By Kathy Wray Coleman, publisher, editor-n-chief, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog, Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspaper
Cleveland, Ohio-The North Shore AFL-CIO Federation of Labor, which is led by executive secretary Harriet Applegate, will rally today, Wednesday Jan 30, from 4 pm to 5 pm on Public Square in Cleveland to fight against proposed cuts to federal programs to social security, medicare and medicaid and against tax loopholes for the top 2 percent of Americans.
"This action is part of a nation-wide day of action to focus attention on the fact that We the People need these critical programs that are not ‘entitlements’ –as the media likes to describe them- but actually ‘earned benefits," said Applegate. "This is an ongoing campaign. The next activity is a call-in to senators and congress-members on Feb. 12th. Look out for details in the coming days."
Some labor leaders also say that they support comments made public by the Cleveland Plain Dealer Newspaper last week that U.S. Rep. Marcia L. Fudge (pictured)has called congressional Republicans pushing to slash federal aid to poor and disabled Americans and to food stamp programs to put poor women and children out on the street evil and crazy.
They say that cuts to food stamps, social security, medicaid and medicare all target disenfranchised groups such as the elderly on fixed income, poor people, women, minorities, children, unionized employees nationwide, and working and middle class people.
"It took a lot of guts for Congresswoman Fudge to say that, and its true," said Debbie Kline, executive director of Cleveland Jobs with Justice, an organization of some 62 labor union and faith based groups of greater Cleveland with the powerful Applegate as one of its board members.
Larry Bresler, a Cleveland community activist who leads Organize Ohio and the Northeast Ohio Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, said that Fudge is on the money in taking on Republicans that want to starve poor people while cutting taxes for the rich on the backs of the middle class and the poor.
Fudge said that she stands behind her statements made as chair of the Congressional Black Caucus during a recent political forum with former Republican presidential candidate Newt present, among others, but her spokesman said the media took them out of context.
"It was never her intention to say that all Republicans are evil but the congresswoman stands behind her larger point that there are some members of Congress whose oppositions on cutting programs like food stamps create great suffering and harm to millions of vulnerable Americans," said Belinda Prinz, communications director for Fudge, whose majority Black 11th congressional district includes the majority Black city of Cleveland and a pocket of Akron, a city some 35 miles south of Cleveland that is roughly 29 percent Black.
Asked if President Obama is going to take a stance against cutting food stamps and other subsidies to the poor as aggressive as Fudge and the Congressional Black Caucus, an organization of Black members of Congress, Prinz said that she cannot speak for Obama, the first Black president of the United States of America.
"I speak on behalf of Congresswoman Fudge," said Prinz. "I cannot speak for the president."
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