Gephardt Tells BAC “I’ll Create Jobs for Members”

A blizzard that shut down the Nation’s Capital did not prevent Congressman Dick Gephardt (D-MO) from addressing the BAC Executive Council’s winter meeting. On February 17, 2003, by phone from his office in Washington, D.C., the Missouri Congressman told the Council that in just two days he would formally announce his candidacy for President of the United States in 2004.

Gephardt’s father, a member of the Teamsters, always told him that he had food on the table and a shirt on his back because of the collective bargaining process. Gephardt added, “If elected, you’ll have someone in the White House who understands working families.”

The first thing I would do as President, Gephardt told the Council, “would be to rescind the Bush tax cut for the wealthy and use it to implement plans that honor workers and working families: health care for all Americans, programs to encourage careers in teaching, new schools that will create jobs for BAC members and a better learning environment for our children, and a free trade policy that does not reward countries that exploit workers and drain good paying jobs from this country.”

In closing, Gephardt thanked fellow St. Louis native President Flynn for his many years of friendship and support, and promised to campaign to the “people directly,” people like his own family.