Maine workers in need of relief

Great Northern Paper Inc., which operates paper mills in East Millinocket and Millinocket, recently filed for bankruptcy. Having worked at the East Millinocket mill for 29 years, alongside dear friends and family, I know how terribly difficult this is for the people of the Katahdin region. This announcement means more than 1,100 Great Northern workers do not know when the mill will reopen, and whether or not they will be able to meet their financial obligations in the weeks and months ahead.

This devastating news follows a recently released report by the Labor Department indicating our jobless rate last month remained at its eight-year high of six percent. Since the recession began in March of last year, 2.3 million private payroll jobs have been lost, most of them in manufacturing. The decline in factory jobs was the 29th consecutive monthly drop, and it left the number of manufacturing workers in America at 16.5 million, the smallest in 41 years.

Many of these displaced workers, here and throughout the nation, do not show up in the halls of Congress. But when I am home, they come up to me and share their stories. I know these stories well because I have known these people all my life. The very men and women whose hard work fueled a decade of economic expansion, which they barely enjoyed, have now become the first victims of a fallen economy. They are hurting, and they need our help.

I am pleased that one of my first acts in Congress was to help pass long-overdue legislation that provides 13 additional weeks of federally funded benefits to help unemployed workers. However, this extension is significantly smaller than legislation I originally cosponsored, which would extend unemployment benefits retroactively for 26 weeks, and provide temporary aid to states to broaden coverage to low-wage earners and part-time workers. While this is an important first step, we must do more than help the unemployed – we must put Americans back to work.

President Bush recently unveiled his economic stimulus package. I am sorry to say that it left me deeply disappointed. It does almost nothing to help our workers. Nor does it ensure that if the present economic climate continues, they will not lose their homes, have to postpone college education or forfeit their health care.

According to the Economic Policy Institute, the administration’s tax proposal – the heart of the stimulus plan – would give 70 percent of the benefit to the top 5 percent of taxpayers. Three quarters of the benefit will go to tax filers with incomes exceeding $100,000, but for those taxpayers with incomes below $50,000, the average tax break is $76 or less. This is not the solution to lift our ailing economy. This does not put money in people’s pockets, invest in infrastructure, create jobs, or spur new business investment.

The alternative Democratic economic stimulus plan that I support is a much better approach for getting Americans back to work. That plan would provide a $136 billion stimulus, almost all of it immediately in 2003. That’s enough to create at least one million jobs, lower the risk of double-dip recession, and produce a more robust recovery. Through targeted tax relief for working families, it will put money in the pockets of average Americans – boosting consumer demand and the business investment needed to meet it.

Abraham Lincoln taught us that “the legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but cannot do at all, or cannot so well do, for themselves in their separate and individual capacities.” This is a call for us to work together, as a nation and as a government, to help people who have been hurt by forces that are too large for any one person to stand against. The new Congress must heed this call by helping the hard-pressed families of America, and restoring vitality to our economy.

Mike Michaud is Maine’s 2nd District congressman.