Visit President-elect Obama at Change.gov

Like millions of other people, I was heartened by the election of Barack Obama. I believe it’s a great event in our nation’s history for several reasons.

For starters, I like what this election tells me about the intelligence of my country’s citizens. Though many fretted that the voters weren’t ready for an African-American president, that maybe the latent racism was too strong of an undercurrent in our culture, it’s clear now that the majority of voters were able to look past superficial issues of fear and racism to choose the most capable leader.

In talking with so many excited voters before and after the election, I’ve heard from folks who feel satisfied that their voices have been heard, people who feel a great achievement has come to pass this year. And this is absolutely true. President-elect Barack Obama substantiates the hope of mending huge gaps in the fabric of equality and justice. His achievement, shared by the millions of Americans who cast votes in his favor, should fuel our hopes to achieve even more.

We who understand working class issues on a personal level need to make sure hope turns into reality. We need to do that by encouraging, and sometimes even insisting, that President-elect Obama and Congress take measures that will level the playing field for all of us. These issues include a tax policy that rewards work over wealth, a business and labor environment that allows not only survival but dignity for everyone, and passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. Those are some of the key issues that got working class voters to stand behind Mr. Obama, and they must also be issues on which he stands behind us. And that’s where political involvement, beyond just voting, comes in.

To anyone who has just recently become involved in the political process — or even those whose political involvement has been limited to voting — I encourage you to stay involved. Don’t wait for the next election.

Get involved every time you hear, see or read about an issue affecting working people. Make sure your representatives at all levels know how you feel about such issues. Let them know by calling them on the phone, sending them letters or walking into their offices. Citizens who are heard have far more influence than those who remain silent.

History was made last week because millions of voices made themselves heard in the voting booth. And then millions were heard celebrating that historic achievement. This is what can happen when people make themselves heard, but there is much more to achieve. Now is no time to go silent

For those who aren’t familiar with Nate Silver,he comes from a background of startlingly accurate wizardry with baseball statistics. With his website, FiveThirtyEight.com, Nate has applied his statistical genius to the 2008 Presidential election campaign.

Tonight, we may find out just how good Nate Silver is at predicting political outcomes. But for more about how Nate Silver does what he does, click here.

I’ve already chronicled various ways the coming U.S. elections could affect working class voters (see here and here for example). Today I’d like to focus a little on how political decisions affect us — specifically in the workplace. It actually comes down to one general scenario.

Have you ever been in a situation where you’ve been less than satisfied with something at work, and say, you filed a grievance? Now let’s say your grievance didn’t work out the way it should have in a perfect world. Have you ever been through anything like that? I have, and I know many of my brothers and sisters who have as well. It’s frustrating at the very least.

Did you know that a presidential candidate’s political views can greatly affect the work environment of millions of Americans? So if you elect a president who believes in less regulation in the workplace (as many Republicans do), chances are that president will make it more difficult to fix problems in the workplace. And if you elect someone who believes in protecting workers’ rights (as many Democrats do), chances are those problems get easier to fix.

It goes beyond legislation like the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for workers to join unions (thereby giving organized workers far more leverage through sheer numbers). It goes all the way to figuring out what kind of judges will decide cases in the NLRB and the Supreme Court. And that goes a long way toward giving your union representatives the legal environment they need stand up for you.

Just remember: Choosing a candidate who believes in your rights at work makes those rights even stronger. Choosing the wrong candidate (as we did in the 2000 and 2004 elections) can all but make those rights disappear. If you believe in your rights, choose accordingly.

Barack Obama has the positions and policies that can actually help everyday people, while John McCain is pledging to extend the policies of the past eight years that have left regular people further and further behind. It doesn’t matter whether the issue is:

• taxes — where John McCain plans to give most of his tax cuts to the wealthiest, while Barack Obama plans to focus his tax relief on the majority of Americans who actually have to work for a living
• healthcare — where John McCain wants to eliminate coverage standards and employer based plans, while Barack Obama wants to take advantage of what already works and add to the mix of solutions
• other issues that directly affect working people like the Employee Free Choice Act — which McCain opposes, while Barack Obama has pledged to sign it into law

Barack Obama has put forth ideas that can better help working people and the middle class. A lifelong Republican like Steve Gallagher knows it. And so should every other regular American who understands today’s economic reality.

But in case not, here’s a short video to illustrate the point:

Visit TeamstersforObama.com. Go to the “Teamsters Speak” page to read more testimonials from actual Teamsters (including me), or you can add your own.

If you don’t already know the password for the Teamsters for Obama website, you can find it on the mailers bearing the website’s name, in recent issues of Teamster magazine, or follow the instructions on the login page to get the password.

If you or someone you know isn’t registered to vote in this year’s election, please make sure you do so before next Monday. Wherever you are, you can jumpstart the registration process by clicking here.

Aside from bigger deficits and lower taxes on the wealthy, there’s one more linchpin of the McCain agenda that would absolutely raise taxes on millions of working people — if we let him get his way.

You see, lost in all the pretty words of McCain’s so-called “straight talk” on healthcare reform, is the simple fact that he plans to count employer-based healthcare coverage as taxable income. That means that people like me (and you, if you work for any company that offers health benefits) will suddenly be paying taxes on thousands of dollars more a year in “income” – despite that fact our actual salary won’t have increased. Matthew Yglesias writes about what he calls “McCain’s Health Care Tax Hike”:

…at the moment, compensation you receive from your employer in the form of money is subject to income tax, but compensation you receive from your employer in the form of employer contributions to health insurance premiums is not taxed. McCain proposes to change this and start subjecting those benefits to taxation. Some people, obviously, don’t have employer provided health insurance in which case this won’t make any difference to them. But for those of us who do get insurance through work, this is a very big increase.

A big increase indeed. Of course, those who admit to this policy and actually defend it will argue that the end result is to help with tax credits for uninsured Americans. But their mission is going to be financed by the increase on Americans who get their health insurance through work – which is fine by the McCain camp, because they admittedly want to discourage employer-based health coverage, as per USA Today:

McCain’s plan aims at eliminating “the bias toward employer-sponsored health insurance” by offering tax credits for individual plans, according to his campaign website. The credits would be $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for families. Those amounts would be subtracted from the final tax bill. Families, the campaign says, should be able to buy nationwide policies that can move from state to state.

And while the idea of trying to help the uninsured afford coverage is a nice idea, this one does little to curb the rising cost of healthcare. Additionally, it doesn’t come close to matching the financial expense of purchasing independent coverage. Again, from USA Today:

Such write-offs have limited value because average family health care plans cost about $12,000 a year, says Ken Thorpe, a health policy professor at Emory University in Atlanta. Also, many insurers won’t accept individuals with pre-existing medical problems, he says.

There’s already too much information flowing from the McCain campaign that goes unchallenged. Too many lies and threads of misinformation. Too many things that get ignored while we get distracted by the Sarah Palin circus. And that’s dangerous, because by not paying attention we as working people get screwed by politicians with plans to turn our lives upside-down.

So if you think John McCain is the guy who will cut your taxes, you need to pay more attention to what’s really happening.

And I honestly hope you will.

• AFL-CIO: McCain’s Health Care Proposal Will Increase Costs and Reduce Benefits [PDF]
• Center for American Progress: John McCain’s Radical Prescription
  for Health Care [PDF]

UPDATE 9/11/08: Jason Lefkowitz at CtW Connect has a little more to add to the issue in one of today’s posts.