Protecting the rich

Let me ask you a question.
How many rich people do you know that are struggling?

OK, you don’t know many or even any rich people.
But how many rich people do you believe are struggling?
How many do you here or read stories of them struggling?

Exactly.

So, why is our president and our congress intent on giving them a tax break?
Why are they intent on cutting healthcare for the working class?
Why, in my state of Connecticut, after getting contract concessions from working class state employees (for the third time in 8 years), after raising taxes on working class teachers, and after eliminating tax deductions for the poor, was the legislature unwilling to ask the rich of Connecticut to pay a little more?

There was a time in this country not so long ago when both political parties believed that just as a CEO has an employment contract, every worker had the right to join together and collectively bargain.
Now only the democrats believe this, and not all of them.
There was a time when “shared sacrifice” meant all shared, not just the poor and working class.

The wealth divide is wider than it has every been.
The difference between CEOs and top management compensation and the working class is at an all time high and it is worse in this country than in any other country in the world.

It’s easy to get frustrated and think there is no way to reverse this trend.
Please don’t do that.

Municipal elections come in just over a week in Connecticut and other states and in some states there are elections for other offices.

Take a look at the candidates.
Look at what they stand for, what they vote for.
And support those that support us, the poor and working class.

In Connecticut, 35 members of AFT Connecticut and others from other unions are running for municipal positions, some as democrats, some under Working Families Party, some cross endorsed. These people deserve our support.
Consider this a step in the right direction.

It’s not about party affiliation, but parties have platforms that state what they stand for, and when every single Connecticut republican (and a handful of Democrats) passed a republican budget that hurt the working class and the poor, they stated clearly what they stood for.
Yes, it was vetoed, but now we have been forced to accept a compromise budget that continues to ask nothing of the rich.

Then again, maybe you know some rich people that are hurting.

Elections have consequences.