I hope every one of you enjoyed the Holidays, and will stay true to your New Year resolutions.
Last month I wrote an article expressing my views on the middle class fight, and how we should become “free thinkers” and use our power at the polls. I also asked all ATU members to get involved and vote. I talked about the 1% that control and make all the important decisions. How Politian are bought by corporate America, a price we can’t pay. We can take control of our future by getting involved; I don’t just mean voting but actually calling our Representatives and voicing our concerns. As I stated last month there is a bill in Congress (HR 3200) and the Senate (S 1992) that allows transit agencies to flex their federal capital funds for temporary and targeted operations if they meet one of three triggers; 1.) Operation of fewer than 100 buses during, peak hours; regardless of community size; 2.) An unemployment rate of 7% or higher in the region; or 3.) A 10% rise in gas prices when comparing current quarter to the same quarter in the previous year. As of this month there are 137 co-sponsors, 16 of which are Republicans. So again I am asking all ATU 256 members to call your representative and ask that they co-sponsor the Carnahan (HR 3200) and Brown (S 1992) bills, let your voice be heard.
If any of you have been keeping up with current events you know that the Republican are trying to elect, appoint, and designate a candidate to run against OBAMA. They blame the current administration for all the problems of this country, and yet not one of them has taken the blame for the state that we are in. Let me explain, if you remember what we learned in high school you know that there is a system of “checks and balances” in our government which means that not one of the executive branches can make any kind of policy on their owns. Since Obama took office the Republicans have fought him on everything, they openly stated that they were going to make him a one-term president. History tells us that Bush and the Republicans had eight years to put this country in the state we are in, and Obama has had 3 years to try to fix the problems. During the last election when the “Tea Party” became the “in thing” we elected a majority of Republicans into the house and since then they have made it hard for the current administration to accomplish anything. They are trying to cut the deficit, reduce the size of government, but ask yourself “at whose expense?” There is talk that the entitlement programs should be reduced, that means Social Security and Medicare. Ask yourself this question “should you expect to get what you paid for all your working life?” I know I do. We all pay Social Security taxes and we pay Medicare taxes, look at your pay stubs, and the employer pays the same rate you do it is 50%-50%. Remember I said that the 1% own all the important land, they own and control the corporations; they've long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the State houses, the City Halls; they've got the judges in their back pockets, and they own all the big media companies so they control just about all the news and information you get to hear. All day long, they tell you what to believe. All day long, they beat you over the head in their media telling you what to believe -- what to think -- and what to buy. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying -- lobbying to get what they want and we know what they want -- they want MORE for themselves and less for everybody else. If you don’t believe this look at how much money the big pacts have put into these elections, these are pacts that are looking to buy the politician that will promote what they want. What do they want? Deregulation, they want to do away with regulations that protect you and me, that protect the environment. They once again want to deregulate Wall Street and Off-shore drilling to name a couple, so that we can end up in another mess like the one we are trying to recover from. I want to call your attention to the rhetoric that is being told by the Republicans who are looking for the nomination for president, listen carefully. They all are saying “we need to put Americans to work”. If this was truly their platform then why fight the JOBS BILL? Answer because in part the JOBS BILL would have taxed the 1%. When the Democrats were trying to get an extension on unemployment benefits, the Republicans wanted to tack on the pipeline and off shore drilling, ask yourselves for whose benefit? Answer is for Big Oils Companies. I think these men and women have forgotten that our forefathers said that this was “a government of the people, for the people, by the people” not the rich. We have members in the ATU that feel that Obama is to blame for our woes; I believe that it is the people we voted for and elected that are to blame for all our woes. Since Obama was elected one of his campaign promises was to fully fund transit. A year ago, transportation advocacy groups, industry experts, and lobbyists declared that if Congress had not passed a transportation authorization by the August 2011 recess, there would be no authorization until 2013. Much to the surprise of all, the game changed significantly when President Obama introduced the American Jobs Act in September. While the President’s jobs bill, which included significant investments in infrastructure (including $27 billion for highways; $50 million for job training; $4 billion for high speed rail; $2 billion for Amtrak; $3 billion for transit capital, 10% of which could be used for operating assistance; $6 billion for state of good repair) was never introduced in the House and failed to pass the Senate. Ask yourself why? The answer is because the Jobs Act would create jobs for Americans, something that the Republicans don’t want until they get what they want. These are the same politicians that are supposed to be representing our interest in Congress. The JOBS BILL would have created jobs in the construction industry to repair roads, bridges and infrastructure, it would have also allowed for the much needed funding for transit operations. Remember that more than 84% of the transit systems around the country have instituted severe cost-cutting measures at least once since 2008, significantly limiting access to jobs, education, healthcare, grocery stores, and more for many low and middle income Americans. These are our passengers that are transit dependent, those that ride our buses because they can’t afford cars or have no other means to get where they need to go. Transit=jobs!!! In November, House Speaker John Boehner and Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chair John Mica announced that a bill, funded at current spending levels and adjusted for inflation, would be introduced in the House. That bill is now anticipated for release in early February. Remember John Mica wanted to reduce transit funding by 32% of the 2008 level, now the new bill to be introduced would fund transit at the 2011 level which was low but will be adjusted for inflation, in other words it still is not enough. The Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (THUD) Appropriations Bill which passed both Houses of Congress in November as part of a mini-bus appropriations bill; set spending levels for FY 2012 that reflect the Speaker’s announcement about the size of the transportation bill.
Also in November, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW), which has led the way on the need to maintain current funding levels, marked up the highway portion of the transportation authorization bill and passed it out of committee with a unanimous vote. The workforce development provisions that currently exist in SAFETEA-LU were retained in the EPW bill, Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century (MAP-21).
Last week, the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, with jurisdiction over waterways, transportation communications and research, and highway safety, marked up its portion of the transportation authorization bill. The bill passed out of committee with a vote along partisan lines. The Commerce language will be rolled into MAP-21.
The Senate Banking Committee, which has jurisdiction over the transit portion of the transportation reauthorization, postponed its mark-up until after the Senate returns to Washington on January 23.
The Senate Banking Committee and the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee (T/I) are keys to moving our flexible transit operating assistance issue (i.e., Carnahan and Brown bills). We need to contact - either by phone or mail - any and all the elected officials and voice our concern about the lack of funding. Republican or Democrat just contact them. Don’t be the OBEDIENT WORKERS. Don’t be one of the people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork, and just dumb enough to passably accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, and the reduced benefits. Remember that's what the owners count on, the fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant. Be part of a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. Become well-informed, well-educated people. They're not interested in that, that doesn't help them. That's against their interests. That's right. They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they're getting screwed, by a system that threw them overboard 30 over years ago. They don't want that. Think about which Political Party represents the interests of the average American not Corporate America. Think about your children and if they are grown up, think about your grandchildren. Ask yourselves what you want for them as parents and grandparents; ask yourselves what their future will be like at the rate we are going. Will they be able to go to college, will they be able to find a job? Can we afford to loose our dignity to the OWNERS? Then I want you to get educated; don’t allow yourselves to be fooled by the media, remember who controls the media. Ask questions and don’t just settle for lame answers, and please don’t buy into the hype. .
