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The Campaign for America's Future is joining with our allies at Americans United for Change in asking you to flood congressional offices today and Tuesday with calls for immediate action on the economic recovery package scheduled for a House vote this week.

The number we're asking people to use is 866-544-7573.

Why? Not because the legislation is perfect by any means. It is not. But the imperfections can be fixed, if not now in the weeks ahead.

What absolutely must be resisted immediately is the effort by congressional conservatives, laid bare over the weekend and today, to stall a Main Street recovery package and instead repeat the same right-wing policies that got us into this mess.

As they made their way through the Sunday talk-show circuit, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, led the charge against the plan put forward by President Obama, questioning its emphasis on spending and insisting a larger emphasis on tax cuts.

Of course, to believe that requires ignoring research from people such as Mark Zandi at Moody's Economy.com, who was an adviser to McCain's losing presidential campaign last year, who has said that certain targeted spending programs will provide a more effective short-term stimulus than tax cuts. Based on that research, the argument that the Obama administration and congressional Democrats have already compromised too much with Republicans is compelling.

But conservatives know what's at stake, and we should not forget what is at stake, either. This is not simply about whether we think the Obama plan, as the House will consider it, is all we would have preferred it to be. This is also about progressives making a clear statement to Congress that we will not allow conservatives to take us backward. We will not stand for a repetition of the mistakes that have allowed an historic wealth gap between the rich and the working class and poor, that left the country even in the best times this decade with the most anemic job growth in over a generation, that meant that working families fell behind financially for most of the decade.

So today and Tuesday we are calling on you to take a stand. In the choice between beginning the process of putting government on the side of the people and enabling it to make a down payment on the new economy we must have for a sustained recovery and global competitiveness, or continuing the failed conservative strategies of starving the public good and promoting private gain, we stand with empowering government to invest for a broader prosperity.

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