Public Employee Press

Obama starts second term
A powerful progressive vision

By ALFREDO ALVARADO

In the year of the 50th anniversary of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech and the 150th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, President Barack Obama used bibles that belonged to both as he took the oath of office for his second term Jan. 21 before hundreds of thousands of energized onlookers.

The nation's first African American president defeated a yearlong right-wing Republican effort to end his time in office with a decisive election victory in November. With strong labor support, including thousands of volunteers from DC 37 and its parent union, AFSCME, who campaigned in crucial swing states, Obama won the popular vote by more than 4 million votes and the Electoral College vote by a landslide. Not since the famous Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower in the 1950s has a president won two terms with more than 51 percent of the vote in both elections.

Invoking the iconic moments of the struggles of African-Americans, women and gays for equality, his historic inaugural address articulated a powerful vision for the next four years: putting unemployed Americans back to work, rebuilding the middle class and defending the social safety net that unions have always fought for, as well as expanding immigrants' opportunities, addressing the looming menace of climate change, controlling gun violence and achieving equal pay for women and equal rights for gays and lesbians.

"The commitments we make to each other, through Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security strengthen us," he explained in his speech. "They free us to take risks that make this country great."

The safety net will be dramatically expanded by Obama's Affordable Care Act - the single most significant legislation of his first term and the most important social welfare improvement in decades - takes full effect in 2014. During the 2012 battle for the presidency, Republican candidate Mitt Romney pledged to overturn Obamacare if he won, but his position was rejected by the American people. Under the ACA, tens of millions of uninsured working and poor people will gain health coverage and insurance companies will be prohibited from charging more or denying benefits because of pre-existing conditions. The new law has already helped 6.6 million young adults, who have been able to stay on their parents' plan until the age of 26, including 3.1 million young people who are newly insured.

DC 37 activists at inauguration

During the campaign neither the president nor his challenger mentioned climate change, but in his second inaugural address Obama did.

"Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought and more powerful storms," he said, pledging to act against global warming.

Among the hundreds of thousands who made their way to Washington for the historic swearing in ceremony were leaders and activists from Locals 371, 372, 420 and 1549. Local 372 President Santos Crespo Jr. traveled to the nation's capital with a dozen members of his local.

"Organized labor helped him win, so it is important for us to be here today," said Crespo, who hopes the president will address immigration reform and end the war in Afghanistan during his second term as he battles the right-wing agenda of weakening civil rights protections, shredding the safety net and hindering spending for job creation.

The president addressed the immigration issue later that month in Las Vegas, where he advocated a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and said he would offer his own plan if the U.S. Congress did not act quickly enough. He has also pledged his support for the Dream Act, which would provide a pathway to legal status for young high school graduates who have grown up in the United States.

During the Great Recession that greeted Obama as he entered office four years ago, household income fell to its lowest level in many years. Addressing the country's growing income inequality Feb.12 in his State of the Union speech, Obama urged Congress to raise the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour, which would push up wages throughout the economy.

"He understands the challenges we face and shares our hopes for this nation," said Lee A. Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, DC 37's national union, "but he faces stiff headwinds from extremist politicians and their corporate backers."