News Release

WASHINGTON – As the Senate debates an economic recovery package, Republicans and editorial pages have issued salvos against the proposed “Buy American” provisions designed to ensure that the recovery money is spend in America. The provision would require government projects, such as highway spending, to give preference to domestic goods and services. Campaign for America’s Future co-director Robert Borosage said today such provisions are not only parallel to current law, but just plain common sense. Americans will be rightly outraged if Congress moves to spend stimulus dollars on foreign jobs.

With more people filing for unemployment than at any time in the past quarter century amid the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, Campaign for America’s Future co-director Robert Borosage urged progressives who helped deliver President Obama’s electoral victory to rally around a historic opportunity to rebuild America. Borosage said quick and bold action is needed now to move the economic recovery plan despite obstacles in Congress.

The progressive base is on the march in support of the long-term investments President-elect Obama outlined in his economic recovery plan today, according to a statement released by Campaign for America’s Future co-director Roger Hickey. In response to the deepening crisis and more job losses, the Campaign for America’s Future last month released the Main Street Economic Recovery Plan that was endorsed by more than a hundred economists and dozens of labor and public interest leaders who represent more than 20 million Americans. All of the key elements of the Campaign for America’s Future’s “substantial, strategic, and sustained” recovery plan are in the president-elect’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan.

A new public health insurance plan that competes directly with private insurers is essential to controlling health care costs and improving the quality of care, according to a new report released today by the Institute for America’s Future and the UC Berkeley School of Law’s Center on Health, Economic & Family Security.

The economy needs at least a $900 billion boost over the next two years, according to a detailed economic recovery plan released today by more than a hundred economists and dozens of labor and public interest leaders who represent more than 20 million Americans.

With U.S. automakers facing opposition for an expanded $34 billion rescue package on Capitol Hill today, Campaign for America’s Future co-director Robert Borosage said allowing the auto industry to go under would create a “body blow to the already battered economy.”

Responding to concerns that President-elect Obama’s new economic leadership team is dominated by people who played a role in creating the current crisis, Campaign for America’s Future co-director Robert Borosage said that deepening economic emergency makes “Rubinomics” irrelevant. Borosage said that today’s announcement is a key step toward enacting a bold economic recovery plan.

Twenty-six out of the 29 Democratic candidates who won seats previously held by Republicans in the House and Senate championed bold progressive economic positions, according to a new report released today by the Campaign for America’s Future. The report shows that these progressive candidates’ victories represent a swing to the left of 34 votes in the House and 10 in the Senate, reflecting a clear mandate for progressive change.

With the American economy sinking and the global downturn deepening, a new ad today’s New York Times proclaims an emerging era of progressive reform. It calls on Americans to remember the legacy of previous generations who rose above the Great Depression. The ad, sponsored by the Institute for America’s Future features an image that merges that generation with the new and says, “Remember Who We Are.”

Major progressive, labor and consumer rights leaders joined forces today to demand important corrections to the Bush administration’s financial rescue proposal despite warnings from the administration’s top economists who got us into this mess.