Email [email protected] for info and to RSVP.

The supposed economic recovery has proven to be little more than wishful thinking. National unemployment rates remain at 9.1%. Main Street America is in many ways worse off than it was when the economic crisis began after years of joblessness, home foreclosures, and drained savings have pushed working families to the brink.

While Americans suffer, Wall Street and the nation’s largest corporations are again rolling in other people’s money. With corporate taxes at historic lows, corporate profits for the fourth quarter of 2010 hit a record high of $1.68 trillion, with no signs they won't repeat the performance this year.

Yet the political class in Washington has been taken in by the deficit-obsessed tea partiers. Cutting spending has become a higher priority than job creation, restoring lost homes and healthcare, or preserving the benefits like Medicare and Social Security that are the last lifeline keeping many afloat during this recession.

It’s time politicians stop obsessing about a deficit that does not threaten the economy in the near future, and start talking about how they plan on helping working Americans out of the back alley Wall Street left us in to die.

So who is out there, demanding that Washington do more?

On September 1, you can join people who are organizing across the country to demand Wall Street pay to heal the damage it did to Main Street.

The nation’s nurses, organized by National Nurses United, launched their Main Street Contract campaign on the doorstep of the organization perhaps most responsible for causing the deregulatory and financial free-for-all that led to the economic collapse – the US Chamber of Commerce.

This Sept. 1 they’re taking that message to over 60 members of Congress in 22 states across the country.

So join me and National Nurses United on Sept. 1, and tell Congress it’s time to put Main Street first. Those of you in the DC metro area can contact me at [email protected] for more information on when and where to catch the bus to the nearby event in Eric Cantor’s Virgina district. Or go here for a complete list of actions you can participate in across the country.

We’ll be asking Cantor to pledge his support for making those who caused the economic mess clean it up. Main Street is taxed enough. It’s time to establish a Wall Street Speculation Tax. It could raise $175 billion a year to rebuild our country – an amount that would make a real difference on Main Street – paid for by a small fee on the kind of speculative trading by Wall Streeters that drove Main Street’s collapse.

Taxing Wall Street to heal Main Street. Sounds to me like a path to a lasting economic recovery.