Category: Class War

Shameful

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

As Duncan says, file this under “someone should probably do something”:

President Obama’s former top economic advisor sharply criticized the federal government for failing to take more aggressive action against unemployment.

“I frankly don’t understand why policy makers aren’t more worried about the suffering of real families,” former Council of Economic Advisors Chair Christina Romer, who left the Administration last fall, said during a discussion at Vanderbilt University in Nashville Tuesday. “I think there are tools we have tools we have that we can use, and I think it’s shameful that we’re not using them.”

Romer had been a voice inside the Obama Administration pressing for a larger ecnomic stimulus and more aggressive government action from the early days of the Administration, and she’s continued to make that case from the outside in a New York Times column.

But the sharpness of her criticism reflected deep concern among many Democratic economists about a political consensus that the federal government has to rein in expensive attempts to restart the economy even as rising oil prices again put a damper on growth.

“We need to realize that there is still a lot of devastation out there,” Romer said, calling the 8.9% unemployment rate “an absolute crisis.”

“If I have a complaint about policy these days, it’s that we’re not doing enough,” she said. “That goes all the way up to the Federal Reserve, [which] could be taking more aggressive action. It goes to the Congress and the Administration – there are fiscal policy actions they could be taking.”

“And don’t tell me you can’t [take those actions] because of the deificit because I think there are fiscally responsible ways,” she said.

Jobs, jobs, jobs!

~ susie ~ 3 Comments

There’s no sign of Speaker John Boehner’s promised “jobs, jobs, jobs.” Instead, extremist teabagger Republicans are busily trying to take care of the already-rich, kick people when they’re down, and further weaken the ability of those who do have jobs to strike against employers:

All around the country, right-wing legislators are asking middle class Americans to pay for budget deficits caused mainly by a recession caused by Wall Street; they are attacking workers’ collective bargaining rights, which has provoked a huge Main Street Movement to fight back.

Now, a group of House Republicans is launching a new stealth attack against union workers. GOP Reps. Jim Jordan (OH), Tim Scott (SC), Scott Garrett (NJ), Dan Burton (IN), and Louie Gohmert (TX) have introduced H.R. 1135, which states that it is designed to “provide information on total spending on means-tested welfare programs, to provide additional work requirements, and to provide an overall spending limit on means-tested welfare programs.”

Much of the bill is based upon verifying that those who receive food stamps benefits are meeting the federal requirements for doing so. However, one section buried deep within the bill adds a startling new requirement. The bill, if passed, would actually cut off all food stamp benefits to any family where one adult member is engaging in a strike against an employer.

The bill also includes a provision that would exempt households from losing eligibility, “if the household was eligible immediately prior to such strike, however, such family unit shall not receive an increased allotment as the result of a decrease in the income of the striking member or members of the household.”

Yet removing entire families from eligibility while a single adult family member is striking would have a chilling effect on workers who are considering going on strike for better wages, benefits, or working conditions — something that is especially alarming in light of the fact that unions are one of the fundamental building blocks of the middle class that allow people to earn wages that keep them off food stamps.

But here’s the punchline: Striking workers have been ineligible for food stamps for years. (The only way a striker is eligible right now is if you met the eligibility standards before you went on strike — and if you belong to a union, odds are, you didn’t.) So not only are teabagger Republicans just plain mean and pandering to special interests, they’re stupid to boot!

The bill also rolls back back spending on government assistance programs back to 2007 levels, plus inflation, once unemployment falls below 6.5 percent. (Well, at least we know that won’t be anytime soon!)

New Jersey’s Rep. Scott Garrett, a teabagger hero, is also busy trying to slash funding for the SEC – but denies that he’s doing it. (Says the fact that its spending has gone up so much since the market crash proves the agency has plenty of funding, thank you very much!) Oh, and he’s one of the Republicans who voted against extending the budget.

He’s also the guy who’s pushing for every bill to show “constitutional authority” for why Congress has the right to pass the bill.

Rep. Jim Jordan, the other person who wants to kick voters when they’re down? Was he working on “jobs, jobs, jobs”? Nope. He’s chair of the extremist Republican Study Committee, a caucus that exists to push House Republicans Further. To. The. Right.

Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN) wasn’t working on “jobs, jobs, jobs,” either. He voted against the budget extension, too. Instead, he introduced a nasty little states-right bill:

“Last week, President Obama made an unprecedented decision to declare a Federal law unconstitutional and thereby abdicate his own constitutional responsibility to uphold and defend that law. Activist judges, and now an activist President, have been trying to unilaterally define marriage for too long. This issue should instead be decided once and for all by the American people and the states.

“That is why I have introduced the “Marriage Protection Act” which simply states that no Federal Courts will have jurisdiction to hear cases regarding same-sex marriage. Instead, the definition of same-sex unions would be determined by the people through their State legislatures or via referendum.

And he also sponsored a bill that would strip President Obama “of his power to waive a law requiring him to move the embassy to Jerusalem.”

Rep. Louis Gohmert? He’s from Texas and the author of the famous “terror babies” story. A real American!

Last but not least, South Carolina’s Rep. Tim Scott. The poor guy’s really got to prove himself – first, because he voted for the continuing resolution that extended the budget for three weeks, but also because he’s a black Republican. So he’s a member of the Club for Growth, plus he just introduced the Rising Tides Act of 2011.

And what does it do, exactly? It cuts the corporate income tax rate by 10% on companies making more than $10 million annually.

Where on earth are those jobs, jobs, jobs?

Virginity test

~ susie ~ 3 Comments

I wonder if men will one day accept the radical notion that women are full human beings:

The international human rights group Amnesty International claimed Wednesday that a number of female protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square were rounded up by the Egyptian military and tortured recently.

Some women even said they were subjected to a “virginity test” while soldiers looked on and took pictures.

Amnesty said at least 18 different women were subjected to this treatment, first at a military prison, then inside the Cairo Museum.

The women claimed they were beaten and tortured with electric shocks, and one woman who allegedly “failed” her virginity test was reportedly singled out for the worst abuse.

“20-year-old Salwa Hosseini told Amnesty International that after she was arrested and taken to a military prison in Heikstep, she was made, with the other women, to take off all her clothes to be searched by a female prison guard, in a room with two open doors and a window,” the group explained. “During the strip search, Salwa Hosseini said male soldiers were looking into the room and taking pictures of the naked women.”

All of them were taken on March 9, as the military cleared Tahrir Square of demonstrators.

“Women and girls must be able to express their views on the future of Egypt and protest against the government without being detained, tortured, or subjected to profoundly degrading and discriminatory treatment,” Amnesty said in an advisory. “The army officers tried to further humiliate the women by allowing men to watch and photograph what was happening, with the implicit threat that the women could be at further risk of harm if the photographs were made public.”

Priorities

~ susie

H/T Brendan, who passes along this news in which our elected officials continue to ignore the economic pain of millions:

The House Agriculture Committee endorsed a letter this week to Budget Chairman Paul Ryan arguing that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which helps low-income Americans purchase food, would make a better target for cuts than automatic subsidies to farms.

The move comes as food prices are rising — the Department of Agriculture expects overall food prices to rise 3 percent to 4 percent this year — making it harder for the beneficiaries of SNAP to stretch their existing benefits, even as farmers profit from the tightening market. Critics across the political spectrum have called agricultural subsidies wasteful and unnecessary, and they question the logic of maintaining them as lawmakers hunt for budget cuts.

“Conspicuously missing from the list of mandatory spending cuts the Agriculture Committee has made or is proposing to make are commodity subsidies, and specifically the $4.9 billion in direct payments that are automatically paid out each year regardless of whether a person farms,” said Jake Caldwell, the director of agricultural policy at the left-leaning Center for American Progress. “It is shortsighted of the Committee to suggest cuts to SNAP, particularly as food prices are on the rise, Americans are spending more than 10 percent of their household budget on food, and more people are enrolled in the food stamp program than ever before.”

President Obama has endorsed cuts in agricultural subsidies as a way to lower the deficit without targeting essential programs, and lawmakers from both parties, like Ryan, R-Wis., have expressed similar opinions.
But the Agriculture Committee is dominated by members of Congress from farm states; Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., has reported $445,714 in political contributions from the agricultural industry during the course of his career, and ranking Democrat Collin Peterson of Minnesota reports $809,097 in career donations.

The budget letter, endorsed by both Lucas and Peterson, argues that subsidies need to be in place for when record-high prices “inevitably” fall, and that higher prices have actually increased risks for farmers. But not even all farmers agree — the Iowa Farm Bureau voted its opposition to direct payment subsidies earlier this year. Brian Riedl, a fiscal policy expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said that most large commercial farmers report an average annual income of $200,000, well in excess of the national average.

Debtors prison

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

It’s unbelievable that credit card companies were allowed to do this :

Some lawmakers, judges and regulators are trying to rein in the U.S. debt-collection industry’s use of arrest warrants to recoup money owed by borrowers who are behind on credit-card payments, auto loans and other bills.

More than a third of all U.S. states allow borrowers who can’t or won’t pay to be jailed. Judges have signed off on more than 5,000 such warrants since the start of 2010 in nine counties with a total population of 13.6 million people, according to a tally by The Wall Street Journal of filings in those counties. Nationwide figures aren’t known because many courts don’t keep track of warrants by alleged offense. In interviews, 20 judges across the nation said the number of borrowers threatened with arrest in their courtrooms has surged since the financial crisis began.

“I wish I could do it more,” said Piatt County Circuit Judge Chris Freese, who has heard hundreds of debt-collection cases. “It’s often the only remedy to get people into court and paying their debts.”

In one of those cases, Emmie Nichols, 26 years old, was arrested in June at her mother’s house after lawyers for Capital One Financial Corp. won an arrest warrant against her for skipping a court hearing about $1,159.87 she owed on a credit card from the company. The $500 bond that freed Ms. Nichols from the county jail was turned over to Capital One as a partial payment of the debt, court filings show. A Capital One spokeswoman declined to comment on Ms. Nichols.

Some judges are worried that the jump in debt-related arrest warrants is creating a modern-day version of debtors’ prison. The practice ended in 1833 after decades of controversy, since borrowers owing as little as 60 cents could be held indefinitely in squalid jails until they paid off their debt.

Not so fast, Chris

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Funding schools through local property taxes is a really stupid system, and while I’m happy that Christie’s not getting away with these school cuts, the fact remains that the system left in place is a really bad one:

TRENTON — Gov. Chris Christie’s deep cuts to state school aid last year left New Jersey’s schools unable to provide a “thorough and efficient” education to the state’s nearly 1.4 million school children, a Superior Court judge found today.

Judge Peter Doyne, who was appointed as special master in the long-running Abbott vs. Burke school funding case, today issued an opinion that also found the reductions “fell more heavily upon our high risk districts and the children educated within those districts.”

“Despite spending levels that meet or exceed virtually every state in the country, and that saw a significant increase in spending levels from 2000 to 2008, our ‘at risk’ children are now moving further from proficiency,” he said.

Gov. Chris Christie’s office said that Judge Doyne himself acknowledged that the Supreme Court limited his inquiry by excluding consideration of the state’s budget crisis.

“Critically, he also noted that, despite the fact New Jersey meets or exceeds all other states in spending for ‘at-risk’ students, many of those students continue to fail to meet basic educational proficiency,” said spokesman Michael Drewniak. “The Supreme Court should at last abandon the failed assumption of the last three decades that more money equals better education, and stop treating our state’s fiscal condition as an inconvenient afterthought.”

The Abbott vs. Burke case landed back in court after the Education Law Center, a Newark-based school advocacy group, filed a motion charging that Christie’s aid cuts violated the state’s school funding formula.
Christie slashed state aid by $820 million last year, and Doyne found that altogether, the state would have needed twice that much — $1.6 billion — to fully fund the School Funding Reform Act formula.

Separate and unequal

~ susie ~ 5 Comments

Bob Herbert:

Schools are no longer legally segregated, but because of residential patterns, housing discrimination, economic disparities and long-held custom, they most emphatically are in reality.

“Ninety-five percent of education reform is about trying to make separate schools for rich and poor work, but there is very little evidence that you can have success when you pack all the low-income students into one particular school,” said Richard Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation who specializes in education issues.

The current obsession with firing teachers, attacking unions and creating ever more charter schools has done very little to improve the academic outcomes of poor black and Latino students. Nothing has brought about gains on the scale that is needed.

If you really want to improve the education of poor children, you have to get them away from learning environments that are smothered by poverty. This is being done in some places, with impressive results. An important study conducted by the Century Foundation in Montgomery County, Md., showed that low-income students who happened to be enrolled in affluent elementary schools did much better than similarly low-income students in higher-poverty schools in the county.

The study, released last October, found that “over a period of five to seven years, children in public housing who attended the school district’s most advantaged schools (as measured by either subsidized lunch status or the district’s own criteria) far outperformed in math and reading those children in public housing who attended the district’s least-advantaged public schools.”

Studies have shown that it is not the race of the students that is significant, but rather the improved all-around environment of schools with better teachers, fewer classroom disruptions, pupils who are more engaged academically, parents who are more involved, and so on. The poorer students benefit from the more affluent environment. “It’s a much more effective way of closing the achievement gap,” said Mr. Kahlenberg.

About 80 school districts across the country are taking steps to reduce the concentrations of poverty in their schools. But there is no getting away from the fact that if you try to bring about economic integration, you’re also talking about racial and ethnic integration, and that provokes bitter resistance. The election of Barack Obama has not made true integration any more palatable to millions of Americans.
Continue reading “Separate and unequal” →

Paternal prison

~ susie ~ 4 Comments

Thank God someone’s looking after those stupid womenfolk, who schedule abortions on a goddamned whim. And thank God some rich rightwinger organization will be picking up the tab for this:

PIERRE, S.D. — South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard signed a law Tuesday requiring women to wait three days after meeting with a doctor to have an abortion, the longest waiting period in the nation.

Abortion rights groups have already said they plan to file a lawsuit challenging the measure, which also requires women to undergo counseling at pregnancy help centers that discourage abortions.

Daugaard, who gave no interviews after signing the bill, said in a written statement that he has conferred with state attorneys who will defend the law in court and a sponsor who has pledged private money to finance the state’s legal costs.

“I think everyone agrees with the goal of reducing abortion by encouraging consideration of other alternatives,” the Republican governor said the statement. “I hope that women who are considering an abortion will use this three-day period to make good choices.”

You mean, like having the women who voted for you reconsider their choice?

Supporters of the measure say South Dakota’s only abortion clinic, Planned Parenthood in Sioux Falls, gives women little information or counseling before they have abortions done by doctors flown in from out of state. The bill would help make sure women are not being coerced into abortions, they said.

Opponents say the law forces women to go to pregnancy help centers that harass them, rather than providing sound medical advice. They also say the waiting period and the counseling are an undue burden for women who have a constitutional right to have an abortion.