Press Release from the Barbara Bobo for Congress Campaign

Barbara Bobo, Democratic nominee for U.S. Representative from Alabama’s Fourth District, says she is running because she believes some common sense needs to be injected into Congress.

“If those in Congress just used some good old common sense in their decisions, our country would be in much better shape,” she said. “I can’t believe some of the things that body has enacted that hurts the working men and women of the Fourth District, Alabama and the Nation.” The five-term former Mayor of Millport and political activist had strong criticism for bills that export American jobs to other countries.

“What in the world are those in Congress thinking?” she asked. “They have shipped our manufacturing jobs overseas, let technical jobs be exported to India and other countries and are allowing illegal immigrants to flood into this country to do the manual labor for lower wages than our workers can do them.”

She added, “Common sense should tell anyone that those actions are destroying our middle class and it has to stop.”

She said the playing field had been tilted so far in favor of the rich by actions of those who are supposed to be working for the best interest of their constituents that middle class families can hardly pay the bills. She said that more and more middle class families are losing ground and the poor are becoming destitute while government programs to help them are being cut.

Bobo pointed out that the corporate managers and chief executive officers are growing richer under the new “economic scheme” while those lucky enough to have manufacturing jobs are having their benefits cut.

“Recent analysis show that CEOs are now making 431 times more than medium wage workers,” Bobo said. “That is unacceptable in this country where hard work and diligence are supposed to pay off.”

She said that laws that allow companies to list their offices as being outside the United States in tax-free havens and businesses pay no taxes on their profits.

It’s not right,” she said. “It’s unacceptable, and it should be illegal -- not to mention completely ignoring what should be common sense issues by those in Congress.”

Bobo said she could talk all day on the “culture of greed” that has penetrated our society “from the top down” but there were other issues to mention.

“This is a senseless and futile war in Iraq, besides killing thousands of our young men and women is tearing our nation apart,” Bobo said. “The people of this country need to know the truth about why we went to war in Iraq and who is expected to gain what from it.”

She said that attacking al-Qaida in Afghanistan was the right thing to do after 9/11, but allowing Osma bin Laden to escape while we attack another country that had nothing to with the attack on us and whose people had not asked us to liberate them from Saddam Hussein, was not using common sense.

“We were told that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,” she said. “But common sense should have told us that even if he did, there was no way for him to use them against the United States. That war is senseless and costing the lives of many of our young people besides the billions of dollars going down a rat hole of corruption over there every month.”

“This is a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight,” she added. “That is just plain wrong.”

Bobo said there were a lot of things that American people had had enough of.

“We’ve had enough of the closed-door deals that give billions to the HMOs and large insurance companies when we’re told that we can’t do a thing for the 45 million uninsured or the millions more who can’t pay their medical bills,” she said.

“We’ve had enough of being told that we can’t afford body armor for our troops, healthcare for our veterans and benefits for the wounded heroes who’ve risked their lives for this country,” she reiterated.

“We’ve had enough of giving billions away to the oil companies when we’re told that we can’t invest in renewable energy,” she added.

Bobo said she truly feared for this country unless something was done, and done quickly, to change the course the government was on. She mentioned the tax cuts that largely favored the wealthiest people in the country, which coupled with the debt for the war in Iraq had already drained the treasury and had the government borrowing a million dollars a minute.

“We can’t keep this up,” she said, “and we shouldn’t have to. Let’s change directions right now starting with the election on Nov. 7”