Progress Illinois

Next Tuesday is the anniversary of the historic election of President Barack Obama and a memorable evening that many of us spent in Grant Park after the polls closed. Just how hard we are going to have to work to win that “Change” we fought for is now clear, and it is time to recommit to each other and to redouble our efforts. 

I happened to be standing next to Rahm Emanuel as Barack Obama gave his acceptance speech in Grant Park that night. I have known Rahm many years and we have never been particularly close. But I put my hand on his shoulder and said, “Do us proud.” He joked back, “Nah…. I think we will just go f*** it up!” More seriously I said, “We desperately need legalization for the 12 million undocumented.” Rahm replied, “It all depends on the votes.”

Now it is a year later and we are engaged in a bitter power struggle to win meaningful health care reform. In many ways the undocumented ended up being made the bogeymen of this debate (along with ACORN) by the Republicans, and got thrown under the bus by many Democrats. Meanwhile deportations have increased under the Obama administration, and it is unclear whether the political will to move forward on immigration reform will exist after the exhausting health care battle subsides.

How should we deal at this point with disappointments from this White House? And how do we continue to press towards the “Change” we've been fighting for?

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On the backs of the ordinary Americans, big banks have created the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

American taxpayers came to the rescue with bailout money, but the banks refuse to work to make our economy stronger for everyone. Through unfair lending practices like subprime mortgages and predatory loans, big banks are continuing to drag this nation into bankruptcy and foreclosure.

Let me give you two examples of the corporate greed that continues to plague our financial system.

This month Ken Lewis resigned as CEO of Bank of America because he, among other things, lied to regulators about big bonuses going to bank executives.  Now Bank of America is giving him $68.8 million on his way out the door!  That’s taxpayer money!  We bailed them out, and now they’re using our money to line their pockets.

Also this month, JP Morgan and other big banks agreed to pay out $100 million to settle a lawsuit after they helped a subprime lender in Philadelphia take advantage of American consumers and lie about the value of their assets. It looks like big banks will lie, cheat, and steal to protect their own, but what are they doing for us? What are they doing to help ordinary Americans?

It’s time to change the way big banks do business in this country. We’ve got to stand up together and call on big banks to fix what they broke.

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On September 30, U.S. Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA) introduced the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act.  Like its House counterpart -- the American Clean Energy and Security Act, which passed the House by a 219-212 margin in late June -- the bill creates a nationwide cap on global warming pollution and makes significant investments in transitioning to a clean energy economy.    

Without question, we need new direction in our energy policy.  In 2006, U.S. consumers and businesses spent $921 billion on fossil fuels, more than was spent on education or the military.  Illinois is on track to spend as much as $43.6 billion on oil alone in 2030. And as oil becomes scarce worldwide, oil companies will be driven to more obscure, expensive, and hostile places to recover it.  Competitively, the country that revolutionized transportation through the plane and automobile and transformed information technology through the computer and Internet risks falling far behind in the clean energy revolution of tomorrow.       

The challenge is clear: We must take giant steps forward in capturing the potential of clean energy and transitioning to a more sustainable future.  The Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act is a vital step forward.        

Like its House counterpart, the bill is not perfect.  The integrity of the bill’s cap on global warming pollution is threatened by the inclusion of “offsets,” which allows polluters to avoid reducing their own emissions and instead pay for greenhouse gas reductions elsewhere (such as planting trees).  Pollution reductions achieved through offsets are inherently less certain, permanent, or verifiable than on-site reductions.  The bill’s national renewable energy and energy efficiency standards could be strengthened to match similar policies adopted by the Illinois General Assembly in recent years. 

That said, this bill deserves our support for the following reasons:

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"Millions of our citizens do not now have a full measure of opportunity to achieve and to enjoy good health. Millions do not now have protection or security against the economic effects of sickness. And the time has now arrived for action to help them attain that opportunity and to help them get that protection."

These were the words of President Harry Truman when he delivered a message to Congress about the need for national health care on November 19, 1945.  Almost sixty-five years later, those words still ring true for too many Americans.

By 1949, the private corporate forces which opposed national health care were offering $3,000 prizes to those political cartoonists who best depicted the evils of “socialized medicine."  Sound familiar?

Twenty years later, on July 30, 1965, Truman stood with then-President Lyndon Johnson at the bill signing for Medicare, the first major publicly-administered health care program in the United States. Prior to Medicare, half of our seniors lived in poverty and could not get health insurance.  After the creation of the program, poverty decreased by two-thirds as seniors and disabled people enjoyed dependable health insurance.

Today, the same powerful forces want to stop health care reform efforts and, just as in 1949, they are masters at creating a climate of fear and confusion.  But ask any senior today if they “fear” being eligible for Medicare benefits and here's the answer you'll most likely hear: “Why should anyone be afraid of Medicare?”  The program offers them the peace-of-mind we all deserve: No one will drop them from insurance if they get sick, no one will deny them treatment for a pre-existing condition, and no CEO will bring home a multi-million dollar salary amassed from their premiums.

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