Workers Vote For A New Economic Agenda

WASHINGTON, Nov. 6 /PRNewswire/ -- America's workers had clear alternatives on economic policy on November 4, and gave a mandate to a progressive agenda for bottom-up, worker-driven economic growth, according to a post-election analysis released during a news conference today by Change to Win.

"Anxiety over the economy framed this election - but it was hope and optimism for the future that determined the votes of workers," said Change to Win chair Anna Burger. "We won the election, now we will change the country."

Young workers in overwhelming numbers rejected the traditional Reagan-era Republican economic nostrums of unregulated corporate power, tax cuts for the wealthy and slashing of government programs in their decisive support for president-elect Barack Obama.

"Young workers envision a new American Dream based on respect for their work, living wages, a health care system focused on healthy lives rather than corporate profits, and a green and energy independent economy," continued Burger.

Lake Research Partners president Celinda Lake said results from her election survey of working voters signal the death of Reaganomics, and the beginning of a new era of voter support for positive government to promote the American Dream.

"There has been a complete change in how people view the role of government," said Lake. "The majority of workers no longer believe that government is the problem, they believe it must be part of the solution, marking the end of the Reagan era."

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Tom Woodruff, director of the Change to Win Strategic Organizing Center, stressed the need for action now. "We must pass the Employee Free Choice Act. As the percentage of workers in unions has declined so have wages and benefits. Corporations and CEOs have used their tremendous power to threaten, coerce, intimidate and fire workers for trying to form a union. It is a fact that workers in unions earn on average almost a third more and are almost two-thirds more likely to have health and retirement benefits. Unions are an economic recovery program," said Woodruff.

[Snip]

Unions are an economic recovery program," said Woodruff.

I've never heard unions described as an economic recovery program before.

a progressive agenda for bottom-up, worker-driven economic growth

Great. Young people are somehow under the impression that they should be getting $50K just to walk out of school.

GOOOOOD!!!! Because a) the little snots ran all over W&M singing hosannas for the Messiah, b) I pay cash for my college tuition, and c) I have a habit of grading myself against how well everyone else did. Less competition equals more self-esteem.

Maybe there will be a lot of young folks that'll be hit with a big, cold bucketful of reality very soon.

They will... but buckets tend to splash.