SCHAKOWSKY REACTS TO PRESIDENT BUSHS INAUGURATION ADDRESS

JANUARY 20, 2005

SCHAKOWSKY REACTS TO PRESIDENT BUSH'S INAUGURATION ADDRESS

CHICAGO, IL - U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) today issued the following statement in reaction to President Bush's inauguration address:

As patriotic Americans, we are respectful of the public ceremony that is taking place in Washington today during which the President of the United States swears to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. But we must also take an oath to preserve, protect and defend the values that we hold dear and that we believe are shared by the majority of everyday American families.

President Bush, though having won with the slimmest of margins, believes himself to have a mandate to conduct the business of our great nation in ways that undermine our core beliefs - particularly our vision of community - of America as a family, a caring and responsible family where people take care of each other and not just look out for themselves.

President Bush talks about creating an "ownership society." But for most people that means "You're on your own, Buddy." Sink or swim, and don't look to the government for help, unless, that is, you already own everything you need.

It is the goal of the President and the Republican Congress to undo the New Deal, the initiatives of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt that lifted our country out of the depression, put Americans to work and guaranteed them basic retirement security by creating Social Security, a social insurance program that has never missed a single payment in its 70 years of existence and continues to faithfully do that monthly for 47 million Americans.

The President plans to replace the New Deal with a Raw Deal.

Top on the President's agenda is privatizing Social Security in the name of saving it. In order to do this, the President has been telling lies about Social Security, saying it's in crisis, despite the fact that it now has a $1.5 Trillion surplus; despite the fact that the Congressional Budget Office affirms that it can pay 100% of benefits until 2052; despite the fact that almost every expert familiar with Social Security knows that only modest changes will keep it alive and well for the next 75 years, and despite the fact that his plan will increase the deficit by $2 Trillion and force huge cuts in benefits for future retirees.

The President is prone to scaring Americans with the threat of a crisis. Remember weapons of mass destruction, mushroom clouds, nuclear disaster? That was the reason the United States had to go to war in Iraq. Now over 1300 young Americans are dead in Iraq; an estimated 100,000 civilian Iraqis are dead; we are spending $1.6 billion a week in Iraq and it has bought us neither democracy in Iraq nor security at home.

And there were no weapons of mass destruction, just like there is no crisis in Social Security.

But this Administration can't recognize a real crisis when they see one, and one is the crisis in health care. Americans spend grossly more than people in any other country, and most get far less. More than 45 million Americans, most from working families, have no health insurance at all and tens of millions more have inadequate coverage. Since George Bush has been President the problem has grown worse, with 5 million more people without insurance. Dr. Martin Luther King said, "Of all the forms of inequality - injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhuman."

We see a different path for America as this President gets sworn in for another four-year term and we heed the words of Dr. Martin Luther King who warned us, "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." We raise our voices and pledge to work as long as it takes and as hard as we can to make real the American promise of liberty and justice for all.