Thursday’s economic news is not a surprise to working families. We can only hope it will be jarring enough to the White House and Republican leaders in Congress that they will finally agree with Democratic leaders that we need a genuine economic stimulus package now, in the next 30 days, to boost our economy before already struggling, hard working families suffer even more from a downward spiraling economy. We call on Sen. McCain to join Sen. Obama in championing a short-term economic recovery package during the lame duck session of Congress in mid-November. And we call on President Bush to announce that he will, in fact, sign this legislation.Such a package must provide relief for the one million unemployed workers who will exhaust their unemployment benefits before the end of the year; aid state and local governments so they can continue to provide needed services and jobs; and jump-start infrastructure investments to create jobs quickly and rebuild our crumbling schools, bridges, and roads.

Surely we can agree that rescuing Main Street is just as crucial as rescuing Wall Street. Equally important, we must turn our economy in a different direction from the disastrous policies of the Bush administration with a serious plan to create good jobs and a just economy.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 31st, 2008 at 1:30 pm and is filed under Uncategorized .