One of the nation's top union leaders says today that any elected official who isn't focused on creating more jobs doesn't have much of a future in public office. But Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, is no fan of Gov. Rick Perry and his oft-touted "Texas miracle."
"God help us if that model was nationalized," Trumka said today over breakfast with reporters organized by the Christian Science Monitor. Apart from Perry's own staff, he added, everyone has "unmasked" the fallacy of Perry's boasts about job creation in Texas, which helped propel the governor to the front-runner spot in the GOP presidential field.
"You had the same unemployment level down there you did anywhere else," Trumka said.
Texas unemployment rate, 8.4 percent, ranks 27th, though it is below the national average. As Perry often boasts, Texas accounted for 40 percent of net job creation nationally in the last two years. Trumka isn't impressed.
"The jobs that were created were minimum wage or sub-minimum wage. I don't think that's necessarily a good model for the future," he said. "...If you look at where they are on education, if you look at where they are on health care, it's a dismal model. I don't see it as a miracle, and I don't think most informed people see it as a miracle, either."
The AFL-CIO endorsed Barack Obama in 2008, and the union's political support overwhelmingly goes to Democrats, though Trumka indicated that no Democrat, including him, should count on active support next year.
Source: http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2011/08/afl-cios-trumka-scoffs-at-perr.html
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