Allyson

~ susie

I’m not a fan of Allyson Schwartz and neither is Howie Klein:

There are a number of races EMILY’s List is getting involved in that pit conservative women against progressive men and one of their keystone races is for the governor of the Keystone State. Their candidate is great on one issue: Choice. On economic justice issues, she’s a backward conservative and a danger to working families. Her record in Congress is disgraceful for anyone calling themselves a Democrat, let alone a Democrat from a safe, solidly blue district like hers. A vice chair of the repulsively corrupt, corporately-owned New Dems, her lifetime ProgressivePunch score on crucial roll calls is a wretched 76.68. But for the current session– where nothing is in her mind except her lust to become Pennsylvania’s first woman governor– her voting record has really gone into the toilet as she endeavors to prove how conservative she is by voting with Boehner and Cantor whenever she can. Her score for the current session has sunk to an abysmal 52.4, Blue Dog territory.

Allyson Schwartz isn’t a terrible candidate because she’s a woman. She’s a terrible candidate because she’s a conservative serving the interests of Big Business and Wall Street rather than of working families of Pennsylvania. EMILY’s List is terrible for supporting her just because she’s a woman. They should be supporting women– we need lots more in public office– but not women like Margaret Thatcher… or Allyson Schwartz. Oh come on, Howie… how can you compare Allyson Schwartz to Margaret Thatcher? Here’s how:

• Allyson Did the Dirty Work for America’s Credit Card Industry Against the Middle-Class

She came under heavy fire from liberals in Philadelphia for her vote in favor of the credit card industry-written Bankruptcy Bill of 2005 that the GOP was pushing. The bill allowed the credit card companies to ruin the finances of middle-class Americans and then prevent those same Americans from filing for bankruptcy and getting rid of their credit card debts. The bill also specifically removed protections to prevent identity theft.

• Allyson Gave Cover to House Republicans to Overturn Obamacare

Allyson Schwartz has been accused of siding with health care interests– one of her biggest bloc of contributors– and giving House Republicans cover on dismantling important parts of ObamaCare. Schwartz’s actions would result in increased profits for health care providers.

• Allyson Supported Keeping the Bush Tax Cuts For the Wealthy

When President Obama was forced by House Republicans to move the cut-off for the Bush tax cuts to $400,000 from $250,000, Politico reported that Schwartz cheered the move as beneficial to her wealthy district. “It makes a difference for some in my district,” she said. Previously, in 2010, Schwartz proposed extending the Bush tax cuts for those who making up to half a million ($500,000) a year. And in December 2010, Allyson Schwartz voted to extend all of the Bush tax cuts for two more years.

• Allyson Sided With George W. Bush on Iraq

During her first campaign for Congress in 2004, Schwartz said she supported Bush’s War in Iraq and then repeatedly voted to give him blank checks to keep it going. Then, in May 2007, she voted against the bipartisan progressive/Libertarian resolution that sought to safely redeploy U.S. troops out of Iraq. Four years later (March, 2011) she helped defeat another bipartisan plan to end another war, this one in Afghanistan. All the while, she has been voting to renew the Patriot Act without protections for civil liberties.

Is she better than Corbett? Sure… but what a low standard. Pennsylvania Democrats can do a lot better– and there’s more than one good choice.

Published by susie

4 thoughts on “Allyson”

  1. my feelings exactly. And yet I keep hearing what a progressive she is, from people who know better.

  2. Candidates are bad because they hold lousy positions on the issues. Some women and some men are bad candidates. Their gender has nothing to do with it. Just because someone is a woman does not mean that they are a better candidtae than a man. Or a worse candidate. Take Margaret Thatcher and Hillary Clinton for example. They are/were both women and they are/were horrible elected officials. It’s the “content of their character” that matters. Not their gender or skin color.

  3. I’ve been burned by Emily’s List in the past. I’d like to see as many women candidates fielded as possible, but I’d like a candidate that differs more from the Republican opponents than in their respective naughty bits. Give me a couple dozen Elizabeth Warrens to go with and they’ll see my money once again. Giving me John Boehner with a vagina is no choice at all.

  4. RE: the horrid bankruptcy bill of 2005:
    I figure that the economists for the Big Banks and credit card businesses knew damn well that they were floating credit too easily and they were going to be burned when things came tumbling down.

    But with so much money flowing up to the Big Banks, Big Corps, and super well recompensed elites, they couldn’t get it back into circulation and make money on their money without easy credit, for both housing and credit. They also knew this would not last, so they fought fiercely to protect themselves and ensure the poor and lower middle class would have to repay those credit card bills.

    By getting that bill passed, the Federal Government now underwrites their loose business practices. And they get a steady revenue stream.

    Not good for regular people, not good the economy, and, in the long run, not good for Big Banks.

    Do listen to this interview with Barbara Garson about her new book, Down the Up Escalator: How the 99 Percent Live in the Great Recession.

    http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/2013/apr/02/how-99-percent-live-great-recession/

    About 32 minutes, with substitute host Joe Pesca; no transcript.

    Here’s an article by her at HuffPo, 4/9/13, where she notes a 40 year long recession (brief break for the lower econ quintiles during Cllinton) led to the Great Recession:

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barbara-garson/long-recession_b_3044706.html

    Between 1971 and 2007, real hourly wages in the U.S. rose by only 4%. (That’s not 4% a year, but 4% over 36 years!) During those same decades, productivity essentially doubled, increasing by 99%. In other words, the average worker’s productivity rose 25 times more than his or her pay.

    This was, of course, a bonanza for corporations and for the richest Americans. In 1976, the top 1% of U.S. families held 19% of the country’s wealth. By 2000, they held 40% of it. In those same years, 58% of every dollar of income growth went to the top 1%.

    There was, however, one small problem: we Americans sell to one another more than 70% of what we produce. If the majority of American workers were producing more without earning more, who was going to buy all the stuff?

    CEOs and financiers were desperate to answer that question, for during those years of high productivity and low wages, immense profits and “returns” kept accumulating in brokerage accounts and banks. But a bank can’t keep its money in the bank. Under the pressure of those swelling piles of capital, the answer they offered to worker-consumers like Duane was: instead of paying you enough to buy what you produce, we’ll lend you the money.

    First, they loaned for big-ticket items: cars, homes, college educations; then, through credit cards, for everyday household expenses. As we came to realize after the meltdown of 2008, the ultimate Ponzi scheme of the era would involve bundling and reselling mortgage loans made to people who couldn’t afford houses in the first place.

    The answer offered to those who had ever less money to spend was: take out more loans. The folly of lending money to people with stagnant or declining wages may seem obvious now, but like many houses of cards it must have looked solid enough to some back then. Still, let’s not underestimate our major financiers. On a CNBC program, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan was asked why no one had seen the mortgage crisis coming and told the bankers, “You know what? This is going to end badly.”

    Greenspan answered: “It’s not that they weren’t aware that the risks were there, I mean I spoke to them. It’s not that the people were dumb. They knew precisely what was going on. The vast majority of them thought that they knew when to get out.”

    In fact, creative financial spinning had kept this unbalanced vehicle upright for a remarkably long time. Nonetheless, like any other Ponzi scheme it eventually collapsed, and that’s when Duane’s long recession turned into the world’s Great Recession.

    This explication is preceded by one of the anecdotes from her book, a sad and moving story of a young man back from Viet Nam trying to stay ahead of the game and not quite making it. Which is what happens with 40 years of wage stagnation for the 99 percent.

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