Unions and liberal groups have dismissed Sen. Harry Reid’s $15 billion jobs bill as "puny" while calling for larger stimulus measures.
More than two dozen organizations, including the AFL-CIO, National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peoples (NAACP) and National Council of La Raza, warned Democratic leaders in Congress to avoid tackling the troubled economy through incremental action.
They urged the Senate to pass the $15 billion jobs measure, which features a hiring tax cut for small businesses, but called for much more legislation to bring down an unemployment rate the White House projects to average 10 percent this year, more than 9 percent next year and over 8 percent in 2012.
"If this $15 billion was the only thing [that passed], that would be like having an amputated arm and sticking a Band-Aid on the end of it," said Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, on a conference call Friday.
This bill is 1/71 the size of the TARP bill. It’s another example of how the people of this country just don’t matter to the lawmakers in Washington.
While the Republicans continue to stall on the Voting Rights Act, we are starting to see a new era of demand for equality. This time it is coming from the Latinos:
Two Latino radio hosts credited for mobilizing hundreds of thousands this year in pro-immigrant protests said on Friday they would join the drive to increase the Hispanic and immigrant vote in the 2008 U.S. presidential election.
Los Angeles disc jockeys Piolin (Tweetybird) and El Cucuy (the Bogeyman) said they will work with the National Council of La Raza and other organizations to push Latino immigrants living in the United States to become U.S. citizens and register to vote in time to cast ballots in 2008.
Immigration promises to be one of the big issues in the 2006 mid-term congressional elections and the 2008 presidential election as the future of some 12 million undocumented immigrants divides Congress and President George W. Bush's Republican Party.
An estimated 8 million Latinos are legal residents in the United States who qualify for naturalization as U.S. citizens, including 3 million in California alone, activists said.
Pushing for Latinos to be able to vote in 2008 - that is a sure way to get Republicans to take up immigration and prevent that. I wish them all the success in the world on this drive. We need more people like this who are willing to make America better and not turn it into some white supremacist theocracy.
