Washington, D.C. – U.S. House passage of the jobs and economic recovery legislation marks a reversal of nearly 30 years of failed economic policies and provides a glimpse of what could happen in the areas of health care, education, energy and the environment and rebuilding America’s infrastructure, USAction said today.

“Today we write the introduction to a new chapter in American history,” said USAction Program Director Alan Charney. “A crisis that is deep and seemingly endless requires an historic response. Well, the House leadership responded. Now we look forward to  action in the Senate and to President Obama signing this bill into law.”

The jobs and economic recovery plan is historic for a number of reasons, Charney noted. “In one bill we have made a down payment toward the promise of quality, affordable health care for all,” he said. “We also have nearly doubled our government’s commitment to education for all children. And we have stepped boldly in the direction of energy efficiency and environmental protection while at the same time recommitting ourselves to protecting and enhancing our national infrastructure, from public transportation to safer roads, bridges and levees.”

Charney expressed regret that Democrats, for the most part, were alone in casting their votes to move America forward. “We are in crisis,” he said. “Unemployment is up. Home foreclosures are up. Suicides are up. The number of Americans – including children – who go to bed hungry each night represents a catastrophe. Yet while Rome burns, Republicans fiddled.”

USAction served as a leader in the Campaign for Jobs and Economic Recovery, a coalition of more than 20 leading progressive groups and unions utilizing all the resources and techniques of a modern campaign to pass the Obama jobs plan. In addition to USAction, the coalition includes AFSCME, SEIU, AFLCIO, NEA, Americans United for Change, Campaign for America’s Future, ACORN, MoveOn.org, Economic Policy Institute, Health Care for America Now, League of Conservation Voices, Sierra Club, Environment America, Medicaid Health Plans of America, National Postal Mail Handlers Association, National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association, People for the American Way Foundation, National Women’s Law Center, Roosevelt Institution, TrueMajority.org, Young Democrats of America, 21st Century Democrats, Community Action Partnership, Institute for Policy Studies – Cities for Progress, Progressive Future ,  National Priorities Project , Cities for Progress, Progressive Future, Working Group on Extreme Inequality, United Food and Commercial Workers, Young Democrats of America, YWCA USA , and Women’s Voices. Women’s Vote Action Fund.

USAction and TrueMajority.org build power by uniting people locally and nationally, on-the-ground and online, to win a more just and progressive America. We create the nation's leading progressive coalitions, making democracy work by organizing issue and election campaigns to improve people's lives.