Corinne Ramey

Andrea Speaks at Take Back America

DMI's Andrea Batista Schlesinger spoke at the opening luncheon of the 2008 Take Back America conference in Washington, D.C. on Monday. Andrea said,

"You know, I'm from New York. Lately that seems to be a punchline in and of itself. Let"s just say that I’m relieved that we’re having the event at this hotel. But I do want to share some lessons learned from New York, though none of them have to do with wire transfers or crossing state lines.

In New York, we were all so tired of the Pataki administration, the passivity, the refusal to acknowledge the increasingly insecurity of New Yorkers, the dysfunctionality of Albany, our state capital, in which business was done by close doors, if at all. An upstate without any meaningful investment in infrastructure. A New York City plagued by profound inequality and an increasing number of middle-class families who could no longer afford to live in their own city.

So we elected someone whose slogan was - Change on Day One.

But what we didn’t anticipate – all of us – was that what was more important was Day Two.

Before we knew it, before we could even blink, our Governor was resisting progressive taxation, aligning himself with the tort "reformers” who think that the cost of health care is going up because regular people want to sue when they are the victims of negligence or malpractice, rather than the insurance industry heads who are getting richer and richer, announcing proposals like giving people drivers licenses regardless of their citizenship – a good idea, an important idea– but without doing any of the base building that could have turned the idea into reality.

When it comes to building an economy that works for working people in our country, I think what happens on November 5 is more important than November 4 – especially if we elect a Democrat to office.

Who will set the tone of the debate?"

Continue reading the rest of the speech, or watch a video of the speech here.

See the full panel she appeared on here.
Other speakers in the video include Jack Layton, leader of Canada's National Democratic Party, Robert Kuttner, co-founder and co-editor of the American Prospect, and Larry Cohen, president of the Communications Workers of America.

Posted at 10:22 AM, Mar 19, 2008 in Progressive Agenda | Permalink | Comments (2)