Posted by Justin Jeffre

Western & Southern is looking for more corporate welfare again. These welfare Kings have funded the campaigns of our “public servants” on council and expect a good return on their investments. But organized labor also invests in politicians and they represent actual people. Though there’s been a Dem majority in this city, they always back corporate profits over the people. Where will they stand now?

Locally, Corporate Democrats have led the charge to slash the health and human services budget while always finding a majority to pass out sweet heart deals and special treatment to their corporate paymasters. When Convergys asked for a handout of $52 million dollars (or more), our public servants decided that we should be there for them in their time of need (or was it greed?).

But when local janitors hit the streets, Convergys refused to meet with community leaders time and time again and the Corporate Democrats were nowhere to be found. David Crowley was the only one to show up at one of their events and even he couldn’t make the four block march to the Convergys stock holders meeting—but at least he was there when no other public servant was.

More recently (one year ago today in fact), local Corporate Democrats imposed a regressive jail tax to build a new jail (it turns out we didn’t really need it after all). They teamed up with their GOP buddies (partners in crime?), and with their corporate paymasters they launched a million dollar pro-jail propaganda campaign which failed.

Now the local Democratic Party has yet another chance to take a stand for working families and since several of them are term limited they have a chance to show their true colors.  Will they stand with the working people they represent or will they once again remain silent and continue to be complicit in the transfer of public funds to private wealth?

Dr. King once said, “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” He also said, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

But is the Democratic Party really a friend to working people and does their plight matter enough for the rest of council to follow Crowley’s good example? Corporate Democrats like Clinton and Kerry pushed NAFTA the job killing trade agreement (and Obama won’t repeal it), they refuse to even discuss repealing the Taft-Hartley anti-union law— and though a majority of Americans and physicians support a single payer health care system, they say no. Instead they continue pushing a scandalous-pay or die-health care system.

The Democratic Party says no to a national living wage and locally they don’t use their majority to back workers when giving multi-million dollar handouts to their corporate buddies. They also say no to ending the bipartisan war and bloated military budget despite a majority of Americans opposing it.

Dr. King also said, “One of the greatest casualties of the war in Vietnam is the Great Society… shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam.”

Couldn’t they same by said of the bipartisan quagmire in Iraq?

Big business gets two parties, well, three in Cincinnati (thanks to our corrupt pay to play campaign finance system and corporate control of the media) and all we ever get is to foot the bills. Why should we look out for big corporations if they’re not willing to look out for working families in our community?

(I’m always amazed that so many labor leaders and progressives are foolish enough to throw their support behind the Corporate Democratic Party that has consistently sold them out again and again instead of building a real alternative or running their own candidates.)

It’s time for ‘We the people’ and those that are supposed to represent us to stop keeping quiet and start making more noise. We must demand that our tax dollars stop subsidizing poverty wages. Western & Southern has gotten enough corporate welfare. If the rest of City Council is going to remain silent, make sure you tell your public servants what you think about this!

City Council, we want to know where you stand now. So what say you?

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