All-time Record

In the past seven years, we have lost 3.3 million manufacturing jobs. We have higher unemployment, more Americans without health insurance, and a record number of home foreclosures. Median family income is down $1200 and purchasing power is down $4500. Prices are skyrocketing for everything from gas to food.

Meanwhile, Senate Republicans set an all-time record for the most filibusters in one Congress, when they blocked a Democratic efforts to tax the oil companies’ windfall profits.

Every important issue, from getting our troops out of Iraq to global climate change and health care goes through the Senate. On virtually every issue, Republicans have obstructed the Democratic agenda and stood in the way of progress.

Allegedly, Senator John McCain is desperate to distance himself from Bush, but in the past year, he has voted with Bush 95% of the time. According to the Center for American Progress Action Fund, McCain has received millions in donations from the same oil, coal, nuclear, chemical, utility, and auto companies that helped the Bush administration create its energy plan, which has resulted in gasoline selling for over $4.25 a gallon in Delhi.

We are in the midst of a recession, which in part is due to our crippling dependence on oil. The Center for Responsive Politics reports that McCain has accepted over $1 million from the oil and gas industry and many of McCain’s top advisers have lobbied for big oil. It’s not surprising that he opposes, Obama’s alternative energy plans.

Bush’s tax cuts are central to McCain’s economic policy and he’s calling for tax giveaways, which are twice as expensive as Bush’s initial plan. His policy will spend nearly $2 trillion on tax breaks for corporations, including $1.2 billion for Exxon, a company that just recorded the highest profits in history.