When the Statue of Liberty got “sick” over what’s happening to her country, the nation’s nurses rushed to New York City to try and help her get well.

Members of National Nurses United (NNU)  and other working men and women will march and rally on Wall Street today to demand that the high rollers in the finance capital of the world pay to rebuild the economy they destroyed.

Last week, we told you how 44 U.S. senators are fighting to keep consumer and working family advocate Elizabeth Warren out of the top spot of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), created by last year’s landmark Wall Street reform legislation.

Carrying signs saying “Heal America! Tax Wall Street!” more than 1,000 nurses, union members and community allies today called on President Obama, the Chamber of Commerce and Congress set a new course to heal the nation.

The foreclosure crisis just keeps getting worse. More than 12 percent of residential mortgage loans are in foreclosure or at least one payment past due. Millions of homes have been needlessly foreclosed on because banks have not modified homeowners’ mortgages to affordable levels. On top of this misery, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD’s) funding for counseling to prevent foreclosures has been cut to zero.

While 25 million unemployed and underemployed U.S. workers are drowning, CEO pay skyrocketed by 23 percent, for an average salary of $11.4 million in 2010, according to the AFL-CIO Executive PayWatch. Released today, data compiled at PayWatch also show CEOs have done little to create badly-needed jobs, instead sitting on a record $1.93 trillion in cash on their balance sheets.

Hats off to economist Dean Baker for putting into perspective Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) attempts to decimate family-supporting wages and benefits and take away state employees’ freedom to bargain. Baker, co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, writes today:

You have to give Gov. Walker and his wealthy patrons credit. Here we have a situation where Wall Street fat cats wrecked the economy—people like Richard Fuld, Robert Rubin, and Angelo Mozilo—and they’ve  somehow managed to blame schoolteachers and the highway patrol.

The nation’s No. 1 priority is  getting the nation’s job-creation engine running again. But House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his gang instead have unveiled a budget plan that slams working families and is a “naked payback” to Wall Street CEOs, says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.

Wages have fallen lower and stayed low longer in this recession than in any time since the Depression. With unemployment at 9 percent or better for 20 months and likely to stay that way for a while, wages will continue to drop.

Happy New Year from the 12 million members of the AFL-CIO.

I wish all the best for you and your family, for our unions and for our nation in 2011. And I know you share that wish.