Media Advisory
August 1, 2011

Plan Does Nothing to Address Real Economic Crisis in U.S.

Congress members should vote “no” on the debt ceiling deal announced by the White House and Republican leaders Sunday night, and work instead on measures to address the real economic crisis plaguing the nation, said the nation’s leading voice of registered nurses today.

“At a time of the worst economic crisis facing our country in decades, it is disgraceful that Washington continues to ignore the deep pain in Main Street communities across the nation, and instead is pushing a plan for more punishing cuts that will only worsen the crisis,” said Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the 170,000-member National Nurses United.

“What this latest deal does is make those who vote for it a full partner in the discredited theory that our economy is in free fall because of public spending on programs that help people, and kicks the can further down the road on real solutions that are needed to promote genuine recovery,” DeMoro said.

“President Obama could avoid this current high wire act by invoking the 14th amendment to raise the debt ceiling, as many have proposed, and start this process over with solutions designed to address the real economic problems facing American families.”

“What Congress and the White House should be doing is promoting programs that create jobs and reduce the suffering for those millions of American families who can’t pay their medical bills, are losing their retirement savings, and face the loss of their homes while more and more resources are transferred to big corporations and the wealthy who need it the least.”

“It’s time for Congress to stop pandering to economic elites, who fund their campaigns and continuously lobby to protect their vested interests. We will see them in their districts until they become  champions of Main Street, not Wall Street. They should vote down this deeply flawed deal, and start acting as the real leaders our country so desperately needs,” DeMoro said.

NNU is calling on Congress to reject the debt ceiling deal, and immediately move to:

• Restore a more equitable tax system and ensure the end of the Bush-era tax cuts.
• Close all the corporate tax loopholes that have enabled a majority of U.S. corporations to escape paying any federal taxes for at least one year or more during the past decade.
• Enact a tax on Wall Street high rollers who created the current economic crisis with a tax on major Wall Street trades on dividends, default swaps, futures, stocks and bond transactions, as many other industrial countries have already adopted.
• Stop all federal cuts in job programs, healthcare, education, retirement security, and housing and nutrition assistance.