Many workers believe President Obama has abondoned his promises and done nothing for them since being elected. That's because the maintstream media do not follow worker issues. When they complain he has not fulfilled his promises, they mean he has not done enough for Big Business and Wall Street. He's done plenty for working families.
Recently BCTD President Ed Hill issued a flyer noting many of the major accomplishments of the Obama administration. In only two short years, fighting staunch opposition from anti-worker Republicans who want to return to the pro-business agenda of the previous administration, the Obama team has done more for workers than any other president in decades.
President Hill's list is impressive, and it doesn't even include some of the more significant accomplishments for Boilermaker families, such as the $5 billion awarded for carbon capture and storage (CCS) commercial demonstration projects or the $575 million for CCS research. The Republicans oppose this research — that's one reason why they blocked an energy bill this year — but the future of coal-fired power plants is riding on our ability to find ways to capture the CO2 they produce. This research is vital to our construction Boilermakers.
Some candidates try to make support for President Obama's agenda sound like a bad thing. Take a look at President Hill's list and ask yourself if that is really the case. What did eight years of Republican rule give workers? An economy in shambles, the largest eight-year increase in public debt in history, a $2 trillion bailout for Wall Street (nothing for workers), and the loss of millions of manufacturing jobs to offshoring.
Take a look at what Obama has managed to do in only two years, with no help from Republicans and all those problems from the previous administration to clean up.
