Hey, John McCain: Where’s the Plan to Save Our Homes?

[OhioChick]

Margaret Priebe, communications director at the Cincinnati AFL-CIO Labor Council, sends us this report.

As cold rain turned into blistering snow, a large group of union members from the Cincinnati AFL-CIO Labor Council and allies rallied outside a campaign event in Cincinnati for Sen. John McCain this morning with a critical question for the senator: Where’s the plan?

This group of some 50 working people rallied to bring attention to McCain’s “do-nothing” policy on foreclosures that are affecting thousands of working families in Ohio, a state with 153,196 home foreclosure filings in 2007—88 percent more than in 2006. The past two days in Ohio, McCain offered nothing but campaign platitudes and empty rhetoric to address the growing housing crisis. Meanwhile, greedy subprime lenders are forcing families out of their homes daily—more than 12,000 Cincinnati working families have had the American Dream stolen from them by greedy corporate subprime lenders in the last year alone. What’s John McCain’s response? Do nothing.

As in Cleveland, where union activists gathered yesterday to expose McCain’s inaction on our housing crisis, Cincinnati has been among the nation’s communities hardest hit by mortgage foreclosures. In fact, even though McCain was in Washington, D.C., earlier this month at the time of the Senate vote on the $148 billion economic stimulus package, he skipped the vote.

Doug Sizemore, executive secretary-treasurer of the Cincinnati AFL-CIO Labor Council, said:

It is hard to believe that a presidential candidate would come to Ohio without a plan to address the home foreclosure crisis that is devastating working families. Ohio had over 153,000 foreclosure filings in 2007, this is only one more example of how out of touch Senator McCain is with main street America.

McCain’s “do-nothing” response to the housing crisis shows where his priorities are—with his corporate funders, not working families. McCain has more bundlers from the real estate and commercial banking industry than any other candidate, including the CEO of Wachovia. He’s raised more than $6 million from the finance, insurance and real estate industries. He’s showing working families every day that his economic proposals mirror those of our current president—and working people know how that’s turned out. The rich get richer and the rest get nothing.

Added Sizemore:

A McCain presidency would be nothing more than a third term for George W. Bush.

We deserve better. We deserve leaders who will stand up to corporate interests and stand on the side of working families. We deserve fresh vision and new direction, not more of the same failed policies that got us into this mess in the first place.



http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/02/26/hey-john-mccain-wheres-the-plan-to-save-our-homes/