Published in The York Sunday News, September 28, 2008
We Need a Congressman, Not a Cheerleader
PHIL AVILLO
As Pennsylvania's jobless rate climbs to a five-year high and the federal government prepares for the largest public bailout of failed private corporations in history, the state of the U.S. economy is a national disgrace. The Bush administration, its "cheerleader in Congress," Rep. Todd Platts, and its other enablers have failed all Americans with their reckless, out-of-control and out-of-touch economic policies that have hammered the public interest and brought us to this economic black hole.
This administration, Rep. Platts, and the rest of their congressional cronies have accomplished virtually nothing for the people of Adams, Cumberland and York counties over the last eight years except distract us from the real war against terrorism in Afghanistan with their ill-advised, costly and mismanaged war in Iraq, weaken our military, erode our national security, export our jobs overseas, dissipate our middle-class wealth, and support lobbyists for the mortgage-related securities industry.
Even as lobbyists are today pushing to expand this financial bailout, Mr. Platts, who watched idly over the past eight years as this economic collapse festered and grew each day, must take immediate action to protect the homeowners of York, Adams and Cumberland counties -- people who are losing their homes, or watching their life investments lose value, while their tax dollars are siphoned off to pump up failed Wall Street profiteers.
This is the least he can do since the so-called financial experts themselves are divided over whether any bailout will work. No less an expert than Michael Bloomberg, commenting on the Wall Street bailouts, said, "Nobody knows exactly what they should do, but anything is better than nothing." That's the legacy of the Bush/Platts years -- when the future of our economy and the future of the middle class that drives it teeters on the brink of collapse, they have dumped us in this crisis where "anything is better than nothing."
Meanwhile, for most Americans, these bailout options are fusillades of billion-dollar bullets aimed right at the heart of the American taxpayer. Not surprisingly, middle-class Americans, already squeezed and strapped, will take the brunt of these billion-dollar hits.
To minimize those hits, the Congress must now demand a payback to taxpayers through a combination of direct public stock ownership, tighter regulation, immediate taxation of corporate profits and executive compensation, and a fund to help with the underwriting of home ownership.
Simply moving public money to buy up intentionally run "bad businesses" is unacceptable. We need dramatic action that sends a message that business as usual under the Bush administration and a Platts Congress is over. That the homeowner and hard working wage earner in Pennsylvania comes before special interests on Wall Street.
And middle-class Pennsylvanians need help. The ranks of Pennsylvanians seeking employment swelled by 31,000 last month to 372,000, as relentlessly high energy costs, sluggish income growth and declining home prices continued to take their toll on family finances. Meanwhile, the number of non-farm jobs declined by 5,900 statewide and the total hovered just over 5.8 million.
We, the citizens in the 19th Congressional District, know it is time for a change in leadership in Washington, and a change in the failed leadership in Congress. Mr. Bush and Mr. Platts have lost touch with America, and the hard-working folks across the mid-state are ready to take action in November to put an end to our nation's mismanagement.
Given the damage the Bush administration and the Bush congressional enablers, including Mr. Platts, have rendered on the American people these past eight years, I am braced for a flood of media deceptions, distortions and distractions leveled against our campaign efforts to restore our country. But I think the tide of change is so great across the communities of Adams, York and Cumberland counties that the people I meet every day won't be fooled by the same old campaign games. We want our county back. We've had enough. It's time for new blood in Washington; it's time for a change!
Phil Avillo, a history professor at York College, is the Democratic candidate for the 19th Congressional District.
