Mitch “puppet of the rich” McConnell named Scrooge of Year

Senate Minority Leader Mitch “Yertle the Turtle” McConnell, R-KY., was named Scrooge of Year in Jobs with Justice’s eleventh annual national contest to determine the greediest, most cold-hearted person or company of the year.

A small number of Senators, led by rightwing Mitch “puppet of the rich” McConnell, have spent this Congressional session aggressively blocking almost all legislation from passing, especially laws that would help working people, and those actions led him to take 42 percent of the thousands of votes cast. He was also responsible for the decision to block the bill to provide medical care to rescue workers who became ill as a result of breathing in toxic fumes, dust and smoke at the site of the World Trade Center attack in 2001.

“The Daily Show’s” John Stewart called McConnell out on his refusal to help dying first responders on the show by showing a clip of McConnell crying over retiring Sen. Judd Gregg, R-NH, yet he stiffs dying first responders who will not live to retire.

“We hope that by being elected national Scrooge of the Year, Senator McConnell will see the ‘Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come’ and understand the dire consequences that his actions will have for generations of Americans,” said Sarita Gupta, National Jobs with Justice Executive Director.

The Kentucky chapter of Jobs with Justice plans to deliver the Scrooge of the Year award in person to Senator McConnell’s offices in Louisville.

Those with a heart not as cold as McConnell‘s, at least this year, was runner up the Health Insurance and Pharmaceutical industry. Their single-minded focus on profits at the expense of our health won them 22 percent of the vote. Hyatt Hotels won 10 percent of the vote for attempts to eliminate quality healthcare and make the recession permanent for its employees, and for their safety record.

Other nominees included Rite Aid, Publix and Giumarra Vineyards. The contest also allowed write in votes, and popular write-in candidates were Honeywell CEO Dave Cote and Del Monte Fresh.

In addition to the national Scrooge of the Year contest, each year local Jobs with Justice coalitions across the country hold Scrooge of the Year elections to determine the most deserving greedy Scrooge in their hometowns. This year’s local winners include: Marsh Supermarkets in Indianapolis; US Chamber of Commerce CEO Thomas Donohue in Washington, DC, Governor Jan Brewer in Tucson; Pinnacle Entertainment in St. Louis, MO, and Rex Sinquefield in Kansas City.

Jobs with Justice is a national organization with the vision of lifting up workers’ rights and struggles as part of a larger campaign for economic and social justice and worker‘s rights.

A glimpse of Republican rule

We got a glimpse of what things will look like in Michigan and nationally for the next two years, at least, last week when extremist teabagger Republican Senator-elect Joe Hune, R-Hamburg, announced that the first thing he will do when he takes office next month is make something that’s already illegal illegal.

No one should be surprised at this from a man who thinks the United Nations is coming for U.S. handguns, but in his mad dash to the extreme right Hune told the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus that the first bill he will introduce will cut off the benefits to illegal immigrants in Michigan.

My fellow bloggers over at Michigan Liberal and Blogging for Michigan have done an excellent job of illustrating how insane this is, but it continues to amaze me how extreme Hune has become since he won the seats by two votes in 2002. It also illustrates how ill-equipped Republicans are to acutely govern.

The national economy is finally recovering from the Bush recession, the worst and longest since the Great Depression, with no help from the Republicans, but it’s still a fragile and slow recovery. Republicans have made it clear that they have no intention of working to improve the economy.

U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY., said recently that his top priority is not the economy, the job recovery or the budget, but to defeat President Obama.

We can expect a similar taxpayer financed witch-hunt that was launched against President Clinton that ground government to a near halt. We really couldn’t afford it then, but we can afford it even less now.

Hune claims that “there are more than 100,000 illegal aliens in Michigan, and that all are potentially collecting taxpayer-funded benefits, including health-care services and welfare.” I have no idea where he got that from, other than pulling it out of his ass, but if they are receiving benefits they are doing it illegally already.

Michigan has a very small illegal immigration population, but Hune thinks his bill will close the $1.6 billon structural budget deficit. The Michigan League for Human Services issued a report that stated only 1.4 percent of the state's total population are undocumented immigrants. League spokeswoman Judy Putnam said “Hune's proposal sounds like "a solution in search of a problem."

"As a matter of course, we already bar undocumented immigrants from receiving benefits, and the state's pretty strict about enforcing it. I don't think there's any savings to be had on this one," Putnam told the Press & Argus.

Senate Republicans put power and politics ahead of the country and people

If anyone had any doubt that the U.S. Senate Republicans opposition to federal loans to save the U.S. domestic auto industry was just an excuse to break the United Auto Workers (UAW) and kill the middle class, the decision by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and his GOP cronies to scuttle the hard fought negotiations that would have provided a $14 billion loan package is proof of that.

Apparently, the loss of some 3 million jobs and a national depression are worth killing a group that primarily backed Democrats to McConnell and company. According to the AP, Senate Republicans killed a deal that had already passed the House because the UAW declined to arbitrarily cut wage cuts to "bring their pay into line with U.S. plants of Japanese carmakers. The UAW refused to do so before its current contract with the automakers expires in 2011." "Republicans insisted that the carmakers …bring wages and benefits in line with those paid by Toyota, Honda and Nissan in the United States."

Since when do foreign companies carry so much weight in U.S.? This comes just a year after the UAW agreed to an historic contract that created a two-tier pay stem that dramatically reduced wages for new workers; to as low as $14 an hour. The UAW also agreed to return to the bargaining table as a condition to get the loan. It makes no sense to arbitrarily agree to such a ridiculous demand.

Judy over at LivingBlue offers an excelent analysis of the $400 billion in subsidies and giveaways at taxpayer expense a foreign manufacturer got in a southern, non-union state while denying a $14 billon loan to a U.S. manufacturer and 3 U.S. million workers.

The solution should be for the Japanese plants to organize to lift all workers up to a decent, living wage and benefits, but the foreign companies make that extremely difficult. They locate in rural, conservative areas like Kentucky that are hard to get to by organizers and that are grateful to have any job that's off the farm. That's why there are so many meat packing plants in rural settings. Then there are the trained union busters.

According to the AP, "Hourly wages for UAW workers at GM factories are about equal to those paid by Toyota Motor Corp. at its older U.S. factories, according to the companies. GM says the average UAW laborer makes $29.78 per hour, while Toyota says it pays about $30 per hour. But the unionized factories have far higher benefit costs."

Good for them. Of course, the foreign auto makers have less so-called "legacy costs." A legacy cost is a retiree like my dad who worked all of their lives to enjoy a decent retirement. Yet, a minority of Republicans put politics and power before the country and people. There's a reason they go their ass kicked in the last election.

Maybe the next time we are in a massive war like World War II, we can ask the foreign manufactures if they would please make our tanks, armored vehicles, weapons, vehicles and aircraft. Let's hope the Chinese never call in their debt we owe them; they have more people than we do, all the money and now all the manufacturing. Instead of Detroit being the "Arsenal of Democracy" that honor can now can go to Beijing.

This decision to screw the worker and the country is in sharp contract to the $700 billion no-strings attached giveaway to the banks and the finical industry.

Auto Banks
$14 billion loan $700 billon free
Require oversight, like a car czar No oversight
Auto CEOs hand to submit a plan None required
Required employee concessions None required
Scrutinized mode of transportation Phoned it in