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Mike Elk

By Mike Elk
Of Campaign for America’s Future

Conservatives have started a disturbing pattern of attacking Democrats for the consequences of weak Buy America provisions in last year’s Recovery Act, even though they opposed the tougher Buy America provisions that would have averted the problems in the first place.

Last week, I wrote about how Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele launched this Republican talking point:

… Steele blasted the Obama administration in a fund-raising email earlier this week for allowing stimulus money designated for clean energy solutions to be spent on overseas companies. Which is interesting, because stimulus money going to overseas firms was the direct result of conservative opposition to attempts to keep that money in America.

Now it seems that Sarah Palin has joined the chorus of flip-flopping conservatives opposed to Buy America, who ignore the fact that progressive Democrats were fighting for Buy America language in the stimulus. Palin wrote on her Facebook wall:

“We were promised it would provide “green jobs” for Americans, but 80% of the $2 billion they spent on alternative energy went to purchase wind turbines built in China!”

While some of the money did go to foreign companies to spend on windmill components built overseas, a lot of that money went to the U.S.-based subsidiaries of foreign companies. Russ Choma, author of the study which Palin cites, rebuts Palin in this Politifact article:

The Investigative Reporting Workshop’s story on stimulus dollars and the wind industry came in two parts. In October 2009, it published its first analysis. The group found that of the $1.05 billion in clean-energy grants already handed out by the Department of Energy, about 84 percent — or $849 million — ended up in the hands of foreign wind companies. We spoke with Russ Choma, the story’s author, who explained that these grants are given to U.S.-based wind projects, but that many of these projects are being built by the American subsidiaries of foreign-owned companies. For instance, on Sept. 22, 2009, the DOE awarded $464.2 million to wind projects, and all of it went to local subsidiaries of foreign companies, according to the report. Those companies include Iberdrola, a Spanish company that received $250.9 million; the American subsidiary of Japan’s Eurus Energy, which got $91.3 million; and the American subsidiary of Germany’s E.ON Group, which received $121.9 million. Choma also points out that the wind turbine manufacturing industry in the United States is relatively weak compared to those abroad; of the 1,807 turbines erected in the United States as a result of the stimulus grants, foreign-owned manufacturers made 1,219, according to the report.

Besides Palin misrepresenting the facts, Palin fails to note that her fellow conservative Republicans opposed Buy America language, labeling it“bad for America.”

As I noted last week:

Republican presidential candidate John McCain went on CBS’s Face the Nation on February 8, 2009:

“I think it has policy changes in it which are fundamentally bad for America. For example, their ‘Buy America’ provision: that’s protectionism, and that did not work in any time in our history.”

As recently as October 2009, GOP Congressional leaders held an event to call for the rollback of Buy America provisions claiming that Buy America provisions were “costing American jobs.”

This is just another example of Republicans obfuscating their positions in order to win votes. But what’s disturbing is that there is a margin of truth in what they say. Because Buy America provisions were weak in the stimulus bill, some of the money (though not as much as Palin claims) did go overseas. It happened because Democrats failed to put up a strong enough fight.

That can’t happen again. As Congress considers a jobs bill, it’s important that we encourage members not to compromise on Buy America provisions. If Democrats allow Buy America to be weakened, conservatives will use the result to attack them anyway. They should instead force Republicans into a real, round-the-clock filibuster Buy America language. That will show just how patriotic conservatives are when its comes to using American taxpayer money to give Americans jobs.

Leo W. Gerard

By Leo W. Gerard
International President

“He’s a real nowhere Man,
Sitting in his Nowhere Land,
Making all his nowhere plans
For nobody.”

These lyrics to “Nowhere Man,” written and recorded in 1965 by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, describe the Republican Party of 2009. Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter rejected that party and returned to his Democratic roots because, even at the age of 79, he’s got plans that go somewhere.

The GOP’s leaders and their inactions have placed the party at the corner of Unpopular and Nowhere. GOP voter registration fell in every western state in 2008, including Colorado where it dropped a whopping 9 percent. That year, the Pew Research Center found that voters calling themselves Republicans declined six points over four years, for the lowest percentage of self-identified Republican voters in 16 years of Pew polling.

Pennsylvania voters, not always in step, were this time. More than 200,000 Republicans switched registration to Democrat in 2008. Arlen Specter, who was a Democrat the first 16 years of his adult life, this spring joined those fellow Pennsylvania Republicans and returned to his Democratic roots.

The Republican response typifies why voters continue to convert the GOP to D on their party membership cards. The Republican National Committee posted on its web site nasty automatic e-mails to Specter that can be sent with the click of a mouse. Mean spirited is bad enough, but these lack a certain introspection.

One is supposed to be the White House teleprompter welcoming Specter to the Democratic Party. The text says, “Welcome to the Democrats. I look forward to working together to borrow more money from China.” Another is supposed to be a welcome from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, saying, “You’ll love how much we can spend taxpayer money.” Both are blind to a fact that taxpayers clearly see – Republican majorities during the Bush administration spent so much that they created the largest budget deficits known to man or nation, compelling excessive borrowing from China.

He’s as blind as he can be,
Just sees what he wants to see,
Nowhere Man can you see me at all? – Nowhere Man

The leader of Specter’s new party – President Barack Obama – stood before the American people on his 100^th day in office, assessing progress and promising to press forward to aid people in need during the worst recession since the Great Depression.

He spoke of accomplishments, such as the stimulus bill that will create or save 3.5 million jobs, the extension of health insurance for 11 million children whose parents work full-time, and a measure to help homeowners refinance their mortgages. He talked of changing the tone of foreign policy from threats to diplomacy, forbidding torture and closing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay.

This Democrat has his sights set on the next hundreds and hundreds of days and pledged to continue working on priorities he established during his campaign, including health care reform and clean energy development.

Even those who disagree with him know he’s got plans. He’s going places.  This guy’s definitely not at the corner of Unpopular and Nowhere.

He has offered to bring Republicans along with him, to negotiate with them, to include them in the process. But they’ve smacked him down at every turn. They’re not just fighting with him, either. They’re also bickering among themselves. And it isn’t pretty.

There was the infamous back and forth between GOP mouthpiece Rush Limbaugh who is calling for the president of his country to fail, and GOP chairman Michael Steele, who made himself famous by promising an “off the hook” public relations blitz “to uptick our image with everyone, including one-armed midgets.”  After Obama’s chief of staff said Limbaugh was the representative of the GOP, Steele shot back saying he was the head of the party, adding that Limbaugh was incendiary and “ugly.” Limbaugh responded with a rant on radio that Steele was unfit to lead, to which Steele responded by crawling on his belly to apologize to the “ugly” one.  There’s some inspiring leaders for you!

Now a group of Republicans has split from the RNC, calling itself the National Council for a New America. They contend they are upset that the GOP has failed to provide alternatives to the Democrats’ plans. The group includes former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. “It’s no secret that we’re in a seriously troubling time for the Republicans,” said Mike Murphy, a strategist who has advised Romney and Sen. John McCain.

It’s also seriously troubling that this new cabal, supposedly trying to solve the old group’s problems, called itself National Council for a New America. Clearly they are not satisfied with the current America, the America that is rejecting Republicans. So their plan is to remake America rather than to remake themselves.  Good luck with that.

Actually, there’s a much easier option. Obama described it to Republicans during the press conference on his 100^th day in office. Even with Specter in the Democratic fold and the potential of a 60-vote supermajority for Democrats in the Senate, the President said he would like to work with Republicans. He said the majority will likely rule on core issues. But there are many matters on which Republicans could exert influence if they would come to the table and negotiate in good faith.

Republicans can continue to simply vote NO on everything. They can bicker among themselves and look ridiculous to the American people. They can get nothing done and be the party of “I’m-in-control-NO-I’m-in-control” nonsense. They can continue to lose members and statesmen like Specter. Obama suggested that would be an unwise strategy.

That would be a nowhere strategy.

By Leo W. Gerard
International President

Protestors disrupted a convention of mortgage financers in San Francisco this week, storming the stage as former Bush advisor Karl Rove spoke, heckling bankers with bullhorns, and badgering a panel with demands for a foreclosure moratorium.

Fear and frustration compelled ordinary citizens to harangue the green-visor set at their normally-staid annual meeting. Middle class Americans are losing their jobs and their homes and their hope while watching Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson spend their tax dollars to bail out the infinitely-wealthy on Wall Street whose reprehensible risk-taking caused the country’s financial crisis. The middle class want their piece of the American pie.

Congress is trying to dish it out in the form of a second stimulus package that would extend unemployment insurance and food stamps and create jobs through programs such as highway construction projects.

Republican candidates John McCain and Sarah Palin oppose it. They’re running around the country with caricatures of Joe the Plumber and Joe Sixpack, pretending the GOP ticket represents the best interests of the working class and small business owners. It’s all false rhetoric and no real action. McCain and Palin object to intervention for anyone other than the wealthy, for whom they plan to enshrine tax cuts; for overfed CEOs, for whom they believe the $700 billion bailout was justified, and for themselves, for whom they believe the Republican National Committee appropriately opened its purse to purchase haute couture wardrobes, hair stylists and makeup artists.

McCain wants to brand a socialist S on Barack Obama although both voted for the bailout plan under which the U.S. government is nationalizing banks.

Unlike McCain, however, Obama is a man of the people and believes not in socialism but in the religious concept of everyone serving as their brothers’ keepers.  This is how he explained it in his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention:

“What — what is that American promise? It’s a promise that says each of us has the freedom to make of our own lives what we will, but that we also have obligations to treat each other with dignity and respect.
It’s a promise that says the market should reward drive and innovation and generate growth, but that businesses should live up to their responsibilities to create American jobs, to look out for American workers, and play by the rules of the road.
Ours — ours is a promise that says government cannot solve all our problems, but what it should do is that which we cannot do for ourselves: protect us from harm and provide every child a decent education; keep our water clean and our toys safe; invest in new schools, and new roads, and science, and technology.
Our government should work for us, not against us. It should help us, not hurt us. It should ensure opportunity not just for those with the most money and influence, but for every American who’s willing to work.
That’s the promise of America, the idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also rise or fall as one nation, the fundamental belief that I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper.
That’s the promise we need to keep. That’s the change we need right now.”

That philosophy has great appeal with unemployment at a five-year high of 6.1 percent, with the poverty rate rising to 12.5 percent in what is supposed to be the richest country in the world; with 47 million without health insurance; with 1 million homes lost to foreclosure in the past two years and another 1.5 million in the process, and with the chronically ill across American skipping medications because they can’t afford them, as the NYT reported this week.

Because this philosophy is popular, Palin and McCain are trying to channel it, to steal it just as they did the “change” slogan, to try to make Americans believe that they would best serve the middle class. The problem is that everything they do belies their claims.

Sarah “Sixpack” Palin definitely has an elitist eye for clothing, hair styling and makeup. She spent $150,000 of Republican National Committee money on designer duds for herself and her family since accepting the nomination on Sept. 3. That’s three times the annual income for a typical American family. If she doesn’t shell out another dime, she’ll have spent $2,400 a day on clothing between the convention and the election. The vice presidential candidate’s taste includes a $2,500 Valentino Garavani jacket from Saks Fifth Avenue that she wore to the convention.

In addition, she and McCain decided their most important advisor, the one they would reward with the highest salary in the first two weeks of October as the stock market crashed, was Sarah Palin’s makeup artist. Her earnings for proper Palin powdering were $22,800 for two weeks, nearly twice the salary McCain and Palin gave their second highest paid staffer – their chief foreign policy advisor. They paid him $12,500, just $2,500 more than the $10,000 they ponied up for Palin’s hair stylist, whose compensation was fourth highest. The total for Palin’s hair and makeup in two weeks: $32,800.

While you’re scrimping and saving and shopping at Costco to prevent foreclosure of your home, just remember what Palin told CNN reporter Drew Griffin about providing a stimulus package to help the middle class: “But now that we’re hearing that the Democrats want an additional stimulus package or bailout package for what, hundreds of billions of dollars more, this is not a time to use the economic crisis as an excuse for reckless spending and for greater, bigger government and to move the private sector to the back burner and let government be assumed to be the be all, end all solution to the economic challenges that we have.”

So, for Palin, great big government is okay to bail out Wall Street fat cats, but not to help the middle class. Palin’s knee-jerk Republican “let-the-private-sector-solve-it” attitude shocks the consciousness after the indiscretion of the private sector just landed this country in financial crisis. We’re not inclined to trust them, frankly, Ms. Palin.

McCain said the same, backing the bailout for the reckless on Wall Street, and damning attempts by Democrats to help those on Main Street – of course, all the while dragging up the image of Joe the Plumber and contending he’s the guy’s advocate.

The ticket clearly lacks both introspection and economic expertise. McCain said it himself last year – that he was no authority on the economy.  By contrast, a person with some degree of economic proficiency, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, this week endorsed additional fiscal stimulus, saying it was appropriate now because the economy is likely to be weak for several quarters. In addition, economic expert and Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman said this week that additional government spending now – for a stimulus package – is appropriate, particularly for infrastructure improvement, which would provide real value and create jobs.

Though McCain and Palin clearly don’t understand, it’s time for everyday Americans to share in the American pie. At a rally in Florida this week, Obama talked about how the policies of the Bush administration have shrunk the pie and permitted the wealthy to grab the few remaining crumbs. He told he crowd he has no desire to reapportion the pie, as McCain keeps accusing him wanting to do – as a socialist, you know. Also, Obama objects to the McCain-Palin policy of continuing to feed the rich all of the crumbs, which is particularly evident in the GOP tax plan.

Obama told the group his goal is to expand the pie to ensure that all Americans get a piece. The crowd responded with a spontaneous chant of, “We want pie!”

That’s what is going on in America. That’s why protestors accosted mortgage bankers at their California convention. The middle class won’t stand for the rich wolfing down all of the pie anymore.