The Social Welfare Spot

A Modern Update on an Old Classic

2011-12-30T11:07:00.000-08:00

For those of us who first saw the Wizard of Oz as children, Dorothy, Toto and her imaginary friends will live forever in our memories. Like all classics this story continues to enchant new generations of children. Like so many literary classics it also serves as a morality play illustrating the never-ending battle between good and evil and false leaders projecting themselves as more than they really are.

In the true sense of a classic the story remains relevant today serving as a metaphor for our moribund political leadership and the continuing fight between two sides each defining themselves as good and the other as evil.

So, let’s take a trip down the yellow brick road and explore the Wizard of Oz as a contemporary story for the politics of today.

Dorothy as the embodiment of the United States is lost and on a trip that she does not know where it will take her, nor how she got there. When she lands among the munchkins, she finds a people living in fantasy world waiting to be rescued, similar to the American people of today, such as the 52% in a recent Gallup poll that found the widening gap between rich and poor as an “acceptable part of our economic system.” So Dorothy as America is lost without direction, seeking leadership to help her find the way home. Instead she is given roadblocks, a twisting path and setbacks along the way. Similarly today, each political party promises us that they will show us the way if we just put our faith in them, but then fail to provide any true leadership to help us find the path home.

The character of Dorothy as a child is illustrative of how our political leaders treat the American people. We are considered to be children incapable of knowing what is best for us and told that if we would only follow their path blindly we will find our way. Instead we get deeper and deeper into a confusing path with no clear way out and unforeseen dangers at every turn: two threatened shutdowns of government, no clear policy on taxes or the recovery, an increasing tax burden on working people while reducing taxes on the wealthiest, all contributing to a growing national debt creating dark clouds on the horizon.

But still we dance down the yellow brick road.

First Dorothy finds the scarecrow. He’s a nice sort of fellow, a sack of straw masquerading as a person, but alas he has no brain. Yes, this lovable scarecrow without a brain could only be representative of the Tea Party. A movement born in anger, with one discernable objective – limit government’s role because big government is bad and it must be starved down to size. Well, in reality what they are saying is that big government is bad when it is in service to others, but when disaster strikes, just like everybody else they want the government to come in and help. If they only had a brain, they would understand that it is government that maintains the rods they drive on, the bridges they cross and that if it were not for government they would be working seven days a week at below poverty wages. The world is so easy to understand when you don’t have brain to muck things up with the facts.

The most recent example of this is Tea Party activist turned mayor of Flint, Michigan who recently turned down an $8.5 million federal grant to build transportation hub, because she believes that “There’s nothing free about government money,” Mayor Janice Daniels said in an interview. “It’s never free, and it’s crippling our way of life.” Placing her ideology before practicality denying the reality of how unemployment cripples people’s way of life by blocking the promise of new jobs as a result of the new transportation hub, Mayor Daniels demonstrates the blind allegiance to ideology over what is good for her constituents.

Facts, oh yes that is another thing that a brain is good for, understanding and making sense out of facts. Our straw-filled, brainless friends deny global climate change in the face of volumes of scientific fact, but challenge a potentially dangerous pipeline because they say here are no scientific facts to support its opposition. But as experience shows us, without a brain, one cannot make sense of facts even once they are presented in logical and irrefutable fashion. Then there is the obsession with no tax increase, and the Tea Party Congress members who have signed a pledge to not raise taxes. Without a brain to take in and interpret information, these folks are willing to sit back and watch municipalities go into bankruptcy and the federal government face the brink of shutdown. That is not leadership, that is blind allegiance to an ideology that does not work, followed only by someone who does not have the brainpower to think critically.

Next Dorothy comes across the Tin Man, who lacks heart. If only the wizard could help him gain a heart all will be right. In or modern day morality play the Tin Man, without a heart is representative of the Republican Party. A party that has become so focused on representing the wealthiest among us that it has lost its heart in the service of its benefactors. Tax cuts for the wealthiest while reducing essential services for everyone else. Critical government benefits such as an extension of unemployment benefits are held hostage to continued tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans. While insisting that deficit reduction can only be achieved by spending cuts targeted at working and low income Americans, their insistence on rewarding their wealthy benefactors with tax cuts adds to the deficit. Further indication of an empty place where their hearts should be is that while insisting on a so-called “strict interpretation” of the Constitution, they ignore a phrase in the preamble that clearly states that it is the role of government to “promote the general welfare.” But without a heart, the Republican interpretation of that phrase becomes to promote the welfare of the few at the cost of the many.

Then there is the lion, all he needs is courage; a perfect description of today’s Democratic Party. Today’s Democratic Party has become a collection of men and women without the courage to fight for what they should stand for. This is a group of people that like the lion in Dorothy’s tale, runs from the fight before it even begins. For example take a major part of the party’s 2008 platform – no extension of the Bush-era tax cuts that mostly benefitted the wealthy. Without so much as a whimper, the Democrats agreed to a two-year extension of these cuts and now only have the courage to complain that they exist, but not to do anything about it. The same can be said for giving up universal health care even before the negotiations began and most recently signing approval of a defense spending bill that takes away basic rights of US citizens who can be held without trial indefinitely just for suspicion of terrorist activities.

Like Dorothy we are lost in a strange and foreboding land without anyone to lead us out but yet we manage to pick up baggage along the way without any promise of their ability to help us out or to find the way home. But wait we have one more friend to find, perhaps he will be the one to help us in our journey –Now we come to the Wizard himself, the guiding philosopher of the tea party – Grover Norquist. This is the man who has expressed his desire to shrink the federal government down to where t is small enough to drown in the bathtub. The no-tax pledge blindly signed by Tea Party and Republican member of Congress was his brainchild. While Grover Norquist stands as the guiding light of the Tea Party and it’s anti-government activists, we never get to see what is going on behind the curtain. But pull it away and you will see the dirty little secret of this so-called “grassroots movement.” Norquist and the Tea Party are funded by the billionaire Koch brothers and by Karl Roves latest incarnation Freedom Works. This is hardly the making of a grassroots movement, rather it is perhaps the biggest corporate lobbying machine fighting any type of government regulation or taxation that might level the playing field and reduce the influence of corporate dollars in the political system.

With a cast of characters like this, I am afraid that real life can only mimic fantasy for so long, then they must part company. So, unless the American people rise up and push back there will be no happy ending here. We will not find our way home and the morass that is Congress will only become more dysfunctional, is that is at all possible.

Extending the “Payroll” Tax Cut

2011-12-06T14:14:00.000-08:00

While the Democrats and Republicans in Congress posture over extending the so-called payroll tax cut, the facts about the impact of this policy are lost in all the bombast. In reality, taxes cut are not nor have they ever proven to be effective stimuli to a sagging economy. If the two parties can make headlines with their fight over these tax cuts, it gives the appearance that they are trying to actually do something, and hide the fact that this may well be the most ineffective and unproductive Congress in generations.

Let’s start with some facts that seem to have gotten lost in the shuffle. First, by calling this a “payroll” tax cut, the administration is camouflaging the fact that it is a Social Security tax cut. While one side of the aisle tries to deal its deathblow to Social Security by claiming that it is on a collision course with insolvency, the other side of the aisle is hastening that insolvency by reducing its only source of income – the Social Security tax. The two percent reduction in the Social Security tax essentially robs $265 billion from the Social Security trust fund. This “incidental” fact has never entered into the arguments on Capitol Hill.

If it is true that the Social security trust fund is heading toward insolvency, then why deny it more funds? As usual, the answer is a shortsighted fiscal policy and politicians who cannot see beyond their next election.

Cutting taxes as a stimulus to the economy is a straw dog. Politicians settle on this because it seems as though they are doing something and voters like to have more money in their pockets. According to the Congressional Budget Office each $1 million in tax cuts creates thirteen new jobs. That translates to a cost to the government of $77,000 per job created. On the other hand $1 million in unemployment benefit creates 19 new jobs for a cost of $52,000 per job. The reason that unemployment benefits creates more jobs is that people collecting benefits need that money to meet daily expenses and will spend it immediately while a social security tax cut goes to people who are employed and many of them will not spend their tax break but will save it instead.

The GOP members of congress are insisting that spending cuts offset any tax cut. However when they championed the extension of the Bush era tax cuts, there was no such demand. So the GOP platform seems to be that tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans are solid fiscal policy while tax cuts for working families are dangerous fiscal policy that must be offset. This position becomes clearer when one looks at the offsets being suggested by the Republicans.

One idea being floated by the GOP is a pay freeze for federal workers and a reduction in the federal workforce by 10%. Both would further harm the economy, and both place an inordinate burden of reducing the deficit on working families. A ten percent reduction in the civilian workforce of 2.15 million would result in 215,000 jobs lost, offsetting the 265,000 jobs that would be created by the payroll tax cut. The dollar savings would be approximately $1.6 billion to offset a tax cut of $265 billion. Either the GOP leadership cannot do simple math or the real reason behind their plan is to gut Social Security and the work of the federal government.

However there are ways that can bring more funds into the federal government and maintain the solvency of the Social Security system well into the future. The first step would be to eliminate the Social Security tax cap. Currently all employees pay Social security tax on the first $106,800 of salaried income. Other income such as investment income, business income, etc are not subject to this tax. As a result of this wage cap, higher income workers pay a substantially reduced Social security tax rate. For example, at the current rate of 4.2%, all workers earning less that $106,800 pays the full tax rate on all of their salaried earnings. However, a hypothetical salaried employee earning $213,600 is only paying a rate of 2.1% of salary. Eliminating the cap would not only make Social security a more progressive and fairer tax but it would guarantee solvency well beyond 2075.

Another plan by the GOP, again focuses on some of the most vulnerable people in society - reducing Medicare reimbursements to senior citizens. This plan is in response to the astronomical growth of Medicare costs. However, what is being ignored here, is that under the previous administration, the Medicare was prohibited from negotiating drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry. In essence this translates into a $29 billion dollar annual subsidy to big pharma. Unlike other prescription drug suppliers Medicare is the only major insurance company that is barred from negotiating prices. As an example, Medicare currently pays 58% more for prescription drugs than the Veterans Administration that is permitted to negotiate.

Another step would be to eliminate the Bush era tax cuts, which went overwhelmingly to the wealthiest Americans. The extension of these cuts were justified as a fiscal necessity in this economic downturn. But if they indeed were needed as a stimulus, they should have softened the economic downturn that began during the prior administration. Another example of how tax cuts, do not stimulate the economy and that the cost of extending these cuts - $220-300 billion – is poor fiscal policy.

One more quick fix that would not only help reduce the deficit and also bring an increased level of fairness and rationality to US tax and fiscal policy are the subsidies aid to the oil companies. While posting record profits and increasing her costs to consumers, big oil enjoys $4 billion a year in tax subsidies. However, in this new world of Repubospeak, any attempt to bring an increased level of fairness and equity to tax policy is defined as a tax increase.

If we were to implement these simple fixes the total saved would be between $234 and $334 billion. That total is achieved through saving $29 billion in Medicare art D, $200-300 billion in Bush tax cuts and $4 billion in oil subsidies. These are just three quick fixes that bring fairness and restore some level of responsibility and fairness to federal tax and fiscal policy. I am confident that here are dozens more such items in the federal budget that can result in billions more in savings. But these will never be implemented because it is not about reducing the deficit, it is about starving government and creating a crisis in Social Security to justify gutting this country’s most successful social program.

To Infinity and Beyond

2011-11-30T17:39:00.000-08:00

Those are the immortal words of Buzz Lightyear. In reality, we may not be reaching for infinity yet, but something just a little bit closer - that mysterious red planet that has spawned so many science fiction and Armageddon movies. On Saturday, November 26th, the United States launched he $2.5 billion Curiosity Mars Rover, with the mission of searching for ancient habitable environments to learn if Mars was once home to microbial life.

On that same day, only two days after Thanksgiving and one month before Christmas, children living in 17 million US households went to bed hungry. While hunger and poverty are reaching record levels in the US and the Republican controlled Congress looks for new ways to cut social welfare programs in the name of reducing the federal deficit, our government was able to justify spending $2.5 billion to learn if there was ancient life on Mars. We all should be asking, “what about life on this planet?”

If we kept our focus on earthly needs and not on the remote possibility of Martian microbes, what could that $2.5 billion have provided? For starters $2.5 billion dollars could have produced more than 6,00 units of affordable housing, providing a decent place for thousands of American families currently without homes.

There are other possibilities for those dollars as well, the same amount of federal dollars could have been used to hire approximately 37,000 elementary school teachers. Replacing many teachers fired due to budget cuts, thereby reducing class size and providing a higher quality education for thousands of children. Or it could have been used to provide more than 150,000 college scholarships making college attainable to young people whose families cannot afford the increasing costs of a college education. If you are more concerned about safety, these funds could have been used to hire 40,000 police and firefighters, making u for the thousands who have been laid off due to municipal budget cuts.

In his remarks at the John F. Kennedy Space Center on April 15, 2010 President Obama stated “I am 100 percent committed to the mission of NASA and its future. Because broadening our capabilities in space will continue to serve our society in ways that we can scarcely imagine. Because exploration will once more inspire wonder in a new generation -- sparking passions and launching careers. And because, ultimately, if we fail to press forward in the pursuit of discovery, we are ceding our future and we are ceding that essential element of the American character.

Now, just nineteen months alter, in the midst of a severe economic downturn, when millions of children are having their dreams denied or deferred these words seem to run hollow. What do we gain by inspiring wonder in a new generation if they are unable to pursue that wonder through a quality education or if they are too hungry to aspire to anything more than wondering where their next meal will come form or when their Mommy or Daddy will get a job or they will have a permanent place to live. How do we tell them that as a country we believe that finding microbes on a distant planet is more important than helping them to succeed right here on planet Earth?

When we cannot even provide the basic needs for millions of American citizens, and unemployment is approaching record levels, we must make crucial decisions about how our federal tax revenues are spent. Do we focus our attention on improving life here on earth, or do we look out beyond the stars and focus on the possibility of ancient life existing on a distant planet?

The Shocking, Graphic Data That Shows Exactly What Motivates the Occupy Movement

2011-10-24T03:49:00.000-07:00

By Les Leopold, AlterNet
Posted on October 23, 2011, Printed on October 24, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/152811/the_shocking%2C_graphic_data_that_shows_exactly_what_motivates_the_occupy_movement

What are the Occupy Wall Street protesters angry about? The same things we’re all angry about. The only difference is the protestors turned their anger into public action. Occupy Wall Street lit the embers and the sparks are flying. Whether it turns into a genuine populist prairie fire depends on all of us.

Now is not the time for wonky policy solutions, as the media meatheads are calling for. Rather, it’s time to air our grievances as loudly as possible, which is precisely what Wall Street and its minions fear the most. Here’s a brief list of why we should be angry and the charts to back it up.

1. The American Dream is imploding...

The productivity/wage chart says it all. From 1947 until the mid-1970s real wages and productivity (economic output per worker hour) danced together. Both climbed year after year as did our real standard of living. If you’re old enough, you will remember seeing your parents doing just a bit better each year, year after year. Then, our nation embarked on a grand economic experiment. Taxes were cut especially on the super-rich. Finance was deregulated and unions were crushed. Lo and behold, the two lines broke apart. Productivity continued to climb, but wages stalled and declined. So where did all that productivity money go? To the rich and to the super-rich, especially to those in finance.

2. Our wealth is gushing to the top 1 percent...

Actually the top tenth of one percent. Because of financial deregulation and tax cuts for the rich, the income gap is soaring. Here’s one of my favorite indicators that we compiled for The Looting of America. In 1970 the top 100 CEOs earned $45 for every $1 earned by the average worker. By 2006, the ratio climbed to an obscene 1,723 to one. (Not a misprint!)

3. Family income is declining while the top earners flourish...

As women entered the workforce, family income made up for some of the wage stagnation. But now even family incomes are in trouble. Meanwhile, the incomes of the richest families continue to rise.

4. The super-rich are paying lower and lower tax rates...

To add financial insult to injury, the richest of the rich pay less and less each year as a percentage of their monstrous incomes. The top 400 taxpayers during the 1950s faced a 90 percent federal tax rate. By 1995 their effective tax rate – what they really paid after all deductions as a percent of all their income – fell to 30 percent. Now it’s barely 16 percent.

5. Too much money in the hands of the few combined with financial deregulation crashed our economy...

When the rich become astronomically rich, they gamble with their excess money. And when Wall Street is deregulated, it creates financial casinos for the wealthy. When those casinos inevitably crash, we pay to cover the losses. The 2008 financial crash caused eight million American workers to lose their jobs in a matter of mont

hs due to no fault of their own. The last time we had so much money in the hands of so few was 1929!

6. We’re turning into a billionaire bailout society...

We bailed out the big Wall Street banks and protected the billionaires from ruin. Now we are being asked to make good on the debts they caused, while the super-rich get even richer, some making more than $2 million an HOUR! It would take over 47 years for the average family to make as much as the top 10 hedge fund managers make in one hour.

7. The super-rich still control politics...

Both political parties are occupied by Wall Street. For nearly an entire generation they have competed with each other to gain campaign contributions in exchange for tax breaks and regulatory loopholes for the richest of the rich. Today’s so-called financial reforms are porous, while the money continues to flow to both parties.

8. Unemployment is a catastrophe...

The reckless gambling on Wall Street tore a hole in the economy sending millions to the unemployment lines. Wall Street caused the enormous spike in unemployment and no one else – not the government, not home buyers, not China.

9. Our prospects for the future are growing dim...

It’s bad enough that unemployment is sky-high. But it’s even worse when you can’t find a job for months, even years. Right now the number of unemployed for 26 weeks or more is at record levels. Many of the long-term unemployed will never work again.

10. The big banks are getting even bigger...

Too big to fail is alive and well. Our nation’s biggest banks are growing larger and larger with no end in sight. Despite what politicians say, the taxpayer will bail out the big banks again. And the big banks know it.
Stand up and be counted!
Americans are a patient people. Mass movements do not form very often. Most of us hoped that after the crash, the big banks would be broken up, the casinos would be shut down and the gamblers would be punished. At the very least, we expected that the elite financiers would pay for the damage they created – the jobs destroyed, the neighborhoods wrecked, the services cut. It didn’t happen. Finally something clicked. A small number of kids stood up and got noticed. And now it’s growing. We see an outlet for our frustration, our justifiable anger, our disappointment in leaders who sold out.
We don’t know where it’s all going. But this is the time to stand up and be counted – literally. The currency of a populist revolt is numbers in the street. Let’s show our anger where it will be seen. And let us take heart from the words of Franklin Roosevelt who during his first inaugural address in 1933, led the first occupation of Wall Street:
Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.
True, they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit, they have proposed only the lending of more money.
Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored conditions. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers.
They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.
The money changers have fled their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths.
The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.
Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money, it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.
The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow-men.
Recognition of the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the false belief that public office and high political position are to be values only by the standards of pride of place and personal profit, and there must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing.

Les Leopold is the executive director of the Labor Institute and Public Health Institute in New York, and author of The Looting of America: How Wall Street's Game of Fantasy Finance Destroyed Our Jobs, Pensions, and Prosperity—and What We Can Do About It (Chelsea Green, 2009).
© 2011 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/152811/

Elizabeth Warren - Massachusetts Senate Candidate - On Class Warfare

2011-09-21T14:56:00.000-07:00

Courtesy of Rumproast.com

I hear all this, you know, “Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever.”—No!

There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody.

You built a factory out there—good for you! But I want to be clear.

You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for.

You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate.

You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for.

You didn’t have to worry that maurauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did.

Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea—God bless. Keep a big hunk of it.

But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.

Class Warfare Index

2011-09-20T20:25:00.000-07:00

46.2 million Numberof people living in poverty in the United States

15.1 Percent of Americans living in poverty

6.7 Percent of Americans living in “deep poverty” less than 50% of the poverty level

0 Numberof times poverty was mentioned by either candidate in the 2008 PresidentialDebates.

24 Percent of total US wealth held by top 1%

$46,495 MedianUS income in 2009

7.1% Declinein median US income since 1999

9.9 Percent of Caucasian Americans living in poverty

25 Percent of African Americans living in poverty

50 milion Number of people in US without health insurance

33 Percent of Hispanic Americans without health insurance

11.1 Percent of Americans living in poverty in 1973, after the “War on Poverty”

15.2 Percent of Americans living in poverty, in 1983, three years into Reaganomics

$22,050 Federalpoverty level for a family of four

$44,100 Incomeneeded to provide basic needs for a family of four

15 million Numberof US children living in poverty

21 Percent of children living in US in poverty

36 Percent of all people living in poverty who are children

64 Percent of total national wealth controlled by top 5%

87 Percent of national wealth controlled by top 20%

13 Percent of national wealth controlled by bottom 80% of population

38 Percent of Bush tax cuts that went to top 1%

1 Percentof Bush tax cuts received by bottom 20% of population

$520,000 AverageBush-era tax cut for top .01% of households

$2.6 trillion Totalincrease in federal deficit attributed to first ten years of Bush tax cuts

$5 trillion Costof extending Bush tax cuts for next decade

$400 Billion Totalamount spent on interest to finance first ten years of Bush tax cuts

-7.4% Decreasein real family income for bottom 20% of families between 1979 and 2009

+72.2% Increasein real family income enjoyed by the top 5% of families between 1979 and 2009

+116% Increasein real family income enjoyed by bottom 20% of families between 1947 and1979

+86% Increasein real family income enjoyed by top 5% of families between 1947-1979

1980 YearReaganomics and trickle down economics began impacting federal tax codes

236 Numberof Congressional Republicans branding Obama’s efforts to fairly tax the wealthiestAmericans as “class warfare”

2011-09-14T04:23:00.000-07:00

The No (or not so many) Jobs Jobs Bill

In his speech to the joint session of Congress on September8, President Obama proposed the American Jobs Act, designed to be his answer to the stalled economy and highunemployment. The $447 billionbill relies heavily on tax cuts as a way of stimulating the economy by puttingmore money in the hands of consumers and encouraging employers to createjobs. This, in spite of the factthat there is no empirical, historical evidence that tax cuts create jobs. In reality if you follow the arc of taxcuts starting with Reaganomics and the small government fervor of the 1980’s,through the Bush-error tax cuts, in reality it would appear that tax cuts havea negative impact on the economy.

The costliest cut proposed is a fifty per cent reduction inthe payroll tax. By calling this apayroll tax cut, the President isobfuscating the fact that in realty it is a Social Security payroll taxcut. The President is proposingthat the 6.2% Social Security payroll tax paid by employers and employees behalved to 3.1% costing an estimated $240 billion. The idea behind this cut is to put more money into theeconomy so that small businesses can hire new workers and current workers willhave more cash to spend, thereby stimulating the economy. The average worker will realize apayroll tax reduction of approximately $1,500. While this is not an insignificant amount to put intosomeone’s pocket, it will do little to change an individual’s economiccircumstances. First, $1,500translates to less than $30 per week or $120 per month. Most people with an extra $120 permonth will use it towards offsetting the high gasoline costs, paying down theircredit card bills or helping to pay their mortgage or rent. Not one of these options contributes tocreating one single new job. Instead it will increase the demand for gasoline thereby helping tomaintain high gas prices or go directly to the banks and help fund even largerbonuses for executives.

The bigger issue that the President does not address, andwhich has been entirely ignored by the media, is that this $240 billion cutwill further strangle the Social Security trust fund. This is a Democratic president hammering another nail intothe coffin of Social Security. Eventhe Republicans have criticized their leading presidential contender forsuggesting that Social Security would need to be done away with. How can the President justify reducingthe income of Social Security by $240 billion while it is agreed by allanalysts that the trust fund needs to be shored up to provide for the long-termviability of the program and ensuring benefits for today’s workers? The system requires additional inputsof cash, not less. In 1955 therewere 8.6 workers paying into the system for each retiree receiving benefits,while in 2010 there were less than three. As the baby boom generation marches toward retirement, this ratio willcontinue to decrease. Additionally,as older workers are laid off and are unable to find new jobs, they will filefor Social Security earlier creating more of a drain on the system.

According to the President’s proposal a quarter of atrillion dollars will be taken from the system at a time when we should belooking at ways to increase the money going into the Social security trustfund, not reducing it. While thiscut will have little or no impact on job creation, it will move the crisis ofSocial Security up a number of years resulting in cuts to benefits and raisingthe retirement age. While thePresident seeks to solve one crisis, he is exacerbating another.

The president has also proposed tax credits to companiesthat hire certain unemployed individuals. Companies hiring a person who has been unemployed for six months or morecan qualify for a $4,000 tax credit and companies hiring an unemployedveteran can qualify for a $9,600tax credit. Just like tax cuts,tax credits do not create jobs. All these credits will do is determine who gets hired when a job is available. The tax credits will flow to companiesthat would be offering jobs anyway. These will not necessarily be new jobs. In order for a company to create a job, there needs to bework . If the economy remainsstagnant, and consumer demand remains low, then regardless of tax credits, newjobs will not be created. So thesetax credits will not result in any net increase in employment. And the President does not address whathappens to those jobs once the tax credit expires. Is he just creating a vicious cycle of short-termemployment?

By referring to his American Jobs Act as a bi-partisan billthat includes both Republican and Democratic initiatives, the president hasproposed a bill designed to win Republican support through its heavy relianceon tax cuts. These tax cuts makeup approximately 59% of the cost of the bill, with only 41% targetinggovernment spending that will actually impact unemployment. There is a simple fact of life,government spending on big projects, such as those proposed only modestly inthis bill – modernizing up to 35,000 schools and infrastructure investments –and not tax cuts put people back to work. Employed people spend money and pay taxes, and that is what impacts arecession. The only institutionlarge enough and broad enough to help the country spend its way out of this economicslump is the United States Government.

It does not take Nostradamus to predict the outcome of thislegislative process. TheRepublican controlled House will support portions of the bill, those that focuson tax cuts, while defeating the spending portions of the bill including savingthe jobs of teachers, cops and firefighters, extending unemployment andproviding low cost mortgage refinancing. Furthermore, the Republicans in the House will defeat any attempt by thePresident to offset the cost of this bill through closing tax loopholes for bigbusiness and raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans. Once again the Republicans will showthat they are the shills of the truly wealthy and of corporate America, andonce again the Democrats will show that they have no backbone as a party. The goal of the Republicans is to stopthe President from a second term in office, and nothing guarantees that more thana sagging economy.

Don’t Tax Me But Give Me My Government Services

2011-09-01T09:47:00.000-07:00

It seems as though everybody resents paying taxes but yet we all still want the government to provide services when we need or want them. Without taxes our roads would be impassable, bridges would be unsafe, emergency services would be almost nonexistent, there would be no public education, police or fire. In short, we would be living in Somalia, a country without a functioning government. While the United States continues its slide downhill toward a third world economy, the only institution large enough to prevent that from happening is the government. That is before the vast majority of Republicans in the House and Senate signed a no new tax pledge, binding them to oppose any and all efforts to increase the marginal income tax rate for individuals and business; and TWO, oppose any net reduction or elimination of deductions and credits, unless matched dollar for dollar by further reducing tax rates.

The author of this pledge is Grover Norquist, the head of Americans for Tax Reform. While tax reform itself is not a bad thing, that is not what Grover Norquist or this pledge is about. In his own words, Norquist has very clearly laid out his agenda when he stated: My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub. It is not about tax fairness or even about tax reform, but it is about reducing government and returning to a strict unregulated, untaxed free market economy that will leave millions of Americans behind.

Republicans make a show of shrinking government, while decrying big government, but have no qualms about funneling its largesse to the wealthiest among us with lavish tax cuts. In fact, those that rail the loudest against big government and taxes are the greatest beneficiaries. One example is in the imbalance of federal taxes paid by the citizens of the states. Currently thirty states are represented by Republican governors. Twenty-two of these receive more in federal tax expenditures than they pay in. On the contrary only nine states represented by a Democratic governor receive more than they pay in federal taxes.

One of those states living off the fat of the federal government is Virginia, currently represented in Congress by Eric Cantor, the majority leader of the House. Not only is Cong. Cantor a signer of the no tax pledge but he has taken the anti-tax mania to newer and more absurd heights. In the wake of Hurricane Irene, Cantor has called for all new spending in federal disaster assistance to be offset by cuts elsewhere in the federal budget. This at the same time that FEMA is being starved by budget cuts forcing it to reduce assistance to tornado ravaged parts of Missouri, in order to provide disaster assistance to areas ravaged by Irene. (it is worth noting here that Missouri is represented by a Democratic Governor)

Back in Virginia however, Mr. Cantor and the entire Virginia Congressional delegation has signed a letter asking for federal emergency assistance. So Mr. Cantor, like so many of his Republican colleagues has no trouble trying to have it both ways. Fight new taxes, force cutbacks in services that he does not believe in, while enjoying a greater return on federal taxes paid by his state; and, at the same time requesting additional federal funds in the form of disaster relief. It seems that Cong. Cantor’s plan is to force shrinkage of the federal government in all states but his own. But he is not the only one, in addition to Virginia, Republican governors in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Georgia are also seeking federal disaster assistance. Two of these states, Pennsylvania and Georgia, are on the list of states receiving more in federal funds than they pay. If these Republicans were true to their so-called ideals then they should use the excess funds that they receive from the federal government to pay for their disaster relief.

Eric Cantor Wants 'Matching Spending Cuts' on Hurricane Irene Victim Assistance Funds

However, if you are going to be hypocritical, then why not go all out and do it Texas size. Rick Perry, Governor of Texas and leading Republican presidential candidate, said this about taxes in an interview with James Robinson for Life TV: I think we are going through these difficult economic times for a purpose, to bring us back to the biblical principals of you know, you don’t spend all the money. You work hard for those six years and you put up that seventh year in the warehouse to take you through the hard times and not spending all of our money. Not asking Pharoah to give everything to everybody and to take care of folks because at the end of the day it’s slavery and we become slaves to government. Watch it here.

Perhaps Mr. Perry believes it is only appropriate for others to go back to those “biblical principles” but not for him. In his advocating for the federal government to provide federal disaster aid to his state to cope with the forest fires he stated: I think we have had 9,000 separate fires in the state of Texas. The federal government has only helped us with twenty-five of then, that’s inappropriate.

It would seem that what is really inappropriate here is that Governor Perry does not follow his own biblical interpretations. If Mr. Perry had saved in the seventh year to take his state through the hard times, as he preaches, then there would be no need to request federal disaster aid. It would appear that following his preaching on the bible and government is his way of telling others how to live. Another take on “do as I say, but not as I do.”

While I’m talking about Rick Perry and biblical interpretations I just can’t sign off without mentioning Michele Bachman and her evangelical preaching’s. Instead of seeing the recent natural disasters as one result of global climate change, Ms Bachman sees it as a message from above not to take better care of Mother Earth but as an economic message to the people of the United States when she says I don’t know how much God has to do get the attention of the politicians. We’ve had an earthquake, we’ve had a hurricane. He said “Are you listening to me here?” Curiously, she left out the runaway forest fires and the drought in Texas. It seems that God only gives messages when he disagrees with Democratic politicians.

From The Mouth of a Billionaire

2011-08-15T13:14:00.000-07:00

I'm not one that you would usually find quoting Warren Buffet, but after reading his opinion piece in the August 15th edition of the New York Times, I find that anyone with his wealth and influence, that makes sense in these senseless times, deserves quoting. So for the benefit of readers who do not read or get the New York times I am quoting his piece in its entirety, it is definitely worth the time to read. Of course it is not perfect, he advocates for continuing the so-called "payroll tax cut," when in reality it is a reduction in the Social Security tax. Continuing this will only drive the nail further into the coffin of Social Security as it only serves to starve it of much needed revenues. This "payroll tax" cut was proposed by President Obama as a way of throwing a bone to the middle class while he caved in on tax cuts to the rich. But the naked truth is, tax cuts do not help in a recession they never have. Just look at the Bush error tax cuts that preceded the current recession.

In addition, Mr Buffet ignores other contributors to the current financial crisis, much as all the Republican presidential candidates do. In the rush to blame the current administration for the crisis, those high-minded Republicans on the campaign trail forget about George Bush's two unfunded wars and his unfunded Medicare prescription program. These two, along with his tax cuts for the rich, formed a perfect economic storm that has brought the country to the brink of default.

But with that in mind, Buffet's op-ed piece is a good read, one that our politicians should take note of and act upon if they are sincere about solving the nation's financial crisis.

Stop Coddling the Super-Rich

By WARREN E. BUFFETT

Omaha

OUR leaders have asked for “shared sacrifice.” But when they did the asking, they spared me. I checked with my mega-rich friends to learn what pain they were expecting. They, too, were left untouched.

While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks. Some of us are investment managers who earn billions from our daily labors but are allowed to classify our income as “carried interest,” thereby getting a bargain 15 percent tax rate. Others own stock index futures for 10 minutes and have 60 percent of their gain taxed at 15 percent, as if they’d been long-term investors.

These and other blessings are showered upon us by legislators in Washington who feel compelled to protect us, much as if we were spotted owls or some other endangered species. It’s nice to have friends in high places.

Last year my federal tax bill — the income tax I paid, as well as payroll taxes paid by me and on my behalf — was $6,938,744. That sounds like a lot of money. But what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income — and that’s actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office. Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent.

If you make money with money, as some of my super-rich friends do, your percentage may be a bit lower than mine. But if you earn money from a job, your percentage will surely exceed mine — most likely by a lot.

To understand why, you need to examine the sources of government revenue. Last year about 80 percent of these revenues came from personal income taxes and payroll taxes. The mega-rich pay income taxes at a rate of 15 percent on most of their earnings but pay practically nothing in payroll taxes. It’s a different story for the middle class: typically, they fall into the 15 percent and 25 percent income tax brackets, and then are hit with heavy payroll taxes to boot.

Back in the 1980s and 1990s, tax rates for the rich were far higher, and my percentage rate was in the middle of the pack. According to a theory I sometimes hear, I should have thrown a fit and refused to invest because of the elevated tax rates on capital gains and dividends.

I didn’t refuse, nor did others. I have worked with investors for 60 years and I have yet to see anyone — not even when capital gains rates were 39.9 percent in 1976-77 — shy away from a sensible investment because of the tax rate on the potential gain. People invest to make money, and potential taxes have never scared them off. And to those who argue that higher rates hurt job creation, I would note that a net of nearly 40 million jobs were added between 1980 and 2000. You know what’s happened since then: lower tax rates and far lower job creation.

Since 1992, the I.R.S. has compiled data from the returns of the 400 Americans reporting the largest income. In 1992, the top 400 had aggregate taxable income of $16.9 billion and paid federal taxes of 29.2 percent on that sum. In 2008, the aggregate income of the highest 400 had soared to $90.9 billion — a staggering $227.4 million on average — but the rate paid had fallen to 21.5 percent.

The taxes I refer to here include only federal income tax, but you can be sure that any payroll tax for the 400 was inconsequential compared to income. In fact, 88 of the 400 in 2008 reported no wages at all, though every one of them reported capital gains. Some of my brethren may shun work but they all like to invest. (I can relate to that.)

I know well many of the mega-rich and, by and large, they are very decent people. They love America and appreciate the opportunity this country has given them. Many have joined the Giving Pledge, promising to give most of their wealth to philanthropy. Most wouldn’t mind being told to pay more in taxes as well, particularly when so many of their fellow citizens are truly suffering.

Twelve members of Congress will soon take on the crucial job of rearranging our country’s finances. They’ve been instructed to devise a plan that reduces the 10-year deficit by at least $1.5 trillion. It’s vital, however, that they achieve far more than that. Americans are rapidly losing faith in the ability of Congress to deal with our country’s fiscal problems. Only action that is immediate, real and very substantial will prevent that doubt from morphing into hopelessness. That feeling can create its own reality.

Job one for the 12 is to pare down some future promises that even a rich America can’t fulfill. Big money must be saved here. The 12 should then turn to the issue of revenues. I would leave rates for 99.7 percent of taxpayers unchanged and continue the current 2-percentage-point reduction in the employee contribution to the payroll tax. This cut helps the poor and the middle class, who need every break they can get.

But for those making more than $1 million — there were 236,883 such households in 2009 — I would raise rates immediately on taxable income in excess of $1 million, including, of course, dividends and capital gains. And for those who make $10 million or more — there were 8,274 in 2009 — I would suggest an additional increase in rate.

My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress. It’s time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice.

excerpted from the New York Times, August 15, 2011

Warren E. Buffett is the chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway

The New Two Party Political System

2011-08-03T04:58:00.000-07:00

The United States, unlike parliamentary democracies, has primarily been a two-party political system, the Republicans and Democrats. In post-industrial America the ideological leanings of these two parties have been quite different. The Republican Party has been the champion of free market capitalism with minimal government intervention in the economy. In the post-Reagan years it has stood for lower taxes and leaner government, even while Republican administrations were racking up record budget deficits.

The Democrats’ core belief, on the other hand, was that there are problems and issues that only government is large enough to tackle and that it is the role of government to regulate the economy so corporations do not do irreparable harm in pursuit of profits. While the Republicans were the party of Ronald Reagan’s philosophy of small government with minimal regulations on corporations and the “trickle down” theory of economics, the Democrats were the party of FDR’s New Deal and Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty. The core value of the Democratic Party was the belief in the legitimate role of government to provide for the welfare of its citizens, and that government intervention is needed to regulate the economic vagaries that have negative impact on the country and its citizens.

However, as a result of the recent debate and vote on extending the debt ceiling we have a new two-party configuration – the Republican Party and the Tea Part – with the moribund Democrats as an inconsequential third party. With only 60 members out of 435 members of the House of Representatives, the Tea Party Caucus, representing only 13.7% of the House, was able to hold the debt ceiling hostage to their demands. President Obama conceded to the demands of this small minority party, whose Congressional members represent only 38.8 million people in their congressional districts, or a mere 8% of the US population. His capitulation in this debate signaled the end of the Democratic Party as an entity with any real influence.

In every encounter with the Tea Party and their Republican counterparts, since the 2010 mid-term election, the President has abandoned the core values of the Democratic Party, rendering it to footnote status. In December the President agreed to an extension of the Bush error tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, adding $32 billion to the deficit annually. He did this without winning any concessions, while backtracking on a campaign promise to end these destructive tax breaks for the wealthy that needlessly add to the debt without creating significant economic activity.

Now, in his most recent capitulation to this minority party, Obama has agreed to spending cuts without revenue generation. This Democratic President, has come down squarely on the side of those most privileged among us. To pay for his extension of tax cuts for the wealthy and his inability to close tax loopholes, providing $100 billion annually in tax subsidies to profitable corporations, President Obama has agreed to an immediate $1.4 trillion in cuts, bringing federal spending to its lowest since the Dwight Eisenhower administration. Only under a Democratic President could we bring the country back to the same spending level that existed before the civil rights movement and before the War on Poverty.

Without core values that set it apart form its rivals, a political party ceases to exist. This President has abandoned the core values of the Democratic Party ceding power to the Republicans and the small but now emboldened Tea Party Caucus. While referring to the debt ceiling deal as a compromise, it is evident that the President does not understand the meaning of compromise. For an agreement to be a compromise, both sides must give and get something. However, in this so-called compromise, the Tea Party and their Republican counterparts gave nothing and got everything, while the Democrats gave everything and got nothing. Hardly a compromise.

While we continue to shower the wealthiest among us with tax breaks and subsidies and impose cuts on the most vulnerable among us to pay for this largesse heaped on the wealthy, we also mourn the loss of the party of FDR, JFK ad LBJ. Seventy years of social welfare programming, that has lifted millions out of poverty and extended a lifeline to others is now on the chopping block. With President Obama leading the retreat, the Democrats have not only turned their backs on their core constituency, but have blocked the hopes and dreams of millions of low income and working Americans for a better life. The failure of the Democrats and this President to stand up for the American people can only signal the Party's death knell. President Obama has committed the most egregious political sin, raising the hopes of millions of people and then doing little to help realize those hopes.

How many of the millions of previously disenfranchised young people and people of color who registered and voted for the first time, just to cast a vote for Mr. Obama, will stay home disillusioned in 2012? It is too late to win them back, the damage has been done.

Tax-Exempt For-Profits Avoid Paying their Share

2011-08-01T07:33:00.000-07:00

Excerpted from the Nonprofit Quarterly

JUNE 29, 2011 RICK COHEN

Let’s see if we get this right. Nonprofits are leeches on society, they don’t pay taxes, they take our money (your money) and fail to pay their own way, they pay their executives exorbitantly, they spend too much on administrative costs, and, oh yes . . . they don’t pay taxes. This is worth saying twice, since taxes have become the prime mover of politics in recent years.

The argument is so tiresome, so monotonous, and so ill founded. It’s time to correct the record, not in tabulating how much taxes nonprofits actually pay (and they do: as employers paying matching employees’ FICA, as service providers frequently paying registration and licensing fees, as property owners paying user fees for water and sewerage, etc.), but in terms of how many tax-paying entities don’t pay the taxes they are supposed to pay or receive tax rebates.

Nonprofits are hardly the only tax-exempt nongovernmental entities in the U.S. By happenstance, hook, and crook, for-profit corporations frequently don’t pay taxes, get legislative bodies to exempt them from taxes, and they often pay their executives at levels that leave entire nonprofit budgets in the dust.

Compared to the relatively small number of nonprofits with revenues and real estate, the for-profit sector’s multiple navigation strategies to avoid federal, state, and local taxes leads to a basic question – which sector is the real tax-exempt sector?

If you know the way, you don’t have to pay—at the federal level

The crushing burden of federal taxes seems to leave many corporations much less crushed than nonprofits being hit with Unrelated Business Income Taxes (UBITs):

. This past March, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) provided a list of corporate tax evaders, several of which are among the nonprofit sector’s most trustworthy corporate philanthropic benefactors:

1) Exxon Mobil made $19 billion in profits in 2009. Exxon not only paid no federal income taxes, it actually received a $156 million rebate from the IRS, according to its SEC filings.

2) Bank of America received a $1.9 billion tax refund from the IRS last year, although it made $4.4 billion in profits and received a bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department of nearly $1 trillion.

3) Over the past five years, while General Electric made $26 billion in profits in the United States, it received a $4.1 billion refund from the IRS.

4) Chevron received a $19 million refund from the IRS last year after it made $10 billion in profits in 2009.

5) Boeing, which received a $30 billion contract from the Pentagon to build 179 airborne tankers, got a $124 million refund from the IRS last year.

6) Valero Energy, the 25th largest company in America with $68 billion in sales last year received a $157 million tax refund check from the IRS and, over the past three years, it received a $134 million tax break from the oil and gas manufacturing tax deduction.

7) Goldman Sachs in 2008 only paid 1.1 percent of its income in taxes even though it earned a profit of $2.3 billion and received an almost $800 billion from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury Department.

8) Citigroup last year made more than $4 billion in profits but paid no federal income taxes. It received a $2.5 trillion bailout from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury.

9) ConocoPhillips, the fifth largest oil company in the United States, made $16 billion in profits from 2007 through 2009, but received $451 million in tax breaks through the oil and gas manufacturing deduction.

10) Over the past five years, Carnival Cruise Lines made more than $11 billion in profits, but its federal income tax rate during those years was just 1.1 percent.

Business Insidermagazine added additional big corporations, not necessarily those with the name recognition of those on the Sanders list, that are paying next to no federal taxes:

· NextEra Energy: Pretax profits of $8.572 billion, effective tax rate of 1.74 percent

· Xcel Energy: Pretax profits of $4.334 billion, tax rate of 1.78 percent

· Amazon: Pretax profits of $3.512 billion, tax rate of 4.33 percent

· Host Hotels and Resorts: Profits of $1.116 billion, tax rate 3.05 percent

· TECO Energy: Profits of $1.62 billion, tax rate of 2.31 percent

Note that several of these corporations actually received tax rebates, putting their effective tax rates into the realm of negative percentages. In several cases, such as Exxon Mobil and Bank of America, their zero tax rates in 2009 were simply an extension of the lack of taxes they paid the previous year. In fact, many corporations over the years have managed to make their profits immune to taxation. A 2008 Government Accountability Office study found that more than half of U.S. companies doing business in the U.S. had paid no income taxes for at least one year between 1998 and 2005 and 42 percent had not paid taxes for at least two years.

If you don’t want to pay, ask permission not to play—corporations working the states

The appearance of Amazon on the list of mega-corporations that pay little or nothing is worth noting. Remember that many of these corporations that pay next to nothing to the federal government sometimes find themselves paying taxes to state governments – and they often don’t like it.

Some time ago, Amazon got huffy with the state of Texas – where corporations pay almost nothing even when they’re paying full taxes – because the state tried to hit Amazon with a sales tax bill. Amazon’s position was that the state had no right to tax e-commerce. Texas argued that Amazon’s big distribution center in Irving gave Amazon a physical presence in the state and thus triggered its eligibility to pay the sales tax. (Note that putative presidential candidate Rick Perry seemed to side with Amazon against the state comptroller, Susan Combs.) The law is clear: Retailers with a brick-and-mortar physical presence in the state have to collect sales taxes on sales to customers there, but no physical presence, no sales tax.

After initially threatening to shut down its Irving plant, Amazon cooked up a deal for the state. It would make a capital investment of $300 million in “five or six warehouse and distribution centers” in Texas in return for not having to charge customers sales tax for the following four-and-a-half years. The plan would generate 5,000 or 6,000 jobs. The numbers reported suggest that Amazon will save more in sales tax payments than it will invest in the facilities – and the centers are of course to be owned by Amazon, they aren’t gifts to the state.

This deal wasn’t just cooked up by Governor Perry and the Texas legislature. Amazon has negotiated these sales tax exemptions with other states as well. In South Carolina, Amazon has pledged to invest $125 million and create 2,000 jobs by 2013 in return for being exempted from collecting and paying sales taxes from customers. Amazon has a similar deal with Tennessee. It isn’t like Amazon is trying to balance off the sales tax against the high corporate tax rate in Texas. Texas doesn’t have a corporate tax at all.

In revenue-starved Michigan, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two of the nation’s most profitable companies – until they led the Wall Street decline into recession – have never had to pay real estate transfer taxes on properties they have sold in the state. Though governmentally supported, the two mortgage behemoths are private for-profit corporations, though they invoke an ersatz nonprofit status on occasion as in Michigan. The treasurer of Oakland County, Mich., has hit the two GSEs with a bill for $12 million in real estate transfer fees, explaining, “Fannie and Freddie you quack like a duck (or a private corporate entity), so you better pay up.”

It is no surprise to most readers that states frequently offer corporations tax bargains or no tax bills at all if they will relocate their facilities. For example, just this month, Florida Governor Rick Scott wrote a letter to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange offering a neat tax package if the Exchange would move to the Sunshine State. Scott made the pitch after reading in the Wall Street Journalabout the Exchange’s frustration with the 8.9 percent rate in Illinois. Scott isn’t necessarily being partial to the Mercantile Exchange. He actually has proposed the elimination of all state corporate taxes, though the Florida legislature has yet to agree with the notion.

It would be hard to imagine that Fannie and Freddie needed a free pass from Michigan for their real estate transfers, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange a cut rate bargain on corporate taxes in Illinois, or Amazon a sales tax collection break in Texas. But that’s the way the game is played. If a corporation can find a loophole for sidestepping a potential tax bill, they’ll jump at the chance.

If you don’t pay property taxes, you might be a for-profit corporation—abatements for businesses and developers

This isn’t new stuff, to be sure. For what seems like eons, states and localities have been giving away the store to big corporations that have somewhat more robust tax-paying power than nonprofits. In most cases, governments prefer giving corporations tax subsidies as opposed to direct subsidies, because in the arcana of state and local budgets, property tax abatements and exemptions don’t show up as a negative.

The diminutive payments corporations make pursuant to abatements show up as net positives – money accreting to tax coffers that in theory wouldn’t have otherwise been show up as a positive, even though they are less than what the corporations would have paid had they paid normal property taxes – like your and I do.

Ostensibly the quid pro quo, like Amazon’s offer to Texas and South Carolina, is job creation, but the abatements rarely achieve the results. The truly famous example is Pennsylvania’s offer of $70 million in subsidies to a European auto manufacturer to create a manufacturing plant in the southwestern part of the state to create 10,000 jobs; its highest employment ever was 6,000 and the plant closed within a decade. A couple of decades later, Alabama gave another European auto manufacturer $253 million in subsidies to create 1,500 jobs, a cost per job of roughly $169,000 (PDF).

There are often multiple kinds of tax abatements offered to business – straight tax abatement deals, abatements tied to enterprise zones, redevelopment project incentives, etc. Few states even know the cumulative value of what they offer or what they’ve given away.

· A report on tax abatements awarded by governments in Tennessee confessed that it couldn’t even identify all of the entities pitching abatements, but based on admittedly incomplete data, it concluded that governments had given away $105.2 million in 2001 and $104.3 million in 2002 in tax abatements to private entities leasing public property for commercial purposes (PDF). No cost-benefit analysis was available to determine what was achieved through these economic development agreements, much less whether the cost was worth the benefit. A 2010 study by the New Jersey State Comptroller on tax abatements there didn’t even bother to attempt a calculation of the total property tax giveaway to entities that were supposed to be paying property taxes (PDF).

· Do you think Goldman Sachs is going to pack up and leave the New York metropolitan area? New York and New Jersey must believe it and have offered the immensely profitable firm lots of abatements for its office towers in Manhattan and Jersey City. New York City gave Goldman $200 million in tax breaks for is 43-floor office tower in Lower Manhattan and then somehow tossed the firm another $140 million in property tax breaks. Across the Hudson River, Goldman built a 42-story complex with the incentive of $160 million in tax incentives and has negotiated new abatements for a second yet-to-be-built office building. Is Goldman hard up for cash? Not with profits per employee of $1.4 million in 2009, twice the 2008 level, not with net earnings (profit) of $8.35 billion for calendar year 2010 (PDF), a little down from 2009’s $13.39 billion.

· A 2004 study by Good Jobs First examined the public subsidies (not just tax abatements, but also free or significantly discounted land, corporate tax credits, and more) supporting 84 of 91 Wal-Mart centers and stores, with an estimated governmental giveaway to the retail behemoth of $624 million (PDF).

· Boeing has been a mainstay of Seattle’s corporate landscape forever, but in 2001, the corporation announced it was moving its corporate headquarters out of Seattle and induced a property tax cutting competition among Chicago, Denver, and Dallas/Fort Worth. The local and state government generosity was noteworthy, with Chicago’s package offering the most to the company, a package of $56 million in subsidies for only 500 jobs. That shook up Seattle officials, so that when Boeing announced its plans to find a new location for manufacturing its 7E7 “Dreamliner” passenger jet, the state put together a $3.2 billion/20 year subsidy package, basically freeing Boeing of most local taxes.

· A 2009 study by the state of Nevada yielded some information on the sales and use tax exemptions granted the Nevada Commission on Economic Development (almost doubling from $18.9 million in fiscal year 2007 to $34.8 million in fiscal year 2008 – for 22 businesses (PDF)).

The reality about corporate tax breaks at the state and local level is troubling from a public policy perspective:

· State governments and localities don’t even know how much they’re giving away. There is no accounting available to even the officials who are supposed to monitor what they’re giving corporations.

· The abatements and exemptions offered to corporations are by choice, not by law. Legislatures and city councils are choosing to give specific corporations specific tax breaks.

· The purported quid pro quos offered by businesses for their abatements are hard if not in most cases impossible to enforce, clawback provisions or otherwise.

· For many corporations, the expectation of abatements is automatic. It isn’t that they will bolt from Manhattan to Omaha if they don’t get abatements. Both local governments and corporations know this, but the abatements are almost automatic anyhow.

· Businesses actually employ consultants—lobbyists—who are sometimes paid a percentage of the tax savings. Securing tax abatements for businesses is now an industry.

· Local government officials who know that the corporations can well afford to pay their tax bills are whipsawed between demanding corporations on one side and skittish legislatures on the other. For many officials, it isn’t a matter of agreeing to or rejecting an abatement application, but trying to negotiate the best possible payment from the corporation possible.

· Corporations sometimes come back for additional, layered abatements, even when projects fail, so that the projected subsidy cost of a project at the front end is hardly the true total subsidy cost at project completion.

It is difficult to imagine that the public, no matter what taxpayers think of what nonprofits do or do not pay as property taxes (in the form of payments in lieu of taxes or user fees), thinks that museums, hospitals, universities, and other nonprofit facilities are positive contributions to their communities. In contrast, read the conclusion of a 2007 report on corporate tax credits and tax abatements in Connecticut:

“We were unable to determine the aggregate jobs associated with firms that claimed tax credits and/or abatements during the study period…DECD’s analysis concludes that several Connecticut tax credit, property tax abatement and exemption programs have negative or very limited positive impacts. Other programs have had little or no participation. (PDF)”

A critical report (PDF) on Jersey City’s tax abatements for developers and corporations concluded that “all that glitters is not gold.” The glitter is in the coffers of the corporations that are raking in tax abatements and other incentives without much impact on job creation or other concrete, measurable economic development activities.

Corporate executives earning more than entire nonprofits

The total revenues of most nonprofits are lower than the compensation packages for corporate executives. According to the AFL-CIO’s 2011 Executive Paywatch, the average annual compensation for CEOs of S&P 500 companies in 2010 was $11,358,445, with a base salary of over $1 million, a bonus of more than $250,000, stock awards of $3.8 million, and option awards of $2.4 million.

Compare those executive salaries to the entire annual revenues of public charities. Nine out of ten registered public charities (all 501(c)(3) nonprofits except for private foundations) and nine out of ten public charities filing 990s reported revenues of less than $1 million, according to the latest statistics compiled by the Urban Institute’s National Center for Charitable Statistics.

Overpaid nonprofit CEOs? It’s clear that the majority of nonprofits, not to mention their executive directors, are hardly raking in much money, even as state legislatures and city councils aim at nonprofits for tax-like revenues. The executives of the tax-exemptfor-profit corporations make more money than the bulk of entire nonprofit organizations generate as revenues to support their tax-exempt programs:

Exxon Mobil: In 2010, R. W. Tillerson’s total compensation as CEO was $28,952,558

Bank of America: Brian T. Moynihan’s 2010 compensation was $1,940,069

General Electric: Jeffrey R. Immelt’s total compensation in 2010 was $21,428,765

Chevron: J.S. Watson’s total compensation was $16,260,528

Boeing: In 2010, W. James McNerney Jr. received $19,740,023

Valero Energy: William R. Klesse’s total compensation was $11,103,385

Goldman Sachs: Lloyd Blankfein’s compensation was $14,116,423

Citigroup: Vikram Pandit earned $1 million

ConocoPhillips: James J. Mulva took in $17,932,895

Carnival Cruise Lines: Micky Arison’s total compensation was $7,097,709

Amazon: CEO Jeffrey Bezos’s total compensation in 2010 was $1,681,840

NextEra: In 2010, Lewis Hay III received $13,560,217

Xcel: Richard C. Kelly’s total compensation was $9,956,433

Maybe it’s obvious, but we’ll say it: The big corporate tax scofflaws, headed by CEOs with multi-million dollar compensation packages, are increasingly paying little or no taxes despite billions of dollars in profits. Why aren’t members of Congress, state legislatures, and municipal councils looking to the for-profit tax exempts to pay their fair share instead of trying to eke nickels and dimes out of the organizations that due to their 501(c)(3) status are truly supposed to be tax exempt? Something is awry with public policy decision-makers’ understanding of what the “nonprofit” actually means and it’s tiresome and monotonous.

A Pivotal Moment in American History

2011-07-25T19:10:00.000-07:00

Senator Bernie Sanders on the Debt Limit Debate

With one week to go before an Aug. 2 deadline for raising the nation's debt limit, the stakes are enormous. Some in Congress continue to press for steep cuts in programs for working families. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid remain in jeopardy. Funds for education, child care, nutrition, affordable housing, environmental protection and energy independence also are at stake. When Republican leaders talk about $3 trillion or $4 trillion in spending cuts over the next 10 years, with no new taxes on the wealthy and large corporations, please understand what they mean.

SOCIAL SECURITY — The average Social Security recipient who retires at age 65 would get $560 less a year at age 75, under a proposal to change the formula which determines cost-of-living adjustments. The same retiree would get $1,000 less a year at age 85 than under current law. Another provision pushed by House Republicans would require that Social Security always be solvent for 75 years, an avenue to even larger cuts in benefits. All of this would take place despite the fact that Social Security has not contributed one penny to the deficit and has a $2.6 trillion surplus. 

MEDICARE — Raising the eligibility age from 65 to 67 is one proposal. Another would cut benefits by as much as $500 billion over 10 years. How are 66-year-old Americans with modest means going to afford health insurance with a private company especially if they have medical problems? It's not going to happen. They are going to suffer. Some will unnecessarily die.

 MEDICAID — At a time when 50 million Americans already have no health insurance, Republicans and some Democrats are proposing to cut hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicaid. That means that many men, women and children will lose the health insurance they have. According to a Harvard University study, some 45,000 Americans die each year because they don't get to a doctor when they should. How many more will die if Medicaid is slashed? How many children will be thrown off the Children's Health Insurance Program?

 EDUCATION — Childcare and college education already are unaffordable for millions of working families. Head Start has long waiting-lists. If Republicans and some Democrats get their way, Pell grants and other educational programs will be deeply slashed. Affordable childcare and a college education will no longer be possible for many families in our country.

 ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY — Forget about the government having the ability to protect the people from corporations who want to evade Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act regulations. With massive cuts in the EPA, the resources will not be there. Forget about this country having the investment capability to transform our energy system to energy efficiency and sustainable energy. Forget about creating millions of jobs rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and improving our public transportation system. 

  We don't have to make these cuts. Adopting a fair budget plan which ends tax breaks for the wealthy and large corporations and makes real cuts in military spending is the kind of shared sacrifice that the American people want

The Debate Over the National Debt ad Deficit Reduction is a Smokescreen to Distract the Country from the Real Issues.

2011-07-23T19:25:00.000-07:00

While the new class of conservative Republicans, spurred on by the Tea Party, hold fast to their pledge not to raise taxes, the government is picking up steam in its charge to the economic disaster of a default. If the issue were really about the deficit and the debt, then there would have been an agreement on the debt ceiling and a default would be avoided at all costs. But the ongoing debate is only the side story. It would seem that the real story behind the breakdown in negotiations has a dual plot, first to make the economy so bad under an Obama administration that it will ensure a Republican victory in 2012 and secondly to dismantle the social welfare programs that serve low and moderate income people and the elderly.

In the right-wing, conservative view of the world, social security and Medicaid are tantamount to Socialism. These two programs, that are mandatory for all workers to pay into, are perhaps the most successful social welfare programs created as part of the New Deal and the War on Poverty. Prior to these two programs, older Americans represented the highest number of people living in poverty. That number has been reversed as millions of older Americans were moved out of poverty. As a result of the success of these two programs, there have been numerous attempts by Republicans to destabilize both. Most famously was George Bush’s failed attempt at privatizing social security, which would have transferred millions if not billions of dollars out of the pockets of retirees and into Wall Street traders and speculators.

Less known but much more devastating was the unfunded prescription drug program passed into law by George Bush. When a conservative Republican proposes a new social welfare benefit, we should be afraid, we should be very afraid. Not only has this new benefit been paid with borrowed monies, but in reality it was designed to be a subsidy for the enormously profitable pharmaceutical industry. A little known piece of the authorizing legislation denied Medicare the ability to negotiate drug prices. So, as the largest purchaser of prescription drugs, Medicare is the only health insurer that pays list price for prescription drugs. This one proviso costs the government billions of dollars every year. So masquerading as a benefit to seniors, this was little more than a nail in the coffin of Medicare and a drain on the federal budget.

It appears that it is only when there is a Democrat in the White House, that Republicans begin to care about the debt and the deficit. George Bush’s greatest legacy to the American people were two unfunded wars, an unfunded tax break for the wealthiest Americans and the unfunded prescription drug benefit. All of these paid for with borrowed dollars. Where were John Boehner, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell and Eric Cantor when their party was running up the debt at record levels?

The author of the “no-tax” pledge that has captivated Congressional Republicans is Grover Norquist, an influential conservative activist. In his own words, Norquist provides the true rationale for the current deadlock: ”I don’t want to abolish government, I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bath tub.” In his world the deficit is not the issue, it is government itself. By keeping the focus on the debt ceiling and away from the real ideology informing the debate, we never get to the real issues that are faced by everyday working Americans. The issues that only government is big enough to tackle.

Oh, before I forget, these same Congress members who want to take away social welfare benefits from working Americans, have one of the best welfare packages offered to any workers anywhere. Congress members receive an annual salary of $174,000, more than three times the average household income in the country. Additionally they get almost 75% of their health insurance costs paid by the government, and they can receive as much as $36,000 a year in pension benefits after serving only five years at age 62. That is two and half times greater than the average social security benefit of $14,00, received by American retires, most of whom have no pension and minimal savings. Not bad for what is essentially a part-time job.

So lets’ take a look at some of those real issues that are being masked by the phony debate about the federal debt. As long as the focus is on the debt ceiling and not on these real issues, more and more Americans will find themselves facing real economic emergencies, not the type manufactured by a desperate Republican Party.

The Real Issues Index

173,000 Number of jobs lost in June 2011

14.1 million Number of individuals unemployed in June 2011

6.3 million Number of US workers unemployed for more than six months

8.6 million Number of involuntary part-time workers

2.7 million Number of discouraged workers not counted as part of the labor force

9.2 % Official government unemployment rate

16.6% True unemployment rate

2.6 million Number of households earning less than $25,000 per year

40 million Number of people living in poverty in US

15.5 million Number of children under age 18 living in poverty

$22,350 Official poverty threshold for a family of four

58.5 Per cent of people in the US who will spend at least one year in poverty during their lives

1.7 million Number of foreclosure filings in first six months of 2011

222,740 Number of foreclosed properties in June 2011

2.3 to 3.5 million Number of people who are homeless in US

23 Per cent of homeless families who have children

When John Boehner walked out on the negotiations he walked out on the American people. When he called tax increases “job killers,” he lied to the American people. It was the Bush tax cuts, bank deregulation, corporate tax giveaways, two unfunded wars, tax advantages to corporations who move jobs offshore, bailing out the banks and union busting policies – all supported by Mr. Boehner and his followers – that have caused this problem. Until our so-called representatives are willing to address these, the real issues, the debt crisis will never go away, and our economy will continue its slide to third world depths.

Debt Reduction, Supply Side Economics and the Great Recession

2011-07-18T07:31:00.000-07:00

While the new mantra of the current crop of Republicans in Congress is debt reduction and tax relief to get the economy going again, they should look at the role of their own party’s policies in creating the mess of an economy that we are all experiencing.

Let’s begin by taking a look at the Republican insistence on debt reduction as a pre-requisite to any budget deal. In the last three decades, supply-side Republican presidents have added more to the national debt that any previous Democratic president. When Ronald Reagan entered office with a promise to cut government and reduce the budget, the national debt stood at $1.9 trillion, when the champion of trickle down economics left office the national debt stood at $3.75 trillion, a staggering 97% increase. In just eight years, President Reagan increased the annual deficit from $99 billion to $252 billion. Most of this growing annual deficit and the huge increase in the national debt was a result of a bloated military budget and tax cuts targeted to corporations and the wealthiest Americans. While the US debt was growing so was the average household debt. In eight years, under Reagan’s trickle down economics, average household debt increased from 60% of income to 119%, making the average American household more vulnerable to the vagaries of the marketplace.

In spite of this growth in the debt, “Reaganomics” would continue to influence Republicans claiming that businesses and wealthy Americans needed to become unfettered by onerous taxes and regulations so that they could create jobs and lift the economy. Under Reagan, this march toward deregulation of the financial marketplace began with gutting the federal regulations on mortgage lending, put in place as a result of the first foreclosure crisis during the Great Depression. This first step toward financial deregulation demonstrated once again how we as a society are ahistorical (not a real word but it seems to work here). These mortgage lending regulations, and indeed the whole host of regulations governing the practices of the financial industry were put into place because they were needed to protect Americans against the veracious appetite of the banking industry.

Next, the administration and Congress focused on freeing the Savings and Loans from “onerous” federal regulations. This included steps such as lifting regulations on the types of investments they could make, allowing for riskier investments; changing the way S & L’s recorded assets and liabilities artificially inflating their bottom line, allowing them to take on more risk with less of a cushion to fall back on; and delaying the closure of insolvent S & L’s allowing them to take on more debt without sufficient reserves.

Inheriting the trickle down theory of supply side economics, which he once referred to as “voodoo economics,” and a national debt of $3.75 trillion, George Bush the First went about increasing the national debt by 59% in just four years to $4.98 trillion. Halfway into his presidency the bill began to come due from the Reagan administration’s deregulation of the Savings and Loan industry. As their risky and often ethically and financially questionable investments began to fail, what has been called the “greatest collapse of financial institutions since the Depression,” was under way. As in the current financial industry meltdown, the administration rode in on its white horse, committing taxpayer dollars to bail out wealthy bankers and investors. Once again demonstrating how our so-called free market system is in reality a hybrid economic system – socialism for the rich and capitalism for everybody else. By the time the dust settled on the S & L bailout, the government had spent $123.8 billion in taxpayer dollars, while the industry only put up $29.1 billion of its own.

But President Bush had a personal incentive to spend taxpayer dollars on the bailout. Two Bush sons, Jeb and Neil, were deeply involved in financial dealings in the S & L industry. At the ripe old age of 30, Neil Bush was made a director of the Silverado Savings & Loan. A mere three years later, Silverado closed costing taxpayers $1.66 billion. While a director, the younger Bush brother approved loans to businesses in which he had an interest and received a $100,000 loan, with no obligation to pay it back, from an individual doing business with the bank. At the same time, brother Jeb was defaulting on a $4.6 million loan from another S & L.

Bill Clinton entered the White House with an inherited national debt of $4.98 trillion. In his eight-year tenure, Clinton increased the debt by 13% to $5.64 trillion. While this increase may not be cause for celebration it was lest than one-quarter of the debt increase amassed by the previous administration in only four years. However, Clinton proved to us that free market deregulation and supply side economics are not solely the property of Republicans. As President, Clinton signed into law the most sweeping deregulation of the banking industry, sweeping away the fail-safe protections put in place after the Great Depression, lifting almost all of the restraints on the giant monopolies dominating the financial industry. The Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 repealed the Glass-Steigall Act of 1932, which mandated the separation of investment banking from commercial banking, rules put into place as a result of the banking meltdown that caused the Great Depression. This paved the way for a spate of bank mergers and takeovers that created the myth of “too big to fail.”

Clinton and the Republican controlled Congress paved the way for the coming bank meltdown and George Bush, his successor in the White House, added into the mix his brand of supply side economics, clinching the sprint towards economic catastrophe. As President, George Bush quickly turned the Clinton budget surplus into record budget deficits and increased the national debt by 46% up to $8.2 trillion. He first began whittling the surplus down by sending out tax refund checks to American taxpayers, telling the public that they surplus was theirs to do with as they chose. Then we were gifted with the now famous Bush Tax Cuts that were targeted overwhelmingly to the wealthiest Americans. These were justified by the fantasy that if wealthy individuals paid less in taxes they would have more money to invest and create jobs. Although this has been proven wrong over time, and it is fact that the Bush tax cuts did not stimulate the economy nor prevent the coming meltdown, the Republican mantra still remains that taxes are job killers and that tax breaks will help to stimulate the economy.

So today we find ourselves in the middle of the Great Recession, with record unemployment, record numbers of children living in poverty and more than 50 million people without health insurance and we are still told that taxes and the debt are the real culprits. When in fact the only institution large enough to help us out from under is the federal government, and its only source of revenues are taxes. However, defying reality, the conversation has focused solely on cutting the debt. Not on creating jobs, supporting education, infrastructure improvements or clean energy. As long as the debate is on how to reduce the debt, the real problems facing everyday Americans will continue to be ignored. In the ongoing debate, government is the problem not the solution and all government programs that do not subsidize business or fund defense are on the chopping block. This means that the social welfare programs that prevent economic catastrophe for millions of American families and individuals have become expendable, seen as luxuries and not the legitimate role of a government that is responsible for the welfare of its citizens. As President Obama has so eloquently stated, the debate in Congress is “less about reducing the deficit than about changing the basic social compact in America.”

The Corporate Tax Index (or not sharing the tax burden while enjoying all the benefits of government services)

2011-07-10T14:21:00.000-07:00

115 - The number of S&P 500 companies that pay less than 20% in taxes

35% - The official corporate tax rate

37 - The number of companies receiving more in tax credits than they paid

$17.587 billion - Boeing Corporation’s pretax income for 2010

-0.1% Per cent Boeing Corporation paid in US taxes in 2010

$3 million - Tax rebate earned by Boeing in 2010

$3.512 billion - Amazon’s pretax income for 2010

4.33% - Per cent Amazon paid in US taxes in 2010

$14.2 billion - General Electric’s earnings in 2010

$0 - Federal taxes paid by General Electric in 2010

$3.2 billion - Tax subsidy earned by General Electric in 2010

-64.0% General electric’s effective 2010 US tax rate

$10.8 billion - Google’s 2010 earnings

$0 - Federal taxes paid by Google in 2010

$19.7 billion - IBM’s earnings for 2010

$0 - Federal taxes paid by IBM in 2010

$190 million - Tax subsidy earned by IBM in 2010

$9.4 billion - Pfizer’s 2010 earnings

$0 - Federal taxes paid by Pfizer in 2010

$29.8 billion - Federal tax credits for R & D, mostly to pharmaceuticals

$7.419 billion - Exxon Mobil US profit in 2010

$0 - Federal taxes paid by ExxonMobil in 2010

$992 million - Federal tax subsidies earned by ExxonMobil in 2010

$26.5 billion - Federal subsidies to oil companies over last ten years

$952 billion - Big five oil company profits over last ten years

$ 6 billion - Federal subsidy for ethanol from corn

24% - Per cent of US corn crop devoted to ethanol

128% - Increase in price of bushel of corn in last year

$102 billion - Annual cost to federal government for corporate tax breaks

$100 billion - Proposed cut to federal Medicaid program

The Hiatus is Over

2011-07-08T11:28:00.001-07:00

Hello Everybody.

I want to begin by thanking you for your patience in my absence. This is my first post since May 2011. I am shocked that the year went by so quickly, but glad to be back.

During my sabbatical from the blog I was involved in setting up a new Masters degree program and a new academic department.

I am happy to report that I am now the Chair of the Department of Leadership and Policy at Wheelock College, and that we have graduated our first class of Masters Students in Organizational Leadership.

Starting with today's post, I will be back posting regularly - hopefully at least once a week, addressing the policy issues that affect us all.

I hope you will join me once again and that I can provide information that will be helpful to you while I try to make sense out of very complex issues.

Cutting the Budget is Not the Answer

2011-07-08T11:25:00.000-07:00

While President Obama and Congressional Republicans try to find common ground on how to reduce the deficit, the issue that does not get attention is the fact that in a recession such as we are experiencing, cutting the federal budget will not help create jobs or stimulate the economy. Congressional Republicans have demanded $2.4 trillion in budget cuts, and the Obama Administration is projecting cuts of $4 trillion over the next decade. To end the recession and create jobs, spending must increase. Budget cuts and deficit reduction measures only add to job loss and decreased spending thereby exacerbating an already serious economic situation.

There are two sides to any budget – income and expenses. Any serious effort to reduce the deficit should look at both sides of the federal budget. However the Congressional Republicans have signed a “no tax pledge” forbidding their members form considering any new taxes. Since the federal government gets its income solely from taxes, this pledge has taken the income side of the budget off the negotiating table. So the conversations between the Republican leadership and the White House are focusing on budget cuts to reduce the deficit. But it is current tax policy, formulated since the Reagan era that has reduced taxes on the wealthy while increasing the federal budget deficit.

In1980, the top 1% of the wealthiest Americans earned 10% of total income, today that number has increased to 20% of total income, during this same period they enjoyed a reduction in their tax rate from 70% to 35%. However since most of their income is not from wages but from investments, they pay a mere 15% capital gains rate on the bulk of their income, resulting in an effective tax rate of a approximately 17%.

However, the Republican mantra of cutting the deficit while not allowing any new revenue sources appears to be a smokescreen for gutting the already tattered social safety net. Take the recent extension of the Bush-era tax cuts for example. Fully fifty-five per cent of the benefits went to the top 10% of highest income households. The top 1% of income households received 38% of the benefits, and if that is not enough, the top .01% received an average of $520,000 in tax benefits as a result. Congressional Republicans held fast to their beliefs that letting these tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans expire would hurt he economy. This in spite of the fact that these tax cuts were awarded to wealthy Americans before the economic meltdown and did nothing to prevent it and may have been a factor contributing to the meltdown.

Candidate Obama pledged to let these onerous tax cuts for the wealthy expire when their authorization ran out in 2011, but President Obama caved into Republican demands and signed legislation extending the cuts. This is spite of the fact that in their first seven years during the Bush administration, these tax cuts contributed $1.7 trillion to the deficit. Just this one item alone, could account for almost half of the proposed budget cuts. In addition to these tax cuts favoring the wealthiest Americans, there are a host of tax loopholes and subsidies for corporations and wealthy Americans, that the Republicans are refusing to close while looking at the social safety net, supports for the most vulnerable among us, to make up the shortfall. In Republospeak, closing a tax loophole or ending a needless and wasteful corporate subsidy is the same as raising taxes. Preserve this tax largesse to the wealthiest among us while demonizing the poor and elderly so that they can be targeted for devastating cuts.

Take Medicaid for an example. The $100 billion proposed cut to Medicaid, the health insurance program for families living under the federal poverty level, will reduce the quality and availability of medical care for millions of low income families, placing a greater burden on states to maintain minimal levels of care. According to Families USA, in just one state, - California – the proposed Medicaid cuts will result in the loss of 187,610 jobs and more than $24 billion in state business. This does not include the increased cost of emergency room care when Medicaid recipients do not have proper preventive health care available. The New York Times has reported that children on Medicaid are more likely to be denied service by medical specialists, and when they are seen they must wait longer for appointments than those with other types of health insurance. As bad as this situation is, it will only get worse when the cuts are implemented.

In a display of political irony and callousness, Governor Walker of Wisconsin has proposed cutting Medicaid which serves 20% of the state’s population by $500 million, while at the same time proposing to increase payments to cover the cost of “burying Wisconsinites who die destitute.”

The current negotiations between the White House and the Republican leaders of Congress was never about the deficit, it is a poorly camouflaged attempt to roll back and gut services for low income and elderly citizens while ensuring increasing profits for the wealthiest Americans. And oh, by the way, while the Republicans scream about raising the debt ceiling and play a game of brinkmanship, it would be good to remember, that while President Bush was racking up the largest deficit spending in history the Republicans voted to raise the debt ceiling four times. Perhaps the real tragedy here is that President Obama has partially bought into their line of thinking.

Health Care Reform Index

2010-05-11T17:17:00.000-07:00

46.3 million - Number of Americans without health insurance

45,000 - Number of Americans, without health insurance, who die each year due to preventable causes, according to a study by Harvard Medical School

32 million - Number of uninsured Americans who will be able to get health insurance under the new law

45.2 million - Number of older Americans enrolled in Medicare

160.6 million - Number of Americans who get their health insurance through their employer

112.2 million - Number of low and moderate income Americans who will receive subsidies to purchase health insurance

$5,761 - Per capita health care spending in the US, the highest in the world

15 - Per cent of total US GDP spent on health care, the highest in the developed world

6.8 - Infant mortality rate per 1,000 live births, highest in the developed world

77 - Life expectancy in the US, ranking fifth in the world

2.3 trillion -Amount spent by Americans on health care in 2007, the last year that statistics are available

390 billion - Amount of savings to be realized by Medicare in the next decade while protecting basic benefits

26 -The age until which children will be able to remain under their parents insurance coverage

143 billion - Amount of deficit reduction in next ten years attributed to health care reform

0 - Number of undocumented immigrants who will be able to purchase health insurance, even with their own money, from the state health care exchanges

0.9 - Per cent increase in Medicare taxes for individuals earning more than $200,000 or couples earning more than $250,000 per year

3.8 - Per cent tax on unearned income for those same high-income earners

100 - Per cent of members of Congress who will be required to purchase health insurance through the state run health exchanges beginning in 2014

1 - Number of western, industrialized countries without universal health care – the United States

0 - Number of Republicans in Congress who voted for health care reform

0 - Distance that health care reform moves the country closer to socialism

Tea Party Index

2010-05-04T13:49:00.000-07:00

41 - Per cent of Tea Party members who believe President Obama was NOT born in the United States

52 - Per cent of Tea Party members who believe “too much has been made of the problems facing black people”

31 - Per cent of Americans who approve of the Tea party movement

89 - Per cent of tea Party members who are white

40 - Per cent of Tea Party members who are 45 years old or older

61 - Per cent of Tea Party members who are male

44 - Per cent of Tea Party members who identify as “born again”

$285,000 - Amount contributed to Scott Brown’s campaign by the Tea Party

$12 million - Amount Sarah Palin has earned in speaking fees since losing her bid for Vice-President

2.3 million - Number of copies of Sarah Palin’s autobiography sold to date

$1 million - Amount of three-year contract Fox News gave Sarah Palin to serve as a contributor to the news

$250,00 - Amount Sarah Palin is paid per episode for her Learning Channel reality show about Alaska

$100,00 - Amount the Tea Party paid Sarah Palin for her keynote address at their first national convention

91 - Per cent of Tea Party members who support smaller government with fewer services

95 - Per cent of all American households that received a tax cut in 2009

10 - Per cent increase in the average IRS tax refund over last year

2 - Per cent of Tea Party members that think taxes were cut last year

44 - Per cent of Tea Party members who believe taxes were increased last year

86 - Per cent of Tea Party members believe that taxes are too high

57 - Per cent of Americans who believe taxes are too high

1 - Per cent of richest families that earn 24% of all income in the country

400 -Number of richest taxpayers who saw their income double in 2009 and their taxes reduced by 50%

65 - Per cent of Tea Party members who believe Social security is a form of Socialism

92 - Per cent of Tea Party members who believe the US is moving more towards Socialism than Capitalism

Bernie Sanders on Wall Street Reform

2010-05-03T12:46:00.000-07:00

Sanders Op-Ed: Real Wall Street Reform
By Sen. Bernie Sanders

April 23, 2010

Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman and one of the architects of financial deregulation, recently testified to the effect that no one could have predicted the Wall Street collapse of 2008. Really?

As a member of the House Financial Services Committee, this is what I said on the floor of the House in 1999 as I voted against the Gramm-Leach-Bliley bank deregulation bill: “I believe this legislation, in its current form, will do more harm than good. It will lead to fewer banks and financial service providers; increased charges and fees for individual consumers and small businesses; diminished credit for rural America; and taxpayer exposure to potential loses should a financial conglomerate fail. It will lead to more mega-mergers; a small number of corporations dominating the financial service industry; and further concentration of economic power in our country.”

Frankly, it didn’t take a PhD in finance to come to this conclusion. If you lock a heroin addict in a room with heroin, you shouldn’t be shocked if he overdoses. If you give unlimited license to Wall Street speculators, whose only function is to make as much money as possible, you shouldn’t be surprised when the result is greed on steroids, reckless behavior and a disaster for ordinary people.

Today, as a result of that uncontrollable greed, millions of Americans have lost their jobs, health care and homes and our country continues to struggle through a disastrous recession. Disgust at Wall Street is profound. The American people want change as to how Wall Street functions, real change. Congress must deliver.

We must be clear that real and meaningful financial reform will not come easy. When Wall Street and the financial sector successfully fought for deregulation they poured some $5 billion into lobbying and campaign contributions over a 10-year period. Now, as Congress begins to address financial reform, they’re at it again. In 2009, the major financial interests spent $300 million in lobbying and the money continues to flow like water.

In my view, the real and transformational financial reform we need must include the following elements:

Break Up Huge Banks The four major U.S. banks – Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Well-Fargo – issue two-thirds of the credit cards in this country, write half the mortgages and collectively hold $7.4 trillion in assets, about 52 percent of the nation’s estimated total output last year. Incredibly, despite all of them being bailed out during the Wall Street meltdown because they were “too big to fail,” three of them (Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo) are now bigger than before the bailout. But this is an issue which goes beyond the danger of “too big to fail” and future taxpayer liability. We must break up these behemoths because of the incredible economic power they exert on the economy through their concentration of ownership and enormous competitive advantages.

Financial Institutions Must be Integrated Into the Real Economy At a time when we are in the midst of a major recession, it is insane that our largest financial institutions continue to trade trillions in esoteric financial instruments which makes Wall Street the largest gambling casino in the world. We need to create a financial system which invests in the real economy, and helps create millions of new jobs by providing small and medium businesses with the credit they desperately need. We also need investments to rebuild our manufacturing sector, transform our energy system and create modern transportation and infrastructure systems. We don’t need banks pushing home mortgages on people who can’t afford them. We don’t need huge amounts being “bet” on whether housing securities go up or down or what the price of oil will be six months from now.

National Usury Legislation Major financial institutions have, in many ways, become nothing less than loan-sharking operations. Today, millions of Americans who pay their bills on time are now forced to pay 25 or 30 percent interest rates. That is not only obscene but, according to every major religion, immoral. Banks cannot be allowed to engage in usury and charge outrageous interest rates. We must cap interest rates for private banks at the same level as we do for credit unions – 15 percent except under exceptional circumstances.

Transparency at the Federal Reserve The Federal Reserve cannot continue to operate in almost total secrecy. During the bailout, large financial institutions received trillions of dollars in zero or near-zero interest loans. Who received those loans and under what terms? The Fed isn’t telling. Did some of them turn around and, in a mammoth welfare scam, invest that Fed money in government treasury bonds at 3 percent or 4 percent interest rates? The Fed refuses to say. It’s time we had transparency at the Fed so that the American people know what our central bank is doing.

Bill Moyers on the New American Plutonomy

2010-05-01T08:30:00.000-07:00

BILL MOYERS April 30, 2010

You've no doubt figured out my bias by now. I've hardly kept it a secret. In this regard, I take my cue from the late Edward R. Murrow, the Moses of broadcast news.

Ed Murrow told his generation of journalists bias is okay as long as you don't try to hide it. So here, one more time, is mine: plutocracy and democracy don't mix. Plutocracy, the rule of the rich, political power controlled by the wealthy.

Plutocracy is not an American word but it's become an American phenomenon. Back in the fall of 2005, the Wall Street giant Citigroup even coined a variation on it, plutonomy, an economic system where the privileged few make sure the rich get richer with government on their side. By the next spring, Citigroup decided the time had come to publicly "bang the drum on plutonomy."

And bang they did, with an "equity strategy" for their investors, entitled, "Revisiting Plutonomy: The Rich Getting Richer." Here are some excerpts:

"Asset booms, a rising profit share and favorable treatment by market-friendly governments have allowed the rich to prosper...[and] take an increasing share of income and wealth over the last 20 years..."

"...the top 10%, particularly the top 1% of the US-- the plutonomists in our parlance-- have benefited disproportionately from the recent productivity surge in the US...[and] from globalization and the productivity boom, at the relative expense of labor."

"...[and they] are likely to get even wealthier in the coming years. [Because] the dynamics of plutonomy are still intact."

And so they were, before the great collapse of 2008. And so they are, today, after the fall. While millions of people have lost their jobs, their homes, and their savings, the plutonomists are doing just fine. In some cases, even better, thanks to our bailout of the big banks which meant record profits and record bonuses for Wall Street.

Now why is this? Because over the past 30 years the plutocrats, or plutonomists — choose your poison — have used their vastly increased wealth to capture the flag and assure the government does their bidding. Remember that Citigroup reference to "market-friendly governments" on their side? It hasn't mattered which party has been in power — government has done Wall Street's bidding.

Don't blame the lobbyists, by the way; they are simply the mules of politics, delivering the drug of choice to a political class addicted to cash — what polite circles call "campaign contributions" and Tony Soprano would call "protection."

This marriage of money and politics has produced an America of gross inequality at the top and low social mobility at the bottom, with little but anxiety and dread in between, as middle class Americans feel the ground falling out from under their feet. According to a study from the Pew Research Center last month, nine out of ten Americans give our national economy a negative rating. Eight out of ten report difficulty finding jobs in their communities, and seven out of ten say they experienced job-related or financial problems over the past year.

So it is that like those populists of that earlier era, millions of Americans have awakened to a sobering reality: they live in a plutocracy, where they are disposable. Then, the remedy was a popular insurgency that ignited the spark of democracy.

Now we have come to another parting of the ways, and once again the fate and character of our country are up for grabs.

So along with Jim Hightower and Iowa's concerned citizens, and many of you, I am biased: democracy only works when we claim it as our own.
.

Earth Day Index

2010-04-23T13:36:00.000-07:00

4.39 the number of pounds of trash thrown away each day by the average American

10% amount of solid waste in US that gets recycled

18 billion the number of disposable diapers thrown away each year

2.5 million plastic bottles are thrown away every hour in America

4 million the number of tons of junk mail delivered in America every year

650 the average number of pounds of paper used by each American in one year

43,000 the number of tons of food thrown out in the US every day

270 million the number of tires thrown away annually in the US

2 the number of manmade structures seen from space, the Great Wall of China and the Fresh Kills Landfill in NYC

900 million the number of trees cut down annually for US paper and pulp mills

5% the percentage of the world’s population that lives in the US

33% the percentage of the earth’s timber and paper consumed by Americans

96% the amount of energy saved using a recycled aluminum can rather than making a can from ore

95% the amount of reduction in air pollution manufacturing an aluminum can from recycled materials rather than ore

97% the amount of reduction in water pollution manufacturing an aluminum can from recycled materials rather than ore

1 million the number of gallons of water that can be contaminated from improperly disposing of one quart of engine oil

4 million the number of tons of wrapping paper and shopping bags thrown away during the holiday season in the US

9 cubic yards the amount of landfill space saved by recycling one ton of cardboard

60 pounds the amount of air pollutants avoided by producing one ton of recycled paper

U.S. Inequality Index

2010-04-19T05:30:00.000-07:00

• 81% increase in net worth enjoyed by top 5% of wealthiest US households between 1979-2005

• 1.1% decrease in net worth experienced by lowest 20% of income households during the same period

• 50% the amount that US worker productivity has increased since 1970 while average wages declined

• $20.3 billion the amount paid out in Wall Street bonuses in 2009

• 38% amount of total US income growth that went to the top .1% of Americans between 1978-2008

• 400 number of American families whose income quintupled from $16 million to $87 million from 1992-2007

• 13% the average income loss experienced by American families during that same period

• 99 the increase in new American billionaires between 2001-2007 bringing the total to 400

• 18.6% the number of American families with zero net worth

• 17 million number of US households that experienced food insecurity in 2008

• 200,000 number of US veterans who are homeless on any given night

• 1.35 million number of US children who experience homelessness in a twelve month period

• 25% reduction in public housing vouchers between 1999-2006

• $114 billion reduction in federal funding for affordable housing between 2004-2007

• 13.2 per centage of US citizens living below the official poverty level

• 14.4 million number of US children living below poverty level

What Do We Get For Our US Tax Dollars?

2010-04-18T06:55:00.000-07:00

We like to think of Europeans as poor overtaxed serfs but the benefits they receive show the shortcomings of the US system

By Steven Hill

April 16, 2010 "The Guardian" -- Most Americans seem to regard 15 April – the day income tax returns are due to the Internal Revenue Service – as a recurring tragedy on the order of a biblical plague. Particularly this year, with US government deficits soaring, everyone from the Teabaggers to Senate Republicans are reviving a scary Friday the 13th scenario from the 1990s about a return to Big Government. Recently Rudy Giuliani even stated that President Obama was moving us towards – heaven forbid – European social democracy.

Europe frequently plays the punching bag role during these moments because there is a perception that the poor Europeans are overtaxed serfs. But a closer look reveals that this is a myth that prevents Americans from understanding the vast shortcomings of our own system.

A few years ago, an American acquaintance of mine who lives in Sweden told me that, quite by chance, he and his Swedish wife were in New York City and ended up sharing a limousine to the theatre district with a southern US senator and his wife. This senator, a conservative, anti-tax Democrat, asked my acquaintance about Sweden and swaggeringly commented about "all those taxes the Swedes pay". To which this American replied, "The problem with Americans and their taxes is that we get nothing for them." He then went on to tell the senator about the comprehensive level of services and benefits that Swedes receive.

"If Americans knew what Swedes receive for their taxes, we would probably riot," he told the senator. The rest of the ride to the theatre district was unsurprisingly quiet.

The fact is, in return for their taxes, Europeans are receiving a generous support system for families and individuals for which Americans must pay exorbitantly, out-of-pocket, if we are to receive it at all. That includes quality healthcare for every single person, the average cost of which is about half of what Americans pay, even as various studies show that Europeans achieve healthier results.

But that's not all. In return for their taxes, Europeans also are receiving affordable childcare, a decent retirement pension, free or inexpensive university education, job retraining, paid sick leave, paid parental leave, ample vacations, affordable housing, senior care, efficient mass transportation and more. In order to receive the same level of benefits as Europeans, most Americans fork out a ton of money in out-of-pocket payments, in addition to our taxes.

For example, while 47 million Americans don't have any health insurance at all, many who do are paying escalating premiums and deductibles. Indeed, Anthem Blue Cross announced that its premiums will increase by up to 40%.

But Europeans receive healthcare in return for a modest amount deducted from their paychecks.
Friends have told me they are saving nearly a hundred thousand dollars for their children's college education, and most young Americans graduate with tens of thousands of dollars of debt. But many European children attend for free or nearly so (depending on the country).

Childcare in the US costs over $12,000 annually for a family with two children, but in Europe it cost about one-sixth that amount, and the quality is far superior. Millions of Americans are stuffing as much as possible into their IRAs and 401(k)s because social security provides only about half the retirement income needed. But the more generous European retirement system provides about 75-85% (depending on the country) of retirement income. Either way, you pay.

Americans' private spending on old-age care is nearly three times higher per capita than in Europe because Americans must self-finance a significant share of their own senior care. Sixty million American workers have no paid sick leave, millions more have no paid parental leave following a birth, and so must self-finance their own time off. But Europeans receive all this in exchange for their taxes.

Americans also tend to pay more in local and state taxes, as well as in property taxes. Americans also pay hidden taxes, such as $300bn annually in federal tax breaks to businesses that provide health benefits to their employees. When you sum up the total balance sheet, it turns out that Americans pay out just as much as Europeans – but we receive a lot less for our money.

Unfortunately these sorts of complexities are not calculated into simplistic analyses like Forbes' annual Tax Misery Index, a "study" which shows European nations as the most miserable and the low-tax United States as happy as a clam – right next to Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.

But Forbes only adds up income tax, social security, sales tax or VAT and a few other minor fees. A thorough analysis would need to create a ledger in which all the supports and services Europeans receive are listed on one side and the amount of taxes and any additional fees they pay are listed on the other; and then do a similar analysis for Americans, listing what Americans pay in taxes as well as out-of-pocket expenses for those same services.

In this economically competitive age, increasingly these kinds of services are necessary to ensure healthy, happy and productive families and workers.

Europeans have these supports, but most Americans do not unless you pay a ton out of pocket. Or unless you are a member of Congress, which of course provide European-level support for its members and their families.

That's something to keep in mind on 15 April. Happy Tax Day.

The Dangerous Drift Back Towards Segregated Schools

2010-04-06T15:47:00.000-07:00

by Marian Wright Edelman

Marian Wright Edelman, President of the Children's Defense Fund, is part of Change.org's Changemakers network, comprised of leading voices for social change.

Two recent decisions by school boards in North Carolina are local signs of a troubling national trend towards resegregation in public schools. In New Hanover County, which includes Wilmington, parents and advocates spent much of last year debating a new middle school redistricting plan that would focus on "neighborhood schools," essentially resegregating the schools by race and economic class because our neighborhoods look that way.

School board member Elizabeth Redenbaugh was the only White and only Republican member to join two Black Democratic colleagues in opposing the new plan. In a letter sent to parents and fellow board members last fall, Redenbaugh described some of what she was seeing: "I have literally had parents...approach me and state, ‘The bottom line is this: I do not want my children in school with black children.' I have had parents ask me why we do anything at all for the black children in our county. They look me in the eye and say, ‘we have spent so much money on black children . . . Nothing helps. I don't know why we even try anymore'...Such statements literally grieve my heart and beg the question: Who is my neighbor?" But despite the concerns Redenbaugh and her colleagues shared, they were ultimately overruled by the other members early this year in a 4-3 vote.

Meanwhile, in Wake County, North Carolina, which includes Raleigh, schools may be moving backwards in a similar direction. Wake County has been lauded for its student assignment policy to balance schools using socioeconomic status augmented by a comprehensive program of magnet schools. But on March 24, the Wake County School Board voted to begin studying a new districting plan that would change the current busing system and reassign students based on "neighborhood attendance zones"-a return to potentially more segregated schools because of the neighborhood demographics. Advocates for Wake County's current socially and economically integrated school system are fighting to prevent this change. But these significant decisions represent a very disturbing trend across the country. The sad truth is that the dream Dr. King rightly considered one of the greatest victories of the Civil Rights Movement-the desegregation of our nation's schools-is unraveling before our eyes.

Desegregated schools grew in the years directly following the Civil Rights Movement, but since 1988, racial resegregation in public schools has been rising slowly and systematically. In June 2007, both the spirit and intent of the historic Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision were assaulted when the Supreme Court acknowledged in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education the benefits of racially diverse schools for all students who attend them, but ruled that desegregation plans that assign students to schools on the basis of race are unconstitutional. At a time when the number of poor and minority children in America is growing and the number of White middle-class children is decreasing, our schools are once again becoming isolated by race and class. Plans like the diversity policy and magnet school program that have been in place in Wake County, which focused primarily on socioeconomic status instead of race, helped produce integrated schools with broad appeal and academic achievement gains; this two-pronged approach was lauded as another method of achieving diversity without concentrating children in racially isolated, high-poverty schools. But as the recent school board decision there shows, even those successful measures are now under attack.

The problem, as leading expert Gary Orfield of the Civil Rights Project at the University of California, Los Angeles and others have argued, is that segregated schools are not good for any of our children. We already know they are disastrous for poor and minority students, for whom there is a strong connection between school segregation, failing schools, and high dropout rates. Almost half of America's Black students and nearly two-fifths of Latino students attend high schools that have been labeled "dropout factories" by Johns Hopkins University researchers and the U.S. Department of Education, where less than 60 percent of the freshman class will graduate in four years. But studies of the outcomes of inter-district transfer programs also show that while programs designed to improve integration significantly improve the life chances of children who are transferred in, they do not have a negative effect on the academic progress of students in the receiving district-one of the apparent fears of many parents. In fact, as Orfield and others note, integration has been shown to benefit children on both sides.

As our society becomes more and more diverse, it is critically important that children from all backgrounds learn to interact with one another productively. When parents are allowed to hold on to the outdated beliefs that sending their children to a "diverse" school means sending them to an inferior school, it does their own children a disservice. In a rapidly globalizing world, returning to segregated schools would be another missed opportunity for all of America's children. We have so far left to go. We can't afford to take any more steps backwards.

Marian Wright Edelman is President of the Children's Defense Fund and in 2000, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award

The Public Option is Not Dead - We Can still Act

2010-03-13T04:57:00.000-08:00

LETTER FROM SENATE DEMOCRATS TO LEADER REID

Dear Leader Reid:

We respectfully ask that you bring for a vote before the full Senate a public health insurance option under budget reconciliation rules.

There are four fundamental reasons why we support this approach – its potential for billions of dollars in cost savings; the growing need to increase competition and lower costs for the consumer; the history of using reconciliation for significant pieces of health care legislation; and the continued public support for a public option.

A Public Option Is an Important Tool for Restoring Fiscal Discipline.

As Democrats, we pledged that the Senate health care reform package would address skyrocketing health care costs and relieve overburdened American families and small businesses from annual double-digit health care cost increases. And that it would do so without adding a dime to the national debt.

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) determined that the Senate health reform bill is actually better than deficit neutral. It would reduce the deficit by over $130 billion in the first ten years and up to $1 trillion in the first 20 years.
These cost savings are an important start. But a strong public option can be the centerpiece of an even better package of cost saving measures. CBO estimated that various public option proposals in the House save at least $25 billion. Even $1 billion in savings would qualify it for consideration under reconciliation.

Put simply, including a strong public option is one of the best, most fiscally responsible ways to reform our health insurance system.

A Public Option Would Provide Americans with a Low-Cost Alternative and Improve Market Competitiveness.
A strong public option would create better competition in our health insurance markets. Many Americans have no or little real choice of health insurance provider. Far too often, it’s “take it or leave it” for families and small businesses. This lack of competition drives up costs and leaves private health insurance companies with little incentive to provide quality customer service.

A recent Health Care for America Now report on private insurance companies found that the largest five for-profit health insurance providers made $12 billion in profits last year, yet they actually dropped 2.7 million people from coverage. Private insurance – by gouging the public even during a severe economic recession – has shown it cannot function in the public’s interest without a public alternative. Americans have nowhere to turn. That is not healthy market competition, and it is not good for the public.

If families or individuals like their current coverage through a private insurance company, then they can keep that coverage. And in some markets where consumers have many alternatives, a public option may be less necessary. But many local markets have broken down, with only one or two insurance providers available to consumers. Each and every health insurance market should have real choices for consumers.

There is a history of using reconciliation for significant pieces of health care legislation.

There is substantial Senate precedent for using reconciliation to enact important health care policies. The Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), Medicare Advantage, and the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 (COBRA), which actually contains the term ‘reconciliation’ in its title, were all enacted under reconciliation.

The American Enterprise Institute’s Norman Ornstein and Brookings’ Thomas Mann and Molly Reynolds jointly wrote, “Are Democrats making an egregious power grab by sidestepping the filibuster? Hardly.” They continued that the precedent for using reconciliation to enact major policy changes is “much more extensive . . . than Senate Republicans are willing to admit these days.”

There is strong public support for a public option, across party lines.

The overwhelming majority of Americans want a public option. The latest New York Times poll on this issue, in December, shows that despite the attacks of recent months Americans support the public option 59% to 29%. Support includes 80% of Democrats, 59% of Independents, and even 33% of Republicans.

Much of the public identifies a public option as the key component of health care reform -- and as the best thing we can do to stand up for regular people against big insurance companies. In fact, overall support for health care reform declined steadily as the public option was removed from reform legislation.

Although we strongly support the important reforms made by the Senate-passed health reform package, including a strong public option would improve both its substance and the public’s perception of it. The Senate has an obligation to reform our unworkable health insurance market -- both to reduce costs and to give consumers more choices. A strong public option is the best way to deliver on both of these goals, and we urge its consideration under reconciliation rules.

Respectfully,
Michael Bennet (D-CO), U.S. Senator
Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), U.S. Senator
Jeff Merkley (D-OR), U.S. Senator
Sherrod Brown (D-OH), U.S. Senator

Forty-one senators support passing a public option through reconciliation. You can show your support for their efforts and keep the public option alive, go to Democracy for America and take a stand.

Unemployment Still Rising â€” On the Bright Side, Rich People Are Doing Great! Â« SpeakEasy

2010-03-11T07:42:00.000-08:00

Unemployment Still Rising ” On the Bright Side, Rich People Are Doing Great!« SpeakEasy

Obama Introduces White House Health Care Plan - Health Insurance Stocks Rally

2010-02-24T19:14:00.000-08:00

While I was watching Toyota’s CEO being grilled by Congress in front of the TV cameras, I was amazed at how angry and inhospitable the Congress members were. Here were our elected representatives making as public a showing as possible that they were concerned about the health and safety of American citizens. They were exercising their sworn duty to protect us from all foreign enemies. And Mr. Toyoda was now the enemy du jour. Yes Toyota had brought this problem on itself and as a result of their not acting quickly enough there are reported to be as many as 34 deaths due to sudden acceleration problems. Now 34 deaths is intolerable and tragic for each and every one of their families. But wouldn’t it also be nice to see our elected representatives equally as exorcised over the 18,000 Americans who die each year of preventable causes because they do not have health care coverage?

But all is well in Muddville. While this sham was proceeding for the cameras, President Obama was getting ready for his “bi-partisan” health care summit. Prior to convening this summit, the President released his own health care reform proposal. It appears that this new proposal is truly bi-partisan. It is a plan that Republicans should love, but cannot do so publicly. All they needed to do was keep saying no to every reasonable proposal, until the White House capitulated and proposed a watered down health care bill that serves first to protect the health insurance industry and only secondly the public. So in the new Washington, bi-partisanship is a Democratic President proposing a plan that is ideologically Republican, providing the Republicans the cover they need to go on opposing the bill making their play for the extreme elements such as the Tea Baggers.

If the health care reform plan introduced this week by President Obama was supposed to reform the health care industry and protect consumers, it seems that somebody forgot to tell the health insurance companies. On the same day that the President revealed his so-called health care overhaul, stocks in two of the largest health insurance providers increased. Humana, Inc. saw its stock prices rise 5.5% and the United Health Group, Inc. saw their stocks increase 3.5%. On the heels of the President’s announcement, the Morgan Stanley Healthcare Payor Index of health insurers increased by 1.6%. Well, at least somebody is happy about the President’s newest iteration of health care reform.

The core of the President’s plan would require all Americans to purchase health insurance, creating an even larger market for private insurers. The plan tries to make this mandate that will force Americans to purchase health insurance from corporate insurers more palatable by claiming that “you will be able to shop among private insurance plans that will be sold in the insurance exchange – a marketplace where you can choose what is right for you.” Actually, the majority of Americans have spoken and decided what is right for them – a public option. In fact there is no mention of a pubic option. Instead the pubic is given the option to choose amongst private insurers – I thought we had that already and that is the root of the problem. Without a public option there is no true competition. A Republican dream, massive government subsidies of private corporations.

Yes there are some good provisions in the bill, but they are long overdue and barely take a step in the direction of fairness and equity. Actually by my count there are two provisions that will go a long way to helping people, and both could have been proposed and passed without the divisiveness that we have had to endure. These are doing away with annual and lifetime limits and pre-existing conditions and closing the so-called Medicare doughnut hole. But even these miniscule improvements are mired down in appeasing the insurance companies and the opposition, the prohibition against pre-existing conditions and lifting the annual and lifetime caps does not go into effect until 2014, and closing the doughnut hole does not go into effect until 2020. If these provisions are designed to correct current injustices, why delay their implementation, other than appeasement?

As way of explanation, the “doughnut hole” refers to Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage. After a Medicare beneficiary reaches the annual limit for prescription drugs they are financially responsible until their prescription drug costs reach the “catastrophic level.” The way it works is that the first $295 spent satisfies the deductible for the year, then from $295 up to $2,700 spent on prescription drugs Medicare covers 75% of the cost. If annual costs for prescription drugs are higher than $2,700, the elderly person must spend an additional $4,350 out of pocket before reaching the catastrophic level. At that point, Medicare will cover 95% of all additional drug costs. This doughnut hole, or gap in coverage, forces millions of retired folks to choose between which medications they will take or to underdose by taking less than the prescribed amount. If we know this is a burden for millions of retired older Americans, why wait ten years to correct it?

Which is the question we all should be asking our President and elected representatives, if we know the system is broken and is not serving us as it should, why then don't we provide the fix that is truly needed? Why tinker around the edges and settle for the slightest incremental change? Mr. Obama, you were elected by an overwhelming margin, partly because you promised Hope and Change. Without change we lose hope, and that is what is happening. Once this sham health care reform is passed, health care will e off the public agenda for decades. Now is the time to get it done. We need bold action, not weak reforms based on some fanciful notion of the possibility of bi-partisanship. Where is the Barack Obama that was elected? Where is the Barack Obama that promised Hope and Change, we need that guy back.

How Could $1 Trillion Be Spent

2010-02-11T18:32:00.000-08:00

(click on the chart above for a larger image that is easier to read, to see how the average annual funding allocated for the war, of $111 billion, could have been better spent each year for nine years to improve the lives of millions of Americans)

The US Congress has authorized $1 trillion in war spending for Iraq and Afghanistan from 2001 through September 2010. That averages out to $111 billion a year. If we were to have spent that same amount of money on human needs, what could we have bought. What could we have gotten for that same amount of money other than thousands of dead civilians and two failed wars?

The amount spent on these two war efforts are a living example of our derailed priorities as a society. When it comes to addressing social issues or meeting real human needs we are told that we cannot afford it. But when we declare war on a country like Iraq, without provocation, we find the money immediately. The question of whether or not we could afford it is never asked.

It is estimated that each year 18,000 Americans die of preventable causes because they do not have access to affordable health care. That mans that there is a greater chance of each one of us dying form a preventable cause without heath insurance than dying form a terrorist act. But in spite of this we choose,as a society, to do nothing about this very real threat tot he lives of so many thousands of Americans year after year. The same legislators that will allocate billions of dollars a year to fight terrorism, stand before us and tell us that we cannot afford to provide universal health care, turning their backs on the thousands of citizens who will die each year as a result.

It is not about whether or not we can afford to address the very real human needs that we are facing such as rising homelessness, increasing hunger, unemployment, more and more people without access to health care, foreclosures, etc, etc.

To try to develop a deeper understanding of these confused priorities I did some simple math to see what $1 trillion dollars over nine years could have provided. I chose to look at seven specific areas that would make an immediate difference in the quality of life of millions of Americans. These included health care, affordable housing, elementary school teachers, child health care, Head Start, college scholarships and Pell grants.

The chart above, shows what could have been paid for each year for the nine years of war with the average annual costs of these wars. It is quite amazing to see what a mere $111 billion per year can buy, when it is not being squandered on war. For a larger image that is easier to read, click on the chart.

Obama’s 2011 Budget Proposal: How It’s Spent

2010-02-02T05:59:00.000-08:00

This is a link to an interactive New York times site that breaks down the entire proposed federal budget for 2011. You can track expenditures by category, where the increases are and where the prosed cuts are. This highly interactive and informative graphic can help anyone begin to understand our priorities as a nation.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/02/01/us/budget.html

Are We up to the Obama Challenge? - Is Obama?

2010-01-31T13:55:00.000-08:00

In his State of the Union address, president Obama challenged anyone in the Congress with a better plan for health care to come forward, when he said:

“But if anyone from either party has a better approach that will bring down premiums, bring down the deficit, cover the uninsured, strengthen Medicare for seniors, and stop insurance company abuses, let me know. Here's what I ask of Congress, though: Do not walk away from reform. Not now. Not when we are so close. Let us find a way to come together and finish the job for the American people."

He did not challenge the American people to do so, perhaps because we have already spoken. The majority of Americans have consistently favored a public option for health care insurance. And there is a better plan out there that will provide universal, single-payer coverage. A plan already exists - one that the majority of users are satisfied with – it is called Medicare, and the plan is Medicare for All.

As far back as 1991, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reported that “If the nation adopted...[a] single-payer system that paid providers at Medicare’s rates, the population that is currently uninsured could be covered without dramatically increasing national spending on health. In fact, all US residents might be covered by health insurance for roughly the current level of spending or even somewhat less, because of savings in administrative costs and lower payment rates for services used by the privately insured.

Then, two years later in 1993, the CBO again found “Under a single payer system with co-payments ...on average, people would have an additional $54 to spend...more specifically, the increase in taxes... would be about $856 per capita...private-sector costs would decrease by $910 per capita. The net cost of achieving universal insurance coverage under this single payer system would be negative.”

Since 1998, nonpartisan studies of health care in at least nine states demonstrated that singe-payer plans would produce savings in the $billions and expand coverage. These states included Massachusetts, Vermont, Maryland, California, Maine, Rhode Island, Missouri, Kansas and Georgia.

In one example, The Kansas Health Policy Authority hired an outside consulting firm to do a fiscal analysis of expanding coverage. They found that single payer would reduce state health spending by $869 million annually, while expanding coverage to all individuals and families currently without insurance.

In spite of all the evidence that supports single payer, and the citizen support for a public plan, the Congress is still unable and unwilling to consider the one option that would truly benefit the most Americans, and bring us in line with all of the other industrialized countries in the world.

Medicare for All would provide the following:

Universal coverage – guaranteed comprehensive coverage for all Americans
Affordability – 95% of people would pay less than they are currently paying
Choice – Patients would still have a choice of hospitals, physicians and providers.
Cost – Annual savings of approximately $400 billion based upon reducing administrative waste, negotiated hospital costs and bulk purchasing of prescription drugs.

Currently there are over 1,300 private insurance companies and a confusing number of federal and state programs. By enrolling in just one program the administrative waste caused by duplication and excessive paperwork will be reduced. Additionally, through one national plan, the risk is spread much more broadly, reducing costs to individual participants.

Medicare costs are expanding exponentially because it is made up of only the most medically needy demographic – the elderly. By enrolling a broader and younger population the costs are spread more broadly among high users and lower users, benefitting everybody through reduced costs.

Isn’t it time we brought some sanity into the health care debate, and actually made decisions based upon facts and not exaggerations and disinformation.

We can change the debate, by following the simple prescriptions laid out by President Obama in his State of the Union Address where he challenged the Congress to offer an alternative to his plan, and even earlier than that at a town hall meeting in March, 2007 when he extolled the crowd by telling them:
“… if you have a thousand people or a couple of thousand people writing letters I promise you that Congressman or woman pays a lot of attention. They really do. Of course, you’ve got to have a thousand or two thousand people writing letters in every Congressional District or at least in a majority of the Congressional Districts in order to actually implement policy.”

Our work is cut out for us. The lobbyists and special interests do not rest. In fact, in light of the recent Supreme Court decision, the health insurance industry now has carte blanche to spend as freely as they like to influence the outcome of legislation, and to support candidates opposed to health care reform while punishing its supporters.

In fact, the only special interest group that has not been heard in this debate is the American people. Isn’t it time we had our say?

Here are some web sites where you can get more information and can take action. Any of these would be a good place to start - just as long as we start

Medicare for All

Physicians for a National Health Program

Health Care Now

Single Payer Action

Labor Campaign for Single Payer Health Care

Single Payer Now

Unnatural Causes

Bob Herbert on Howard Zinn

2010-01-30T04:05:00.000-08:00

A Radical Treasure

Think of what this country would be like if Howard Zinn and others like him never bothered to fight for what they believed in.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/30/opinion/30herbert.html

New Study Shows Majority of Americans Still Support Health Care Reform

2010-01-26T05:38:00.000-08:00

A new study released by the Kaiser Family Foundation, the Health Care Tracking Poll, clearly demonstrates that the majority of Americans still support health care reform despite media coverage and the disinformation campaign being waged against reform. While Scott Brown’s election upset victory was seen as a referendum on health care, in reality it was a referendum on the power of big money to influence elections and obfuscate the issues. This explanation is supported by the results of the January Health Care Tracking Poll, which clearly demonstrates that when people are asked about specific proposals that are contained in the current health care reform legislation they are more supportive than when asked about their support for health care reform, as they understand it. This dichotomy of opinion demonstrates that supporters of reform have not been as effective in getting their message out as those who oppose reform, and that we should not minimize the impact of corporate money in affecting this outcome.

Let’s take a look at the numbers and see how they clearly demonstrate the success of disinformation.

While only 42% favor the current reform legislation, it is important to note that only 41% say they are opposed to it. Not exactly a groundswell or opposition nor support, but the numbers change drastically when respondents were asked specifics about the plan and their support.

The big-ticket item that the opposition keeps stressing is that we cannot afford this reform and that it will add billions of dollars to the federal deficit. However the federal Office of Management and Budget has found that both the Senate and House proposals would actually result in reducing the federal deficit. But this is just another example of “don’t bother me with the facts.” The study found that 60% of respondents believe that health care reform, as it is currently proposed, will increase the federal deficit. This breaks down along party lines, with 83% of Republicans believing this and 43% of Democrats. But among that crucial and growing electoral demographic – the independent or unaffiliated voter – 68% believe that it would add to the deficit. In light of this, it is easier to understand Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts. Until now it has been credited to “voter anger.” In reality it is a result of voter response to a carefully crafted disinformation campaign. Massachusetts has 1.5 million registered Democrats, 500,000 registered Republicans, but it also has 2 million people registered as independents. It appears that Republicans and independents were open to Brown’s campaign ads claiming that we cannot afford health care reform because it is too expensive and will add to the deficit.

In spite of this, 54% of those polled believe that “given the serious economic conditions facing the country it is more important to take on health care reform now,” while 39% believe that “we cannot afford to take on health care right now.” So one must ask, why do we consistently vote against our own best interests and in the case of health care our own beliefs? Fear is an important motivator, and Brown and the Republicans have been masterful in both creating that fear and then tapping into it to push their agenda and stop meaningful reform. Further confusing the issue, the study found that 42% of respondents expected the country to be better off if reform is passed and 37% expected us to be worse off. It would seem that people are confused rather than angry. But, rather than addressing this confusion, it appears that the Democrats will be responding to the anger message and once again following the Republican playbook with both eyes wide open, going into defensive mode and allowing the opposition to set the agenda and the terms of the debate.

Other issues that are currently contained in the legislation, receiving solid majorities of support include:
• 73% support tax credit to small businesses
• 67% support heath insurance exchanges
• 60% support extending covering dependents through age 25
• 60% support closing the Medicare “doughnut hole”
• 59% support increased income taxes on the wealthy
• 57% support subsidy assistance to individuals
• 56% would support reform if they knew it would help reduce the deficit
• 56% would support reform if it included provisions to cover at least 31 million currently uninsured
• 53% support taxes on drug and medical device manufacturers
• And, despite the hype and hysteria about a public option, 53% say that they would support reform if it contained this option.

So, it would seem the public is not angry, but rather we are confused. Solid majorities want heath care reform that would include expanded coverage for the uninsured, that would include the much maligned public option and would include increased taxes for the wealthy and drug companies. To understand the impact of awareness of what is actually contained in the proposed legislation and support for this legislation, the researches cross-referenced respondents awareness about components of the legislative efforts with their support for reform. Again, these findings demonstrated that there is much misunderstanding about what the proposed reforms actually are and what their impact will be.

Only 15% of respondents acknowledged that they were aware that the proposed reforms would actually reduce the federal deficit, but 56% stated that they would be more likely to support reform when they were informed of this fact. Only 44% were aware that the now infamous Medicare doughnut hole would be closed, but 60% said they would support legislation that contained that element. Forty-eight per cent of respondents were aware that coverage would be extended to 25 years old, but upon hearing that this as already contained in the legislation, 60% said they could support it.

These are just a few examples of how supporters of health care reform have failed to get their message out, and how effective opponents were at getting out misinformation that turned voter support against reform.

As the Democrats circle the wagons and get ready to retreat even further on health care reform, they should pause a moment and take stock of their primary failure – getting out correct information about the bill. While they are scrambling to regroup in the face of the Republican victory in Massachusetts, the biggest risk is taking away the wrong message from this electoral defeat. Voters are confused and in many cased disappointed. They need a consistent and coherent message and something that they can believe in. These are two things the Democrats have not been able to put forth, leaving the field open to disinformation intended to create voter confusion and anger.

Perhaps the best example of how successful this disinformation campaign was at creating anger based upon confusion was the battle cry heard over the summer of “keep the government out of my Medicare.” Amazing how opponents were able to convince people that the government was not capable of providing quality health programs, even though the majority of Medicare recipients are satisfied with their health coverage. In the most convoluted of reasoning, people believed that if they were happy with Medicare, it could not be a government program - solipsistic thinking at its worst.

Rather than retreat, we need to see an aggressive campaign to inform the public and to put a real public option back into the legislation. Isn’t it time we gave the people what we want and need, not what corporate America would have us believe is good for us?

What did the Supreme Court just do to our democracy? | freespeechforpeople.org

2010-01-24T13:13:00.000-08:00

We the people can take back our democracy, but we must act NOW!

Follow this link, watch the video, then take action!

What did the Supreme Court just do to our democracy? | freespeechforpeople.org

Corporations are People Too

2010-01-23T18:42:00.000-08:00

If indeed corporations are people as the supreme court would have us believe, shouldn’t they also be held to the rule of law, pay taxes and fulfill their communitarian role in society. Instead we have American corporations, benefitting from government protectionism and historically low tax rates, that relocate their corporate offices offshore to avoid taxes and build factories in third world countries to avoid US government regulations such as health and safety, minimum wage, right to organize and other basic human rights that we take for granted.

In a well publicized sham a few months ago, the US government embarrassed the Swiss government into revealing US holders of numbered Swiss bank accounts. Well now that corporations are people too, why are we not forcing those US corporations with fancy, and albeit empty offices in the Cayman Islands and other tax free havens to pay their fair share of taxes as American corporations.

Along these lines, the five Supreme Court judges who just gave our democracy away to corporate control, did not even specify in their ruling that a corporation had to be an American corporation to influence US elections. So these former US corporations who have created bogus operations in places like the Cayman Island to avoid paying taxes, now have carte blanche to use the money they save in taxes to influence US elections. But as bad as that may seem, this ruling opens the way for any foreigh corporation to exert undue influence in any US election. So all the billions that we send to countries like China and Saudi Arabia may finally come back to the US – in the form of influence peddling. Of course we all know that is already going on but now it will be legal and above board.

One not too absurd scenario that this could lead too, as far out as it seems, is that Al Qaeda can constitute itself as a legal corporation, using a phony front, like so many illegal operations already do, and use its resources to influence US elections rather than spending their money on guns and bombs. Wouldn’t that be ironic, Al Qaeda wins through legal means following the play book set forth by the US Supreme Court.

If you want to see how this decision can play itself out, we can look at a less phantasmagorical example. In fact we have to look no further than the recent Senate election in Massachusetts. Currently, there is no actual limit on corporate spending in federal elections, only that corporations can’t give directly. So to get around this, corporations have been donating millions to front organizations, without limit, to influence elections. One such recipient of this corporate largesse has been the US Chamber of Commerce. Each year, the Chamber accepts millions from US corporations and places so-called issues ads in races across the country.

In the last weeks of the very short special election in Massachusetts, the US Chamber of Commerce spent $1 million supporting Scott Brown. Before this onslaught of ads funded by corporations through the Chamber, polls showed Brown trailing Martha Coakley by about fifteen points. Once the ads fueled by this largesse hit the airwaves and the web, Brown started gaining in the polls and Coakley’s lead began to shrink. The final vote gave Brown a five-point lead, winning 52% to 47%. Perhaps the most successful intrusion of corporate influence since the now infamous Harry and Louise ads that helped to defeat the Clinton attempt at health care reform.

Is it a coincidence that both Coakleys’ defeat and the Supreme court decision opening the corporate floodgates to infuence elections and legislation occurred in the same week? And is it a coincidence that these two events also happened in the same week that President Obama released his plans to reguate banks? Perhaps the message to Mr. Obama and the public here is that if you try to regulate financial institutions so that they do not cause another financial meltdown, they will have their representatives on the court ensure that they can continue in their profligate ways without regard to the collateral damage caused. Another example f the pernicious influence of unlimited corporate funds. Now your vote is worthless, and don't let anybody suggest differently.

Democracy – Sold to the Highest Bidder

2010-01-21T17:43:00.000-08:00

Is it mere coincidence that on the same day that Goldman Sachs – rescued by billions in tax dollars - announces $16.2 billion in bonuses, the Supreme Court rules that corporations have the same free speech rights as persons and are not subject to spending limits in political campaigns?

The court split along party lines, the Republican majority voting in favor and the democratic minority opposing. Funny, how the conservative hue and cry about activist judges has not been heard on this ruling. It seems that judges are only accused of being “activist” when they protect the rights of real people.

This ruling will go down, or at least it should, as the day that democracy, or what is left of it, in the US was sold to the highest bidder.

This is like that show on TV, “Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader?” Well, when it comes to the majority on the Roberts court, the answer is NO! Any fifth grader could tell you without much hesitation that a corporation is not a person. If it were it would be able to vote and to hold office. Ooops, maybe I shouldn’t say that so loud, what if Justice Roberts got that idea, who knows where it could lead. Essentially the justices have ruled that money is free speech. Well then again, back to the fifth graders who could tell the justices that if money is free speech then speech is not free.

Ordinary citizens do not have access to the airwaves or to print or web advertising to get their message and opinions across. If corporations can afford to purchase airtime and individuals cannot, then to make this ruling truly just all airtime should be free thereby allowing equal access. But it seems that equal access is another concept that the court does not get, but many fifth graders would understand.

Let’s look at one simple scenario to see how this new ruling could play itself out. Today Goldman Sachs announced the distribution of $1.6 billion in bonuses, averaging approximately $500,000 per employee. If the corporation, in order to exercise its free speech rights on proposed legislation regulating banks and investment firms, decided to hold back just 10% of its bonus awards. That would leave an average bonus of $450,000. Still none to shabby.

Now, the corporation as person, has $1.6 billion dollars to spend to defeat the proposed banking legislation. That could buy an army of lobbyists, hundreds of hours of advertising on TV and reams of print advertising. In addition it could pay for operatives on the ground in every congressional district in the country. That would indeed be the end of any legislation restricting the unsavory and risky practices of financial firms that lead us to the brink of disaster.

In light of this dangerous decision by the Supreme Court, I end with a few relevant quotes from Thomas Jefferson:

The system of banking [is] a blot left in all our Constitutions, which, if not covered, will end in their destruction... I sincerely believe that banking institutions are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity... is but swindling futurity on a large scale.

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country.

This founding father could give Nostradamus a run for his money, it seems that way back in the very beginnings of the 19th century, Jefferson was able to predict the state of affairs at the dawn of the 21st century.

Today the Supreme Court sold our imperfect democracy to the highest bidder, but we the people can and must take it back.

The News From Massachusetts

2010-01-19T19:05:00.000-08:00

They will probably call it the Massachusetts miracle, the seat that Ted Kennedy held in the senate for 47 years going to a Republican. Not just any Republican, but one who has vowed to stop health care reform! To call that ironic would be an understatement.

While the Democrats scamble to do damage control, and Scott Brown is polishing his truck, the stage will be turned over to the pundits and talking heads who will try to make sense out of this. In the end, Martha Coakley will take the fall for not be a good enough campaigner and taking victory for granted while Scott Brown crawled and clawed his way to victory. That would reduce this election to a mere popularity contest, which it was not.

So I will join in with these pundits and feel free to interpret the results as well. Let me start by saying there should be no mistake about what happened here in Massachusetts. Martha Coakley did not lose this election alone, in fact this was not an election about Martha Coakley versus Scott Brown, this was a referendum on the national Democratic Party and its failure to stand for something.

People are not angry, or disillusioned because the President has not fixed the economy in one year, after it took Bush eight years to wreck it. They are angry because the majority of people wanted to believe that things would be different. That the last presidential election really was about hope and change. Instead we got more of the same. Bailouts of Wall Street, escalation of the war in Afghanistan, a health plan without a public option that was favored by a majority of Americans, no let up in sight in home foreclosures and a Democratic majority that has allowed itself to be stifled by a Republican minority.

Perhaps the voters are tired of being used. Democrats talk of change when running for office, then turn their backs on their base once elected. Maybe this election was about saying “we’re tired and we ain’t gonna take it anymore.” Maybe this should really be seen as a wake up call for Democrats, start acting like Democrats and stop hiding behind the false threat of a filibuster. Everything is not negotiable. There must be certain values and ideals that you stand for.

Martha Coakley had the misfortune of being the first test of voter anger and disappointment, and Scott Brown had the advantage of being able to tap into that reservoir. If this is not to be a sign of things to come, then the Democrats have to start acting like Democrats and do what they were given a mandate to do. Let’s move away from the same old tired politics and people who got us into this economic mess, and give the people what they voted for in 2008 – change and hope.

Barack Obama promised hope and gave hope to millions of voices that had not been heard before, youth and minority youth in particular. It is a dangerous thing to give people hope, and then not deliver on that promise. In the words of Jessie de la Cruz of the United Farmworkers Union as quoted by Studs Terkel “Hope Dies Last.” Once that hope is gone and their belief in the system fades along with it, what hope do any of us have for long-term, systemic change.

If nothing else, the Massachusetts miracle or upset, depending which side of the aisle you are on, should not go unheeded. It is a loud wake up call, let’s hope somebody in the White House and in Congress is listening.

Hope Amid Devastation - Success in the face of Neglect

2010-01-09T14:57:00.000-08:00

Amid all the devastation that is still New Orleans, the real stories of Katrina are the stories of the people of New Orleans. Those that survived and those that did not. Those that are still scattered like fallen leaves across the United States, separated from family, friends and all that is familiar, without the resources to return home or a home to return to. The stories of those that tried to ride out the storm and those that fled with just the shirts on their backs. And there are the stories of those who tried to rebuild only to find roadblocks every step of the way, whether they be government regulations, loss of required documentation, not knowing about available services until too late or those that fell victim to unscrupulous contractors and government officials.

And there are also the stories of those residents who found a calling in the aftermath of Katrina and have not only vowed to rebuild, but in the process of trying to understand what it means to return home have learned that to build community one must participate in community. I have met and continue to meet many of these people, who have come back, but in the process of returning have become part of something larger than themselves.

One such person that I had the pleasure of meeting was Mack McClendon. A man who grew up in the housing projects of the Lower 9th Ward. After returning to find his home uninhabitable he purchased a vacant and damaged warehouse to begin a business of restoring antique cars. Having obtained the building and preparing to embark on his dream Mack began to understand that what his community needed was a place and a way to recreate community. If people were going to be encouraged to return home, they would need something to return to, and this was more important than attaining his own personal dream. The Lower 9th lacked infrastructure and community services. In a community where there were multiple pubic schools, there was only one charter school. The government, through the federal Road Home program, was purchasing and demolishing homes, creating vast tracts of vacant land. Mack came to the realization that to help recreate this sense of community, the Lower 9th needed a community center more than it needed antique car restoration.

Today, Mack has dedicated himself and his meager financial resources to developing the Lower 9th Ward Village Community Center. All of his energies are devoted to building community and giving people something to return home to. As he described his own personal metamorphosis “we all have a light within us, but that light is not turned on. Then something happens and turns that light on. Once it is on it cannot be turned off. However some people never turn that light on and die without knowing what it is like.” This community center is his light, it is shining bright and it has become his passion. As he says it best, “ I have the least financial resources that I have ever had, but I am now the richest that I have ever been.

According to a March 2009 report by CNN, the Lower 9th was home to 19,000 people before Katrina, but less than 19% of these residents have returned, with a total population now of a mere 3,600 people. The others are scattered throughout the country, plopped down in unfamiliar surroundings by their government, with no means of returning home. Prior to Katrina, the Lower 9th had the one of the highest proportions of black home ownership in the country. Yet, the media has portrayed this once vibrant community as a low income, crime-ridden community that was blighted.

Mack’s story is just one of the many untold stories of people working hard to do what the government should be doing to rebuild these devastated communities.

Another person that I had the pleasure of meeting is Clifford Washington, the Coordinator of Volunteers at the Lower 9th Ward Neighborhood Empowerment Network (NENA), a “resident-based approach to comprehensive rebuilding.” Clifford is a member of a large family with deep roots in the Lower 9th Ward. After Katrina, he and his wife and children were relocated first to Texas and then to North Carolina. They both left jobs in North Carolina to return to New Orleans to be with family. When a student that was with me asked Clifford if he was concerned about returning to a place where a hurricane can do so much damage, he responded by saying that the hurricanes are a part of life here just as the fires or earthquakes are a part of life in California and other natural disasters are part of living in other areas. Then, demonstrating the resilience that I have come to see in so many of the people who have returned, he stated that at least with a hurricane there can be several days warning, which is not possible for people living in earthquake or forest fire areas.

Ending my meetings with each of these extraordinary men, I thanked them for their time, and each said how grateful they were that people, like the Wheelock students, were coming to help and how much it means to the residents and those still hoping to return knowing that people out there care and are still aware of their continuing struggles.

In this installment, I would like to highlight one more person that I had the pleasure of meeting - Steve a volunteer at Camp Hope. Although not really a camp, this former parochial school building is home to up to 300 volunteers from around the country coming to help rebuild. The building that Camp Hope is located in is surrounded by blocks and blocks of vacant land and scattered homes that have been rehabilitated or are waiting to be renovated. These vacant lots are littered with the artifacts of community, setting the stage for one to only imagine the community and the people that inhabited it. The building has been leased from the Archdiocese by the St. Bernard Parish government for a six-year period. Without the homes and the families that once inhabited this community there is no longer a need for a school. Camp Hope is where the twenty-five student volunteers from Wheelock College that I have traveled here with are staying, along with other groups from churches, colleges and families that have come to help.

Steve lost everything to Katrina, his house, his car, his pet and several months after the storm his wife passed away. Although Steve’s home is just a slab of concrete today and he has hopes of rebuilding in the future, he now spends his time helping to make Camp Hope home for hundreds of volunteers who are helping to rebuild the homes of others. In addition to his volunteer work at the camp he is trying to help bring as many people home as possible. The pain that Steve experiences is palpable when he talks about how the government sent people all over the country, sometimes breaking up families, without telling them where they were going and without providing them the means to return home.

These are just thee of the extraordinary people that I have met during my week in New Orleans. The others include the twenty-five Wheelock students who sacrificed a large part of their semester break, paying their own way to come to New Orleans to help people they have never met, doing things like hanging drywall, demolding a house, painting, hanging doors and window sills. These young women did not shy away from the dirty, difficult and challenging tasks they were given, and in doing so learned about issues of race, class, community, civic engagement and how our government could fail so miserably in helping its own citizens. The question that kept coming up for the students and the people working to revitalize the communities so profoundly affected by Katrina was “ if this is America, and these are American citizens and communities, how could this devastation still exist four years later, with so little progress made?

Greetings From the Town that America Forgot.

2010-01-06T04:44:00.000-08:00

As I spend more time in New Orleans communities that are struggling to come back from Katrina, I learn more and more of the shortness of our collective memories as Americans. Katrina is still happening here, it is not a thing of the past. The continuing impacts of the hurricane are a daily fact of life in New Orleans, unless of course you never step out of the French Quarter, where all is fun, food and music.

As New Orleans inches ever so slowly toward recovery more questions than answers remain. How could the country that created the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after World War II tolerate such wide spread destruction and choose to do so little about it? Why do so many Americans think that just because four years have passed that things are just fine down here? Will the recent court decision finding the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers partially at fault for the flooding and the ensuing devastation, mean that homeowners who cannot afford to rebuild will be able to call on the federal government to take responsibility for it role in the flooding?

While these questions remain unanswered, thousands of former New Orleans residents wait in a state of perpetual limbo, unable to return to their homes, or to rebuild on the sites where their homes once stood.

While driving around the affected areas I noticed numerous hand painted signs advertising services that cut tall grass. I had never seen signs for such a service before New Orleans. Finding an explanation for the proliferation of tall grass cutters, I also found another example of how we punish people for falling victim to circumstances beyond their control and then kicking them while they’re down. It seems that it is punishable by a $500 daily fine if you allow your grass to grow over eighteen inches high. But if your house is uninhabitable or no longer exists and all you own is an empty lot, and you have been relocated outside of the area, you are till responsible for keeping your grass trimmed. Clearly a difficult task for someone who has lost everything. So, if you are unable to cut your grass, and you are fined $500 for each day that the grass is taller than eighteen inches, it won’t be long before you cannot afford to pay your outstanding fines. As the penalties pile up, and it becomes less likely that you will be able to pay, the government can step in and seize your property for default on the outstanding fines. You can imagine where this is going. As the government accumulates more and larger tracts of real estate, it can then turn the land over to developers to build new homes that are not affordable to former residents.

The injustice in this should be apparent to the most casual observer, but it goes on. Wouldn’t it make more sense for local government to provide the grass cutting service, rather than being eager to fine people and confiscate property? But this is New Orleans, where contractors have been known to take deposits for rebuilding or repairing homes and then disappear, and where the current Mayor, Ray Ngin, is being investigated for allegedly going on a luxury Hawaiian vacation paid for by a real estate developer.

Just another day in the Big Easy

A Message From New Orleans

2010-01-04T21:03:00.000-08:00

Greetings from New Orleans where they are experiencing the coldest January weather in more than twelve years. I am down here with a group of Wheelock College students engaged in a service learning project. Twenty-five young women from Wheelock traveled from Boston to New Orleans to spend a week helping to rebuild homes devastated in Hurricane Katrina four years ago. The President of Wheelock has made a ten-year commitment, on the part of the school, to help in the rebuilding of New Orleans. This week’s trip is the seventh trip sponsored by the College.

Now you may be asking yourself, New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina? That was years ago, hasn't that been taken care of? So many of the young people on this trip have gotten that very same reaction. So the simple answer to that question is that not very much has been done in the past four years to rebuild this City devastated by Katrina. Yes there is a lot of rebuilding going on but barely enough to make a dent in the devastation that resulted.

We are working on four houses in St. Bernard and Orleans Parishes, under the guidance of the St. Bernard Project. This organization is dedicated to helping to rebuild St Bernard parish, home to 67,000 people before Katrina left its mark. As a result of the Hurricane all 27,000 homes in the Parish were rendered uninhabitable, when the entire Parish was inundated with up to twenty feet of water for four weeks. Since Katrina, only one-third of the residents have returned, most of whom are living in FEMA trailers or in their attics that were above the high water level.

What were once vibrant communities with schools, stores, playgrounds and modest homes, are now vast tracts of empty land, abandoned or empty homes, gutted shells interspersed with renovated or newly built homes. Driving through these communities, one sees block after block of seemingly vacant lots. However, upon closer inspection you begin to notice that these are not vacant lots, they still contain the remnants of thousands of homes. Slabs of concrete, driveways, stoops, patios – all reveal the sad fact that these were once places where people lived, laughed, loved and raised their families. Now they resemble ghost towns that are ever so slowly being reclaimed.

Progress is slow but steady. Utilizing all volunteer labor, the St. Bernard Project is able to renovate a home and make it habitable for a mere $15,000. Utilizing thousands of volunteers from all over the country, they have completed the renovation of 257 homes. An incredible feat, but a mere drop in the bucket compared to the enormity of the devastation. This volunteer labor is necessary because most residents cannot afford to rebuild their homes because they did not have flood insurance. A couple of years before Katrina, the federal government inspected the levees and decided that they were sufficient o protect this area from flooding and rezoned the Parish out of the flood zone. No longer in a flood zone, it was reasonable to drop flood insurance and save a significant amount of money each year. Having made the decision to redraw the flood zone, the federal government takes no responsibility to help these people rebuild their homes and their lives.

Next door in the Lower Ninth Ward, where we watched people on TV huddling on their roofs waiting to be rescued, the rebuilding is as slow as the rescue efforts were four years ago. Brad Pitt, through his Make It Right Foundation, has been utilizing international teams of architects to design new homes that are green and designed to withstand flooding. Many of these homes are ultramodern and somewhat phantasmagorical, but they do make a statement. However, even with his celebrity and access to resources, the Make It Right Foundation, has a goal of building only 150 new homes.

It is shameful that in the Untied States, we cannot even provide the funds needed to rebuild a city after a natural disaster. A small portion of the annual budgets to wage the wasteful wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could be used to fund the rebuilding of New Orleans. With a little foresight, we could have rebuilt New Orleans as the first “green city” in the United States. Instead as time goes on and the government amasses large tracts of land that once supported thousands of modest homes, this land will be turned over to developers to build homes that do not serve the needs of the residents that lived here prior to Katrina.

More to come from New Orleans in the next few days. There is more to the story than the devastation of homes, the real impact is in the devastation of communities and the impact on families. And the real story is how the United States has turned its back on its fellow citizens in need. Our brief collective memories must be expanded to stay with a problem until it is finished. Why hasn’t President Obama made the same commitment to the people of New Orleans that the has made to the people of Afghanistan – t stay with the job until it is completed successfully?

Making Nothing out of Something – or – Snatching Defeat out of the Jaws of Victory

2009-12-18T13:41:00.000-08:00

Leading LIke a Democrat

Once again the Democrats have shown that when put in charge of the legislative and executive branches of government – with a clear mandate from the people for change – they are incapable of leading.

The so-called health care reform bill getting ready to limp across the legislative finish line is a prime example of the Democrats inability to stand up for their core values. Stripped of all real reform, this bill represents another stunning defeat for the American people and the last chance to address this burning issue for at least another generation.

While the Democrats negotiated and gave away, piece by piece, any true reform that was in the bill, trying to reach the elusive and phony target of a filibuster proof majority, they consistently ignored the wishes of a majority of Americans. Instead, due to their fear of a filibuster, the Democratic leadership elevated one man – Sen. Joe Lieberman from Connecticut – to the position of decision maker dictating what would be in the final version of the bill. Reveling in the national spotlight, Senator Lieberman served his true constituency, not the people of Connecticut that elected him nor the people of the United States that want true health care reform but the insurance industry, his true employer of record.

While serving in the US Senate, Mr. Lieberman has taken in an astonishing $2.5 million in campaign contributions from the health care industry, including health insurance companies, pharmaceuticals, hospitals and nursing homes. All poised to continue record profits and ever-bigger bonuses for the executives if a watered-down health reform bill passes with no public option. But, being the family man that he is, Joe Lieberman’s wife was also on the payroll of these very same companies. As a paid lobbyist (now there s something truly perverse about an electoral system that allows spouses of legislators to be paid lobbyists for companies that depend upon legislative initiatives and regulations) working for a company that raked in millions in fees from companies such as Glaxco Smith Kline, Sankyo Pharmaceuticals and Pfizer, Ms. Lieberman was representing those very companies that are opposed to health care reform.

So now we have Democrats and the president supporting a bill that barely chips away at the edges of needed health care reform. Gone from the bill is a public option, even though this is supported by a majority of Americans. Also excised from the bill as Democrats ran to avoid any real debate is a Medicare buy-in for people over 55 who do not have health insurance and end of life counseling. However, the democrats in the House did manage to include a clause restricting access to abortion. So not only do the Democrats manage, as only they can, to celebrate a watered down health care bill that does little that is needed, but they allowed and then endorsed the insertion of the abortion restriction.

Where is the change? Where is the hope? Where are the Democrats?

Sanders Says Single-Payer Day Will Come as He Withdraws Amendment

2009-12-17T09:55:00.000-08:00

By Donna Smith, Healthcare NOT Warfare Co-chair
December 16, 2009

Sickening. Saddening. Maddening. And the stuff of future determination in the political struggle for healthcare for all in the United States.

On the floor of the U.S. Senate today, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont rose to offer his single-payer, Medicare for All amendment No. 2837 and to begin debate. Then, one of the two Republican doctors in Senate, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma, demanded a full reading of the 700-page amendment.

From the Senate gallery, I watched as Sen. Max Baucus told Sanders the only way to halt the Republican delay tactic would be to withdraw the amendment. Sanders stated emphatically to Baucus, “I will offer this amendment.” But both men left the chamber as the amendment reading went on.

The Republicans seemed to be pleased with the procedural maneuver. Periodically one of the Democratic leadership would walk over to Coburn and chat. He’d smile and lean on his stack of documents—everything being very well staged for the C-SPAN cameras.
I thought how cold and callous it all looked from the gallery—healthcare is not a laughing matter for millions of us. This crisis has killed thousands of our fellow citizens and bankrupted millions more. I fail to find any of that remotely funny or something over which any Senator ought to feel pride as he or she blocks progress towards a better healthcare system.

The words of the amendment were clear and clean. And though not many were there to actually listen, I couldn’t help but hear the details of the amendment and wish people could grasp the simple beauty of knowing each of us, all of us would have the care we need when we needed it at a lower cost. Instead, we’re going to have more of the mess we have now—more insurance company influence over our lives and our bodies, and in many cases at a higher cost.

Single-payer, amendment number 2837 sounded pretty good to me. I was more than willing to wait out the Republican mischief and the Democrats’ worry about not passing something—anything—before Christmas. I was more than willing to listen to every word.

After two hours of reading page after page of the amendment, Sanders stepped back up to his desk and withdrew the amendment. The reading stopped. And the fight for single-payer, Medicare for all died for this Congressional cycle.
Senator Sanders stood proudly and defiantly at the microphone and delivered the floor speech on behalf of single-payer. By then it was all over except for getting his intelligent remarks and his passion on the record. Those who care about where we need to go with this nation’s healthcare system should listen to Senator Sanders’ floor speech from today, December 16, 2009.

The fight will go on. As surely as the deaths attributable to a lack of access to healthcare in the United States will continue to mount and as surely as the number of bankruptcies directly related to medical crisis will also continue to rise, so too will the cry for real healthcare justice. This Congress and this President are not going to get to the place we needed them to go. They are not extending healthcare as a basic human right to all of us.

It makes me wish I had purchased a little health insurance stock along the way. Because as soon as Joe Lieberman made sure that he cleared out any chance of any public insurance expansion at all from this bill, the for-profit health insurance companies saw their stocks begin to rise again.

So, how do we get through this cycle? Will there be a conference committee effort to restore a state based single-payer amendment to health reform legislation? Or will we just watch as Congress passes some messy piece of something that isn’t likely to do very much at all to mitigate the healthcare crisis in this nation just to claim they did something?

And what of the single-payer advocates and movement? Well, in the words of the brave nurses who never took “no” for an answer on other healthcare issues from the “Governator” or anyone else, “We’ll be back.” Healthcare is a human right now and it will be when we win this struggle. It’s just going to take more time and, unfortunately, more suffering to get where we need to go.

Meanwhile, many of us wait anxiously for reports out of Pennsylvania where they were having a state Senate hearing today on their state single-payer bill. We have miles to go before we sleep.

Mass-Care: The Massachusetts Campaign for Single Payer Health Care
33 Harrison Ave - 5th floor
Boston, MA 02111
Ph: 617-723-7001
Fx: 617-723-7002
Em: info@masscare.org

Where's Obama - The Sequel to the Sequel

2009-12-15T12:18:00.000-08:00

Barak Obama is Now Our War President

Now that President Obama has taken ownership of the failed war effort in Afghanistan that he inherited from the failed Bush Presidency, it is no longer Bush’s war it is now Obama’s war. Just one week before traveling to Norway to accept the Nobel Peace Prize, Mr. Obama ordered an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. The annual cost to maintain one soldier in Afghanistan is $1 million, totaling $30 billion a year to maintain these extra 30,000 troops.

According to a September report The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11 published by the Congressional Research Service, the annual cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for fiscal year 2009 was $150 billion, with the total cost so far equaling a staggering $944 billion. While these numbers are beyond any individual’s ability to conceptualize, it might make it more understandable to take a look at what these staggering amounts of taxpayer dollars might have accomplished if used to improve the quality of life in America, instead of costing countless lives and adding astronomical amounts to the federal debt.

To help put things into perspective, the highest cost estimate (the one used by opponents of single payer health care) is $1.6 trillion over ten years. Although ths is a wildly inflated number, and no responsible policy or budget analyst uses this number, it is still less than the cost of running two failed wars, over a similar period. Yet the very same politicians who say we cannot afford health care reform, have voted for every allocation to support these wars.

With the added cost of the additional 30,000 troops being sent to Afghanistan, the annual cost for both wars will rise to $180 billion. This amount if directed toward human needs rather than toward destruction could pay for important improvements in the quality of life for millions of US citizens. For example, $180 billion could buy health care for more than 34 million Americans currently without health insurance, providing quality, affordable care for people to whom health care is now a luxury that is out of reach.

Looking at just the added cost of sending additional troops to Afghanistan will provide some insight into what each and every American is sacrificing every day that we continue these failed wars. Thirty billion dollars a year can provide health coverage for 5.6 million people, or it could provide full college scholarships for five million young people, making college affordable to students who are now denied this expensive opportunity.

Other examples of how these funds could have been spent include building 173,000 affordable housing units or hiring 354,000 elementary school teachers, or providing 5.7 million college Pell grants to help defray the cost of college or creating 3.4 million Head Start spaces so every child gets a head start on their education.

Remember candidate Obama talking about a green revolution and creating jobs through green industries? What ever happened to that? Well for one thing it is not affordable because of the growing deficit and shrinking tax collections. Instead of seizing the opportunity to redirect our national economy this administration chose to bail out the very people who caused the economic meltdown and who are now rewarding themselves with billions of dollars in undeserved bonuses. If President Obama were as sincere as candidate Obama, instead of bailing out the banks and instead of continuing and building the war efforts, these funds could have been dedicated to developing a green economy, creating millions of well-paying jobs and setting the Untied States in the forefront of the new worldwide economy. For example, just the $30 billion annual cost of the additional troops in Afghanistan could have paid for converting 57 million American homes to renewable forms of energy. Not only creating jobs, but also taking a giant step forward in addressing global warming.

But President Obama is a far cry from candidate Obama. Or as Jay leno said "I'm trying to sum up President Obama's first 11 months in office. He gave billions to Wall Street, cracked down on illegal immigrants getting health care, and he's sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. You know something, he may go down in history as our greatest Republican president ever."

Where's Obama - The Sequel

2009-12-07T17:46:00.000-08:00

Where's the Health Care Reform We Were Promised?

Now that President Obama has given his pep talk on health care to Senate Democrats with apparently little impact, it brings me back to Where’s Obama the Sequel. In danger of losing his signature issue – health care reform – Mr. Obama comes out of hiding on this issue in an attempt to rescue health care from the jaws of defeat. Too little, too late.

When Mr. Obama came riding into town on his Change Express, health care reform, the economy and the wars were on the top of his list. After ten months in office, he has given billions in bailouts to banks and the auto industry, intensified the war in Afghanistan and is on the verge of watching health care reform go down for the count. If health care reform is lost this time, it will be off the public agenda for at least another decade, if it even makes its way back on. Remember what happened after the Clinton debacle on health care.

So in the spirit of the Where’s Obama series, I have constructed the speech that Mr. Obama should have given to a joint session of Congress and publicized to the American people, instead of a private “pep talk” to Senate Democrats. It, would be short and to the point, and would go something like this:

My fellow Americans, I come before you today to speak about the nation’s health. We are in the process of releasing another 10 million doses of H1N1 vaccine, getting this to the American people as quickly as possible, and doing all that is humanly possible to avoid a flu epidemic. If you desire a flu shot and have not yet had the opportunity to get one, please be patient, help is on the way.

There is another epidemic that we are facing, one with much more dire consequences and one that has been with us for generations. I come before you today because it is time that we faced this epidemic and wiped it out. I am speaking of the epidemic facing more than 50 million Americans, lack of access to health care. That’s right, today in the United States of America, 50 million of our fellow Americans live in fear of the simplest illness because they do not have health insurance. As a candidate for President I promised that if elected I would do something to address this gross inequity in our society. You elected me and now I owe it to you, my fellow Americans, to address this issue in the best way possible.

It is estimated that as many as 18,000 Americans die each year from preventable causes because they lack health insurance and cannot receive timely or preventive care. In good conscience how can we allow this to happen? Any disease that would claim that many lives annually would receive our attention and the resources in an attempt to address it. But yet, too many of us find this denial of basic health care to millions of our fellow citizens acceptable.

We live in the richest, most prosperous nation in the world, yet we are the only industrialized nation that does not offer health care to all of its citizens. The very people in this chamber, who would deny so many Americans the chance to live healthy lives, themselves enjoy free, lifetime health care. How can you, each of you seated before me today, deny American citizens the same privilege that you have as their representatives.

My friends, on both sides of the aisle who rail against a so-called public option, enjoy that public option for themselves and their families. I ask you, and I ask the American people, is this fair? The members on the Republican side of the aisle, and the so-called moderate Democrats who speak against the government’s ability to provide a quality service, also condemn a public option as “unfair competition.” Well if the government can’t provide quality health care at affordable prices, private insurers should welcome the competition to prove that they can do it better.

But you and I know the truth, and it is time to stop deceiving the American people. We already have public health care in the form of the Veterans health system and Medicare. Both of these public programs consistently receive higher satisfaction ratings than private insurers. Does anyone know any of their constituents that are satisfied with their private insurers?
Each and every one of you was elected to serve the people in your districts. The majority of Americans desire a public option while 50 million Americans wake up each morning praying not to get into an accident or to get sick. Not providing health care for so many people ends up costing the American taxpayer more in the long-run. When people do not have health insurance they forego preventive exams and put off treating an illness until it is so severe that they have to go to the emergency room, the most expensive form of primary care.

If you were truly concerned about your constituents and the cost of health care you would not only support a pubic option but you would support universal health care in the form of Medicare for all. It is time that we stopped chipping away at the edges of this very serious condition and addressed the need head on. So today, I come before you and the American people to tell you that I will not sign a health reform bill that does not include a public option, and tomorrow I will be releasing a plan for truly universal health care in the form of Medicare for all. We have a successful public option and it is time to make it universal to all who choose to enroll. I will not allow the Party of No or a few members of my own party to stand in the way of progress. It is time for the naysayers to step aside and for the rest of us to stand up for the American people. I will take my plan directly to the people and each and every one of you will be answerable to your constituents if you stand in the way of progress.

And to my colleagues in the Democratic leadership I call upon you to end this charade and mockery of the legislative process by claiming that you require sixty votes to put this bill forward. Sixty votes is the number needed to end debate and stop a filibuster. If the members of my own party had the courage of their convictions they would allow the threatened filibuster to go forward. Let each and every one of those senators who would stop progress and thwart the will of the American people stand on this podium and speak against health care. Why protect them behind the false shield of the silent filibuster? I, along with millions of Americans, would like to hear their faulty reasoning as they try to make a coherent case against true health care reform. In the name of democracy, you must put this bill forward, all that is required to pass it is a simple majority. Stop hiding behind the threat of a filibuster. Your work is cut out for you and you were elected to represent the will of the people. I call upon you to do just that and not the narrow self interest of any one industry.

Thank you and good night.

Where's Obama

2009-12-05T06:22:00.000-08:00

After President Obama’s decision to send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan I feel like I am caught between two alternate realities. The first one reminds me of Where’s Waldo, where you have to search through complex pictures looking for the little man in the red striped shirt. Well, I kept looking at the screen trying to find the man that we elected President. That’s right, the one who was going to end the war and bring the troops home, the one who was going to finally institute universal health care and a few other things that we haven't seen yet. So all I could think of instead of where’s Waldo was where’s Obama!

The second alternate reality that I thought I was caught up in was that perhaps I had inadvertently wandered into a Ken Follett novel, you know the one where they create a double for the president and then kidnap the President and put his double in his place. I kept watching the TV looking for a sign that this wasn't really the same Barak Obama that we had elected, that perhaps he had been replaced with a body double and this new guy was only a puppet.

If this were the Barak Obama that we elected he would have given a different speech, one that would have recognized that generals fight wars they do not create peace. General McChrystal would have been derelict in his duty as a soldier if he did not ask for more troops. That is why our Commander in Chief is a civilian. Civilians don’t fight wars and the President should have served as a check on the need of generals to fight and try to win wars, even those that are unwinnable. Unfortunately by splitting the difference, ordering only 30,000 troops instead of the 40,000 requested, President Obama convinced himself that he was providing that check on the power of the generals.

That speech that I hoped he would have given went something like this:

My fellow Americans, I come before you tonight weary as you are of endless wars that you and I have inherited. After seven years of war without end in sight and after spending almost $1 trillion it is time for a new tactic. One that will indeed guarantee our security and that of the world. One that will take us away from the path that we have followed for the last seven years. One that has helped to make Al Qaeda stronger and weakened our ally Pakistan.

Today Afghanistan, a once beautiful and verdant country is now barren and nonproductive. After three decades of endless war, the children of Afghanistan know nothing other than war, devastation and fear. No foreign power has experienced military success in this country. The Soviet Union, the world’s second strongest superpower at the time, retreated from Afghanistan in defeat after many years of war. It was this Russian invasion and our support of the opposition that gave birth to Al Qaeda. History suggests that this pattern is repeating itself as I speak to you tonight. The American people are tired of this war as are the people of Afghanistan.

It costs approximately $1 million a year to maintain a single combat ready soldier in Afghanistan. For a fraction of the cost of training, deploying and maintaining an additional 40,000 troops in Afghanistan as requested, we can have a greater and longer-lasting impact on the that country and the entire region. I ask you for one moment, to join me in envisioning a future where the children of Afghanistan and Pakistan can dream about their future. A time where they can no longer be seduced into extremist ideologies because they have an education, adequate food and the possibility of a peaceful future for themselves and their families. Isn’t this what all of us want for our children. I have met and spoken with many of the mothers and fathers in Afghanistan and Pakistan and this is all that they want for their children also.

We have the ability to help make that dream a reality, but this cannot be done by merely continuing a war without end.

I did not run for President to be the man that sends more of America’s young people to fight and die thousands of miles from home. I was elected because the American people yearned for change. Americans saw before them two failed war efforts that were primed to go on without a strategy for success or exit. The billions of dollars spent on the wars were crumbling the very foundations of the United States economy. And the people wanted change.

Next month I will be accepting one of the world’s most coveted prizes, the Nobel Peace Prize. I could not, in good conscience, accept such an honor if I were to expand the war effort. Isn’t it time that we showed our children and the children of the entire world that peace can be waged through peaceful means?

Today I am announcing that I will send no more troops to Afghanistan to wage a war without end. Instead, I pledge to spend $20 billion, half of what it would cost to deploy and maintain 40,000 troops, on rebuilding the infrastructure of Afghanistan – including schools, hospitals, roads, agriculture and economic development in the tribal areas. Today, I also call upon our allies throughout the world to match this pledge so that we can truly see peace in Afghanistan.

I end tonight by pledging to you that no American young woman or man will ever have to risk their lives or their livelihoods to fight an ill-conceived war on foreign soil while I am their Commander in Chief.

The Enduring Legacy of Bushenomics – Part 3

2009-11-28T03:42:00.000-08:00

Homelessness

A few facts, that speak for themselves, without commentary:

According to a 2007 study by the US Conference of Mayors (prior to the housing meltdown and foreclosuremania):

12 of 13 cities surveyed turned people away due to overcrowding in homeless shelters

10 cities reported increases in households with children seeking shelters

The average length of stay n a homeless shelter was 70 days for families

Families with children comprise 23% of the US homeless population

In 2008, the Conference of Mayors reported:

19 of the 21 cities responding reported an increase in their homeless populations during the year.

16 of the 25 reported increases in the number of families becoming homeless

Of the 19 cities that collect data on employed people whoa re homeless, 11 cities reported an increase in this number

All 21 cities with available statistics reported increases in the numbers of people seeking food aid for the first time.

New York City reported an increase in the length of time of shelter stays for families to almost 12 months up from 5 months in the 1990’s.

The National Coalition for the Homeless reports that:

There are 200,00 homeless vets on any given night, and approximately 400,000 vets experience homeless during a twelve month period.

1.35 million children experience homelessness in a twelve-month period, with 200,000 homeless on any given day.

The National Alliance to End Homelessness reports:

From 1999-2006 the annual funding for pubic housing declined by 25%

From 1997-2007, as much as 170,000 units of public housing were lost due to deterioration

From 2004-2007, housing vouchers for low-income families were reduced by 150,000

There are more then 15.8 million families eligible for federal housing vouchers, but only one in nine receive these vouchers.

Between 2004-2007 federal funding for affordable housing and community development was reduced by over $14 billion

More on the Enduring Legacy of Bushenomics

2009-11-24T18:17:00.000-08:00

A few simple facts to consider:

• According to a study by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, in 2004 3.8 million 18-24 year olds were unemployed or not enrolled in post secondary school. In just two years that number increased to 4.3 million in 2007, totaling almost 15% of all 18-24 year olds in the United States. And that was before the reality of the Bush recession had hit.

• A 2007 study by the Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies found “While aggregate household net wealth grew from $25.9 trillion in 1995 to $50.1 trillion in 2004 (both in 2004 dollars) nearly 90 percent of the net gains occurred only among the top quartile (25%) of households in the wealth distribution.”

• In 2000 there were 301 billionaires in the United States, in only four years, by 2004, this number had grown to 400. That’s two new billionaires a month.

• In 2001 the percent of US families with zero or negative net worth was 17.6%, by 2007 this number had grown to 18.6%

• From 1979 (Reaganomics hit in 1980) to 2005 the top 5% of income households saw an increase in real income of 81%, while during this same period the lowest 20% of income households saw a decline in real income of 1%

• In the year 2005, ALL income gains went to the top 10% of households, while the bottom 90% of income households saw declines.

• In 2006, the bottom 20% of income households received an average of $23 from the Bush tax cuts, while the top 1% saw an average of $39,020 and the top 0.1% received a whopping $200,523.

• According to the Economic Policy Institute, from 2001 to 2007 real income of middle class families actually fell for the first time in history.

These facts speak for themselves without commentary about the impact of Bushenomics on the American family and the US economy.

Sign the Petition to Harry Reid to pass the public option.

2009-11-23T18:26:00.000-08:00

"The power to pass a public option is yours alone. Don't let corrupt Democratic senators owned by insurance industry lobbyists kill the public option and majority rule. Get them in line, or use reconciliation to pass a public option with a majority vote."

As the majority leader of the Senate, the power to pass a public option is squarely in Harry Reid's hands. Fifty-one Senators have said they would vote for a bill with a public option -- no opt-outs, no triggers. That's a majority. Will Reid let three or four corrupt Senators owned by the insurance industry hold the public option hostage? Or will he use the reconciliation process to allow a simple majority vote on a public option?

Tell Harry Reid to exercise his leadership and do the right thing, sign the petition and pass it on.

The Enduring Legacy of Bushenomics

2009-11-19T10:17:00.000-08:00

Food Insecurity

A new government report released by the Department of Agriculture highlights the serious and growing problem of food insecurity in the United States. According to the New York Times, the Bush administration tried to quash this report but the Obama administration has embraced it as emblematic of the the challenges facing the country.

The report, titled Household Food Security in the United States 2008, documents the seriousness of food insecurity in the richest nation on earth, at the time that families are preparing to gorge themselves at the Thanksgiving table. To watch television during the month of November, or browse the newspaper ads, one would get the impression that the US is a land of abundance when it comes to food. But, just a cursory reading of this report should be enough to convince even the most jaded conservative otherwise.

According to this USDA study, in 2008 14.6% of all US households, or 17 million households, experienced food insecurity at least some time during the year, representing an 11.1% increase over the previous year. Included in this number are 6.7 million households classified as having experienced very low food security. These numbers of families experiencing food insecurity are the highest recorded since the government started keeping track of food insecurity in 1995.

These numbers though are not consistent throughout the country. Food insecurity was most prevalent in the South (or as Sarah Palin refers to this region, “the real America”) and least prevalent in the Northeast. The demographic groups experiencing rates higher than the national average included single-parent households, Black and Hispanic households and families living at or below the poverty level.

According to the USDA definition, food insecurity/security is “based on the respondents perception of whether the household was able to obtain enough food to meet their needs. The measure does not specifically address whether the household’s food intake was sufficient for active, healthy lives.” Therefore, a condition that could affect a larger portion of the population than food insecurity is “nutritional insecurity,” or subsisting on a diet that satisfies hunger but is not sufficient to maintain an active, healthy lifestyle. Unfortunately the newly released statistics in obesity in the US supports this concept. A recent study by Johns Hopkins University reveals that approximately 1/3 of all adults in the US are obese. Much of this is a result of the availability of cheaper, less nutritious and higher fat and caloric foods. The authors of this study predict that if current trends continue, by 2018 43% of US adults will be obese costing $344 billion annually in health related expenditures.

Homelessness

Another sign of the devastating impact that Bushenomics has had on poor and working Americans is the increase in homeless individuals and families. A recent report by the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities highlights the seriousness of this long neglected result of failed economic policies and gaping holes in the social safety net. Up to date statistics on homelessness do not exist. However, this January 2009 report does paint a pretty bleak picture of this serious and growing problem. The researchers found that between July and November 2008, in the waning days of the Bush administration, homeless families seeking shelter in New York City jumped by 40%. They found similar increases across the country. Massachusetts reported a 32% increase in families residing in state-funded shelters from November 2007 to November 2008. The researchers found that Connecticut had been forced to turn away 30% more homeless families due to a lack of bed space. In Minneapolis, the study found a 20% increase in families seeing shelter in the first ten months of 2008 as compared to the same period in 2007. And, Los Angeles County experienced a 12% increase in the number of families receiving welfare benefits who were known to be homeless.

Poverty and Unemployment

Based upon their findings that poverty and low income are contributing factors to homelessness among families the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities postulates a correlation between unemployment and the rising rate of homelessness. The study predicts that if unemployment were to rise to 9%, the number of people living in poverty would increase by 10 million, included in this is a projected increase of six million very poor, including an additional one million children. One result of this increase in poverty would be a resultant increase in homelessness.

But this report is already dated. The current official estimate of the unemployment rate for October is 10.2%, effecting 15.7 million workers, the highest rate in twenty-six years. And that I only the “official” rate, the true rate of unemployment has been estimated to be a high as 16%. The government’s estimate is artificially lowered by not including underemployed and part-time workers, and those who have stopped actively looking for work because they have become discouraged. It also does not include new workers just entering the workforce.

War

$933.5 billion wasted on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that does not even begin to take into account the numbers of dead and wounded young Americans and scores of Iraqi and Afghani civilians. Imagine what $933.5 billion could have bought in improved quality of life right here in the United States and good will around the world by helping to alleviate hunger. disease, malnutrition and illiteracy.

Katrina

Failed government policy that has let hundreds of thousands of displaced families scattered across the country, or living in substandard conditions in government-run trailer parks

It is President Obama’s unenviable task to try to clean up the mess left behind by the Bush administration. While he tries to do this, the Republican right has unleashed a barrage of criticism because he ahs not solved the problems that their policies have created. It is these economic policies that have brought the country to the brink of ruin and placed us in many social-economic indicators at the level of developing countries and far behind every other western-industrialized nation.

Socializing Failure – Privatizing Greed

2009-11-14T18:48:00.000-08:00

Part 2 - Doing More With Less (or the Perilous State of Nonprofits)

In Part One I discussed the cost of the government bailout of failed financial giants that faced bankruptcy as a result of their own greed, and how these very same companies were now poised to pay out billions of dollars in bonuses to the executives who helped bring them to the brink of disaster. Part one also focused on the billions of dollars of tax money used to bail out GM and Chrysler to save them from bankruptcy due to their failure to produce reliable cars that the American public wanted.

While our tax dollars were used to bail out these failing private corporations that overpaid their executives even as they led them blindly over the cliff toward bankruptcy, we continue to ignore the economic disaster that is enveloping nonprofit organizations all across America. Thousands of these organizations that provide the supports that millions of Americans need to help them meet their basic needs or to achieve their goals, while stabilizing communities and providing millions of jobs, are facing economic ruin just as there is increased demand for their services.

According to the Urban Institute, in 2004 nonprofits accounted for 5.2% of total GDP, 8.3% of all wages and salaries paid in the US and almost 10% of all jobs. Despite its large role in the US economy, the government has turned a blind eye to the impact of the current economic slowdown on these nonprofits, forcing thousands of layoffs and huge service cutbacks impacting every community in all fifty states.

A recent report by the Mercadien Group of Princeton New Jersey, a private financial services company, titled 2009 Nonprofit Outlook Survey , paints a dim picture of the condition of the nonprofit community as the impact of decreased charitable and government support begins to be felt across this sector. Their survey of New Jersey nonprofits found that “nearly 67% of the respondents projected their revenues to decline or stay the same… more than a quarter of the respondents projected a decline in revenue between 3%-20%

They found that declining revenues had an immediate impact on employment rates, with one-quarter of these surveyed expecting a decline in staffing. For the most part, nonprofit employees come from the communities that they serve and they typically work for lower wages than equally skilled workers in private industry. Often, when workers are laid off in nonprofits, this reduction does not result in a proportionate reduction of the workload, rather the workload is redistributed among the remaining staff. To this end, the study found that “many organizations anticipate to reduce staff levels to cope with the current economic events and manage financial results, often at the expense of maintaining quality work/life balance for those staff that remain after the rebalancing.”

Respondents in the Mercadien study were asked to rate the most important issues for 2009 for their organizations, and the results are very telling abut the current state of nonprofits. A not so amazing 84% rated “downward pressure on contributions, grants and similar revenue streams” as their number one concern. The second highest rated concern highlighted by 67% of respondents was “costs rising faster than revenues.” Coming in a not too distant third was “lower quality of client services than desired,” and the fourth most stated concern was “unstable, insufficient or outdated technology.” While this increasingly dire picture is coming into focus, bankers who ran to Washington with their hands out are preparing to pay out record bonuses to their executives projected to be in excess of $144 billion. What does this say about the current state of our priorities in this country?

An article in the September 2009 edition of the Illinois Business Law Journal, by Zina Kiryakos reported on several recent studies including a report by the Nonprofit Finance Fund (NFF). Of the 1,100 nonprofits it surveyed, the NFF found that 93% of those providing essential services expected an increase in demand for these services, while 31% of those organizations did not have more than one month’s operating cash on hand. Kiryakos further reports on a survey of 2279 nonprofits by the National Council on Nonprofits that found while demand for services is increasing, these nonprofits are faced with higher costs and declining revenues.

According to Kiryakos the Johns Hopkins University “Listening Post Project,” found that 40% of the nonprofits it surveyed “as well as a third or more of child-serving and elderly serving nonprofits indicated their fiscal stress to be ‘severe or very severe.’” The author goes on to state that “overall, the statistics indicate that the ever growing requests for service from their patronage are weighing heavily on nonprofit resources, which are further exacerbated by the reduction in donations and government spending.”

In other words, just as more and more people are thrown out of work, or lose their homes to foreclosure, the very nonprofit organizations that they turn to for help are being forced to reduce their staff and their services due to decreasing revenues. But where is the government bailout for this sector of the economy? The answer, “you’ll just have to learn to do more with less.” Just across town, or on the other side of the tracks, government bails out the big spenders, guaranteeing record bonuses. We are told there is nothing that can be done to prevent these huge bonuses while the taxpayers subsidize these wildly extravagant lifestyles for bankers who continue feeding at the public trough. Just wait for the economy to pick up again. After all, better days are just around the corner. Better days for whom? Could it be that the financial industry contributes hundreds of millions of dollars to support political races, while nonprofits are barred by federal law from doing this? Why would a politician bite the hand that feeds it?

Perhaps the backlash is coming. Earlier this month the former CEO of Goldman Sachs, Jon Corzine, was voted out of office in New Jersey. And it seems that if the majority party in Washington does not begin to take heed of the needs of ordinary Americans, instead of rewarding their campaign contributors, they may be hanging out at the unemployment office with their constituents come next election.

The Big Lie – Part 2

2009-11-06T11:08:00.000-08:00

Some Health Care Facts (without screaming)

We are all too familiar with the shrill criticisms of a government option for health care. It will cost too much. It will increase the federal deficit. Health care will be rationed. We have the best health care system in the world, based upon free market competition. A government option will mean unfair competition in the marketplace. SOCIALISM. And on and on. The problem is that this is yet another example of the big lie told often enough and loud enough becoming fact.

Let’s start with a brief discussion of the facts, something that does not enter into the discourse of those opposed to expanding health care. Currently the US spends a greater share of its GDP (Gross Domestic Product – the value of all goods and services produced on a country) than any other industrialized country that currently has universal health care. According to the Centers for Disease Control the Untied States spent 15.3% of GDP on health care in 2006, this number increased by 6.1% in 2007 to 16.2%, or $2.2 trillion. In spite of devoting more of our economy to health care, the US lags behind every other western industrialized nation in health indicators. It is estimated that currently in the US there are 47 million people without health care coverage, and approximately 18,000 people die each year in the US from preventable causes due to lack of health care coverage. Other countries devote significantly less of their economic resources and have better health care results. For example, in 2006 France devoted 11% of GDP while the UK devoted only 8.4% while providing coverage to all of its residents.

But what is the impact of these differences in the availability and cost of health care? A recent report released by the World Health Organization, World Health Statistics 2009, demonstrates the difference between what we get for the amount spent compared to countries with universal health care. Some of the statistics highlighted in this report are:
Infant mortality – the US has an infant (birth to five years old) mortality rate of 8 per 1,000 live births. This number is higher than every European country with universal health care. The US is behind both Canada and Cuba, two neighbors whom we love to criticize for their systems.
Maternal mortality – the rate of women dying in childbirth is 11 per 100,000 live births in the US, higher than all of western Europe, and once again we rate worse than Canada.
Teen pregnancy – the US has an average rate of 41 pregnancies per 1000 adolescent girls between the ages of 15 and 19, while the average for all European countries is 24 per 1,000.
HIV infection – compared to the rest f he developed world, the US has an astounding rate of HIV infection among adult In the US, 452 people out of every 100,000 people fifteen years old or older are infected with HIV. That is more than three times the rate of the United Kingdom, almost twice the rate in Canada, and almost seven times the rate of infection in Cuba. The average for all the countries in the Americas is 448, lower than the rate for the US, the wealthiest and most developed country in the Americas.

So there you have it, the US is the country that spends the largest share of its economic activity on health care, as compared to all other developed nations,. In spite of our spending level, the US ranks 31st in life expectancy, 37th in infant mortality and 34th in maternal mortality! This all based on a free market health insurance industry. How could the introduction of a government option make these numbers worse, when the US is lower in most health care indicators than every country that has universal or national health care?

Oh, and I almost forgot the most spurious argument of all, but perhaps the one that is shouted the loudest, now that the “death panels” have been killed: “a government option will introduce unfair competition into the health insurance market.” These are the same people who have been shouting for years that private industry is more efficient than the government, and that government programs are wasteful and costly. If this is the case, then reason would dictate that the private companies can only benefit from a government run plan, because the government’s inefficiencies would make private companies look better. However, if in their hearts, they really believed that a government run plan would be costly and inefficient, there would be nothing to be afraid of.

How can you tell which party in an argument knows their wrong, they are the one that starts shouting and name calling first. This holds true for policy debates as well.

Unfortunately facts discussed reasonable do not make as interesting news stories as exaggerations and distortions shouted loudly.

No Matter How Loud a Lie is Shouted or How Often, We Must be Open to hearing the Truth

2009-11-03T11:45:00.000-08:00

I received an interesting comment on my last post that I thought I would like to share. I share this with my readers because I think it is important to understand why the current political discourse has gotten so shrill and all hopes of bi-partisanship have diminished to zero.

It would seem that far too many people, such as the commenter, are satisfied with replacing fact with innuendo, diatribe and shouting louder than the next guy. As if the louder one shouts, the more correct their position. We saw this aptly demonstrated when the good Republican Congressman from the south shouted out, in an unprecedented manner, that President Obama was lying. Or when Sarah Palin claimed on her Facebook page that the Obama health care plan included death panels that would decide who would live and who would die. Of course facts never entered into either of these accusations. There never were death panels, instead the health plan would reimburse for end of life counseling. In other words, if a doctor were to meet with a terminal patient’s family to explain the situation and offer options, that would be reimbursed. But we saw the impact that this misinformation had when it was shouted loudly all over the country, the exaggerators got their way because they understood that a lie told long enough and loud enough becomes the truth. Or as that quote from the movie “the Man Who Shot Liberty Valence” goes when the myth becomes fact print the myth. Why tell the truth, or bother to get the facts, when you can shout louder than your opponent?

With that said, here is the comment that I received from “anonymous.”

You are the kind that is either extremely naive or a pathetic liar. Bush actually cut taxes for everyone in the country, and he cut the largest percent (33%) for people in the lowest income bracket. Compare that to the cut that he made for the highest income bracket (less than 10%). Democrats continue to be PATHETIC LIARS on this topic, and too bad there are too many naive people in the country to believe the LIARS

So there is the myth, now let’s look at the facts.

According to the Brookings Institute, a conservative think tank, fully 67.9% of the Bush tax cuts went to the top 20% of households, with an astounding 25.9% going to the top 1% of the wealthiest families. On the other end of the income scale, a mere 5.4% of the tax cut benefits went to families in the lowest 40% of income. The full report is available at www.brookings.edu/papers/2002/06useconomics_gale.aspx

But there is more to the story, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the total cost of the Bush tax cuts over a ten year period from 2001-2010 is $2.5 trillion. This compared to the estimated cost of the Democratic health care proposal of $1.6 trillion over ten years. So, we are unable to afford health care reform, but able to afford tax cuts that target the wealthiest Americans. In order to complete the story of the Bush tax cuts we need to look at its impact on the federal budget. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, www.cbpp.org, spurred on by these tax cuts federal revenues dropped to their lowest level since 1950, with lost revenue accounting for more than one-half of the federal deficit. Let us not forget that when George Bush took over the White House in 2000, he inherited a budget surplus that was converted to record deficits before he ended his first term.

We could choose to scream misinformation at the top of our lungs and thereby prevent the facts from getting out and changing our views, as this commenter did and as so many are continuing to do, or we can engage in civil conversation that is based upon facts and not merely prejudices and ideologies. The facts speak for themselves, and if we were to allow facts to guide public policy we would all be living in a different world, one with a higher level of equality and opportunity for all. Perhaps that is what those folks who would rather shout their untruths are afraid of.

Socializing Failure - Privatizing Greed

2009-11-01T06:33:00.000-08:00

Part 1

Facing financial ruin due to their own greed and reckless behaviors, taxpayers were forced to bailout the banks and investment firms that were allowed to grow, encouraged by weakened and nonexistent regulations, to the point where they were considered “too big to fail.” Now that the numbers are in, we can see the success of the Bush/Obama bailout of the failed banking and investment industries. After hundreds of billions of dollars in federal (i.e taxpayer) bailout funds, the banks have recovered to the point where they are poised to pay out record bonuses, projected to be as much as $144 billion this year.

Who are the bankers that are in line with their hands out to receive this largesse? The very same executives and vultures who led their companies to ruin while designing and selling questionable mortgages and financial instruments to the taxpayers who were told that we had no choice but to rescue these folks from their own colossal failures. That same $144 billion (the equivalent of $1,230 per taxpayer) that will be used to purchase high end products like $1,000 bottles of wine, expensive cars, real estate and jewelry could pay for health insurance for 29 million Americans for one year, contributing to the economy in a way that high end products do not.

As if that is not enough, the bailout folly gets even more interesting. When the Obama administration was faced with the imminent meltdown of General Motors ad Chrysler, they turned to the old tried and not so true response, throw more taxpayer money at corporations that are failing because of their own incompetence. Crawling to Washington with their hands out, General Motors executives were able to wrest $22.5 billion from the White House, and their compatriots at Chrysler were able to get $9 billion. The third US automaker, Ford, did not ask for nor did they receive any bailout funds.

Coincidentally, in the current Consumer Reports Annual Reliability Report, only 20 of 48 models produced by GM received a rating of average reliability or better; and, fully 1/3 of Chrysler models were rated below average. On the other hand, the one company that did not come crawling to Washington with its tail between its legs, Ford Motor Company, receive a rating of average or better on 90% of its models. So once again, we found ourselves in the position of rewarding incompetence at the expense of the already stressed American taxpayer, who was left to fend for themselves, whether or not they contributed to their own woes or were the innocent victim of another’s greed and unscrupulous activity.

In contrast to the quick bailout of Wall Street and US auto manufacturers, little has been done in Washington the stem the foreclosure crisis. The main stumbling block to providing massive government aid to help keep people in their homes, prevent increases in homeless families and stabilize communities across the country, is the fear that we may be using taxpayer dollars to help people who bought houses they could not afford. This line of thinking completely ignores the role of the very same investment bankers that created the sub-prime mortgage and other gimmicks to trick people into buying homes they could not afford or signing onto variable rate mortgages with huge interest rate increase built in. So we, as a society, can only see our way clear to help bailout companies whose failure is monumental and caused by their own greed or lack of ability, while we let families flounder forcing them to “take responsibility for their own actions.” If responsibility for one’s own actions even existed in the lexicon of Wall Street, they would not have the audacity to pay themselves huge bonuses mere months after begging for public funds.

The irony in this whole scenario is that while the government sits back and allows millions of families to lose their homes, while making it easier for new home buyers to purchase these foreclosed homes, these families who are faced with economic ruin are forced to contribute to the bailout of the same people who sold them their faulty mortgages or built their unreliable cars. The cost to each and every taxpayer to prop up GM and Chrysler so that they can continue to build unreliable cars with a made in US label is approximately $269.23. That added to the estimated cost of the $787 billion Wall street bailout of approximately $6,812 per taxpayer, totals more than $7,000 for each and every US taxpayer. That same $7,000 spread across families facing foreclosure could have prevented 100,000’s of families from losing their homes, helping to stabilize many communities that are experiencing a free fall from the spate of foreclosures in recent years. These families get nothing, their communities get the fallout of risky banking, but the Wall Street bankers get to keep their $114 billion in bonuses, laughing all the way to the bank – so to speak.

In part two of Socializing Failure – Privatizing Greed, I will look at the impact of the financial meltdown on nonprofit organizations. Just as the failing economy has resulted in vast increases in need for the services provided by these groups, the resources that they depend upon to survive are drying up, but there is no talk of a government program to help stabilize these organizations that provide stability and support for communities in every corner of this vast country, while employing millions of people.

The Tyranny of the Minority

2009-10-25T17:26:00.000-07:00

Hiding Behind the Filibuster Threat

Why is it that the Democrats have a solid majority in both houses of Congress, but are still unable to move their agenda along? The framers of the constitution established our democracy as majority rule, and most congressional votes require a simple majority, or fifty-one votes in the senate, well within the 60-seat majority currently held by the Democrats. But yet we are told that important bills such as health care reform are being held up and watered down because the Democrats have been unable to draft a bill that can garner a full sixty votes to head off a possible filibuster. And that is the key here, “a possible filibuster.” In today’s senate, just the threat of a “possible” filibuster is enough to make the Democrats run for cover and abandon their legislative priorities.

Do the math, how does a sixty to forty seat majority in the Senate not add up to a mandate by the American people to carry out an agenda of heath care reform, tax reform and other issues that are important to improve the quality of life for millions of Americans. I find it odd that even with a legislative mandate the Democrats are unable to move forward on so many important issues.

Nine years ago then candidate George W. Bush failed to win a majority of the voters, but was awarded a majority of electoral votes by the Republican dominated Supreme Court. This did not daunt the newly appointed President. Riding into Washington with his Texas cowboy boots he acted as if his questionable election was indeed a mandate from the American people. He proceeded to ride roughshod over a cowering and some might say cowardly Democratic minority in Congress. His agenda included tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, an unjust war in Iraq and gutting the Constitution among other priorities. All with the quiet acquiescence of the Democratic minority. So, as a minority in Congress the Democrats are unable to stop regressive legislation, and as a majority they are unable to pass progressive legislation. All under the cover of the supposed threat of a filibuster. Right now Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader, is allowing a small number of conservative Democrats to hijack effective health care reform by submitting to their threat of joining the Republicans by not blocking a filibuster, and then protecting these same Democrats by maintaining their anonymity.

If our image of a senate filibuster is Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith goes to Washington, where a single senator speaks for days until exhaustion takes over to stop legislation, or the performances of racist Southern Senators filibustering civil rights legislation, that image needs to be updated. The filibuster first came into use on the mid-1800’s when a senator or group of senators would maintain the floor of the senate, speaking for as long as they could, or until the bill that they opposed was withdrawn. It wasn’t until 1917 that the Senate adopted the cloture rule allowing for a two-thirds majority of those voting to end a filibuster. From 1949 to 1975, the number required to end a filibuster waivered back and forth between two-thirds of those voting and two-thirds of the senate. Regardless of the vote need for cloture, the filibuster proved an effective tool to block progressive legislation. One example was the record setting filibuster of Strom Thurmond in his failed attempt to block civil rights legislation. He lasted for 24 hours and 18 minutes. Then in 1964, southern Democrats attempted to block the Civil Rights Bill of 1964 by filibustering for 75 hours.

Courageous Senate Majority leaders have broken filibusters in the past utilizing procedural issues. Strom Thurmond’ filibuster was rendered futile by then Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, who held all senate business from reaching the floor until the filibuster exhausted itself, paving the way for the civil rights bill to go to the floor for a vote and eventual passage. Too bad Harry Reid does not have that level of courage. If Mr. Reid, (Democrat from Nevada) was majority leader during the civil rights era, we would still have segregation and Jim Crow laws throughout the south.

In the modern day filibuster, all one has to do is threaten to take this action and the ruling Democrats run for cover. When Strom Thurmond or southern Democrats took to the floor of the senate to filibuster civil rights legislation we knew who the enemy was. They were forced to come forward and stand in front of the senate for all to see. Today however, Mr. Reid, and indeed the Democratic caucus in the senate are allowing a small minority of senators to hide behind anonymity and block effective health care reform by the mere threat of a filibuster. We need to ask ourselves if this is truly a democracy when the will of the electorate can be thwarted by a anonymous minority?

The filibuster does not exist in the House because in 1842 the House adopted strict rules limiting debate. Prior to that, filibusters were allowed in the House also. Could there be a better time for a democratic majority to restore democracy to the senate floor and adopt rules that would limit debate in that branch of Congress also? After 167 years, perhaps it is time for the Senate to catch up to their colleagues in the House and advance the cause of democracy.

Medicare for All: Yes We Can by Holly Sklar

2009-10-16T17:23:00.001-07:00

Published on Saturday, September 26, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

More Americans die of lack of health insurance than terrorism, homicide, drunk driving and HIV combined.

Grandma could be dead from lack of health insurance before she turns 65 and gets Medicare - 80 percent of first-time grandparents are in their 40s and 50s.

America is the only country that rations the right to health care to those 65 and older.

Lack of health insurance kills 45,000 American adults a year, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Public Health. One out of three Americans under age 65 had no private or public health insurance for some or all of 2007-2008.

You can't go the emergency room for the screening that will catch cancer or heart disease early, or ongoing treatment to manage chronic kidney disease or asthma. And even emergency care is different for the insured and uninsured. Studies show uninsured car crash victims receive less care in the hospital, for example.

Even with health insurance, many Americans are a medical crisis away from bankruptcy. Research shows 62 percent of all bankruptcies in 2007 were medical, a share up 50 percent since 2001. Most of the medically bankrupt had health insurance - the kind insuring profits, not health care.

Health insurance executives don't worry about going bankrupt from getting sick. Forbes reports that CIGNA's CEO made $121 million in the last five years and Humana's CEO made $57 million.

We're harmed by health industry and political leaders following the Hypocritic Oath: Promise a lot, and deliver as little as possible.

Wendell Potter, CIGNA's chief of corporate communications until quitting in 2008, testified to Congress, "The status quo for most Americans is that health insurance bureaucrats stand between them and their doctors right now, and maximizing profit is the mandate." He said, "Every time you hear about the shortcomings of what they call 'government-run' health care, remember this: what we have now ... and what the insurers are determined to keep in place, is Wall Street-run health care."

Premiums for employer-sponsored family health insurance jumped 131 percent between 1999 and 2009 - from $5,791 to $13,375 - hurting businesses, employees and families.

Contrary to myth, the United States does not have the world's best health care. We're No. 1 in health care spending, but No. 50 in life expectancy, just before Albania, according to the CIA World Factbook. In Japan, people live four years longer than Americans. Canadians live three years longer. Forty-three countries have better infant mortality rates.

One or two health insurance companies dominate most metropolitan areas in the United States.

Health industry lobbyists and campaign contributors have gotten between you and your congressperson so they can keep getting between you and your doctor. There are 3,098 health sector lobbyists swarming Capitol Hill - nearly six for every member of Congress.

As Business Week put it in August, "Health insurers are winning." They "have succeeded in redefining the terms of the reform debate to such a degree that no matter what specifics emerge in the voluminous bill Congress may send to President Obama this fall, the insurance industry will emerge more profitable."

President Obama should listen to his doctor. Dr. David Scheiner was Obama's doctor for 22 years in Chicago. On the July 30 anniversary of Medicare, Scheiner said, "I have never encountered an instance where Medicare has prevented proper medical care ... Insurance companies frequently interfere and block appropriate care."

Scheiner belongs to Physicians for a National Health Program, which, like a majority of Americans, favors Medicare for All - 58 percent favored "Having a national health plan in which all Americans would get their insurance through an expanded, universal form of Medicare-for-all" in the July 2009 Kaiser Health Tracking Poll, for example.

Tell President Obama and Congress, Yes we can have Medicare for All. Rep. Anthony Weiner's amendment would substitute the text of the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act (HR 676), which has 86 co-sponsors, for House legislation HR 3200. Like the even worse Baucus bill in the Senate, HR 3200 would feed for-profit insurers more customers without providing the universal health care Medicare could provide at much lower cost.

It's time to stop peddling health reform snake oil.

Medicare for All won't kill Grandma, but it may save her children and grandchildren.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune News Service

Holly Sklar is co-author of "Raise the Floor: Wages and Policies That Work for All of Us" and "A Just Minimum Wage: Good for Workers, Business and Our Future." She can be reached at hsklar@aol.com.

"Bi-Partisan" Health Reform?

2009-10-16T15:10:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday October 13^th the Senate Finance committee reported out a “bi-partisan” health care bill. Bi-partisan generally means that a bill has garnered the support of two opposing political parties. The Democrats were so thirsty to claim the mantle of bi-partisanship that they relentlessly courted one Republican Senator, Olympia Snowe from Maine to win her support. However, in order to win just this one Republican vote the President was willing to abandon his campaign pledge of a pubic option, even in the face of strong public support for a government run option. Outing Senator Snowe’s tentative support President Obama stated the we have reached a “critical milestone” and that “we are now closer than ever before to passing health reform.”

Why the fear of a government option. Well according to the critics of such a plan, the government is not capable of running anything, and f there was a government option it would be unfair competition for private insurers. This spurious argument does not make sense. Firstly, if the government is not capable of running anything, then he private insurers would have nothing to fear form a poorly run public plan. On the other hand, if the government can run a health insurance program more effectively and efficiently, then the private insurers would have competition that would draw customers away. Is it really the role of government to insure the profits of private corporations? Perhaps since the massive and ill-conceived bailout of financiers who are now reaping huge bonuses for their failures, this is now an accepted government role.

So the real question is could the government run a national health care program and do it more effectively and more efficiently than private insurers, and if this can be done shouldn't this be something that all of our elected officials should support? We have vast experience with government-run health care programs. Medicare serves millions of older Americans and the Veterans Health System serves military veterans. Recent studies have shown that the users both of these systems are overwhelmingly satisfied with the service that they receive. Medicare received a 68% approval rating form its users, while private insurers only received a 48% approval rating. In a 2008 survey of the Veterans health programs, 79% of participants gave the VA a rating of excellent or very good. So, in actuality it would seem that the government is a better provider than private insurers. The real question then is why did President Obama take the public option off the table even before the debate really began, is the appearance of b-partisanship more important that ensuring that everyone has access to quality, affordable health care?

Let’s take a look at a quick overview of the Senate bill that the President has declared a “critical milestone.”

The major changes that this bill will bring to fruition include:

1. Requiring all US citizens and legal residents to have health insurance or face a tax penalty. Excluded form this mandate are American Indians, those for whom this would impose a financial hardship and individuals with a religious objection

2. Creation of State-based Health Insurance Exchanges: These would function as buying-cooperatives where small businesses and people without employer-sponsored health insurance can purchase policies of their own. The hope is that by creating these exchanges, individuals and small businesses who could not purchase affordable insurance would now have increased buying power through these exchanges. Small businesses could qualify for tax credits for providing coverage through these health exchanges, and individuals earning between 100-400% of the federal poverty level could qualify for federal subsidies to purchase insurance through these exchanges. Similar exchanges have been tried and failed in several states including Texas, California, Florida and North Carolina. These proposed sate-exchanges may just be another case of “everything old is new again.” This plan also proposes instituting penalties for employers with more than fifty employees for each of their employees who receives a tax credit for participating in the health insurance exchange.

3. Expanding Medicaid to serve people earning up to 133% of the federal poverty level. Individuals earning between 100% and 133% of the poverty level can choose to be covered through a health insurance exchange instead of Medicaid and receive a federal subsidy.

4. New regulations for insurers will prohibit denials for pre-existing conditions or to deny coverage to participants for treatments or illness. In addition new revenues will be raised through an excise tax on insurers whose premiums exceed certain limits, and an increase in taxes on pharmaceutical manufacturers, medical device manufacturers and health insurers.

5. Undocumented immigrants will be barred from participating in health exchanges even if they could purchase the insurance without government subsidy.

6. Limits abortion coverage by requiring that plans providing this coverage must segregate public subsidy funds from private premium funds, and abortion coverage cannot be required as part of a minimum benefit package.

A complete side by side comparison of the various bills curently in the House and Senate can be found at http://www.kff.org/healthreform/upload/healthreform_tri_full.pdf

Bombing The Moon

2009-10-10T20:05:00.000-07:00

This past Saturday morning, millions of people awoke early to catch a glimpse of NASA’s latest pubic relations event, the bombing of he moon. Now you may ask, “what did the moon ever do to us to deserve to be bombed?” It is not about what the moon may or may not have done to us, but it is more about the public events that NASA must continue to stage to justify it’s more than $17 billion annual budget.

Sadly for those millions who set their alarms to see the spectacular plume predicted to be created when a multi-million dollar spacecraft crashed into the moon’s surface, the show never materialized as predicted.

The purpose of this intentional lunar crash was to create a several miles high plume of lunar material that a second spacecraft would fly through sending data on the content of the material set aloft by the first crash, before self-immolating itself into the same crash site. What was the intended purpose of this spectacular and costly experiment? To determine if there is water on the moon in the form of ice below the surface. If there is water, then it would make it more feasible to colonize the moon.

This experiment and failed lunar show cost the American taxpayers approximately $604 million. I don’t recall any public debate about whether or not we could afford this amount of money during such fiscally constrained times. Nor do I recall debate about whether or not this money could have been better spent to address current needs rather than some future goal of colonizing the moon.

But while this NASA project was being implemented the public debate over whether we can afford universal health care raged on as did similar debates about the cost of extending unemployment benefits, adequately funding public education or the government’s legitimate role in funding much needed social and human services.

While we found more than $600 million to spend on determining whether or not there is water on the moon, approximately 1.1 billion people worldwide do not have access to clean, safe drinking water right here on earth. It is estimated that due to this lack of access to clean, safe water, 4,500 children die each day of preventable water-borne illnesses. Imagine how far $604 million could go to save just a few of those lives. According to Kofi Anan former United Nations Secretary General “we shall not finally defeat AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, or any other infectious diseases that plague the developing world until we have won the battle for safe drinking water, sanitation and basic health care.”

But perhaps you may say, well we have many social and health problems right here in the US affecting our people and that we should target limited dollars to these needs. Well it certainly is true that we have no shortage of issues right here at home that need to be addressed.

Let’s start with public education for example. We know that a good education is the best ticket out of poverty, we also know that fully 17% of all children under the age of 18 live in poverty (the highest child poverty rate in the developed world), yet as a result of this current fiscal crisis every state and local education budget has been cut, laying off teachers and vital support staff. If we just skipped this costly lunar experiment, the $604 million could have been used to hire 10,000 public school teachers. Imagine what impact that could have on local schools that are buckling under cutbacks that have reduced their teacher rolls.

But education is not the only factor keeping people in poverty, the cost of housing is another. Today in the US, we have learned to live with homelessness that effects more than 1 million people. While we like to cast homeless people as drunks, dope addicts and mentally ill, the fact is the single most prevalent cause of homelessness is the lack of affordable housing. That same $604 million could have been used to produce approximately 4,500 units of affordable housing. Just a small drop in the bucket and one that would not significantly reduce the number of homeless people, but imagine the impact on those 4,500 families. I am sure it would be considerably more long lasting, and more life changing, than waking up early to witness a lunar bombing.

What about health care? The debate raging in Congress is about cost and whether or not a government-run program is desirable or would be better than our current system of private insurers. Since single-payer was taken off the table at the very beginning of the current debate, we seem to have forgotten about the 47 million Americans without health coverage. One statistic that has not found its way into the public debate are the 18,000 people who die each year in the US from preventable illnesses because they do not have access to health care. If we skipped just this one NASA moon adventure, the $604 million cost could have been used to provide one year of health coverage for about 183,000 people.

I could go on with more examples of how this money might have been spent in alternative ways that provide a direct benefit to millions of people, but I think you get the point. Instead of creating a media frenzy about the wonderful pictures that will be returned of the lunar blast, we should be engage in a discussion of national priorities. When resources are limited, how do we focus them to do the most good for the largest number of people? Unless we begin to address this basic question, we will continue to fail all basic measures of a good society, which for the US now include the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world, the lowest literacy rate of all western industrialized countries, along with the highest murder rate, highest child poverty rate and the highest school drop out rate among other factors.

But we can be proud as a nation that we were the first to bomb the moon, even though we are the last in so many other measures that really count

We're Back

2009-10-10T08:39:00.000-07:00

Hello;

After a hiatus of almost one year, the Social Welfare Spot is back online.

We will continue to post information that is current and relevant to human needs in the United States.

For those of you who followed the blog, I want to apologize for its prolonged absence, but we are back now and hope to continue to serve as a resource for people interested in social welfare policy. This will include commentary on current issues and dissemination of of the writings and research of others to help spread important and relevant information.

I hope that past readers will once again find this site useful.

Thank you for your patience

Economic Policy Institute Issue Brief #248 - January 13, 2009

2009-01-24T09:15:00.001-08:00

Without Adequate Public Spending, a Catastrophic Recession for Some

by Lawrence Mishel and Heidi Shierholz

This analysis sketches a picture of how much worse we can expect things to get - both for the nation as a whole and for groups of Americans that are already suffering depression-level unemployment - unless the new administration and Congress act quickly with a recovery package that is big enough and well-targeted enough to counteract these trends. The authors recommend government spending to the order of $600 billion per year for the next two years to head off the otherwise inevitable catastrophe. Their analysis notes that without timely and adequate government intervention:

Overall unemployment, after peaking at about 10.2% in mid-2010, could still be as high as 7.6% four years from now
Underemployment could reach 17.9% overall in 2010 (18.8% for women), affecting over 27 million workers.
More than one out of every three working Americans would experience unemployment or underemployment at some point during 2010.
Nearly one in five African Americans in the labor force would be unemployed (18.2%). More than half of all black teens would be jobless.
Hispanic unemployment would reach 13.1% overall, and more than one-third among teens.
Unemployment would reach a record high of 5.1% among the college-educated, 1.2 points above the previous high of 3.9% in the depths of the 1980's recession.
All families would experience wage declines because of weakened labor market conditions and reduced hours and wages. On average, middle-income families would earn about $4,700 less per year in 2010 than in 2007 (a loss of 7.7%). Low-income families would lose an average of 9.8% or nearly $1,600, per year.

READ THE FULL REPORT

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: Economic Recovery Watch

2009-01-24T08:55:00.000-08:00

New Analysis Shows Strong Job Effects from Including Aid for Hard-Pressed Families and States in a Recovery Package

by Chad Stone

Temporary programs to protect people who are the most vulnerable in a deep recession will have a powerful impact on job creation relative to their cost, based on an analysis of the job creation effects of the proposed Obama economic recovery plan by Christina Romer, who will be chair of the President's Council on Economic ADvisors, and Jared Bernstein, who will be the Chief Economist in the Office of the Vice-President. Their analysis issued January 9, also finds that substantial job creation will result form fiscal relief to states facing large budget shortfalls. These findings are consistent with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities analysis issued last week on the importance for job creation of including such measures in an economic recovery package. PDF of Full Report

Truth and Reconciliation

2009-01-18T11:22:00.000-08:00

President-elect Obama has spoken about the need to move forward and not to look backward when it comes to investigations and possible criminal indictments of the excesses of the Bush administration. While Mr. Obama's election does indeed signal a time of hope and a collective looking forward, it should not also mean that the American people do not deserve to know that all people, including elected officials, are bound by the laws of the land.

There appears to be little doubt that President Bush and members of his administration have violated the Constitution and have played fast and loose with the truth. Perhaps they have not committed "high crimes and misdemeanors," but at the very least they have violated the public trust. A few such instances that come to mind include: fabricating the threat of weapons of mass destruction to justify an illegal and immoral invasion of a sovereign country, wasting billions of dollars in no-bid contracts for the"reconstruction" of Iraq, politicizing the Justice Department with appointments and prosecutions based on political ideology and loyalty to the President, rather than qualifications. Then there is the touchy subject of torture. Now that president-elect Obama's nominee for attorney General, Eric Holder, has defined waterboarding as torture, and Mr. Bush has admitted to authorizing these techniques, doesn't this obligate the Justice Department to investigate and prosecute any criminal act that it finds?

Looking forward does not preclude addressing wrongs that have previously been committed, as President-elect Obama would have us believe. In fact, isn't our entire criminal justice system based upon looking backward? Doesn't every criminal investigation and prosecution depend upon our ability to look backward and determine whether or not a crime has been committed and how and by whom? Don't we, as a society, expect that if a crime has been committed that the police and the courts will do everything within their powers to bring the perpetrator to justice? In fact don't we believe that victims and survivors of crime have the right to see the perpetrators brought to justice as a way of obtaining closure?

Well then the obvious question is don't we as a society deserve the same effort at closure? How can we expect to move forward, if we don't reveal, understand and come to some level of closure with the excesses and atrocities that were committed in our name? How de we honor the 4,000 Americans and more than 100,000 innocent Iraqi civilians who have lost their lives in a reckless and illegal war, if we act as if nothing has happened?

While Mr. Obama is looking to the past to role models such as Abraham Lincoln and FDR to help him chart a course through this difficult time, perhaps there is another role model that he should look to, Nelson Mandela. After helping to free his fellow citizens from the long, dark night of apartheid, he did not call for retribution or punishment, even in the face of a horrific history of oppression, abuse and murder. Mr Mandela understood that to move forward, South Africans would first have to come to terms with their past. Rather than seeking retribution and continuing to turn black against white, the new majority South African government embarked on a course to seek truth and reconciliation.

In George Bush' thirteen-minute farewell address, and in his final press conference, he blamed all of his administration's failures on others and took no responsibility for its excesses. If we do not hold him accountable, how then do we tach our children, and indeed our national leaders, to be accountable? Without consequences for their actions, even if the consequence is merely public acknowledgement and acceptance of responsibility, the message that is sent is that it is perfectly acceptable to abuse power and privilege and to flaunt the law to push one's own personal agenda. We cannot let that be the enduring legacy of the Bush administration. As President, Barack Obama and his Justice Department will have an obligation to investigate and surface the many wrongs of the Bush years. Then, and only then, after the truth is revealed, can the decision be made whether or not to prosecute, and the nation can move on.

As Paul Krugman wrote in his op ed column in the January 16th New York Times Forgive and Forget? http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/opinion/16krugman.html

"to protect and defend the Constitution, a president must do more than obey the Constitution himself; he must hold those who violate the Constitution accountable. So Mr Obama should reconsider his apparent decision to let the previous administration get away with crime. Consequences aside, that's not a decision he has the right to make."

Perhaps it is time for a healing of the national psyche. As George Bush leaves office he leaves in his wake tattered Constitutional protections and a legacy of flaunting the law and common decency, both rendered subservient to an agenda that was both politically and ideologically driven. Moving forward includes understanding what has happened in the past to avoid making the same mistakes. In this case it is not so much about making the same mistakes, hopefully we all have learned from our mistake and will not elect and then re-elect another president from the same mold as George Bush. But allowing criminals who have squandered our national trust and leave a trail of wreckage in their path to walk away without accepting responsibility, sends the wrong message - that we are a country that believes its elected leaders are indeed above the law and that we as a society are powerful enough to flaunt international law.

Let's apply the lessons learned from Nelson Mandela and the people of South Africa by creating our own Truth and Reconciliations Commission, helping us learn from and heal the past, so that we can move forward together.