Retired Teachers Chapter News
Many happy Election Day returns
Nov 16, 2006 2:27 PM
We did it! We broke the right wing monopoly on power in Washington and you deserve a great big pat on the back for your part in that victory.
Not only did most of our endorsed candidates at the state and federal levels win big both here in New York and across the country, but the voter turnout was exceptional. Certainly we can chalk some of that up to the hours many of you spent working our phone banks here at headquarters, in UFT borough offices, around the state in NYSUT regional offices and in our Florida office.
We are especially proud of our work on behalf of John Hall in unseating longtime incumbent Congresswoman Sue Kelly and Kirsten Gillibrand in unseating Congressman John Sweeney, both in upstate New York.
In New Jersey, the senate race was pretty tight right up to Election Day. Fortunately, Democratic incumbent Robert Menendez survived the smear campaign waged by Republican Tom Kean Jr. to score a decisive victory.
Florida voters overwhelmingly elected Democrat Bill Nelson to the Senate and picked up two seats with Ron Klein’s defeat of Clay Shaw and Tim Mahoney’s capture of the Mark Foley seat. Democrat Christine Jennings’ race is still undecided as we go to press.
All three states added to the Democratic sweep of the House.
I mention these states only because they are home to large numbers of our retirees and their hard work there has paid off. I’m sure all your efforts to win back the Congress wherever you are resonated across the country.
Now we can look forward to a Congress that will address and support working family and retiree issues, particularly safeguarding Social Security and pensions, raising the minimum wage, overhauling the pernicious Medicare Part D drug plan and repealing means testing for Medicare Part B.
While Wal-Mart continues to pass on $1.2 billion in health-care costs to taxpayers because three-quarters of a million of its workers are uninsured, its success in providing a month’s supply of 314 generic drugs — many of the most commonly used medicines — for a flat rate of $4 in 14 states is the clearest indication of how far off the mark the Bush administration’s Medicare drug plan is when it forbids negotiating bulk pricing with pharmaceutical companies.
Hopefully the days of lining the pockets of insurance and drug companies are over. Hopefully the days of eroding health benefits and pensions, threats to collective bargaining and the National Labor Relations Board’s anti-union decisions are gone.
Is it too soon to sing a few bars from FDR’s theme song, “Happy Days Are Here Again”? I hope not.
