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Gov Rick Perry’s Abysmal Record On Women’s Health

If you’re a woman from Texas—or indeed, any  woman—there’s a lot to dislike about Gov. Rick Perry.

The vanity.  The boorishness.  The belief you’re too  stupid to make your own medical decisions. The weird resemblance to Animal House’s Niedermeyer in his college  photo.

Perry reminds me of the scene in Thelma and Louise in which  Thelma (Geena Davis) says of her  n’er-do-well husband, “He kind of  prides himself on being infantile.” Louise (Susan  Sarandon) responds,  “He’s got a lot to be proud of.”

So as we all prepare for the media barrage surrounding  Perry’s  presidential announcement on Saturday, and in tradition of my idol   Molly Ivins, I’m going to start a new group, Texas Women Enraged by Rick  Perry—TWERP for short.

As TWERP’s organizer, I feel  obliged to point out that on a  practical level, Rick Perry has made it pretty  lousy for women in  Texas, especially for women at the bottom of the economic  ladder. He’s  also made it pretty lousy for anybody who doesn’t look like him.  As  Eileen Smith wrote  in the Texas Observer, “In  just one session, Republicans managed to  screw children, women, gays,  immigrants, teachers, the elderly,  Hispanics, the unemployed and the uninsured.  The only people who got off easy were white guys. Can’t imagine why.”

The numbers tell the tale. Texas is dead last in the number  of  non-elderly women without health insurance, and 6th nationally in  the  percentage of women in poverty, according to the Texas  Legislative Study Group.  One in  five Texas children lack health insurance, the highest rate in  the nation. And  if that weren’t bad enough, Perry tried to opt out of  Medicaid, which provides  healthcare to the most vulnerable Texas populations, including pregnant women  and children.

When it comes to reproductive healthcare, the state budget guts  family planning, leaving 284,000 Texas women without birth control or access  to basic reproductive healthcare. This will also likely increase the abortion  rate, sonograms or no sonograms. And of course there’s the standard right wing assault on  Planned Parenthood. Women needing prenatal care fare no better.

As reported in the Texas  Tribune, “Texas has the worst rate  of pregnant women receiving prenatal care in the  first trimester,  according to the report commissioned by the Legislative Study  Group…And  though Texas has the highest percent of its population without  health  insurance, the state is 49th in per capita spending on Medicaid, and   dead last in per capita spending on mental health, according to the   report.”

So if you’re a working class Texas woman, Rick Perry doesn’t  want  you to have access to birth control or reproductive healthcare to  prevent  unintended pregnancy, but once you’re pregnant the state  mandates a sonogram  and a lecture to convince you of the error of your  ways. After that sonogram  and lecture, if you need prenatal care,  you’re SOL. And once the baby is born,  Texas is 47th in monthly benefit payments under the Women, Infants, & Children program, which  provides nutrition assistance.

This is Rick Perry’s vision for women in the United States. Limited  healthcare, little birth control, low  income women and kids left to  fend for themselves, a bunch of bureaucrats  telling you what to do—and  the very real human suffering that goes along with  it. TWERP might be  an understatement.

By: Laura Chapin, U. S. News and World Report, August 11, 2011

August 12, 2011 Posted by | Abortion, Class Warfare, Conservatives, Democracy, Economy, Education, Elections, Equal Rights, GOP, Governors, Health Care, Human Rights, Ideologues, Ideology, Immigrants, Income Gap, Lawmakers, Media, Medicaid, Middle Class, Planned Parenthood, Politics, Press, Pro-Choice, Racism, Republicans, Right Wing, States, Teaparty, Unemployed, Uninsured, Voters, Women, Women's Health, Womens Rights | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Wisconsin Voters To Unions: “We’re Just Not That Into You”

Last night, Democrats in Wisconsin fell short by one in their effort to regain control of the Wisconsin State Senate.

While there is no question that the drive to pick up seats via the recall elections, staged in decidedly Republican districts, was a difficult undertaking – and there is some reason for Democrats to celebrate having won two seats in these GOP areas- there is no spinning out of the truth of this election.

The loss was both hard and significant on a number of levels.

Had the election been influenced by a low voter turnout – something that typically bodes ill for Democrats – that would have put a different face on the story.

But the turnout was spectacular. And, based on the results, Republicans were every bit as energized as Democrats.

GOP supporters had the backs of their sitting Senators, coming to the polls in big numbers to deliver the message that they too are as engaged and energized in the battle taking place in Wisconsin as the progressives and that is precisely what should have those who oppose the conservative agenda – in Wisconsin and throughout the nation – shaking in their boots.

The GOP was not just sending the message that they too know how to show up at the polls. They had a deeper message to send, one that was addressed to the unions. It was a message that came through loud and clear.

We’re (the voters) just not that into you.

The unions poured some $20 million dollars in the Wisconsin effort. For their money, they improved their minority in the State Senate by two votes but failed to come away with the majority required to put the breaks on Governor Scott Walker’s agenda.

That’s a lot of cash to spend for the return achieved.

While the other side also poured serious cash into the state, organizations like Club For Growth can, at the least, come away from the battle knowing that their agenda has not been stymied and, for as long as Governor Walker sits in the state house, they remain free and unfettered in their efforts to move their mission forward while pushing the state of Wisconsin – and the country – backward.

Now, the Wisconsin Democrats are left to determine their plans for the future, particularly with respect to the proposed recall effort against Governor Scott Walker.

The good news is that last night’s battles were fought on enemy territory while a statewide recall will bring the Democratic faithful throughout the state into play.

The bad news is that we’ve now learned that those who support the Walker agenda – and we’d best acknowledge that there are far more of them than Badger State Democrats might have wanted to realize- will not be sitting idly by when it comes to supporting an agenda of wiping out collective bargaining rights, cutting education and healthcare to the bone and disenfranchising those who are more likely to cast their vote for Democrats.

I suspect that the Walker recall will go forward – but that won’t happen until next year.

In the meantime, the attention turns to the ballot measure in Ohio seeking to repeal the anti-collective bargaining law passed by Gov. John Kasich and the Ohio legislature. The initiative will appear on the statewide ballot on November 8th and will permit all voting Ohioans to weigh in on how they feel about the effort to end unions in America. A “yes” would be a vote to retain the law while a “no” will be a vote to repeal.

If I were a Democrat in Wisconsin, I’d plan on spending the next few months in Ohio working hard for the repeal effort. If ‘just say no’ fails in the Ohio election, the writing you see on the wall will be the formal announcement of the tragic death of the union movement in the United States of America.

By: Rick Ungar, The Policy Page, Forbes, August 11, 2011

August 11, 2011 Posted by | Campaign Financing, Class Warfare, Collective Bargaining, Conservatives, Corporations, Democracy, Democrats, Economy, Education, Elections, GOP, Gov John Kasich, Gov Scott Walker, Government, Governors, Health Care, Ideologues, Ideology, Jobs, Lawmakers, Lobbyists, Middle Class, Politics, Public Employees, Republicans, Right Wing, State Legislatures, States, Teaparty, Union Busting, Unions, Voters, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Republicans | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Populist Sen Mitch McConnell: “I Think Everyone Should Pay Their Fair Share, Including The Rich”

Today, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) named three Republicans to the fiscal super committee that was created by the debt ceiling deal. All three have taken the Americans for Tax Reform anti-tax pledge and support a cockamamie constitutional balanced budget amendment. “What I can pretty certainly sayto the American people, the chances of any kind of tax increase passing with this, with the appointees that John Boehner and I are going to put on there, are pretty low,” McConnell has said.

But McConnell has not always been so virulently anti-tax. In fact, in a 1990 campaign ad, McConnell said that “everyone should pay their fair share, including the rich,” prompting the Associated Press to say that he sounded like a “populist Democrat”:

“Many Republican candidates are, in fact, holding fast to the no-new-taxes position that Bush embraced and then abandoned, even as they try to portray themselves as friends of senior citizens and the disadvantaged. Others are sounding more and more like populist Democrats. ‘Unlike some folks around here, I think everyone should pay their fair share, including the rich,’ Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., says in a campaign ad.” [Associated Press, 10/28/90]

“A twist of untraditional Republicanism is added to McConnell’s message when he says, ‘Unlike some folks around here, I think everyone should pay their fair share, including the rich. We need to protect seniors from Medicare cuts too,’” wrote Roll Call reporter Steve Lilienthal. “After proclaiming his independence from the President and Congressional leaders, McConnell reassures voters that he will back a ‘fair deal for the working families of Kentucky.’” [“Democrats Flood Airwaves Charging GOP Party of Rich,” Roll Call, 11/5/1990]

If McConnell truly believes this, he should be appalled by current conditions. Tax rates on the richest Americans have plunged in recent years, and millionaires today pay tax rates that are 25 percent lower than they were in 1995. Meanwhile, income inequality is the worst its been since the 1920s, with the top 1 percent of Americans taking home 25 percent of the country’s total income. Just the richest 400 Americans hold more wealth than the bottom 50 percent of Americans combined, and the richest 10 percent of Americans control two-thirds of the country’s net worth.

From the sounds of it, once upon a time McConnell would have found this troublesome. It’s a shame that he doesn’t any longer.

By: Pat Garafalo, Contribution by: Sarah Bufkin; Think Progress, August 10, 2011

August 11, 2011 Posted by | Class Warfare, Congress, Conservatives, Debt Ceiling, Debt Crisis, Democracy, Economic Recovery, Economy, GOP, Ideologues, Ideology, Income Gap, Medicare, Middle Class, Politics, Populism, Republicans, Right Wing, Seniors, Tax Increases, Tax Loopholes, Taxes, Teaparty, Wealthy | , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Republican’s Hate Democracy: Wisconsin GOP Rep Wants To Amend State Constitution To End Recalls

State Rep. Robin Vos said he wants to “recall the recalls.”

The Rochester Republican and chairman of the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee said Wednesday he is drafting an amendment to the state constitution to require those pushing to recall state officials to state their reasons for doing so.

“No longer should taxpayer dollars be wasted on unnecessary recall elections that were triggered by a vote that some special interest group didn’t like.” Vos said in a statement. “It undermines our democracy and wastes precious taxpayer dollars that are needed elsewhere.”

His comments came a day after Democrats won two seats in the state Senate, one shy of what they would have needed to take control of the chamber. Four other Republicans held onto their seats in a set of recall elections for state lawmakers unparalleled in the country’s history.

Vos said his proposed constitutional amendment would require those trying to recall a state official to state a reason they are doing so when they file paperwork with the state. Such a statement is already required for recalling local officials.

Vos said he wants the proposal to be the first piece of legislation passed this fall. If passed, it would need to be approved again by the Legislature in 2013 or 2014 and then by voters in a referendum.

 

By: Patrick Marley, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, August 10, 2011

August 10, 2011 Posted by | Collective Bargaining, Conservatives, Corporations, Democracy, Elections, GOP, Gov Scott Walker, Government, Ideologues, Ideology, Labor, Lawmakers, Lobbyists, Middle Class, Politics, Public Employees, Republicans, Right Wing, State Legislatures, States, Teaparty, Union Busting, Unions, Voters, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Republicans | , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Sign Me Up: Why I Support “The Ronald Reagan Tax Reform Act of 2011”

Ten years ago today, the wealthiest Americans caught a multi-billion dollar break from their benefactor, then-president George W. Bush. In the decade since, through two wars, natural disasters, a plummeting economy and a soaring debt, the wealthiest Americans have gotten to keep those Bush tax cuts. Happy birthday, everybody!

As the Republican Party now lines itself up behind Rep. Paul Ryan on his mission to cut the resulting deficit on the backs of working people and the elderly, I find myself surprisingly and strangely nostalgic for another GOP hero, whose legacy, at least when it comes to taxes, has become woefully misunderstood. Can it be that I find myself nostalgic for Ronald Reagan?!

Of course, I’m not alone in my nostalgia. I’m joined by the entire Republican leadership in this, but I think our reasons may be quite a bit different. In the spirit of unity, I’d like to suggest to Republicans in Congress that they look closely at the record of their favorite 20th century hero and adopt yet another policy named after the Gipper. I’m no fan of much of President Reagan’s legacy, but in a new spirit of bipartisanship, and historical accuracy, I’d like to present Republicans in Congress with an idea: the Ronald Reagan Tax Reform Act of 2011.

A key element of the Reagan lore believed by today’s GOP is that Reagan’s embrace of “trickle-down economics” is what caused any and all economic growth since the 1980s. In fact, after Reagan implemented his initial tax-slashing plan in 1981, the federal budget deficit started to rapidly balloon. Reagan and his economic advisers were forced to scramble and raised corporate taxes to calm the deficit expansion and stop the economy from spiraling downward. Between 1982 and 1984, Reagan implemented four tax hikes. In 1986, his Tax Reform Act imposed the largest corporate tax increase in U.S. history. The GDP growth and higher tax revenues enjoyed in the later years of the Reagan presidency were in part because of his willingness to compromise on his early supply-side idolatry.

The corporate tax increases that Reagan implemented — under the more palatable guise of “tax reform” — bear another lesson for Republicans. The vast majority of the current Republican Congress has signed on to a pledge peddled by anti-tax purist Grover Norquist, which beholds them to not raise any income taxes by any amount under any circumstances, or to bring in new revenue by closing loopholes. This pledge, which Rep. Ryan’s budget loyally adheres to, in effect freezes tax policy in time — preserving not only Bush’s massive and supposedly temporary tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, but also a vast mishmash of tax breaks and loopholes for specific industries won by well-funded lobbyists.

The problem has become so great that many giant American corporations have become so adept at exploiting loopholes in the tax code that they paid no federal income taxes at all last year — if Republicans in Congress follow their pledge to Norquist, they won’t be able to close a single one of the loopholes that are allowing corporations to avoid paying their fair share.

Even Reagan recognized the difference between just plain raising taxes and simplifying the tax code to cut out loopholes that subsidize corporations. In 1984, he arranged to bring in $50 billion over three years, mainly by closing these loopholes. His 1986 reform act not only included $120 billion in tax hikes for corporations over five years, it also closed $300 billion worth of corporate loopholes.

These kinds of tax simplification solutions are available for Congress if they want them. As I wrote in April, nixing Bush’s tax cut’s for the wealthiest Americans would help the country cut roughly $65 billion off the deficit in this year alone. Closing loopholes that allow corporations to shelter their income in foreign banks would bring in $6.9 billion. Eliminating the massive tax breaks now enjoyed by oil and gas companies would yield $2.6 billion to help pay the nation’s bills.

But before Republicans in Congress change their math, they have to change their rhetoric — and embrace the reality of the economic situation they face and the one that they’d like to think they’re copying. In 1986, during the signing ceremony for the Tax Reform Act, Reagan explained that “vanishing loopholes and a minimum tax will mean that everybody and every corporation pay their fair share.”

It’s time for the GOP to take a page from their hero’s playbook. If they do so, they might be able to find some allies that they never thought possible. It’s time for “everybody and every corporation to pay their fair share.” We can all get along. Sign me up for “The Reagan Tax Reform Act of 2011.”

 

By: Michael B. Keegan, President: People For the American Way, Published in HuffPost, August 7, 2011

August 7, 2011 Posted by | Congress, Conservatives, Corporations, Democracy, Economic Recovery, Economy, GOP, Government, Ideologues, Ideology, Income Gap, Jobs, Lawmakers, Lobbyists, Middle Class, Politics, Republicans, Right Wing, Tax Loopholes, Taxes, Teaparty, Unemployed, Wealthy | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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