John McCain has yet to decide whether he will join Barack Obama at the first presidential debate tonight in Oxford, Mississippi.

SEIU members can think of 656 billion reasons why he should.

That the dollar amount - to date - that taxpayers have kicked in to pay for the Iraq War.  It's an astonishing amount - particularly when you calculate what it could have paid for here at home, including:

    * four years of health care coverage for every uninsured American;
    * providing nearly 700 million homes with renewable energy; or
    * almost 11 million schoolteachers.  (www.thecostofwar.com)

Or - we could pay for one Wall Street bailout.

"During George W. Bush's eight years as president, too many working families have lost their jobs, their homes and their health care, but John McCain is not offering any path for real change," said SEIU Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger. "We need a new economic model that rewards work, recognizes productivity and innovation, and provides a fair set of rules for the marketplace and the workplace. A bailout for Wall Street that ignores Main Street is part of the problem, not the solution."

For every $100 billion America has spent on Iraq, for every $100 billion taxpayers are giving to bailout Wall Street, $50 billion must be dedicated to programs that will improve the lives of tens of millions of Americans.

Yesterday, SEIU proposed (www.seiu.org/issues/reviveeconomy/index.cfm) that any legislation Congress passes must include $350 billion for: