Candidate for
United States Representative; District 44

I grew up on Riverside's Eastside in a working-class family, and the one main way I analyze political questions is to ask "What is good for working people?"

Sometimes the answers are very clear. For example, offensive wars are never good for workers, and neither are offensive wars dressed up to look like defensive wars. The present war in Iraq is an imperial power-grab, meant to benefit some of the corporate wealthy, and it stinks to high heaven. It is certainly not good for the workers who pay the taxes that finance it, and it is not good for workers whose sons and daughters are sent to fight and die (what a waste of a life - to die for a lie!).

Cutting taxes on the rich is not good for workers, because workers will pay the difference, or suffer cuts in public services.

Union-busting is not good for workers. I would vote in Congress to outlaw hiring scabs. The Democratic Party talked about this a lot, but they never did it even when they had the presidency and a majority in both houses of congress.

Improvements in education help workers and their families. Improvements in public transportation help workers and their families. Saving the environment for our children is good for workers and their families.

Opposing bigotry is good for workers and their families. Racism is bad for workers, even racist workers, because it divides them and makes it easier to exploit them.

Tolerance is good for workers. Religious tolerance, political tolerance, cultural tolerance, all improve the circumstance in which workers live.

So my touchstone, the way I gauge all political proposals and actions, is the good of the working class. This happens to be a good way to assess things even for people who are not workers, because factory owners, and merchants, and independent professionals, all benefit from the prosperity of workers. Workers and their families are over 80% of the U.S. population, and without them nothing is produced, little can be sold, and no one prospers.

As I have said many times, the wealthy have plenty of representation in congress. Shouldn't workers have at least one representative? -Kevin Akin