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Congressional Budget Proposals And Why We’re Fasting

I stopped eating on Monday and joined around 4,000 other people in a fast to call attention to Congressional budget proposals that would make huge cuts in programs for the poor and hungry.

By doing so, I surprised myself; after all, I eat for a living. But the decision was easy after I spoke last week with David Beckmann, a reverend who is this year’s World Food Prize laureate. Our conversation turned, as so many about food do these days, to the poor.

Who are — once again — under attack, this time in the House budget bill, H.R. 1. The budget proposes cuts in the WIC program (which supports women, infants and children), in international food and health aid (18 million people would be immediately cut off from a much-needed food stream, and 4 million would lose access to malaria medicine) and in programs that aid farmers in underdeveloped countries. Food stamps are also being attacked, in the twisted “Welfare Reform 2011” bill. (There are other egregious maneuvers in H.R. 1, but I’m sticking to those related to food.)

These supposedly deficit-reducing cuts — they’d barely make a dent — will quite literally cause more people to starve to death, go to bed hungry or live more miserably than are doing so now. And: The bill would increase defense spending.

Beckmann, who is president of Bread for the World, made me want to join in just by talking about his commitment. For me, the fast is a way to demonstrate my interest in this fight, as well as a way to remind myself and others that there are bigger things in life than dinner. (Shocking, I know.) I expect I’ll learn something about patience and fortitude while I’m at it. Thirty-six hours into the fast, my senses are heightened and everything feels a bit strange. Odors from the cafeteria a floor away drift down to my desk. In the elevator, I can smell a muffin; on the street, I can smell everything — good and bad. But as hungry as I may get, we know I’ll eat well soon. (Please check my blog for a progress report.)

Many poor people don’t have that option, and Beckmann and his co-organizers are calling for God to create a “circle of protection” around them. Some are fasting for a day, many for longer. (I’m fasting until Friday, and Beckmann until Monday. And, no, it’s not too late to join us.)

When I reminded Beckmann that poor people’s hunger was hardly a new phenomenon, and that God hasn’t made a confirmed appearance recently — at least that I know of — he suggested I read Isaiah 58, in which God says that if we were more generous while we fasted he’d treat us better. Maybe. But a billion people are just as hungry, human, and as deserving now as the Israelites were when they were fleeing Egypt, and I don’t see any manna.

This isn’t about skepticism, however; it’s about ironies and outrages. In 2010, corporate profits grew at their fastest rate since 1950, and we set records in the number of Americans on food stamps. The richest 400 Americans have more wealth than half of all American households combined, the effective tax rate on the nation’s richest people has fallen by about half in the last 20 years, and General Electric paid zero dollars in U.S. taxes on profits of more than $14 billion. Meanwhile, roughly 45 million Americans spend a third of their posttax income on food — and still run out monthly — and one in four kids goes to bed hungry at least some of the time.

It’s those people whom Beckmann and his allies (more than 30 organizations are on board) are trying to protect. The coalition may be a bit too quick to support deficit reduction, essentially saying, “We understand the need for fiscal responsibility, but we don’t want to sacrifice the powerless, nearly voiceless poor in its name. As Beckmann knows, however, deficit reduction isn’t as important as keeping people from starving: “We shouldn’t be reducing our meager efforts for poor people in order to reduce the deficit,” he told me by phone. “They didn’t get us into this, and starving them isn’t going to get us out of it.”

This is a moral issue; the budget is a moral document. We can take care of the deficit and rebuild our infrastructure and strengthen our safety net by reducing military spending and eliminating corporate subsidies and tax loopholes for the rich. Or we can sink further into debt and amoral individualism by demonizing and starving the poor. Which side are you on?

If faith increases your motivation, that’s great, but I doubt God will intervene here. Instead, we need to gather and insist that our collective resources be used for our collective welfare, not for the wealthiest thousand or even million Americans but for a vast majority of us in the United States and, indeed, for citizens of the world who have difficulty making ends meet. Or feeding their kids.

Though Beckmann is too kind to say it, he and many other religious leaders believe that true worship can’t take place without joining this struggle: “You can’t have real religion,” he told me, “unless you work for justice for hungry and poor people.”

I don’t think you can have much humanity, either.

By: Mark Bittman, The New York Times Opinion Page, March 29, 2011

March 31, 2011 Posted by | Class Warfare, Congress, Corporations, Deficits, Economy, Federal Budget, Human Rights, Income Gap, Middle Class, Politics, Public, Women | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A Minimum Wage Increase Will Not Kill Jobs

As the nation grapples with a jobs crisis and unemployment hovers near 9 percent, it is easy for policy makers to forget the plight of those who work but earn very little. There are about 4.4 million workers earning the minimum wage or less, according to government statistics. This amounts to about 6 percent of workers paid by the hour. They need a raise.

Today, a worker laboring 40 hours a week nonstop throughout the year for the federal minimum wage could barely keep a family of two above the federal poverty line. Though it rose to $7.25 an hour in 2009, up $2.10 since 2006, the minimum wage is still lower than it was 30 years ago, after accounting for inflation. It amounts to about $1.50 an hour less, in today’s money, than it did in 1968, when Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy were killed, Richard Nixon was elected president and the economy was less than a third of its present size.

The minimum wage has many opponents among big business and Congressional Republicans. In Nevada, the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce is pushing to repeal the state’s minimum wage, a whopping $8.25 an hour. Representative Darrell Issa, the California Republican, has proposed a bill in the House that would effectively cut the minimum wage in states where it was higher than the federal threshold by allowing employers to count health benefits toward wages.

Opponents argue that raising the minimum wage would inevitably lead to higher unemployment, prompting companies to cut jobs and decamp to cheaper labor markets. It is particularly bad, the argument goes, to raise it in a weak labor market. Yet with unemployment likely to remain painfully high for years to come, this argument amounts to a promise that the working poor will remain poor for a long time.

What’s more, we know now that the argument is grossly overstated. Over the past 15 years, states and cities around the country have rushed ahead of the federal government to impose higher minimum wages. Economists analyzing the impact of the increases on jobs have concluded that moderate increases have no discernible impact on joblessness. Employers did not rush off to cheaper labor markets in the suburbs or across state lines for a simple reason: that costs money too.

The most recent research, by John Schmitt and David Rosnick at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, found that San Francisco’s minimum wage jump to $8.50 in 2004 — well above the state minimum of $6.75 — improved low-wage workers’ incomes and did not kill jobs. An even bigger jump in Santa Fe, N.M., the same year — from $5.15 to $8.50 — had a similar effect.

Despite evidence to the contrary, businesses and Republicans may keep pushing against the minimum wage — using the jobs crisis now to clinch their argument. They should be disregarded, because their argument is wrong and the United States is too rich to tolerate such an underclass.

By: Editorial, The New York Times, March 25, 2011

March 26, 2011 Posted by | Big Business, Congress, Conservatives, Economy, Income Gap, Jobs, Middle East, Minimum Wage, Politics, Republicans, States, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Unemployed | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Tea Party Are Faces Of GOP Overreach

Congratulations to whoever had “less than two months” in the “conservative overreach” betting pool. There was never a question about whether the Republican Party, awarded huge political gains last year by voters, would let ideology outstrip political reality. The issue was when. And the new faces of conservative overreach have been preening recently.

Here is Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who sparked an old-fashioned national labor controversy by trying to break his state’s public unions. His assertion that he’s merely trying to achieve fiscal responsibility is belied by the fact that while rolling back government workers’ collective bargaining rights itself saves no money, the tax cut he pushed through upon taking office costs an amount strikingly similar to this year’s budget gap; and the fact that when the unions offered to accede to his budget demands in exchange for keeping their bargaining rights, the governor wouldn’t accept that “yes” for an answer.

Indeed, while he has tried to imbue his power grab with the voters’ imprimatur by claiming that union-busting was part of his campaign agenda (it was not), Walker, speaking with a liberal blogger pretending to be billionaire supporter David Koch, described the actual unveiling of the policy as akin to dropping a “bomb.” In that same call, he added a phrase to the lexicon of overreach. “This is our moment,” he told faux-Koch, “this is our time to change the course of history.”

Away from Wisconsin, members of the Tea Party Patriots, meeting in Phoenix recently, gave that sentiment more guttural voice. When Texas GOP Rep. Joe Barton tried to brag that the $61 billion in spending cuts the House recently passed were the “largest . . . in the history of America,” they booed him, shouting “More, more!” One Tea Partyer told the Associated Press that she and her fellow activists were displeased with the House GOP for failing to follow through on their campaign pledge to slice $100 billion from government outlays this year: “Have we seen that? No. But we’ve heard excuses.” Another warned, “If they don’t [live up to their promises], we’re going to pull up another candidate to run against them.” Why shouldn’t they? This is their moment.

That even the conservative House Republicans are unable to conjure more than $61 billion shows both the hollowness of their $100 billion campaign pledge and the governing corner into which they have painted themselves. And, the Tea Party activists will no doubt be pained to learn, negotiations with the White House and Senate Democrats won’t get them any closer.

Not for lack of trying, to be sure. Congressional Republicans have demonstrated an unstinting commitment to an economic philosophy that can best be described as cutting for cutting’s sake. It’s certainly not for the sake of fiscal responsibility. The same party that brought you the Reagan budget deficits and Bush budget deficits certainly speaks the language of fiscal responsibility. But Republicans concern themselves only with the spending side of the ledger, perhaps forgetting that deficits come not from spending in isolation but when spending and revenue are out of balance.

So they piously speak of dealing with the deficit with their $61 billion in proposed cuts (or even the $100 billion Tea Party standard) while trying to repeal President Obama’s healthcare reform law, a move that would add more than $200 billion to the deficit over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. And all of those numbers are dwarfed by the $4 trillion hole they would blow over 10 years if they successfully managed to make the Bush tax cuts permanent.

And they’re not focused, campaign rhetoric aside, on jobs. A recent Goldman Sachs report estimated that the $61 billion in spending cuts that the House GOP passed would reduce economic growth by 1.5 to 2 percentage points. This would not help spur job growth. Moody’s analyst Mark Zandi (who has advised both parties) weighed in last week with an estimate that the Republican spending cuts “would mean some 400,000 fewer jobs created by the end of 2011 and 700,000 fewer jobs by the end of 2012.” And last Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke put that number at “a couple of hundred thousand jobs,” adding, “It’s not trivial.”

In other words, the Republicans’ spending cuts legislation is the very definition of, to borrow their phrase, a job-killing bill. And the Tea Party gang doesn’t think it goes far enough. Is the GOP really willing to sacrifice economic growth at the altar of their cutting obsession? Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, the George W. Bush budget director-turned-spending hawk, was asked on NPR whether budget cuts are worth it if they cost a lot of jobs. “The answer is yes,” he said.

This view bespeaks the kind of market fundamentalism the Tea Party GOP has embraced. It involves a blind faith in the free market: cut taxes, gut regulations, cut spending, gut labor unions. The market is always right. And if that means the loss of a few hundred thousand jobs, then, in the instantly immortal words of House Speaker John Boehner, “So be it.”

But the GOP has gotten so lost in its own philosophy that they have made the mistake of believing their own rhetoric about the United States being ideologically conservative. It is surely true that the electorate prefers a government that is in some senses limited; but so too do they want the free market limited, its rough edges softened.

It may be, in Governor Walker’s words, their moment. But overreaching conservatives will learn that the more tightly they embrace it, the more quickly it will pass. In self-consciously trying to change history, they will become it.

By: Robert Schlesinger, U.S. News and World Report, March 11, 2011

March 13, 2011 Posted by | Class Warfare, Collective Bargaining, Deficits, Economy, Ideologues, Income Gap, Jobs, Middle Class, Politics, Teaparty, Unions | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Destruction Of Middle America: Karl Rove’s Secretly-Funded Crossroads GPS Attacks Unions

Karl Rove’s secretly-funded Crossroads GPS is spending $750,000 airing a terribly misleading ad attacking public-sector labor unions. With declining support for the GOP’s anti-union stance, Rove’s group is looking towards the 2012 elections and aiming to counteract that slide by unfairly demonizing unions.

The ad also attempts to lay the blame on President Obama and tell viewers to tell him “you’ve had enough.” The group spent at least $17 million in the 2010 midterm elections, and along with Rove’s American Crossroads PAC, is planning to spend $120 million in the 2012 elections. Here is what the ad says, and why it is wrong:

“Why are Democrats shutting down state capitols to protect a system that pays unionized government workers 42% more than non-union workers?”

False.  As CMD has reported, an Economic Policy Institute report finds that, when controlling for education, and taking benefits into account, “full-time state and local government employees in Wisconsin are undercompensated by 8.2% compared with otherwise similar private sector workers.” In other words, it is unfair to compare compensation for an unskilled worker with a teacher who holds a master’s degree.

“A system that collects hundreds of millions in mandatory dues to back liberals who support government unions . . .”

False. See the U.S. Supreme Court decision Communication Workers of America v. Beck, 487 U. S. 735 (1988): nonunion employees cannot be required to pay dues to support political activities. In a unionized workplace, employees who choose not to join the union still reap the benefits of union representatives bargaining on their behalf, but they can only be required to pay dues towards that representation.

“One union boss explains . . .” the ad says, quoting from a July 2009 speech by National Education Association General Counsel Bob Chanin that, taken out of context, makes unions sound like money-sucking power-hogs.

False–through misleading editing.  The full quote is actually a reminder to teachers that their interests and those of their students will not be guaranteed by the dignity of the profession, or their passion for teaching:

So the bad news, or depending on your point of view, the good news, is that NEA and its affiliates will continue to be attacked by conservative and right-wing groups as long as we continue to be effective advocates for public education, for education employees, and for human and civil rights. And that brings me to my final and most important point. Which is why, at least in my opinion, NEA and its affiliates are such effective advocates. Despite what some among us would like to believe, it is not because of our creative ideas. It is not because of the merit of our positions. It is not because we care about children. And it is not because we have a vision of a great public school for every child. NEA and its affiliates are effective advocates because we have power. And we have power because there are more than 3.2 million people who are willing to pay us hundreds of millions of dollars in dues each year because they believe that we are the unions that can most effectively represent them, the unions that can protect their rights and advance their interests as education employees.

In light of the present attack on educators and other public employees by the likes of Scott Walker and Karl Rove, Chanin was correct. The integrity of public education is not being protected by good ideas, sacrifices by teachers, or by widespread recognition that education is an investment in the future. The primary defenders of public education and public educators are unions.

The same goes for unions defending the integrity of other public services against right-wing attacks. The real motivation for Rove, Walker, and the like is to crush union political power.  Wisconsin’s Senate majority leader has boasted about this partisan political strategy today. And in our post-Citizens United world, the only counterweight looking out for middle-class interests are labor unions. And only labor unions are powerful enough to attempt to counterbalance corporate interests and speak on behalf of working people in the election process. Despite losing one battle today, the fight to protect America’s middle class andw working people has only just begun.

By: Brendan Fischer, Center For Media and Democracy, March 10, 2011

March 11, 2011 Posted by | Class Warfare, Collective Bargaining, Democracy, GOP, Income Gap, Middle Class, Politics, Unions | , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The “Have-Nots” Sink While The “Haves” Smirk

The “race to the bottom” used to refer to the competition with low-cost foreign labor that threatened to undermine the wages of U.S. workers struggling in the same industries.

Now it refers to the competition between private- and public-sector workers to see who can become poorer faster.

In essence, that’s what the fight in Wisconsin is about. It’s also what last weekend’s Niagara Square rally with 250 union supporters was about.

But who’s going to foot the bill for the standard of living they want to protect? Middle-class taxpayers are tapped out. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker made that point, as did Gov. Andrew Cuomo when calling New York “functionally bankrupt.”

In other words, the money is gone.

But as private-sector workers turn on public employees, and non-union workers castigate their unionized brethren, the internecine warfare distracts from a more fundamental question: Where did the money go?

In a nutshell, it went up. Not in smoke, though it could have, as far as the middle class is concerned. Rather, it went to the top of the economic pyramid.

A Center on Budget and Policy Priorities review last year found that the gap between the top 1 percent and those in the middle and at the bottom “more than tripled between 1979 and 2007.” (If the wealthy lost any relative ground during the Great Recession, they’ve more than made up for it during the recovery.)

Similarly, the Economic Policy Institute — in its State of Working America report last month — found that average annual income growth from 2000 to 2007 went entirely to those in the top 10 percent, while “income for the bottom 90 percent actually declined.”

And what of those government workers lavishly compensated with our tax dollars?

A review by the center last week found that, when controlling for education, job tenure and other variables, “public workers are paid 4 to 11 percent less than private-sector workers.” A separate study by the institute found that state and local government workers make $2,001 less on average, even when benefits are included.

Yet the fight rages on among those in the middle of the pyramid.

Meanwhile, in its annual Executive Excess report, the Institute for Policy Studies calculated that CEOs of major firms made 263 times the average compensation of American workers in 2009.

SEIU Local 1199 Vice President Todd Hobler, who was at the Niagara Square rally, says such inequity gets accepted because the media suggest “that the goal of all people is to become rich, and that those who have fortunes deserve it and have earned it.”

But are corporate bosses 263 times smarter than you are? Do they work 263 times harder?

Yet despite the reams of data, the issue of inequity gets little traction in this country. Republicans philosophically don’t believe in greater income equality unless it occurs by accident, while Democrats have no beliefs at all that they’re willing to fight for.

The result is that anyone who mentions the income gap is accused of “class warfare,” which brings to mind a quote by billionaire Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway owns The Buffalo News, that “my class is winning.”

But apparently working-class Americans are OK with that. We’ll dump teachers, close libraries and let parks go to seed because we can’t afford to pay more. Yet we’ll never ask, “Who can?” That’s not what we do.

Washington extended the Bush tax cuts for the top 2 percent; New York will let its surtax on millionaires expire. Both capitals are responding to working-class voters who apparently don’t want to “redistribute” wealth and are satisfied fighting one another for the scraps.

After all, we’re not Tunisians. We’re not Egyptians.

We’re Americans.

By:  Rod Watson, News Columnist-BuffaloNews.com, March 3, 2011

March 7, 2011 Posted by | Class Warfare, Income Gap, Middle Class | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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