Leftist congresswoman Rashida Tlaib of Michigan did not like President Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech.
Though a Democrat, Tlaib delivered her 15-minute answer on behalf of the Working Families Party, a two-decade-old outfit that claims it is building its own radical movement “on top of the two-party system.”
The two parties, Tlaib said, “stand in the way” of working families’ progressing economically, and demanded that Biden use his “executive powers” to initiate the WFP’s socialist agenda.
Republican, Democrat Obstructionists
Tlaib’s long lament blamed “two forces” that “stood in the way” of enacting Biden’s thankfully defeated Build Back Better plan.
They were a “Republican Party that serves only the rich and powerful, and just enough corporate-backed Democratic obstructionists to help them succeed.”
Though Biden’s plan is “stalled,” we — the WFP — are ready to restart the fight for it, she said:
So what would a working families majority do? We’d work with President Biden to deliver for you and your family.
We’d guarantee healthcare as a basic right, because after two years of the pandemic, we can’t allow corporate profits to determine who lives and who dies.
We’d stand up to Big Pharma and insurance companies, and we’d make drug prices for life-saving medicine, like insulin, actually affordable. And we’d make abortion care a fundamental right, so that no Supreme Court could ever take it away.
Tlaib also wants to pass her End Child Poverty Act that would “provide for the basics that every child needs to thrive,” a job parents, one must imagine, are either unable or unwilling to do.
As would be expected, Tlaib demanded a $15 federal minimum wage that “rises with inflation,” more union membership, and “paid family and medical leave for all workers.”
And her WFP phalanx in Congress would also fix the environment:
This is our time to take on the corporate polluters who get rich poisoning us and fight for environmental justice. With a Green New Deal, we would rebuild our country by creating millions of union jobs in the clean energy industries of the future. Imagine turning the rust belt into a Green Belt that is a center of American jobs and innovation for the next century. And we’d ensure clean air and water. Because I know we can’t build back better if our children can’t live healthy lives.
Another target: “skyrocketing housing costs, which have left half a million Americans homeless on any given night and millions more struggling to pay the rent. That means building millions of accessible, new, affordable homes, and providing long-overdue rental, down payment, and home repair assistance.”
And of course, Tlaib wants to “provide a real path to citizenship” for illegal aliens who don’t belong here.
As for the two parties, “we have a system that makes it too easy for elected officials to answer to donors instead of their constituents,” she said:
Disproportionate representation in the Senate distorts the democratic will of the people. The filibuster, a tool perfected to defend Jim Crow, continues to be used to block progress. We must abolish it in the Senate, like the House did more than a century ago.
Republicans are trying to destroy the political power of working class families and they’re willing to tear down our democracy to do it. They say the violent insurrection on January 6th is “legitimate political expression” and that corporate Super PAC spending dominating our elections is just free speech.
Thus, Biden must act on his own. He has a pen, as Barack Obama famously said, and a phone:
He can cancel federal student debt, which would be a lifeline for millions of Americans and a transformative economic stimulus.
He can ban federal fossil fuel leasing and drilling, direct federal agencies to reject permits for new fossil fuel projects, AND regulate carbon emissions.
He can fix our labor rules to allow more workers to access overtime pay.
He can change how we calculate the poverty line, so that more Americans become eligible for life-saving federal benefits.
And he can take action to break up pharmaceutical monopolies and make life-saving medicines affordable.
With midterm elections forthcoming and Democrat prospects to retain Congress waning, Tlaib warned what would happen if “Republicans take power”:
They’ll protect the rich and target the rest of us. They’ll attack and undermine voting rights, women’s rights, workers’ rights, immigrants, people of color and the LGBTQ community, and block progress on climate change.
So if you voted or knocked on doors or donated in 2020 to defeat Trump, I implore you, pay attention because this year is just as important and we need everybody to help.
AOC Speaks
On Twitter, the world’s most famous former mixologist, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), said Tlaib is right. “That’s why the type of members who trade stock while holding public office were the ones throwing a tantrum about her making this WFP address that literally happens every year,” she tweeted.
Ocasio-Cortez hit Biden, too. He ignored education, the student loan debt, and of course, despite his amnesty proposal, didn’t promise enough on immigration.
“We heard some speaking to some Dreamers, but Dreamers want their families to stay,” she said. “They don’t want to be separate from their parents either.”
Biden also didn’t say it was time to stop using gas and oil. “I think it was a lost opportunity,” said Ocasio-Cortez, who thinks the sun and the wind and happy thoughts will power a modern industrial economy. “There is profound bipartisan support to a long-term shift away from fossil fuels”:
When we talk about releasing strategic reserves, these are short-term solutions in order to prevent press shocks. But, at the end of the day … we shouldn’t be relying on fossil fuels to begin with.
Actually, we should, but forget that for now.
Moderate Democrats, a rare species headed to extinction, weren’t so happy with Tlaib’s talk.
“It’s like keying your own car and slashing your own tires,” Representative Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) told Axios.
Representative Filemón Vela of Texas agreed: “It is astonishing that the radical left continues to promote a Democratic death wish, and sees no problem relegating our party to the permanent minority” he told the website.
H/T: Fox News
