make things work for yourself...But you just do it"

On the same day that Griffin was stoically commenting on how hard it has become to make ends meet, Phil Gramm, Republican presidential nominee John McCain's campaign co-chair and top economic advisor, denied the nation's growing economic problems, declaring that Americans suffered from a psychological recession, not a real one and that Americans like Griffin had become a nation of whiners.

Take a look at this video!




John McCain, who has acknowledged that he knows very little about economics, tried to dissociate himself from Gramm's tone deaf comments. But as this video shows McCain has argued repeatedly that the nation's economic problems are mainly psychological.




Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama's response was that the nation's economic problems are real, not psychological. People who are losing their jobs, their healthcare and their homes, folks like Griffin, are struggling to fill their gas tanks, keep the lights on, pay their mortgage and piece together an income. They don't need therapy, they need help.




Who do you think has it right-John McCain and Phil Gramm or Travis Griffin and Barack Obama?