Think again

Aunt Charlotte celebrates Bush’s Palace — until she almost loses everything

By TIM NESBITT

President, Oregon AFL-CIO

Aunt Charlotte had a magic touch on the slot machines. Or so we thought. She’d return from her bus trips to the casinos with 300 bucks one time, 500 another. Once she even had her picture taken in front of a machine with its lights flashing, holding a check for $1,800.

To hear her tell it, she was always ahead of the game. She never talked about her losses, which nearly wiped out her savings.

I was reminded of Aunt Charlotte when the Bush Administration announced last week that the federal deficit would be only $445 billion this year, not $521 billion. Aunt Charlotte would have said that we just won $76 billion.

So it goes in the casino economy of Bush’s Palace.

Their barkers shout that they created more than 1.4 million new jobs in the last year. But they never mention the 2.5 million jobs we lost in the previous two and a half years — nor their promise to deliver 3.7 million new jobs since then. They made that promise when they announced another give-away of free chips, a.k.a. tax cuts, last year.

Most of the free chips went to the richest players. They got blue chips for their dividends and capital gains. But they’re not spending them at our tables. In fact, a lot of those chips are now invested in companies that are moving their operations overseas.

The rest of us got some cheap chips to keep us playing — a child credit here, a health care deduction there. They told us that by spending those chips, we would stimulate the economy — which would produce new jobs. But, we’ve gotten only one job for every three they promised.

We may lose a lot, but they still flash the neon lights when we win back a little. Look at gasoline prices. They rose by 80 cents a gallon in Oregon earlier this year. Then they fell by 40 cents. The spin masters at the roulette wheels celebrated like Aunt Charlotte, as if we were 40 cents ahead instead of 40 cents behind.

President Bush is now campaigning with the line that “we are turning the corner, and we are not turning back.” That’s smart. If we never look back to where we’ve been, we can ignore our losses. And if we’re lucky enough to win a few hands over the next few months, maybe we’ll stay around and keep playing for another four years.

But these are jobs and livelihoods we’re talking about. So let’s demand an honest accounting of gains and losses from the pit bosses at Bush’s Palace before they call the photographer and declare us all winners. Here’s the reality:

Even if we get strong jobs reports in August, September and October, we’ll still be down by more than 500,000 jobs during this president’s administration. This will be the worst jobs record of any administration since Herbert Hoover led another high-rolling economy into the Great Depression.

The big players are winning. Corporate profits are at record levels as a percentage of our economic output. That means workers are getting less. The average working family is working just as hard or harder, but earned $500 less last year than the year before.

Let’s face it. Most working families have had a lousy run at Bush’s Palace. And, collectively, we’ve just racked up a deficit of more than one trillion dollars to take home to our kids. This is not winning, nor is it sane to think that we can come out ahead if we keep playing this game on this administration’s terms.

Even Aunt Charlotte is beginning to recognize the folly of the economic games people play at Bush’s Palace. She has always combined a celebrate-your-winnings-and-ignore your-losses approach to gambling with a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately approach to politics. Now, she can’t afford to gamble any more. And she’s thinking about voting for John Kerry. She is worried about her Social Security, because it’s all that she has left to live on.

For more information, check out the Oregon AFL-CIO online at oraflcio.unions-america.com