ADA Updates
ADA Submits Testimony for Party Platform; Fights for Working People |
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| Posted Aug 11 2008 at 1:58 PM |
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Statement of
Amy Isaacs, National Director
Americans for Democratic Action
to the
2008 Democratic Platform Committee
August 11, 2008
Thank you for the opportunity to present this written statement on behalf of Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), the nation’s most experienced liberal advocacy group.
It is an honor to offer our written testimony to the 2008 Democratic Platform Committee. We appreciate the opportunity and regret that an unavoidable conflict prevented our addressing you in person.
Because of time limitations, we have chosen to focus our attention on some of the issues confronting working America. We do so both because we think these are issues which must be addressed and because we genuinely believe are winning issues of critical interest to a wide group of as yet undecided voters.
In direct and undeniable ways, we have allowed the community composed of the wealthiest, most powerful Americans and often trans-national corporate interests to move into the ascendancy in our political economy at the expense of the working and middle class. The full-hearted trust that the self-professed “regular Americans” of our parents’ generation felt for Democrats is no more. And, our nation and our party are increasingly impoverished for it. The very foundation of our democracy is threatened by it.
At this immediate juncture in our history, we have an opportunity to begin to earn back the trust of working Americans and to begin to mend the damage wrought on these democratic United States by the untrammeled and relatively unimpeded corporatist ascendancy over the past thirty years.
The Democratic Party, under the leadership of a unified government led by a duly-elected Obama Administration, must once again lead the way towards fulfillment of the American Dream, one where the rights of a single American are again equal to the privilege and opportunity now accorded the wealthiest of our corporate citizens, where a child born in America has an equivalent chance for success as we provide those companies now deemed “too big to fail.”
If we would once again have our country be a beacon of hope in a dangerously undemocratic world, if we would live lives that exemplify the values of fairness and equality that are embodied in the Constitution of the United States, if we would once again inspire generations to an active belief and participation in a government of, by, and FOR the American people, then we must legislate and fairly administer a government that balances the best interest of the future with the requirements of the present. We cannot continue to collect taxes from families on Maple Avenue and use the money to rescue outsized businesses on Wall Street at a time when the
policies of our government undermine the very ability of American families to prosper in a growing economy. The chief financial officer in every American family understands this. That is why the survival of the Democratic Party demands a clear articulation of national policies and practices that support American workers, which protect our elderly and nurture our youth, which foster our ideals and encourage the values that unite us as Americans.
Accordingly, Americans for Democratic Action strongly urges the Democratic Party to adopt the following as structural principles framing the Democratic Party Platform, believing that upon such a family-centric platform rests the future of the Party and our nation.
1. Prompt passage of the Employee Free Choice Act.
Fairness in the workplace requires balance between the legitimate interest of capital in maximizing profit and the equally legitimate claim of labor on a fair share of that profit. Decades of neglect have undermined the possibility of fairness for workers and balance in the workplace. Vociferous and consistent public support for the Employee Free Choice Act will unmistakably demonstrate the commitment of Democrats to those Americans who live by the fruit of their labor.
2. Provide the leadership and funding necessary for the U.S. Department of Labor to perform its mandate.
a. Decades of neglect and under-funding have rendered enforcement of remaining labor law, workplace safety, and worker and employer education practically ineffective. Our citizens and our economy are paying an increasing penalty for this failure.
b. By standing up for worker safety and seeking and supporting best practices in the workplace the Democratic Party can once again clearly stand as the party of equity and balance.
3. Immediately index the minimum wage rate to the rate of inflation.
It is a national shame that the unorganized poorest of our nation’s workers must move that most recalcitrant and powerful of our legislative bodies--the United States Congress--in order to effect an economic standstill in the face of inflationary monetary policies favoring the most powerful corporat elite in America.
4. Allocate federal support for education to reflect the actual needs of Americans and the requirements of our economy.
a. Twenty-five percent of our nation’s youth do not graduate from high school. Seventy percent of those who do graduate do not go on to college. The cost of our failure to prepare young Americans adequately for success is incalculable, but growing.
b. We must recast and extend our current K-12 system, incorporating the pre-K advantages of the Head Start program and the post-secondary workplace integration of the School-to-Work initiative.
5. Ensure the future security of our nation by supporting the manufacturing and defense technologies necessary to maintain our national infrastructure and provide for the national defense.
a. We have allowed an unfettered and trans-national capital market to blithely outsource and off-shore critical aspects of our national manufacturing infrastructure, including critical components of our military security.
b. To correct this imbalance we must emphasize and support post-secondary education and career paths that will meet the needs of our nation and at the same time adopt procurement and tax policies that favor domestic business.
6. Prompt enactment of a National Single-Payer Health Care System.
a. Absent war, there is no greater drain on the nation than our present patchwork of exclusive employer-supported and private medical insurance.
b. The efficiencies and savings and generally excellent standard of care exemplified by the U.S. Veterans Administration and the national Medicare Program are reasonable models for service delivery, while the method of funding of unemployment compensation is a practical point of departure for funding a national single-payer system.
If Democrats are to earn, maintain, and benefit from the support of the majority of Americans who work for a living, it is then incumbent on us to enact and pledge to administer policies that are in the interest of those same working Americans.
The American people are not stupid. They will not forever support a political party or a government that consistently does not advocate in their interest. Americans for Democratic Action contends that our survival as a viable political party, and ultimately as a democratic government depends on the collective advance of the interests of all members of the American family.
For this reason we believe that the above-listed principles are the bedrock of democracy and should constitute the foundation of the Party’s platform.
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