Labor & Employment Law

AFSCME: Whitman?s $100 Million Finances ?Outright Lie?

By Mike Hall

Meg Whitman, probably the deepest-pocketed candidate on any ballot in recent memory, has poured more than $100 million, according to recent campaign finance reports, into her quest to buy California?s governorship and impose her Wall Street agenda on the Golden State.

A new television ad from AFSCME says the billionaire former eBay CEO and Goldman Sachs board member, ?is spending her riches on a?

dishonest ad campaign the media has exposed as shameful and an outright lie. Meg Whitman?she won?t let the truth stop her, but you sure can.

Whitman?s agenda includes cutting 40,000 state government jobs, dramatically reducing public employee pensions, deregulating industry and cutting welfare benefits. California?s unions are backing Attorney General Jerry Brown in the race. Willie Pelote Sr. AFSCME assistant political director, tells the Los Angeles Times:

There are some things the public needs to know about both candidates. Our job is to help the public understand some of the facts from the misleading statements.

Speaking of $100 million, Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the California Nurses Association (CNA) has some suggestions on how that money could have been better spent in state that has been economically beaten and battered.

In a post on the California Labor Federation?s Labor?s Edge blog and at Daily Kos, DeMoro writes that Whitman?s $100 million spending spree (with three months to go before Election Day) is a signal of

a campaign that is out of control and that shows little regard for the real life of most Californians…If Whitman, whose main qualification for office appears to be her unlimited wealth, really wants to help the state, there are many other ways she could use those resources to add real social value to our state, and help Californians who are hurting, who are sick, or to bolster our education system.

DeMoro offers several suggestions that CNA and its research arm, Institute for Health and Socio-Economic Policy, say might be a better $100 million investment for the people of California.

• Pay monthly unemployment benefits for 82,237 unemployed Californians.
• Pay the unemployment benefits for two months for the 40,000 workers she would lay off.
• Pay yearly health insurance premiums for 7,477 families.
• Fund 18,018 students at the Pell Grant maximum–$5,500.
• Pay for 11,447 pupils in California K-12. (Average expenditure per pupil in 2008-2009 school year was $8,736)

Click here for the full list.

Don?t forget you can keep up with the latest adventures of Queen Meg?CNA?s satirical imperial parody of Whitman?at her Facebook page here and her You Tube page here.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on August 06, 2010 (boomark / email).