This post originally appeared here on Daily Kos.

Voter turnout this election cycle among what’s been called the Rising American Electorate - a group that includes Latinos, young voters, and unmarried women, all of whom trend left — is in jeopardy.

We have a huge challenge ahead of us to convince the “Obama surge” voters to remain engaged in November 2010 and beyond. Polls show an enthusiasm gap among many of these potential voters. They fear the change they voted for in 2008 hasn’t happened deeply or profoundly enough.

On one issue in which I have been involved for decades I want to offer an alternate narrative. That issue is health care reform. Full disclosure: I’m the executive director of USAction and together with many powerful allies we formed Health Care for America Now, a broad-based coalition made up of some 1,100 groups.

The Obama Administration has seen several big wins - financial reform, student loan reform, economic recovery legislation. But perhaps the biggest win in terms of historic legacy was health care reform.

I know many people reading this may be thinking, “You know, that was really not worth the paper it was printed on and we could have done so much better if only the movement had been more aggressive, more left, more powerful, more something.” While more reform certainly would have been preferable, it is critical for us as a movement to recognize this as a victory, as it is for many reasons.

First, we established a new right in America. Health care is now a right, and that is huge! It is an imperfect right as Social Security was certainly an imperfect right when it was created in the 1930s. At the time, the NAACP called the flawed Social Security legislation “a sieve with holes just big enough for the majority of Negroes to fall through.” Indeed, nearly two-thirds of African Americans and just over half of women in the work force were not covered. Today, Social Security is widely accepted to be the core of the American social welfare system. As Thaddeus Stevens said when he supported passing the 14th Amendment, “Do you inquire why, holding these views and possessing some will of my own, I accept so imperfect a proposition? I answer because I live among men and not angels.” Health care is now a right in America.

Second, this is a victory because it is the largest income transfer since the Sixties; since, frankly, Medicare and Medicaid. By and large the people who don’t have health care or don’t have adequate health  care are lower income, and now they are going to get better coverage paid for through relatively progressive taxation. In fact, tens of thousands of mostly low-income Americans are going to live who would have died every year. That’s like cutting highway fatalities in America every year in half - and all because of this bill.

Third, this is a great victory for the progressive movement. We would not have won this health care battle - and we did win - if we hadn’t fought for it. I have been involved in health care organizing for thirty-eight years. In 2008, presidential candidates actually competed for progressive loyalty on health care.  In 2009-2010, progressives were crucial to winning enough support to pass the Affordable Care Act.  

Finally, we showed that the government can have a powerful, effective role to meet urgent middle-class needs and even more than that, that liberals can govern. In the midst of the ugly Tea Party rallies and the bleating from the Blue Dogs, we still passed this historic legislation, and we did not do it with Republican votes.

I think this victory is enormous, and the progressive movement cannot forget that. There are appropriately tensions between the Obama Administration and the progressive movement, and this law needs to be improved, but we need to continue to tout these victories if we are going to continue to win in 2010 and beyond.  

Jeff Blum is the Executive Director of USAction.

With last week’s passage of the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, it seems that the ravaged political battlefield of financial reform has finally fallen silent.  But even in the aftermath of this historic piece of legislation, it’s important to remember to take a step back from the battle and see just who’s been trying to win the war.  And as last Thursday’s article in the Washington Post revealed, one group in particular seems intent on pressing onwards to the next grand fight, no matter the cost — literally.

After all, “Over the past year, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has spent nearly $3 million a week in opposition to President Obama’s major agenda items, breaking all previous lobbying records.”  And while the Chamber has failed to stop “among other things, student-loan legislation, credit-card reforms and a landmark measure that expands workers’ rights to sue for equal pay,” the article notes that the Chamber has championed its work to put a damper on the cap-and-trade climate bill and subverted the development of the health-care reform bill by advocating against the possibility of a public insurance option.

But the Chamber hasn’t just broken lobbying records — they’re also a broken record, if the way they repeatedly justify their political interventions as representing “the business community” is any indication.  Some elements of this “business community,” of course, have other plans: the article goes on to list major businesses, including Nike and Apple, that would prefer to leave its board or quit the Chamber rather than be represented by a group that’s acted as “one of the leading combatants in the battle over health-care legislation,”  and  “has helped stall White House-backed legislation in the Senate that would require greater disclosure of political spending by corporations.”

Meanwhile, groups that represent small businesses, such as the U.S. Women’s Chamber of Commerce, would rather publicize their distance from their similarly named counterpart:

“We’re interested in what’s good for small business, and many times that’s not what’s good for big business.”

It’s important to keep statements like this in mind when the victories of the Chamber are described as “pro-business” or their failures as “anti-commerce”.  Instead, it seems clear that they prefer to be just one thing: pro-Chamber of Commerce.

And unfortunately for the body politic, it looks like being pro-Chamber of Commerce means being not just pro-Big Business, but also anti-reform.

Last Thursday, Health Care for America Now, the national grassroots campaign founded with the help of USAction, released a report on how the health insurance industry is pressuring state insurance regulators to undermine some key provisions in the new health care law.  You heard right: health insurance companies are still trying to block key provisions that will help average Americans get quality, affordable health care. It sounds like business as usual, right? “The insurance companies and their army of lobbyists are doing everything they can to undercut this law,” said HCAN Executive Director Ethan Rome.

This is especially true in the provision about medical-loss ratios or MLRs.  What are Medical Loss Ratios, you ask? Simply put, MLRs lay out how much insurance companies spend on medical services versus their own expenses per customer.  The Affordable Care Act requires at least 80 percent of health premiums to be spent on medical services for individuals and small businesses (85 percent for large employers).  That is a big departure from previous practices.

According to the report, if the new law was in effect one year ago at the rates they are required to pay now, the six largest for-profit insurance companies would have been required to refund $1.9 billion for 2009 alone.  Think about that:  $1.9 billion that could have gone to paying for the care you pay for, but are instead going to administrative and advertisement costs. And the health insurance industry is still trying to get exemptions? The state of Maine has filed for an exemption to this provision of the new law.  In a letter to Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, the Superintendent of Insurance for Maine, said the following,

In its filings with the Securities and Exchanges Commission, one insurer has indicated its intent to pull out of individual health insurance markets, (and has explicitly named one state where that decision has already been made). Based on preliminary discussions I had with the insurer, the company could continue to operate successfully in the Maine market in compliance with our current MLR standard, but would probably need to withdraw from this market if the minimum loss ratio requirement were increased.

But the current MLR standard is allowing nearly $1.9 billion not to be spent on your health care. Enough already! It’s time that we tell the health insurance companies what we want.  We can’t let them play the system anymore. This is one of many battles still to come from this new health care law–let’s hope they don’t win this one!

In 1973, George Steinbrenner was a millionaire.  He bought the New York Yankees for under $1 million dollars and when he died last Tuesday, the Yankees were worth over $1.5 billion and Steinbrenner also sat on another $1 billion of Yankee-related media assets.  During this economic recession, with millions of Americans without a job and government services threatened by declining revenues, Steinbrenner was the fourth billionaire so far in 2010 to die without an estate tax in place.  While working Americans are suffering, Steinbrenner’s relatives can now inherit that $1.5 billion franchise - and not pay one penny in taxes on it.

Bush and his political cronies - nearly all Republicans and too many Democrats - as part of their tax cuts, weakened the estate tax every year since 2001, until its expiration at the end of 2009.  Without this tax, lower and middle-income taxpayers are left with the burden of paying for public services that benefit everyone - job creation initiatives, cops on the street, cleaner water.  Congress must act quickly to reinstate and strengthen the estate tax in order to bolster our ailing economy.

The estate tax is the most progressive tax in American history.  Someone with an estate worth $1 million doesn’t pay a penny for the estate tax.  Someone with an estate worth $2 million doesn’t pay the estate tax.  Indeed, only an estate worth more than $3.5 million (or $7 million for couples) contributes a penny when this legislation is in place, and let’s face it, those with an estate worth more than $3.5 million won’t suffer greatly by paying a  little extra in taxes.

George Steinbrenner was once disciplined by major league baseball for making illegal contributions to Richard Nixon’s reelection campaign.  If the guy is able to afford a personal fine of $15,000 for helping to get Nixon reelected, his family can also afford a bit extra in taxes to keep our national strong and functioning.

These public services are what made it possible for Steinbrenner to amass his fortune.  He would not have died a billionaire without the taxpayer-funded Tri-borough Bridge, or the subway stop at 161st Street, which was built specifically for this purpose, allowing Yankee fans to come from all over to buy a ticket for Yankees Stadium.  The new Yankees Stadium itself was built not with funds from Steinbrenner, but with $550-$850 million from New York taxpayers.  The taxpayer-funded initiative to make New York City’s drinking water some of the cleanest water in the Country contributed to his success, and Steinbrenner owes it to those taxpayers that helped to make his fortune possible to contribute his fair share.

The estate tax would bring in at least $264 billion in the next ten years if restored today at the all-too-moderate levels that Congress is considering.  But that’s real money that could go to create more jobs, education more kids…and even help make another couple lucky Americans billionaires in the future.  Congress: get this done, or forever face the wrath of fans from Boston and Philadelphia to Kansas City and Oakland.

It’s been a busy past few days here in Washington, D.C.

• On Wednesday President Obama signed into law the most sweeping financial regulatory reform since the Great Depression after a long fight with big banks, Wall Street and their allies on K Street and Capitol Hill.  Heather Booth, Executive Director of Americans for Financial Reform and Vice President of USAction, is pictured right celebrating the victory over Wall Street.
• Senate Democrats, plus Republicans Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, needed the 60th vote of Carte Goodwin (D - WV), the late Robert Byrd’s replacement, to overcome a Republican-led, seemingly permanent filibuster of an extension of unemployment benefits for 2.5 million jobless workers.
• And a media and political firestorm erupted when Shirley Sherrod, a Georgia-based, USDA appointee, was forced into the national media spotlight by right wing propagandists Andrew Breitbart and Fox News and unnecessarily fired by Tom Vilsack, the Obama administration’s Secretary of Agriculture. Vilsack has since apologized and offered Sherrod a new job with the USDA.

Financial reform is truly historic, unemployment benefits will soon return for many struggling jobless workers and apologies along with a job offer correct some of the injustice in the story of Shirley Sherrod.

But the fight goes on. Each of the above represent long struggles over our values and priorities as a nation.  We must be clear of our mission and organize with passion to bend the moral arc of the universe towards justice.

• Wall Street Reform: The path of the fight against Wall Street now mimics the path of the health reform law and moves to battles over implementation of the law and regulation.  The White House should protect Main Street by appointing Elizabeth Warren to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which Warren thought up, to protect American consumers.
• Protecting Main Street’s Safety Net: The unemployment benefits extension was promptly passed by the House and signed by the President last night.  Relief is coming to the 2.5 million struggling to navigate the Great Recession.  The unemployment benefits extension barely begins to address the jobs deficit in our country. We need more jobs stimulus to avoid a potential depression.  The Local Jobs for America Act can help and you can sign here to create 1 million jobs for America.
• Tell Obama to fire Fox News: For the White House there is no free pass in the Sherrod story. It is bad enough that the Obama administration would react so mindlessly and quickly without considering the source of this smear. Fox News and Breitbart have a despicable ‘journalistic’ legacy and a track record of dishonesty and race-baiting which recently wrecked ACORN and cut Van Jones’ career short. Enough is enough. Tell the White House to stop listening to Fox News.

USAction / TrueMajority members will continue to fight the monied corporate interests who will defend the status quo and their profit margins at all costs.

Thirty-nine Republican senators voted against extending unemployment insurance yesterday.  They claim it is because of the $33 billion that would be added to the deficit, but in the hypocritical fashion of deficit hawks, thirty-eight of those Senators voted to permanently repeal the estate tax which would add than one trillion dollars to the deficit.

Enough is enough!  The people of New Hampshire made their voices heard yesterday at a rally organized by USAction affiliate, NH Citizens Alliance, who teamed with NH for Health Care/SEIU and Working Families Win, at Senator Judd Gregg’s Concord office.  The rally was calling out the Senator for his misplaced priorities and lack of support for his constituents who do not earn over $250,000 dollars a year.

Senator Gregg has consistently voted against the extension of UI benefits and additional stimulus to create new jobs.  In addition, he voted in favor of the Bush-era tax cuts, which cut taxes for the wealthiest one percent. NHCA made it clear to the Senator that the public does not support helping the rich get richer on the backs of a working class struggling to get by.  Olivia Zink, the Community Organizer of NHCA, vehemently expressed the need for this rally:

Through no fault of their own, people all across our country have been laid off and downsized because of the recession, as they sit at their kitchen tables figuring out how to make ends meet, Senator Gregg is actively working to make the wealthy even wealthier.

Zink is right: last week Senator Gregg announced support for extending tax cuts to people who are making more than $250,000 a year.  This will only make our deficit larger and our recovery harder; the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts cost the country $1.7 trillion dollars. What will these proposed tax cuts cost us?

Representative Mark Kirk got a similar message in Illinois last week.  USAction affiliate Citizen Action/Illinois gathered outside Kirk’s office in Northbrook alongside the Chicago Federation of Labor the Northeastern Federation of Labor, Jobs with Justice and Working Families Win.  The working (or unemployed)  people of Illinois called out Kirk for his continued votes against jobless workers and creation of good jobs.

Kirk has also been preaching the same old policies of helping the rich get richer and at the same time denying help to workers.  John Gaudette, organizer for Citizen Action, briefly explained Kirk’s voting record.

When the bill was about tax cuts for the richest Americans or bailouts for Wall Street, Rep. Kirk was a strong YES.  When the thousands of unemployed in his district asked for help, when thousands of COBRA and Medicaid clients needed help, Rep Kirk was a strong NO.

50 unsatisfied constituents told Representative Kirk that they were sick of his continued lack of support for the thousands and thousands of Illinois families out of work and unable to find jobs.

Hopefully they got the message.  We need a forward looking agenda and not the same old policies that got us into this mess in the first place. Our goals are to allow the Bush tax cuts for the rich to run out this year as scheduled eliminate tax loopholes for big corporations and the wealthy and hold Wall Street accountable.

We are also working to pass the Local Jobs for America Act in order to create/save a million jobs.

These are our top priorities and with continued organizing and work from our affiliates and partners across the nation we can put America back to work and make sure corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share.

The Jobs for America Now campaign hosted a conference call yesterday with several leaders in the fight for job creation.  Senator Al Franken and Congressman Keith Ellison of Minnesota headlined the call with John Schmidt of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, author of a new report entitled The Urgent Need for Job Creation.  The call was moderated by Alan Charney, campaign manager for Jobs for America Now and policy director for USAction.

Schmidt briefly explained the state of the economy and job market, highlighting the issues facing America today and in the future.  ”Without any additional stimulus, we would not be back to pre-recession employment until 2021.”

To Schmidt, USAaction and our coalition partners, this is unacceptable.  Schmidt made it clear that the Local Jobs for America Act is essential to avoid a double-dip recession.  At the rate the labor force is growing (90,000 new workers monthly), this bill is absolutely crucial.

Senator Franken and Representative Ellison explained the state of their constituents and the nation.  The people are suffering and the government needs to act now. The Local Jobs for America Act will bring jobs back to the public sector.  It funds critical police, firefighter, teacher, and government service jobs. Studies have shown that the most effective way to stimulate the workforce for the unemployed is to directly create more jobs.  This bill is committed to helping the millions of people who have been out of work long term by initially focusing on local government jobs.

The effect of this bill will be felt nationwide.  It is designed to get people back to work immediately.  America needs this bill to get out of our job slump and help new members of the workforce get jobs.

USAction is calling on President Obama to name Elizabeth Warren as head of the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Elizabeth Warren has the experience and political savvy to fill what will be one of the most important positions for consumers in America today.  She is one of the nation’s experts on consumer indebtedness and on bankruptcy and consumer protection law. In fact, the new CFPB was her idea in the first place.

Warren also comes from a working class background. Her parents grew up in Oklahoma during the dust bowl era and Warren herself has raised a family.  She knows the pressures ordinary Americans face as they fight to keep their jobs and their homes even as unscrupulous lenders peddle faulty lending schemes.  Bankers be warned but consumers take heart:  Warren is the best person for this important job at this crucial time.

Alan Charney is the Strategy and Policy Director at USAction.

Finally Democrats are taking a powerful stand against the Republican Party.  Representatives Alan Grayson and Jim McDermott voiced the thought that was on everybody’s mind:  Republicans are blocking unemployment insurance to intentionally cripple the unemployed workers of America and to benefit the GOP agenda.

Rep. Grayson made a very powerful speech in regards to the harsh actions taken by Republican Senators:

“There was no unemployment insurance back then (1930’s America during the Great Depression).  There was no State benefits back then. There was no help for the people who had no jobs. All they could do, like my grandfather, in desperate straits, supporting a family of seven, was to go to the dump and desperately try to find something he could sell.

“That, my friends, is the America that the Republicans are trying to revive. The America of desperate straits, and for them cheap labor. The America where people have nothing, hope for nothing, and are desperate to live to the next day. That is what the Republicans are trying to resurrect by blocking unemployment insurance day after day, week after week, and now month after month.”

Grayson went on to suggest that the Republican representatives do not understand the grievances and struggles of the working class in America:

“Now, I know what the Republicans are thinking. They’re thinking why don’t they just sell some stock.  If they’re in really dire straits, maybe they could take some of their art collection and send it off to the auctioneer. And if they’re in deep, deep trouble maybe these unemployed can sell one of their yachts.”

Rep. McDermott’s argument was similar; to him the GOP is waging a war on class. He points out that previous legislature like the Social Security Act made these benefits rights that cannot just be taken away.

“The Social Security Act of 1935 made these entitlements, Social Security and unemployment insurance and welfare. The Republicans have been after all three of those programs ever since 1935. They got welfare a few years ago, because that’s poor people. They could jump on them. But unemployment and Social Security is middle-class people — they haven’t been able to get them, but it isn’t because they’re not willing to try.”

The voices and opinions of these Representatives have been echoed throughout USACTION and other organizations in the progressive movement, the people of America, and the Democratic Party. Take action now and support American workers!

We typically use numbers to measure something, to get a better sense of how great, how much or how expensive something might be.  But at a certain point, numbers begin to lose their meaning. Take, for example, the 35,000 barrels of oil flowing into the Gulf per day thanks to the BP disaster.  This means 1,470,000 gallons per day.  Or is it the upper estimate of 60,000 barrels, resulting in 2,520,000 gallons per day?  Multiply that by 89 days, and the numbers only get bigger and more incomprehensible — and given the kind of range between 35,000 and 60,000, it’s easy enough to believe that “the precise volume of oil that leaked…may never be known.”

But while we may never know the precise amount of oil in the Gulf, we will eventually experience every last side effect that an indeterminate amount of oil can have on the ecosystems of the Gulf and the livelihoods of those who depend upon its resources.  And today, we know that throughout the 89 days that have encompassed the worst environmental disaster in American history, our country’s fundamental dependence on oil has continued unabated, with our members of Congress representing the interests of oil companies instead of the interests of the American people.

As of tomorrow, 90 days will have passed since the beginning of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.  To mark this three month anniversary, we’re organizing a rally on Capitol Hill tomorrow at noon.

What: Rally to end our addiction to oil.
When: Tuesday July 20, 12 noon.
Where: Upper Senate Park at the corners of Constitution and New Jersey Ave. NW. ( map )
To RSVP, just click here.

And we won’t be alone: other groups, including MoveOn, the Gulf Restoration Network, Chesapeake Climate Action Network, Greenpeace, Public Citizen and many others, will be rallying with us to show Congress that it’s time to end our addiction to oil.

If you can’t attend, don’t forget the value of writing your Congressperson to express your support for the clean energy opportunities and green jobs initiatives that will turn the tide against our oily waters.

With your help, we can turn the statistics and numbers of disaster into a turning point for our environment and our economy. To RSVP to the rally, just click here.

Photo by Dave Martin - AP