By Jeff Johnson
As 2011 draws to a close, the effects of what is a really a second “Great Depression” continue to ravage the Washington State economy, our public budgets, our critical social services, and our safety net. Unfortunately the legislature was able to do little in December to help.
On December 14, after sending the Governor an administrative savings bill that reduces the $2 billion budget deficit by 24 percent, the legislature adjourned. While many expected more from the Special Session because of pressure from advocacy groups and the occupy movement both in Olympia and in legislative districts, no new revenues were raised and no jobs bills were passed. The real showdown over jobs, revenue and services will confront us in January.
It came as no surprise that the legislature was unable to solve a $2 billion revenue problem in an end-of-the-year Special Session. In November, Governor Gregoire put out a set of austerity options to cut $2 billion from the budget. Then just before the start of the Special Session she announced a willingness to support a temporary one-half cent sales tax increase. But no path to resolution was worked out between the Governor’s office and the House and Senate. And apparently there was no magic wand either.
The legislature can now do three things to increase revenue and create jobs. The question remains: What are they willing to take on, and how hard are they willing to fight?
First, a joint Senate and House proposal for an infrastructure bonding proposal could be passed with a 60% vote in the legislature. The House and the Senate differ in magnitude of the proposed bond offering and types of projects it would fund. But the common goal is to dedicate a portion of a capital revenue stream from which to bond in order to build or repair needed projects now to help lift us out of this depressed economy.
With $2 billion in infrastructure bonding we could create 15,000 construction jobs in storm water clean-up projects, energy retrofits, repair of bridges and state park infrastructures, etc.; create another 15,000 induced jobs in other sectors; and generate $30 million in sales taxes for our operating budget.
Thirty thousand jobs would lower our overall unemployment by more than 10 percent and our unemployment rate by 1%. Now this is something to write home about. At this writing the House is considering about $ 1.8 billion and the Senate somewhere between $850 million and $1 billion in infrastructure bonds. We encourage both houses to consider $2 billion.
Second, the legislature can securitize a small portion of operating funds through a simple majority vote (though there is still a legal question over whether it requires a 50% or 60% vote) allowing the legislature to borrow money from the future to pay for healthcare services and jobs now. This would be bridge financing until the federal Affordable Care Act and associated funding takes effect in 2014.
Finally, the legislature needs to raise new revenue. During the past three years $15 billion in budget deficits have been closed through $10 billion in service cuts and jobs cuts and approximately $5 billion in federal stimulus money. Now it’s time to raise revenue. Although the legislature could raise revenue by creating new taxes, raising existing tax rates, or by closing tax loopholes, it is unlikely that they will be able to meet the supermajority requirement imposed by I-1053. With supermajorities, politics and ideology trump good policies.
So the question is: Will the legislature put a comprehensive revenue package out to the public for a spring vote? A comprehensive package could close tax loopholes benefiting banks and corporations that have not paid their fair share over the years, create a wealth tax on our state’s highest income residents, create a state capital gains tax, and fund a working families tax rebate, returning a large portion of sales tax payments to workers in low-income employment. Any of these ways of raising or adjusting revenue would address both the grievances and the needs of the 99%.
The Governor and many senators are talking about raising the sales tax by ½ cent over the next three years. This is the simplest and quickest way to raise revenue. But since it is primarily the working class that will have to foot the bill, will the people vote for it?
Finally we need to watch out for any trades the Governor and legislative leadership are willing to make to send a revenue package of any sort to the people for a vote. Demonizing state employees, privatizing government functions, and attacking collective bargaining rights are all shortsighted and unacceptable.
The 2012 legislative session and political season will test the mettle of the 99%.
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Jeff Johnson is president of the Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO, and a member of PSARA.
Friday, December 30, 2011
Socialism for the rich:
Socialism for the rich:
The Fed’s secret bailout of the world’s banks
By Mike Andrew
If you were outraged by the $800 billion TARP bailout of US banks and investment houses, hold on to your hat – you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!
A GAO (General Accounting Office) audit of the Federal Reserve has revealed that between 2007 and 2010 the Fed bailed out US and foreign banks to the tune of $16 trillion. Some independent estimates put the total as high as $29 trillion.
The money was handed out at near zero interest, and some of it has reportedly been loaned back to the US government. In other words, the Fed not only “saved” the world’s biggest banks, but also created an opportunity for them to make money at the expense of US taxpayers.
According to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) “This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you’re-on-your-own individualism for everyone else.”
To put this huge sum into perspective, remember that the gross domestic product (GDP) of the United States is only $14.12 trillion. The entire national debt of the United States government spanning the whole of its 223-year history is only $14.5 trillion.
The budget that is being publicly debated with so much sound and fury in Congress only amounts to $3.5 trillion, yet the bailouts authorized by the Fed were never publicly debated by anyone in any venue.
Some of the Fed’s transactions were already known – the so-called “Maiden Lane Transactions” whereby the Fed created a new financial vehicle to purchase the assets of Bear Stearns and AIG, for example.
Many of the Fed’s deals remained secret, however, until the first-ever GAO audit was completed in December.
Since the global financial crisis began in 2007, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has worked overtime to save Wall Street's biggest banks while concealing his actions from Congress behind an alphabet soup of special facilities designed to transfer funds to Wall Street.
It literally took an act of Congress to get Bernanke to release information detailing the Fed's actions. Progressive Democrat Alan Grayson (D-FL) joined with Libertarian Republican Ron Paul (R-TX) to amend the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act to require an audit of the Federal Reserve.
Bloomberg News also filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit to acquire documentation of the Fed’s lending.
Based on those documents, economics professor and Bloomberg contributor Randall Wray estimated that even the GAO’s $16 trillion figure is far too low. According to Wray, the real amount distributed by the Fed is closer to $29 trillion.
As you might expect, the biggest US banks and investment houses took away the biggest haul, with Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch (now a division of Bank of America), and Bank of America leading the pack.
However, British, Swiss, German, French, Belgian, and South Korean banks also got a piece of the action.
Besides the sheer volume of money the Fed handed out, the GAO report also revealed that the Fed helped many financial institutions to make money off the bailout.
According to the GAO report, the Fed outsourced most of its emergency lending programs to private contractors, many of which were also getting extremely low-interest secret loans.
The Fed outsourced virtually all the operations of their emergency lending programs to huge financial corporations like JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo, while giving the same firms trillions of dollars in loans at near zero interest rates.
Altogether about two-thirds of the contracts that the Fed awarded to manage its emergency lending programs were no-bid contracts. Morgan Stanley, for example, got the largest no-bid contract to help manage the Fed bailout of AIG – a contract worth $108.4 million – while it received more than $2 trillion in bailout money.
Another appalling fact revealed by the GAO is that the Fed has no system to deal with conflicts of interest, despite the serious potential for abuse.
According to the GAO report, the Fed even provided conflict of interest waivers to employees and private contractors so they could keep investments in the very same banks and investment houses that were given emergency loans.
“Many Americans are struggling to understand why banks deserve such preferential treatment while millions of homeowners are being denied assistance and are at increasing risk of foreclosure,” Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), the ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said in a letter to Bloomberg News.
The Fed’s secret bailout of the world’s banks
By Mike Andrew
If you were outraged by the $800 billion TARP bailout of US banks and investment houses, hold on to your hat – you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!
A GAO (General Accounting Office) audit of the Federal Reserve has revealed that between 2007 and 2010 the Fed bailed out US and foreign banks to the tune of $16 trillion. Some independent estimates put the total as high as $29 trillion.
The money was handed out at near zero interest, and some of it has reportedly been loaned back to the US government. In other words, the Fed not only “saved” the world’s biggest banks, but also created an opportunity for them to make money at the expense of US taxpayers.
According to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) “This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you’re-on-your-own individualism for everyone else.”
To put this huge sum into perspective, remember that the gross domestic product (GDP) of the United States is only $14.12 trillion. The entire national debt of the United States government spanning the whole of its 223-year history is only $14.5 trillion.
The budget that is being publicly debated with so much sound and fury in Congress only amounts to $3.5 trillion, yet the bailouts authorized by the Fed were never publicly debated by anyone in any venue.
Some of the Fed’s transactions were already known – the so-called “Maiden Lane Transactions” whereby the Fed created a new financial vehicle to purchase the assets of Bear Stearns and AIG, for example.
Many of the Fed’s deals remained secret, however, until the first-ever GAO audit was completed in December.
Since the global financial crisis began in 2007, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has worked overtime to save Wall Street's biggest banks while concealing his actions from Congress behind an alphabet soup of special facilities designed to transfer funds to Wall Street.
It literally took an act of Congress to get Bernanke to release information detailing the Fed's actions. Progressive Democrat Alan Grayson (D-FL) joined with Libertarian Republican Ron Paul (R-TX) to amend the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act to require an audit of the Federal Reserve.
Bloomberg News also filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit to acquire documentation of the Fed’s lending.
Based on those documents, economics professor and Bloomberg contributor Randall Wray estimated that even the GAO’s $16 trillion figure is far too low. According to Wray, the real amount distributed by the Fed is closer to $29 trillion.
As you might expect, the biggest US banks and investment houses took away the biggest haul, with Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch (now a division of Bank of America), and Bank of America leading the pack.
However, British, Swiss, German, French, Belgian, and South Korean banks also got a piece of the action.
Besides the sheer volume of money the Fed handed out, the GAO report also revealed that the Fed helped many financial institutions to make money off the bailout.
According to the GAO report, the Fed outsourced most of its emergency lending programs to private contractors, many of which were also getting extremely low-interest secret loans.
The Fed outsourced virtually all the operations of their emergency lending programs to huge financial corporations like JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo, while giving the same firms trillions of dollars in loans at near zero interest rates.
Altogether about two-thirds of the contracts that the Fed awarded to manage its emergency lending programs were no-bid contracts. Morgan Stanley, for example, got the largest no-bid contract to help manage the Fed bailout of AIG – a contract worth $108.4 million – while it received more than $2 trillion in bailout money.
Another appalling fact revealed by the GAO is that the Fed has no system to deal with conflicts of interest, despite the serious potential for abuse.
According to the GAO report, the Fed even provided conflict of interest waivers to employees and private contractors so they could keep investments in the very same banks and investment houses that were given emergency loans.
“Many Americans are struggling to understand why banks deserve such preferential treatment while millions of homeowners are being denied assistance and are at increasing risk of foreclosure,” Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), the ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said in a letter to Bloomberg News.
We welcome three to the Board!
The following three new members were elected to the Executive Board at the December meeting of the Board:
Susan Levy is a retired professor of economics and labor relations at Shoreline Community College and former president of AFT Washington. She currently serves as vice president of the Retiree Chapter of AFT WA and as their representative to the Social Security Works WA Coalition.
Tom Lux, a 35-year member of the Machinists Union, was on the union staff for eight years. He currently serves as a member of the Aerospace Joint Apprenticeship Committee. He is on the visiting committee of the Harry Bridges Chair at the U.W. and is the WA state vice president of the Pacific Northwest Labor History Association.
Mark McDermott is a 40-year activist in labor, anti-poverty, economic justice, immigrant rights and faith-based social justice movements. He currently serves on the board of One America and on the Advisory Committee of the Faith Action Network. He is doing popular justice education with a number of unions and community-based organizations.
Susan Levy is a retired professor of economics and labor relations at Shoreline Community College and former president of AFT Washington. She currently serves as vice president of the Retiree Chapter of AFT WA and as their representative to the Social Security Works WA Coalition.
Tom Lux, a 35-year member of the Machinists Union, was on the union staff for eight years. He currently serves as a member of the Aerospace Joint Apprenticeship Committee. He is on the visiting committee of the Harry Bridges Chair at the U.W. and is the WA state vice president of the Pacific Northwest Labor History Association.
Mark McDermott is a 40-year activist in labor, anti-poverty, economic justice, immigrant rights and faith-based social justice movements. He currently serves on the board of One America and on the Advisory Committee of the Faith Action Network. He is doing popular justice education with a number of unions and community-based organizations.
Reed Wacker, our new webmaster
Reed Wacker, a recent graduate of the Web Design program at Seattle Central Community College and a 1998 graduate of Seattle’s Roosevelt High, becomes PSARA’s new web master this month.
Lorraine Pozzi, who brought us into the 21st Century by creating PSARA’s excellent web page, has requested to be relieved of her duties. She has been a stalwart volunteer, whose skills and insights have been a superb resource for our organization.
“Reed brings skill, enthusiasm and commitment to this important assignment,” PSARA President Robby Stern said. “He is creating a new web page design, which will be posted in March. Until then, our web page will continue in its present form.”
In addition to his design skills, Reed has had media experience as a writer for the Huffington Post and as a radio host for 99.9 KISW FM.
Lorraine Pozzi, who brought us into the 21st Century by creating PSARA’s excellent web page, has requested to be relieved of her duties. She has been a stalwart volunteer, whose skills and insights have been a superb resource for our organization.
“Reed brings skill, enthusiasm and commitment to this important assignment,” PSARA President Robby Stern said. “He is creating a new web page design, which will be posted in March. Until then, our web page will continue in its present form.”
In addition to his design skills, Reed has had media experience as a writer for the Huffington Post and as a radio host for 99.9 KISW FM.
New target for growth in 2012
Happy New Year! We wish for all our members good health – and an abundance of political activity throughout Election Year 2012!
Election activity – and adding new members to PSARA – now there’s a marriage made in heaven!
If you were with us for our Membership Meeting and Holiday Party, you know that we set for ourselves an ambitious goal for growth in 2012. Two hundred and seventy-five new members – a significant step up from the 250 we added in 2011. Ambitious – but achievable in the context of working throughout 2012 for candidates and campaigns that will make a difference.
As you read each new issue of The Retiree Advocate, make a mental note of the articles your friends and political associates will find stimulating. Then stick the newsletter in your purse or pocket. Keep it with you all month long!
Use The Retiree Advocate as a conversation opener – then invite your new friend to join PSARA, the activist, leading-edge organization for retirees – and for all who hope to retire.
Recruiting new PSARA members of all ages. Building PSARA’s membership strength even as you engage in election activity. On to 275 new members! On to a people’s victory in November
Election activity – and adding new members to PSARA – now there’s a marriage made in heaven!
If you were with us for our Membership Meeting and Holiday Party, you know that we set for ourselves an ambitious goal for growth in 2012. Two hundred and seventy-five new members – a significant step up from the 250 we added in 2011. Ambitious – but achievable in the context of working throughout 2012 for candidates and campaigns that will make a difference.
As you read each new issue of The Retiree Advocate, make a mental note of the articles your friends and political associates will find stimulating. Then stick the newsletter in your purse or pocket. Keep it with you all month long!
Use The Retiree Advocate as a conversation opener – then invite your new friend to join PSARA, the activist, leading-edge organization for retirees – and for all who hope to retire.
Recruiting new PSARA members of all ages. Building PSARA’s membership strength even as you engage in election activity. On to 275 new members! On to a people’s victory in November
Recapturing the revolutionary spirit of MLK Jr.
By Larry Gossett
This year will mark the thirtieth year the MLK Jr. Celebration Committee has organized a broad based, grassroots community salute to the legacy of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the greater Seattle area. We are involving hundreds of people from the Black, Latino, Native American, Asian, Pacific Islander, labor, faith based, environmental and progressive white neighborhoods located in every part of the Puget Sound Region.
In order to celebrate and focus most accurately on what Dr. King was fighting for in the last three years of his life, our committee has selected the theme “Recapturing Martin Luther King’s Revolutionary Spirit!”
During the years 1966-68, Dr. King significantly expanded his dream for America. He was organizing a Poor People’s March with the aim of closing down the United States Congress until legislation was passed to eliminate poverty in our nation. He spoke out uncompromisingly against the war in Vietnam. And, he was brutally murdered standing up for sanitation workers in Memphis.
Dr. King was killed because he was advocating for a radical political and economic democracy in our country.
We will highlight this more truthful reflection of Dr. King’s legacy as we mobilize thousands of people to celebrate Dr. King’s birthday at Garfield High School on Monday, January 16th, 2012. Check out the website at www.mlkseattle.org
As usual we have organized a great array of workshops, covering such topics as “Mass Incarceration in a Color Blind Society, “How to Redistribute Wealth in a Corporate Economy,” “Closing the Achievement Gap in the Public Schools,” and many more. These workshops will take place from 9:30a.m. until 11:00a.m. in classrooms inside Garfield school. At 11:00a.m., we will host a community rally inside the Garfield gymnasium. At 12:30p.m., we will begin our annual march from Garfield to the Federal Building on 2nd and Madison.
Please join us.
This year will mark the thirtieth year the MLK Jr. Celebration Committee has organized a broad based, grassroots community salute to the legacy of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the greater Seattle area. We are involving hundreds of people from the Black, Latino, Native American, Asian, Pacific Islander, labor, faith based, environmental and progressive white neighborhoods located in every part of the Puget Sound Region.
In order to celebrate and focus most accurately on what Dr. King was fighting for in the last three years of his life, our committee has selected the theme “Recapturing Martin Luther King’s Revolutionary Spirit!”
During the years 1966-68, Dr. King significantly expanded his dream for America. He was organizing a Poor People’s March with the aim of closing down the United States Congress until legislation was passed to eliminate poverty in our nation. He spoke out uncompromisingly against the war in Vietnam. And, he was brutally murdered standing up for sanitation workers in Memphis.
Dr. King was killed because he was advocating for a radical political and economic democracy in our country.
We will highlight this more truthful reflection of Dr. King’s legacy as we mobilize thousands of people to celebrate Dr. King’s birthday at Garfield High School on Monday, January 16th, 2012. Check out the website at www.mlkseattle.org
As usual we have organized a great array of workshops, covering such topics as “Mass Incarceration in a Color Blind Society, “How to Redistribute Wealth in a Corporate Economy,” “Closing the Achievement Gap in the Public Schools,” and many more. These workshops will take place from 9:30a.m. until 11:00a.m. in classrooms inside Garfield school. At 11:00a.m., we will host a community rally inside the Garfield gymnasium. At 12:30p.m., we will begin our annual march from Garfield to the Federal Building on 2nd and Madison.
Please join us.
Ryan-Wyden scheme would wreck Medicare
Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has joined one of the bitterest foes of Medicare, Representative Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), to propose “bipartisan” legislation that would give private, for-profit insurance companies entry into the program. The Ryan-Wyden proposal was hailed by GOP presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, and condemned by liberal Democrats, including California Representative Pete Stark, who said the proposal “ends Medicare as we know it, pure and simple.”
Here’s AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka’s assessment:
By Rich Trumka
President, AFL-CIO
The Ryan-Wyden proposal cripples Medicare in order to give the Republican Party a political boost and to earn Senator Wyden praise from powerful people who care more about the appearance of bipartisanship and insurance industry profits than the health of America's seniors.
The basic idea is to have private for-profit insurance companies compete with traditional Medicare. But we already know this does not work since Medicare is more cost-effective than private plans and for-profit insurance companies "compete" by cherry-picking healthier patients and making it harder for their sicker patients to get the care they need.
This zombie idea has already been tried and has already failed. We tried it before with Medicare Advantage, which failed to reduce costs or deliver quality care. Medicare Advantage's costs were 13 percent higher than traditional Medicare.
Rep. Ryan spent 2011 on the defensive, defending his politically deadly proposal to replace traditional Medicare with vouchers for private insurance. The Congressional Budget Office already found that plan would increase overall health care costs by $34 trillion over 75 years and increase out-of-pocket costs by $6,000 per senior per year.
Ryan-Wyden is not about cost containment, and even its authors admit that vouchers would not be more cost-effective than traditional Medicare. So as a fallback they propose a budget cap, but they neglect to provide the necessary details about how their failsafe mechanism would work or who would pay the price for failure.
The Ryan-Wyden plan betrays a fundamental misdiagnosis of the problem of health care cost growth. We agree that if America fails to bring health care cost growth under control, health care costs will eventually bankrupt families, private businesses, state governments, and the federal government. But Medicare, which is more cost-effective than private insurance, is not the problem, it is the solution to runaway health care costs.
It is the height of irony that the Ryan-Wyden plan destabilizes the most effective tool we have to control health care cost growth, which is Medicare. Under Ryan-Wyden, private for-profit insurance companies will cherry pick the healthiest seniors and stick Medicare with sicker and more costly seniors, driving up costs for Medicare, fragmenting and destabilizing the Medicare risk pool, and leaving traditional Medicare to wither on the vine.
In the end, the answer to the problem of health care cost growth is for more people to use Medicare, not fewer. The Ryan-Wyden zombie proposal takes us in exactly the wrong direction.
Here’s AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka’s assessment:
By Rich Trumka
President, AFL-CIO
The Ryan-Wyden proposal cripples Medicare in order to give the Republican Party a political boost and to earn Senator Wyden praise from powerful people who care more about the appearance of bipartisanship and insurance industry profits than the health of America's seniors.
The basic idea is to have private for-profit insurance companies compete with traditional Medicare. But we already know this does not work since Medicare is more cost-effective than private plans and for-profit insurance companies "compete" by cherry-picking healthier patients and making it harder for their sicker patients to get the care they need.
This zombie idea has already been tried and has already failed. We tried it before with Medicare Advantage, which failed to reduce costs or deliver quality care. Medicare Advantage's costs were 13 percent higher than traditional Medicare.
Rep. Ryan spent 2011 on the defensive, defending his politically deadly proposal to replace traditional Medicare with vouchers for private insurance. The Congressional Budget Office already found that plan would increase overall health care costs by $34 trillion over 75 years and increase out-of-pocket costs by $6,000 per senior per year.
Ryan-Wyden is not about cost containment, and even its authors admit that vouchers would not be more cost-effective than traditional Medicare. So as a fallback they propose a budget cap, but they neglect to provide the necessary details about how their failsafe mechanism would work or who would pay the price for failure.
The Ryan-Wyden plan betrays a fundamental misdiagnosis of the problem of health care cost growth. We agree that if America fails to bring health care cost growth under control, health care costs will eventually bankrupt families, private businesses, state governments, and the federal government. But Medicare, which is more cost-effective than private insurance, is not the problem, it is the solution to runaway health care costs.
It is the height of irony that the Ryan-Wyden plan destabilizes the most effective tool we have to control health care cost growth, which is Medicare. Under Ryan-Wyden, private for-profit insurance companies will cherry pick the healthiest seniors and stick Medicare with sicker and more costly seniors, driving up costs for Medicare, fragmenting and destabilizing the Medicare risk pool, and leaving traditional Medicare to wither on the vine.
In the end, the answer to the problem of health care cost growth is for more people to use Medicare, not fewer. The Ryan-Wyden zombie proposal takes us in exactly the wrong direction.
Say NO to Social Security office closure!
By Steve Kofahl and Robby Stern
PSARA will participate in a community meeting to oppose the neighborhood Social Security field office closures being planned by the Social Security Administration (SSA).
At 1:30 p.m. Friday, January 13, we will gather at the Chinatown/International District Community Center at 719 8th Avenue in Seattle, to demonstrate our opposition to SSA’s harsh, bureaucratic decision to close its long-established International District and Belltown community field offices, in favor of a new “Metro” office in the Jackson Federal Building.
SSA Regional Commissioner, Stanley Friendship met with community representatives December 19 to hear their concerns about his decision. Meeting with PSARA President Robby Stern; Minority Executive Directors Coalition Co-Chair Sharyne Shiu Thornton; Seattle NOW representative Thalia Syracopoulos; and Seattle Community Law Center Executive Director Alex Doolittle, Commissioner Friendship made it clear his decision is “set in stone.” The commissioner said SSA’s main motive was to save money in the face of shrinking budgets.
The delegation learned that a search for space for a consolidated office was limited to Seattle’s Downtown core between Yesler Street and Lake Union. Confining the search in this way excludes the International District and South Seattle, exactly the areas where an accessible neighborhood office is most acutely needed.
Friendship suggested that if they could meet the needs of 90 percent of their clients at the new location, the needs for personal service of the other 10 percent could be sacrificed.
The Agency is determined to compel Social Security beneficiaries to rely more on telephones and computers and less on person-to-person service. But many beneficiaries cannot use internet self service, and many, for language and other reasons, cannot communicate effectively by telephone.
Many poor and homeless persons lack photo ID and can’t afford to pay for it. They should not be turned away. Disabled individuals should have adequate disabled parking available. Language should not be a barrier to service.
Commissioner Friendship asserted that security would be improved at the new site. He denied that SSA’s office move would be out of compliance with Department of Justice guidelines that recommend against co-location of high security (ATF, IRS, FBI) and low security (like SSA) agencies.
In fact, the new Seattle Federal Building office would not necessarily be more secure. The 1995 Murrah Building bombing in a comparable facility in Oklahoma City cost the lives of 16 SSA employees and 24 of their clients. That bombing was a major reason for the establishment of the Justice Department guidelines.
To reverse this decision will require pressure from elected officials and from the impacted communities. Populations that require face-to-face service are concentrated in central and south Seattle. To make their access more difficult, or impossible, is to deny equitable service. This is simply unacceptable.
Does $160,000 a year in budget savings justify singling out the most vulnerable in our society for denial of government services? How do you put a price on denying service to 30 people a day?
Please call your elected representatives to register your objections. Please join us at the public meeting in the International District on January 13.
PSARA will participate in a community meeting to oppose the neighborhood Social Security field office closures being planned by the Social Security Administration (SSA).
At 1:30 p.m. Friday, January 13, we will gather at the Chinatown/International District Community Center at 719 8th Avenue in Seattle, to demonstrate our opposition to SSA’s harsh, bureaucratic decision to close its long-established International District and Belltown community field offices, in favor of a new “Metro” office in the Jackson Federal Building.
SSA Regional Commissioner, Stanley Friendship met with community representatives December 19 to hear their concerns about his decision. Meeting with PSARA President Robby Stern; Minority Executive Directors Coalition Co-Chair Sharyne Shiu Thornton; Seattle NOW representative Thalia Syracopoulos; and Seattle Community Law Center Executive Director Alex Doolittle, Commissioner Friendship made it clear his decision is “set in stone.” The commissioner said SSA’s main motive was to save money in the face of shrinking budgets.
The delegation learned that a search for space for a consolidated office was limited to Seattle’s Downtown core between Yesler Street and Lake Union. Confining the search in this way excludes the International District and South Seattle, exactly the areas where an accessible neighborhood office is most acutely needed.
Friendship suggested that if they could meet the needs of 90 percent of their clients at the new location, the needs for personal service of the other 10 percent could be sacrificed.
The Agency is determined to compel Social Security beneficiaries to rely more on telephones and computers and less on person-to-person service. But many beneficiaries cannot use internet self service, and many, for language and other reasons, cannot communicate effectively by telephone.
Many poor and homeless persons lack photo ID and can’t afford to pay for it. They should not be turned away. Disabled individuals should have adequate disabled parking available. Language should not be a barrier to service.
Commissioner Friendship asserted that security would be improved at the new site. He denied that SSA’s office move would be out of compliance with Department of Justice guidelines that recommend against co-location of high security (ATF, IRS, FBI) and low security (like SSA) agencies.
In fact, the new Seattle Federal Building office would not necessarily be more secure. The 1995 Murrah Building bombing in a comparable facility in Oklahoma City cost the lives of 16 SSA employees and 24 of their clients. That bombing was a major reason for the establishment of the Justice Department guidelines.
To reverse this decision will require pressure from elected officials and from the impacted communities. Populations that require face-to-face service are concentrated in central and south Seattle. To make their access more difficult, or impossible, is to deny equitable service. This is simply unacceptable.
Does $160,000 a year in budget savings justify singling out the most vulnerable in our society for denial of government services? How do you put a price on denying service to 30 people a day?
Please call your elected representatives to register your objections. Please join us at the public meeting in the International District on January 13.
Confronting the need for long-term care
PSARA members are invited to participate with the broader community at the Seattle Care Congress from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, February 11, at the Greenwood Community Senior Center, 525 N. 85th Street in Seattle. Lunch will be provided.
Our country and region are facing a severe and growing “care gap.” The number of persons needing long-term care services is expected to reach 27 million by 2050, while the current direct care workforce is only 3 million. PSARA has joined a national campaign to address this ticking time bomb. No one wants to age in an institution if it is possible to receive the necessary care in one’s own home.
Today individuals and families across the country are struggling to find dependable, affordable quality care that meets the full range of their needs. That goal will not be achieved until the direct care workforce is protected by labor laws that assure them they can achieve a decent living for themselves and their families.
Today, nearly half the direct care workforce earns less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level. In addition, there are neither uniform training standards nor a meaningful career ladder to provide opportunities for advancement.
Moreover, many direct care givers are immigrants who lack documentation. Without a pathway to citizenship, these care givers are pushed into the underground economy, where they live in constant fear of deportation.
The Caring Across Generations campaign is based on the principle that all members of our society deserve a dignified quality of life and dignified quality jobs. To achieve that goal, we must:
• Create sufficient jobs to meet the growing demand for direct care.
• Transform the quality of today’s direct care jobs by ensuring fair wages, access to health insurance, and protection of health and safety.
• Create a rewarding career path and linguistically and culturally relevant training programs for undocumented care workers and their families.
• Create training and certification programs that provide a path to legal status and citizenship for undocumented care workers and their families.
• Support individuals and families who hire direct care workers by providing access to Medicaid/Medicare and by creating tax credits to assist with the costs of direct care.
• Support individuals and families who are providing unpaid kin care by establishing Social Security care-giving credits, paid family leave, and childcare subsidies.
This multi-year national campaign recognizes that caring for the aging and for people with disabilities is a national responsibility. Please join us on February 11 as we launch this campaign in the Puget Sound region.
-- Robby Stern
Our country and region are facing a severe and growing “care gap.” The number of persons needing long-term care services is expected to reach 27 million by 2050, while the current direct care workforce is only 3 million. PSARA has joined a national campaign to address this ticking time bomb. No one wants to age in an institution if it is possible to receive the necessary care in one’s own home.
Today individuals and families across the country are struggling to find dependable, affordable quality care that meets the full range of their needs. That goal will not be achieved until the direct care workforce is protected by labor laws that assure them they can achieve a decent living for themselves and their families.
Today, nearly half the direct care workforce earns less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level. In addition, there are neither uniform training standards nor a meaningful career ladder to provide opportunities for advancement.
Moreover, many direct care givers are immigrants who lack documentation. Without a pathway to citizenship, these care givers are pushed into the underground economy, where they live in constant fear of deportation.
The Caring Across Generations campaign is based on the principle that all members of our society deserve a dignified quality of life and dignified quality jobs. To achieve that goal, we must:
• Create sufficient jobs to meet the growing demand for direct care.
• Transform the quality of today’s direct care jobs by ensuring fair wages, access to health insurance, and protection of health and safety.
• Create a rewarding career path and linguistically and culturally relevant training programs for undocumented care workers and their families.
• Create training and certification programs that provide a path to legal status and citizenship for undocumented care workers and their families.
• Support individuals and families who hire direct care workers by providing access to Medicaid/Medicare and by creating tax credits to assist with the costs of direct care.
• Support individuals and families who are providing unpaid kin care by establishing Social Security care-giving credits, paid family leave, and childcare subsidies.
This multi-year national campaign recognizes that caring for the aging and for people with disabilities is a national responsibility. Please join us on February 11 as we launch this campaign in the Puget Sound region.
-- Robby Stern
Massey GUILTY! in Upper Big Branch tragedy
By Will Parry
The verdict is in. Massey Energy and its parent company are guilty of multiple violations of mine safety regulations that caused the horrific underground deaths of 29 miners at Massey’s non-union Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia on April 5, 2010.
For these corporate murders, not a single Massey honcho faces prison. The company bought its way out of criminal prosecution and prison terms with a $209 million settlement. How many such ghastly tragedies must the nation endure before simple justice is done?
The explosion apparently occurred when a spark from the friction caused by cutting coal ignited an explosive accumulation of methane, causing a fireball. The fireball in turn ignited coal dust that had been allowed to build up. The coal dust explosion raged throughout more than two miles of mine passages. And 29 men died.
A 972-page Labor Department report confirmed that “unlawful policies and practices” were the “root cause of the tragedy.” The report identified 369 violations of the federal Mine Safety and Health Act (MSHA), including twelve flagrant violations that contributed directly to the fatal explosion.
Massey even kept two sets of books – one logging safety hazards, the other, for the eyes of mine inspectors, with the hazards edited out. The company also illegally warned their supervisors of impending inspections, and created an environment of fear to prevent whistleblowers from reporting violations.
The Labor Department’s findings were basically confirmed by a team of experts in coal mining, mining law and occupational safety who conducted a six-month independent study ordered by West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin.
Responsibility for the explosion “lies with the management of Massey Energy,” Manchin’s experts reported. “By frequently and knowingly violating the law and blatantly disregarding known safety practices, Massey exhibited a corporate mentality that placed the drive to produce coal above worker safety.”
Despite the size of the fine, the families of the men killed in the accident consider the settlement to be justice denied. They want the responsible executives tried and convicted. But weak mining laws give prosecutors a steep uphill battle to convict. And legislation to toughen the act has thus far been blocked by the coal industry’s intense lobbying.
“Even though you have the biggest mine disaster in 40 years, there’s been absolutely no federal legislation flowing from it,” said Tony Oppegard, a Kentucky attorney who represents miners.
“Until someone goes to jail, there will be no justice done here,” said Cecil E. Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers.
The statistics are cruel: Three hundred and sixty-nine safety violations. Twenty-nine working miners hurled, choked or crushed to death in the airless dark a thousand feet down.
We need to feel, even if only vicariously, the searing anguish of the families. The report from Governor Manchin’s team quotes Leo Long, an elderly retired miner testifying at a Congressional field hearing one month after the explosion. Long’s grandson, 31-year-old Ronald Lee Maynor, the father of two, was one of the 29 who lost their lives.
“It just tore us apart, broke our hearts,” Long said. “I cry every day and every night. I can’t help it.” He then pleaded with the members of the committee. “I beg you. Please do something.”
The verdict is in. Massey Energy and its parent company are guilty of multiple violations of mine safety regulations that caused the horrific underground deaths of 29 miners at Massey’s non-union Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia on April 5, 2010.
For these corporate murders, not a single Massey honcho faces prison. The company bought its way out of criminal prosecution and prison terms with a $209 million settlement. How many such ghastly tragedies must the nation endure before simple justice is done?
The explosion apparently occurred when a spark from the friction caused by cutting coal ignited an explosive accumulation of methane, causing a fireball. The fireball in turn ignited coal dust that had been allowed to build up. The coal dust explosion raged throughout more than two miles of mine passages. And 29 men died.
A 972-page Labor Department report confirmed that “unlawful policies and practices” were the “root cause of the tragedy.” The report identified 369 violations of the federal Mine Safety and Health Act (MSHA), including twelve flagrant violations that contributed directly to the fatal explosion.
Massey even kept two sets of books – one logging safety hazards, the other, for the eyes of mine inspectors, with the hazards edited out. The company also illegally warned their supervisors of impending inspections, and created an environment of fear to prevent whistleblowers from reporting violations.
The Labor Department’s findings were basically confirmed by a team of experts in coal mining, mining law and occupational safety who conducted a six-month independent study ordered by West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin.
Responsibility for the explosion “lies with the management of Massey Energy,” Manchin’s experts reported. “By frequently and knowingly violating the law and blatantly disregarding known safety practices, Massey exhibited a corporate mentality that placed the drive to produce coal above worker safety.”
Despite the size of the fine, the families of the men killed in the accident consider the settlement to be justice denied. They want the responsible executives tried and convicted. But weak mining laws give prosecutors a steep uphill battle to convict. And legislation to toughen the act has thus far been blocked by the coal industry’s intense lobbying.
“Even though you have the biggest mine disaster in 40 years, there’s been absolutely no federal legislation flowing from it,” said Tony Oppegard, a Kentucky attorney who represents miners.
“Until someone goes to jail, there will be no justice done here,” said Cecil E. Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers.
The statistics are cruel: Three hundred and sixty-nine safety violations. Twenty-nine working miners hurled, choked or crushed to death in the airless dark a thousand feet down.
We need to feel, even if only vicariously, the searing anguish of the families. The report from Governor Manchin’s team quotes Leo Long, an elderly retired miner testifying at a Congressional field hearing one month after the explosion. Long’s grandson, 31-year-old Ronald Lee Maynor, the father of two, was one of the 29 who lost their lives.
“It just tore us apart, broke our hearts,” Long said. “I cry every day and every night. I can’t help it.” He then pleaded with the members of the committee. “I beg you. Please do something.”
Pipeline jobs are pipe dreams
The Keystone XL pipeline “will put tens of thousands of Americans to work immediately.” So says House Speaker John Boehner, to thunderous applause from Big Oil. The Wall Street Journal, no friend of labor, promises 13,000 union jobs. The website of the American Petroleum Institute proclaims: “Jobs for the 99 percent!” Not to be outdone, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce foresees the creation of “more than 250,000 permanent jobs!”
The U.S. State Department sings a different tune: Its sober estimate found that at most, the project would create 6,000 temporary construction jobs, very few of which would go to local hires. Similarly, a detailed study by the Cornell University Global Labor Institute, which had no axe to grind, concluded that the project would temporarily employ between 2,500 and 4,650 construction workers.
Working with data provided by TransCanada, the company with the pipeline contract, the Cornell institute said most jobs would be temporary and non-local. Workers capable of performing sophisticated pipeline tasks would be brought in from outside the region, the Cornell study predicted.
Even Robert Jones, TransCanada’s vice president for pipelines, could offer only a muted forecast of “hundreds” of permanent jobs.
The bottom line: The Cornell economists found that overall, the pipeline project would be a job killer, because it would kick down the road the infrastructure investment urgently needed to switch to clean and economical renewable energy. That’s where the real jobs are: Carpenters weatherizing homes in Ohio, steelworkers building wind turbines in Indiana, tool and die makers manufacturing parts for electric cars in Michigan, etc.
Let’s give the Cornell researchers the last word: “Keystone XL will not be a major source of U.S. jobs, nor will it play any substantial role at all in putting Americans back to work.”
Amen. And all the wind from Speaker Boehner won’t turn a single energy-producing turbine.
-- Rap Lewis
The U.S. State Department sings a different tune: Its sober estimate found that at most, the project would create 6,000 temporary construction jobs, very few of which would go to local hires. Similarly, a detailed study by the Cornell University Global Labor Institute, which had no axe to grind, concluded that the project would temporarily employ between 2,500 and 4,650 construction workers.
Working with data provided by TransCanada, the company with the pipeline contract, the Cornell institute said most jobs would be temporary and non-local. Workers capable of performing sophisticated pipeline tasks would be brought in from outside the region, the Cornell study predicted.
Even Robert Jones, TransCanada’s vice president for pipelines, could offer only a muted forecast of “hundreds” of permanent jobs.
The bottom line: The Cornell economists found that overall, the pipeline project would be a job killer, because it would kick down the road the infrastructure investment urgently needed to switch to clean and economical renewable energy. That’s where the real jobs are: Carpenters weatherizing homes in Ohio, steelworkers building wind turbines in Indiana, tool and die makers manufacturing parts for electric cars in Michigan, etc.
Let’s give the Cornell researchers the last word: “Keystone XL will not be a major source of U.S. jobs, nor will it play any substantial role at all in putting Americans back to work.”
Amen. And all the wind from Speaker Boehner won’t turn a single energy-producing turbine.
-- Rap Lewis
Bring war billions home, mayors urge
The nation’s mayors have called on President Obama and the Congress to stop squandering human lives and $126 billion a year in Iraq and Afghanistan and “bring those war dollars home to meet vital human needs.”
Overwhelmingly approved at the annual meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Baltimore, a resolution introduced by Mayor Kitty Piercy of Eugene, Oregon, called for the billions being spent in the two wars to be used instead to “rebuild our infrastructure, aid municipal and state governments, develop a new economy based upon renewable, sustainable energy, and reduce the national debt.”
“Mayors call on our country to turn war dollars back into peace dollars, to bring our loved ones home and to focus our national resources on building security and prosperity here at home,” Mayor Piercy said. “Our children and families long for and call for real investment in the future of America. It is past due.”
Being in daily contact with the sentiments of their constituents, the nation’s mayors, as a group, are often politically in advance of their representatives at the federal level. In 1971, for example, they called for an end to the Vietnam War. And at their 2009 meeting, they unanimously endorsed the enactment of a single-payer health care system.
Speaking in support of this year’s resolution, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said “that we would build bridges in Baghdad and Kanduhar and not in Baltimore and Kansas City boggles the mind.”
Mayor Dave Norris of Charlottesville, Virginia, noted that “it is our citizens who are being asked to fund these wars with their tax dollars. And it is our communities that struggle when huge sums of money are being diverted from local priorities to military adventurism and ‘nation-building’ activities abroad.”
-- Rap Lewis
The nation’s mayors have called on President Obama and the Congress to stop squandering human lives and $126 billion a year in Iraq and Afghanistan and “bring those war dollars home to meet vital human needs.”
Overwhelmingly approved at the annual meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Baltimore, a resolution introduced by Mayor Kitty Piercy of Eugene, Oregon, called for the billions being spent in the two wars to be used instead to “rebuild our infrastructure, aid municipal and state governments, develop a new economy based upon renewable, sustainable energy, and reduce the national debt.”
“Mayors call on our country to turn war dollars back into peace dollars, to bring our loved ones home and to focus our national resources on building security and prosperity here at home,” Mayor Piercy said. “Our children and families long for and call for real investment in the future of America. It is past due.”
Being in daily contact with the sentiments of their constituents, the nation’s mayors, as a group, are often politically in advance of their representatives at the federal level. In 1971, for example, they called for an end to the Vietnam War. And at their 2009 meeting, they unanimously endorsed the enactment of a single-payer health care system.
Speaking in support of this year’s resolution, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said “that we would build bridges in Baghdad and Kanduhar and not in Baltimore and Kansas City boggles the mind.”
Mayor Dave Norris of Charlottesville, Virginia, noted that “it is our citizens who are being asked to fund these wars with their tax dollars. And it is our communities that struggle when huge sums of money are being diverted from local priorities to military adventurism and ‘nation-building’ activities abroad.”
Overwhelmingly approved at the annual meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Baltimore, a resolution introduced by Mayor Kitty Piercy of Eugene, Oregon, called for the billions being spent in the two wars to be used instead to “rebuild our infrastructure, aid municipal and state governments, develop a new economy based upon renewable, sustainable energy, and reduce the national debt.”
“Mayors call on our country to turn war dollars back into peace dollars, to bring our loved ones home and to focus our national resources on building security and prosperity here at home,” Mayor Piercy said. “Our children and families long for and call for real investment in the future of America. It is past due.”
Being in daily contact with the sentiments of their constituents, the nation’s mayors, as a group, are often politically in advance of their representatives at the federal level. In 1971, for example, they called for an end to the Vietnam War. And at their 2009 meeting, they unanimously endorsed the enactment of a single-payer health care system.
Speaking in support of this year’s resolution, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said “that we would build bridges in Baghdad and Kanduhar and not in Baltimore and Kansas City boggles the mind.”
Mayor Dave Norris of Charlottesville, Virginia, noted that “it is our citizens who are being asked to fund these wars with their tax dollars. And it is our communities that struggle when huge sums of money are being diverted from local priorities to military adventurism and ‘nation-building’ activities abroad.”
-- Rap Lewis
The nation’s mayors have called on President Obama and the Congress to stop squandering human lives and $126 billion a year in Iraq and Afghanistan and “bring those war dollars home to meet vital human needs.”
Overwhelmingly approved at the annual meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Baltimore, a resolution introduced by Mayor Kitty Piercy of Eugene, Oregon, called for the billions being spent in the two wars to be used instead to “rebuild our infrastructure, aid municipal and state governments, develop a new economy based upon renewable, sustainable energy, and reduce the national debt.”
“Mayors call on our country to turn war dollars back into peace dollars, to bring our loved ones home and to focus our national resources on building security and prosperity here at home,” Mayor Piercy said. “Our children and families long for and call for real investment in the future of America. It is past due.”
Being in daily contact with the sentiments of their constituents, the nation’s mayors, as a group, are often politically in advance of their representatives at the federal level. In 1971, for example, they called for an end to the Vietnam War. And at their 2009 meeting, they unanimously endorsed the enactment of a single-payer health care system.
Speaking in support of this year’s resolution, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said “that we would build bridges in Baghdad and Kanduhar and not in Baltimore and Kansas City boggles the mind.”
Mayor Dave Norris of Charlottesville, Virginia, noted that “it is our citizens who are being asked to fund these wars with their tax dollars. And it is our communities that struggle when huge sums of money are being diverted from local priorities to military adventurism and ‘nation-building’ activities abroad.”
Toward national long-term care insurance
By Will Parry
The late Senator Edward Kennedy recognized the need for an insurance program that would provide services and supports for those Americans, millions in number, who become functionally disabled.
Kennedy directed his staff to work on the issue. The result was legislation that became the CLASS Act – for “Community Living Assistance Services and Supports.”
When President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law on March 23, 2010, the CLASS program was established as a national, voluntary insurance program for the purchase of long-term services and supports.
As the name indicates, the intent of the legislation is to enable persons with disabilities to live out their lives in their own homes, or in another community setting, rather than in a nursing home.
The program would be open to any working adult who makes voluntary premium payments every month for at least five years.
Eligible adults would receive a cash benefit of no less than $50 a day. The actual daily amount would depend on the degree of impairment or disability. The money could be used to purchase non-medical services and supports – in-home care, for example – needed to maintain residence in the community.
The program would be financed entirely by premiums paid voluntarily by those persons who elected to enroll. The law specifically prohibits any taxpayer subsidy.
Unfortunately, the voluntary nature of enrollment has sidetracked the program in its present form. Healthy individuals would be unlikely to enroll. Those who elected to pay the monthly premiums would be persons most likely to incur a major and costly long-term disability.
Either mandatory enrollment by all working adults or a substantial tax subsidy would solve the funding problem. Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of Health and Human Services, says the law clearly gives her the authority to make the necessary changes without Congressional intervention.
Republicans are seeking repeal of the CLASS Act in pursuit of their goal of destroying the Affordable Care Act piece by piece.
Senior and disability advocates are calling on Congress to place the program on hold while workable funding mechanisms are explored. The program is urgently needed now. As the population ages, the need for the program will explode.
The White House opposes repeal. Obama’s 2012 budget seeks $93.5 million for a vast “information and education” campaign with the goal of having 7.7 million people in the program by 2015.
More than 50 senior and disability rights groups, unions and other advocacy organizations have sent a joint letter to House and Senate leaders calling on them not to repeal the legislation.
“We urge continued dialogue and development of a viable path forward,” the groups wrote. Their letter states that 70 percent of persons older than 65 will need long-term care services, which are not covered by Medicare.
Modest as it is, CLASS provides a framework for a universal insurance program that could protect every American against being impoverished by the costs of long-term care. It could stand alongside Social Security and Medicare as one of the nation’s hallmark social programs.
Senator Kennedy’s foresight has placed affordable, community-based long-term care on the national agenda. Clearing away the obstacles to implementation of the CLASS Act would make his vision a reality.
The late Senator Edward Kennedy recognized the need for an insurance program that would provide services and supports for those Americans, millions in number, who become functionally disabled.
Kennedy directed his staff to work on the issue. The result was legislation that became the CLASS Act – for “Community Living Assistance Services and Supports.”
When President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law on March 23, 2010, the CLASS program was established as a national, voluntary insurance program for the purchase of long-term services and supports.
As the name indicates, the intent of the legislation is to enable persons with disabilities to live out their lives in their own homes, or in another community setting, rather than in a nursing home.
The program would be open to any working adult who makes voluntary premium payments every month for at least five years.
Eligible adults would receive a cash benefit of no less than $50 a day. The actual daily amount would depend on the degree of impairment or disability. The money could be used to purchase non-medical services and supports – in-home care, for example – needed to maintain residence in the community.
The program would be financed entirely by premiums paid voluntarily by those persons who elected to enroll. The law specifically prohibits any taxpayer subsidy.
Unfortunately, the voluntary nature of enrollment has sidetracked the program in its present form. Healthy individuals would be unlikely to enroll. Those who elected to pay the monthly premiums would be persons most likely to incur a major and costly long-term disability.
Either mandatory enrollment by all working adults or a substantial tax subsidy would solve the funding problem. Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of Health and Human Services, says the law clearly gives her the authority to make the necessary changes without Congressional intervention.
Republicans are seeking repeal of the CLASS Act in pursuit of their goal of destroying the Affordable Care Act piece by piece.
Senior and disability advocates are calling on Congress to place the program on hold while workable funding mechanisms are explored. The program is urgently needed now. As the population ages, the need for the program will explode.
The White House opposes repeal. Obama’s 2012 budget seeks $93.5 million for a vast “information and education” campaign with the goal of having 7.7 million people in the program by 2015.
More than 50 senior and disability rights groups, unions and other advocacy organizations have sent a joint letter to House and Senate leaders calling on them not to repeal the legislation.
“We urge continued dialogue and development of a viable path forward,” the groups wrote. Their letter states that 70 percent of persons older than 65 will need long-term care services, which are not covered by Medicare.
Modest as it is, CLASS provides a framework for a universal insurance program that could protect every American against being impoverished by the costs of long-term care. It could stand alongside Social Security and Medicare as one of the nation’s hallmark social programs.
Senator Kennedy’s foresight has placed affordable, community-based long-term care on the national agenda. Clearing away the obstacles to implementation of the CLASS Act would make his vision a reality.
Dems win payroll tax cut as Republicans cave
By Mike Andrew
Congressional Republicans caved to political pressure and passed the two-month payroll tax cut extension favored by Democrats on December 23. Pres. Obama signed the bill into law the same day.
Very similar to the plan passed by a bipartisan 89-10 vote in the Senate on December 17, the measure Obama signed extends the 4.2% payroll tax, continues expanded unemployment benefits, and heads off a reduction in Medicare payments to doctors through February.
Without a deal, the current tax cut would have expired December 31, reducing take-home pay for 160 million workers by an average of $1000 per year.
“This is some good news, just in the nick of time for the holidays,” Obama said. “When Congress returns I urge them to keep working without drama, without delay, to reach an agreement” on extending the tax cut for all of 2012.
It was a political victory for the president and his party, but the success was tempered by the compromises built into the legislation.
The deal calls on Obama to decide within 60 days whether to approve or reject the controversial Keystone XL pipeline from Canada. The President will be under intense pressure both from the oil lobby and from the environmental community.
No one really wanted a mere two month extension. Both parties agreed that if the payroll tax was going to be cut at all, it should have been cut for the entire year of 2012.
The sticking point was the “pay-fors” – how to increase revenues and/or cut other spending to offset the estimated $200 billion cost of a year-long payroll tax cut.
Pres. Obama proposed to cover the costs by imposing a surtax on those earning more than $1 million annually. Republicans wanted to use the payroll tax cut as an excuse to cut social safety net programs.
Rather than tackle this issue, the Senate voted for a two-month extension that could be paid for with relatively minor cuts around the edges of the federal budget.
Although House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) had previously agreed to pass the Senate compromise bill, he backed out of the deal at the last minute under pressure from Tea Party supporters in his own caucus who hoped for a showdown on budget issues.
Republicans once again found themselves in the position of defending low taxes for the rich, high taxes for working people, and cuts to programs benefiting seniors and low income workers.
Even the Wall Street Journal warned them that their position was politically untenable.
“[W]e wonder if they might end up re-electing the President before the 2012 campaign even begins in earnest,” the WSJ wrote in an editorial.
In the end, the political pressure forced House Republicans to reach a compromise.
Tea Party Republicans weren’t the only ones opposing the payroll tax cut, however.
Progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) was skeptical of using money intended to fund Social Security for tax relief, no matter how welcome it might be.
"My concern is diverting hundreds of billions of dollars from the Social Security trust fund into that immediate tax relief," Sanders said. "So I would love to see tax relief, but done in a different way."
Sanders had previously announced he would introduce a bill to “scrap the cap” – in other words, to apply the same payroll tax already paid by more than nine out of 10 Americans to those with incomes over $250,000 a year.
This, he said, would guarantee that Social Security would remain solvent for the foreseeable future and that the tax used to pay for it would be fair.
Congressional Republicans caved to political pressure and passed the two-month payroll tax cut extension favored by Democrats on December 23. Pres. Obama signed the bill into law the same day.
Very similar to the plan passed by a bipartisan 89-10 vote in the Senate on December 17, the measure Obama signed extends the 4.2% payroll tax, continues expanded unemployment benefits, and heads off a reduction in Medicare payments to doctors through February.
Without a deal, the current tax cut would have expired December 31, reducing take-home pay for 160 million workers by an average of $1000 per year.
“This is some good news, just in the nick of time for the holidays,” Obama said. “When Congress returns I urge them to keep working without drama, without delay, to reach an agreement” on extending the tax cut for all of 2012.
It was a political victory for the president and his party, but the success was tempered by the compromises built into the legislation.
The deal calls on Obama to decide within 60 days whether to approve or reject the controversial Keystone XL pipeline from Canada. The President will be under intense pressure both from the oil lobby and from the environmental community.
No one really wanted a mere two month extension. Both parties agreed that if the payroll tax was going to be cut at all, it should have been cut for the entire year of 2012.
The sticking point was the “pay-fors” – how to increase revenues and/or cut other spending to offset the estimated $200 billion cost of a year-long payroll tax cut.
Pres. Obama proposed to cover the costs by imposing a surtax on those earning more than $1 million annually. Republicans wanted to use the payroll tax cut as an excuse to cut social safety net programs.
Rather than tackle this issue, the Senate voted for a two-month extension that could be paid for with relatively minor cuts around the edges of the federal budget.
Although House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) had previously agreed to pass the Senate compromise bill, he backed out of the deal at the last minute under pressure from Tea Party supporters in his own caucus who hoped for a showdown on budget issues.
Republicans once again found themselves in the position of defending low taxes for the rich, high taxes for working people, and cuts to programs benefiting seniors and low income workers.
Even the Wall Street Journal warned them that their position was politically untenable.
“[W]e wonder if they might end up re-electing the President before the 2012 campaign even begins in earnest,” the WSJ wrote in an editorial.
In the end, the political pressure forced House Republicans to reach a compromise.
Tea Party Republicans weren’t the only ones opposing the payroll tax cut, however.
Progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) was skeptical of using money intended to fund Social Security for tax relief, no matter how welcome it might be.
"My concern is diverting hundreds of billions of dollars from the Social Security trust fund into that immediate tax relief," Sanders said. "So I would love to see tax relief, but done in a different way."
Sanders had previously announced he would introduce a bill to “scrap the cap” – in other words, to apply the same payroll tax already paid by more than nine out of 10 Americans to those with incomes over $250,000 a year.
This, he said, would guarantee that Social Security would remain solvent for the foreseeable future and that the tax used to pay for it would be fair.
More drilling, despite BP disaster
Ignoring the lessons of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, House Republicans are calling for a massive expansion of offshore oil-and-gas leasing, including opening the way for drilling rigs in the fragile Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).
Rep. Steve Stivers (R-Ohio) has a plan to open areas off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts for drilling, and to lift the congressional ban on oil-and-gas leasing in most of the eastern Gulf of Mexico.
Washington State’s own Rep. Doc Hastings, Fourth District Republican, has introduced legislation that would authorize drilling for oil and gas in the ANWR. Hastings chairs the House Natural Resources Committee.
The Republicans argue that expanded energy production will create jobs, reduce U.S. reliance on foreign oil and generate revenue for improving the infrastructure. Democrats too want the infrastructure restored, but want the improvements funded by higher taxes on the wealthy.
Rep. Steve Stivers (R-Ohio) has a plan to open areas off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts for drilling, and to lift the congressional ban on oil-and-gas leasing in most of the eastern Gulf of Mexico.
Washington State’s own Rep. Doc Hastings, Fourth District Republican, has introduced legislation that would authorize drilling for oil and gas in the ANWR. Hastings chairs the House Natural Resources Committee.
The Republicans argue that expanded energy production will create jobs, reduce U.S. reliance on foreign oil and generate revenue for improving the infrastructure. Democrats too want the infrastructure restored, but want the improvements funded by higher taxes on the wealthy.
Strengthen Social Security in 2012
By Robby Stern
At its final 2011 coalition meeting, the Social Security Works Washington Coalition adopted priorities for protecting and strengthening Social Security in 2012. PSARA has embraced these priorities as our priorities for Social Security.
Over the past year, the Coalition successfully fought efforts to weaken Social Security through the application of the chained CPI formula that would reduce the annual cost of living increases and the proposal to raise the age of eligibility. We have been unsuccessful in our efforts to stop the cutting of the payroll deduction that is likely to be extended into 2012.
Also in 2011, the Coalition embarked on an educational campaign and particularly made efforts to reach out to young people with the goal of fighting the propaganda that Social Security will not be there for them when they are ready to retire. Besides releasing the video “Just Scrap the Cap” which has been viewed by more than 63,000 people, we held well-attended educational events at Everett Community College and University of Washington.
At the event at Everett Community College, Rep. Rick Larsen committed to supporting the elimination of the cap when it comes before the House for a vote. We now have that commitment from Rep. McDermott and Rep. Larsen but we can and must do better.
This year, our Congressional allies introduced in the House and the Senate legislation to eliminate the cap on contributions. The 2012 elections will be very important in determining whether this goal can be achieved in the near term.
In 2012, PSARA will work with our Coalition partners to make elimination of the cap a major election issue. We will tie scrapping the cap to the interests of the 99% rather than the 1%, pointing out that the elimination of the cap should result in much needed improvements in Social Security. These improvements include raising the benefits received by low income earners, increasing survivor benefits, restoring funding for child survivors up to age 22 to assist them in paying for higher education and expanding survivor benefits to include domestic partners.
Our local coalition is urging the national campaign, led by the Strengthen Social Security Coalition, to adopt a similar program around the country.
Social Security Works WA will also expand our educational outreach with plans presently in the works for an educational event at Highline Community College in early 2012.
We anticipate further attacks on Social Security and will be responding as necessary.
Be on the look out for “Scrap the Cap” buttons as we work to popularize this effort. Wear them proudly and explain to people when they ask, what we are doing and why!
At its final 2011 coalition meeting, the Social Security Works Washington Coalition adopted priorities for protecting and strengthening Social Security in 2012. PSARA has embraced these priorities as our priorities for Social Security.
Over the past year, the Coalition successfully fought efforts to weaken Social Security through the application of the chained CPI formula that would reduce the annual cost of living increases and the proposal to raise the age of eligibility. We have been unsuccessful in our efforts to stop the cutting of the payroll deduction that is likely to be extended into 2012.
Also in 2011, the Coalition embarked on an educational campaign and particularly made efforts to reach out to young people with the goal of fighting the propaganda that Social Security will not be there for them when they are ready to retire. Besides releasing the video “Just Scrap the Cap” which has been viewed by more than 63,000 people, we held well-attended educational events at Everett Community College and University of Washington.
At the event at Everett Community College, Rep. Rick Larsen committed to supporting the elimination of the cap when it comes before the House for a vote. We now have that commitment from Rep. McDermott and Rep. Larsen but we can and must do better.
This year, our Congressional allies introduced in the House and the Senate legislation to eliminate the cap on contributions. The 2012 elections will be very important in determining whether this goal can be achieved in the near term.
In 2012, PSARA will work with our Coalition partners to make elimination of the cap a major election issue. We will tie scrapping the cap to the interests of the 99% rather than the 1%, pointing out that the elimination of the cap should result in much needed improvements in Social Security. These improvements include raising the benefits received by low income earners, increasing survivor benefits, restoring funding for child survivors up to age 22 to assist them in paying for higher education and expanding survivor benefits to include domestic partners.
Our local coalition is urging the national campaign, led by the Strengthen Social Security Coalition, to adopt a similar program around the country.
Social Security Works WA will also expand our educational outreach with plans presently in the works for an educational event at Highline Community College in early 2012.
We anticipate further attacks on Social Security and will be responding as necessary.
Be on the look out for “Scrap the Cap” buttons as we work to popularize this effort. Wear them proudly and explain to people when they ask, what we are doing and why!
Home-like care? Or a nursing home?
Economic status is compelling many elderly persons in the Latino, African American and Asian communities to exhaust what resources they have and end their lives in often inferior Medicaid-supported nursing homes.
Between 1999 and 2008, the number of elderly Latinos living in U.S. nursing homes increased by 54.9 percent; Asians increased by 54.1 percent; and African Americans increased by 10.8 percent. Over the same decade, the number of white nursing home residents decreased by 10.2 percent.
Research has shown that in communities of color, nursing homes are often of lower quality and are more likely to close. In predominantly white areas, where residents have higher incomes, home-like assisted living facilities are more likely to be available.
“We know those alternatives are not equally available, accessible or affordable to everybody, certainly not to many minority elders,” said Zhanlian Feng, assistant professor of community health at Brown University, who published a study on the issue.
As policymakers work to shift the emphasis in long-term care facilities from nursing homes to home and community-based services, they should address the existing racial and economic disparities, Feng said.
Between 1999 and 2008, the number of elderly Latinos living in U.S. nursing homes increased by 54.9 percent; Asians increased by 54.1 percent; and African Americans increased by 10.8 percent. Over the same decade, the number of white nursing home residents decreased by 10.2 percent.
Research has shown that in communities of color, nursing homes are often of lower quality and are more likely to close. In predominantly white areas, where residents have higher incomes, home-like assisted living facilities are more likely to be available.
“We know those alternatives are not equally available, accessible or affordable to everybody, certainly not to many minority elders,” said Zhanlian Feng, assistant professor of community health at Brown University, who published a study on the issue.
As policymakers work to shift the emphasis in long-term care facilities from nursing homes to home and community-based services, they should address the existing racial and economic disparities, Feng said.
Meetings and Events
PSARA Government Relations Committee: 12 noon – 1:30 p.m., Tuesday, January 10, Room 226, Seattle Labor Temple, 2800 First Avenue. Help plan PSARA’s participation in the 2012 legislative session. All PSARA members welcome.
Community Meeting to Fight Closure & Consolidation of Social Security Field Offices: 1:30 p.m.– 3 p.m., Friday, January 13, Chinatown/International District Community Center, 719 8th Avenue South, Seattle. Join with diverse communities as we organize to fight the consolidation of the Seattle Social Security Field Offices into the Jackson Federal Building.
30th Anniversary Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration: Join with PSARA on Monday, January 16, at Garfield High School, 23rd Avenue at East Jefferson, Seattle. Workshops at 9:30 a.m., rally at 11 a.m. and march at 12:30 pm.. The theme: "Recapturing MLK Jr.’s Revolutionary Spirit!"
PSARA Executive Board Meeting: 1p.m. – 3 p.m., Thursday, January 19, Central Area Senior Center, 500 30th Avenue S., Seattle. All PSARA members are welcome.
Seattle Care Congress: Join with PSARA and other allies as we launch the local version of the national Caring Across Generations campaign, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, February 11, at the Greenwood Community Senior Center. Lunch will be provided.
Senior Lobby Day: 8a.m. registration, 9 a.m. program begins, Thursday, February 23, United Churches, 110 11th Ave. SE, Olympia. Join with PSARA members and others from across the state to make our priorities known to our legislators. PSARA will be organizing car pools for our members. Please contact Chuck Richards, legaffairs@psara.org or call the PSARA office if you can drive or if you need a ride.
Community Meeting to Fight Closure & Consolidation of Social Security Field Offices: 1:30 p.m.– 3 p.m., Friday, January 13, Chinatown/International District Community Center, 719 8th Avenue South, Seattle. Join with diverse communities as we organize to fight the consolidation of the Seattle Social Security Field Offices into the Jackson Federal Building.
30th Anniversary Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration: Join with PSARA on Monday, January 16, at Garfield High School, 23rd Avenue at East Jefferson, Seattle. Workshops at 9:30 a.m., rally at 11 a.m. and march at 12:30 pm.. The theme: "Recapturing MLK Jr.’s Revolutionary Spirit!"
PSARA Executive Board Meeting: 1p.m. – 3 p.m., Thursday, January 19, Central Area Senior Center, 500 30th Avenue S., Seattle. All PSARA members are welcome.
Seattle Care Congress: Join with PSARA and other allies as we launch the local version of the national Caring Across Generations campaign, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, February 11, at the Greenwood Community Senior Center. Lunch will be provided.
Senior Lobby Day: 8a.m. registration, 9 a.m. program begins, Thursday, February 23, United Churches, 110 11th Ave. SE, Olympia. Join with PSARA members and others from across the state to make our priorities known to our legislators. PSARA will be organizing car pools for our members. Please contact Chuck Richards, legaffairs@psara.org or call the PSARA office if you can drive or if you need a ride.
Back Page
As we tackle this newest revenue shortfall, instead of telling 6,000 elderly and disabled people to buck up and take care of their own needs, thousands of poor people to endure their dental pain, thousands of school children to learn as best they can in larger and larger classes, and thousands of workers to apply for unemployment benefits, we should first look at repealing a long list of tax breaks that have been won by the powerful in Olympia.
-- Jerry Reilly, Eldercare Alliance
Overheard
A riot is the language of the unheard.
-- Martin Luther King Jr.
-- Jerry Reilly, Eldercare Alliance
Overheard
A riot is the language of the unheard.
-- Martin Luther King Jr.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Membership Meeting…and Holiday Party!
Thursday, Dec. 15th, 12:30 p.m., at UFCW 21,
5030 First Avenue South,
we will feast, enjoy each others’ company, and do the necessary business of PSARA!
Bring a small (or big) bag of food to donate to the King County Labor Agency Food Bank. Bring your own favorite dish or drink to share at our potluck.
Come to listen to and question Congressman Jay Inslee (provided Congress is not in session) as he returns from the 2011 Congress and makes his case as to why he should be the next Governor of Washington. Hear a report on the 2011 Special Session and PSARA’s proposed legislative agenda for the 2012 Legislative session. Let us know if you approve.
Learn about a new resolution supporting the Caring Across Generations campaign we will be asking the Seattle City Council to pass.
Help us elect our President and Administrative Vice President for the next two years. Also hear about the proposal to expand our Executive Board and elect new and/or returning members to the Executive Board.
The Executive Board has proposed some By – Law changes necessary for our IRS application for 501c4 status. We will need the approval of our members for these changes to the By – Laws.
Please join us on December 15th. Help us build PSARA as we celebrate and prepare ourselves for the work that lies ahead.
5030 First Avenue South,
we will feast, enjoy each others’ company, and do the necessary business of PSARA!
Bring a small (or big) bag of food to donate to the King County Labor Agency Food Bank. Bring your own favorite dish or drink to share at our potluck.
Come to listen to and question Congressman Jay Inslee (provided Congress is not in session) as he returns from the 2011 Congress and makes his case as to why he should be the next Governor of Washington. Hear a report on the 2011 Special Session and PSARA’s proposed legislative agenda for the 2012 Legislative session. Let us know if you approve.
Learn about a new resolution supporting the Caring Across Generations campaign we will be asking the Seattle City Council to pass.
Help us elect our President and Administrative Vice President for the next two years. Also hear about the proposal to expand our Executive Board and elect new and/or returning members to the Executive Board.
The Executive Board has proposed some By – Law changes necessary for our IRS application for 501c4 status. We will need the approval of our members for these changes to the By – Laws.
Please join us on December 15th. Help us build PSARA as we celebrate and prepare ourselves for the work that lies ahead.
More cuts won't work: revenue needed now!
By Lynne Dodson
For the past two legislative sessions we have seen all-cuts budgets. Over the last three sessions $10 billion of cuts have been made. As we head into the special session on November 28, the state is deeper in debt (to the tune of more than $2 billion), unemployment still hovers over 9%, our classrooms are overcrowded, our most vulnerable citizens have lost services, small businesses are suffering, Boeing probably still isn’t paying federal taxes, and we’ve got Occupy groups in cities and towns from Aberdeen to Moses Lake, Bellingham to Vancouver, Seattle to Richland. Across the state the populace is demanding change.
Something isn’t working. Deep cuts, continued tax exemptions, no new revenue… clearly, these policy decisions aren’t actually doing anything to spur the economy. As we head into the special session, any legislator who is talking about following the same, old “no-new revenue, let’s cut our way out of this deficit” is using the same tools that haven’t worked so far. What’s different? Why would they work now?
But there is talk of new revenue in Olympia. Unfortunately, because Tim Eyman’s Initiative 1053 requires a two-thirds majority in the legislature to raise revenue, making it nearly impossible for the legislature to solve our revenue/budget crisis, our elected representatives and senators will need to put a revenue package on the ballot for a citizen vote in order to raise money to protect our basic and essential services.
We urge them to do so. The sooner the better because while they dither, cuts will be made and the hole we’re in will deepen. But there are better and worse ways to raise revenue for the state. The best ways are those that not only fill budget holes, but also stimulate the economy by creating jobs. When people don’t have jobs, when their wages stagnate, when they are worried about losing their jobs, they don’t spend money in their communities. They cut back, eat out less, vacation less, spend less money at their local restaurants, retailers, garden shops. And stuff doesn’t get done. Our schools, public health clinics, roads, bridges—our infrastructure falls into disrepair.
Revenue options that increase jobs are possible and smart. For example, our legislators could put a state general obligation bond on the ballot. The bond could be specifically for building infrastructure – improving our schools, public buildings, roads. This not only would put people back to work, with 20% of our retail sales tax coming from the construction industry, we could actually help grow the economy when we most need it.
Billions of dollars in tax giveaways in our state means billions of dollars that aren’t available to meet the needs of Washington residents. Last year, over $4.5 billion a year in cuts were made to education, health care, human services and other programs. People were hurt. Yet, only two tax breaks were ended, bringing in about $10 million each per year.
Worse yet, tax expenditures (loopholes) are not even considered part of the budget. Yet they are revenues that the state chooses not to collect and therefore ought to be part of budget decisions. Exposing tax giveaways, sun-setting those that don’t actually result in the creation of jobs, evaluating the actual benefit of those dollars to the state, and eliminating wasteful exemptions would restore that money to the state for rebuilding our economy.
Working people, the vast numbers of unemployed, our most vulnerable, disabled, mentally ill, our state’s children, our young women and men who worked and studied hard only now to find the American dream out of reach, those who were born here and those who came here looking for a better life, small businesses struggling to survive… we all need solutions that will enrich our lives here in Washington, not further degrade them. More cuts won’t work. We can, and we must see solutions that create jobs and build the economy. For all of us.
(Lynne Dodson is Secretary-Treasurer of the Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO. She’s also a member of PSARA.)
For the past two legislative sessions we have seen all-cuts budgets. Over the last three sessions $10 billion of cuts have been made. As we head into the special session on November 28, the state is deeper in debt (to the tune of more than $2 billion), unemployment still hovers over 9%, our classrooms are overcrowded, our most vulnerable citizens have lost services, small businesses are suffering, Boeing probably still isn’t paying federal taxes, and we’ve got Occupy groups in cities and towns from Aberdeen to Moses Lake, Bellingham to Vancouver, Seattle to Richland. Across the state the populace is demanding change.
Something isn’t working. Deep cuts, continued tax exemptions, no new revenue… clearly, these policy decisions aren’t actually doing anything to spur the economy. As we head into the special session, any legislator who is talking about following the same, old “no-new revenue, let’s cut our way out of this deficit” is using the same tools that haven’t worked so far. What’s different? Why would they work now?
But there is talk of new revenue in Olympia. Unfortunately, because Tim Eyman’s Initiative 1053 requires a two-thirds majority in the legislature to raise revenue, making it nearly impossible for the legislature to solve our revenue/budget crisis, our elected representatives and senators will need to put a revenue package on the ballot for a citizen vote in order to raise money to protect our basic and essential services.
We urge them to do so. The sooner the better because while they dither, cuts will be made and the hole we’re in will deepen. But there are better and worse ways to raise revenue for the state. The best ways are those that not only fill budget holes, but also stimulate the economy by creating jobs. When people don’t have jobs, when their wages stagnate, when they are worried about losing their jobs, they don’t spend money in their communities. They cut back, eat out less, vacation less, spend less money at their local restaurants, retailers, garden shops. And stuff doesn’t get done. Our schools, public health clinics, roads, bridges—our infrastructure falls into disrepair.
Revenue options that increase jobs are possible and smart. For example, our legislators could put a state general obligation bond on the ballot. The bond could be specifically for building infrastructure – improving our schools, public buildings, roads. This not only would put people back to work, with 20% of our retail sales tax coming from the construction industry, we could actually help grow the economy when we most need it.
Billions of dollars in tax giveaways in our state means billions of dollars that aren’t available to meet the needs of Washington residents. Last year, over $4.5 billion a year in cuts were made to education, health care, human services and other programs. People were hurt. Yet, only two tax breaks were ended, bringing in about $10 million each per year.
Worse yet, tax expenditures (loopholes) are not even considered part of the budget. Yet they are revenues that the state chooses not to collect and therefore ought to be part of budget decisions. Exposing tax giveaways, sun-setting those that don’t actually result in the creation of jobs, evaluating the actual benefit of those dollars to the state, and eliminating wasteful exemptions would restore that money to the state for rebuilding our economy.
Working people, the vast numbers of unemployed, our most vulnerable, disabled, mentally ill, our state’s children, our young women and men who worked and studied hard only now to find the American dream out of reach, those who were born here and those who came here looking for a better life, small businesses struggling to survive… we all need solutions that will enrich our lives here in Washington, not further degrade them. More cuts won’t work. We can, and we must see solutions that create jobs and build the economy. For all of us.
(Lynne Dodson is Secretary-Treasurer of the Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO. She’s also a member of PSARA.)
I-502 reforms marijuana law
Initiative 502, a proposal for marijuana law reform, is currently being circulated for signatures by New Approach Washington. The goal is 241, 153 valid signatures by December 30, when it would be submitted to the legislature. Unless the legislature passes it, I-502 will go to the general election ballot in November of next year.
The Puget Sound Alliance for Retired Americans Executive Board has endorsed I-502. We encourage our members to sign the petition and support the campaign. The measure has also been endorsed by prominent legal, medical and civic leaders.
The measure replaces the prohibition of marijuana with a public health approach that allows adults 21 and older to purchase limited quantities from stand-alone stores that would be privately owned and operated, but licensed and regulated by the state.
The initiative taxes marijuana and directs the new revenue -- estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars annually – to drug abuse prevention, research and education, as well as to the state general fund and local governments.
For petitions, call the campaign headquarters at (206) 633-2012.
The Puget Sound Alliance for Retired Americans Executive Board has endorsed I-502. We encourage our members to sign the petition and support the campaign. The measure has also been endorsed by prominent legal, medical and civic leaders.
The measure replaces the prohibition of marijuana with a public health approach that allows adults 21 and older to purchase limited quantities from stand-alone stores that would be privately owned and operated, but licensed and regulated by the state.
The initiative taxes marijuana and directs the new revenue -- estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars annually – to drug abuse prevention, research and education, as well as to the state general fund and local governments.
For petitions, call the campaign headquarters at (206) 633-2012.
Shopping simplified
You don’t have to don muffler and gloves and go out in the snow…
You don’t have to battle the holiday shopping crowds…
You don’t even have to gift-wrap it…unless you want to…
And you’ll be sending a monthly gift, January through December, twelve big newsletters, crammed with news, comment and analysis on the issues that concern us all.
If you’ve already guessed we’re suggesting a year’s gift membership in PSARA for someone close to you – aren’t you the quick study!
Talk about easy holiday shopping! Just clip the coupon on the inside back page of this newsletter, enter the name and address of that friend, neighbor, relative or workmate. Then send the coupon with your $15 check to PSARA, Room 208, 1800 First Avenue, Seattle, WA 98121
By good old US Mail – long may it flourish!.
You’ll do that person a great favor. You’ll be adding to PSARA’s political muscle as we enter a critical Election Year.
And how proud you’ll be, as you sit there, sipping your holiday eggnog!
You don’t have to battle the holiday shopping crowds…
You don’t even have to gift-wrap it…unless you want to…
And you’ll be sending a monthly gift, January through December, twelve big newsletters, crammed with news, comment and analysis on the issues that concern us all.
If you’ve already guessed we’re suggesting a year’s gift membership in PSARA for someone close to you – aren’t you the quick study!
Talk about easy holiday shopping! Just clip the coupon on the inside back page of this newsletter, enter the name and address of that friend, neighbor, relative or workmate. Then send the coupon with your $15 check to PSARA, Room 208, 1800 First Avenue, Seattle, WA 98121
By good old US Mail – long may it flourish!.
You’ll do that person a great favor. You’ll be adding to PSARA’s political muscle as we enter a critical Election Year.
And how proud you’ll be, as you sit there, sipping your holiday eggnog!
Keep those offices open!
By Sharon Maeda
The Social Security Administration intends to close its heavily-used Seattle neighborhood offices and require persons seeking any of the agency’s many services to go instead to a single office in the Federal Building.
The move is strongly opposed by community organizations and by 7th District Congressman Jim McDermott. Their concerns about the forbidding requirements to even get into the Federal Building have yet to be addressed by Social Security.
The existing Belltown office at Ninth Avenue and Lenora Street and the International District office at 675 South Lane Street serve about 300 persons per day. Both offices are readily accessible to a clientele that includes immigrants, the elderly, people with disabilities, troubled veterans and the mentally ill. Interpreter services are available.
The Federal Building is a whole other thing.
Can you imagine immigrants, people with disabilities, and folks with PTSD even entering this Level IV high security facility? Valid state or federal identification is demanded. All who enter must pass through a magnetometer. All must pass their belongings though an X-ray machine. Security guards are ever present.
The guards presumably speak only English – a serious problem for elderly immigrants being asked to put their purses, backpacks or wallets on the conveyor belt, or to submit to an electric wand being run all around their bodies. If it’s intimidating to us, what about our elders?
How would innocent persons, seeking only information about their benefits, respond to having an electric want run all around their bodies?
On the streets outside there are just two handicapped parking spaces. Commercial parking is expensive. Even when a friend or family member offers to drive, there’s no place to park!
At the long-established neighborhood offices, valid identification is not needed. There are no magnetometers or x-ray machines. Employees can interpret for non-English speaking visitors in several languages. Telephone interpreter service is also available. There is plenty of free or low-cost parking nearby.
Low-income visitors who can’t afford a state identification card, clients with disabilities and those with limited or no ability to speak English deserve to be served in their communities.
The change in offices would guarantee that many innocent persons, fearful of running the Federal Building gauntlet, would forfeit not only the information they need, but the benefits they may be entitled to.
PSARA is strongly opposing the move to the Federal Building. There’s still time to rescind this harsh, bureaucratic decision. Call Social Security Regional Commissioner Stanley Friendship at 206-615-2100. Urge that low-income visitors who cannot afford to purchase a state ID card, clients with disabilities, and those with limited or no English continue to be served in their own communities.
It’s simple justice.
The Social Security Administration intends to close its heavily-used Seattle neighborhood offices and require persons seeking any of the agency’s many services to go instead to a single office in the Federal Building.
The move is strongly opposed by community organizations and by 7th District Congressman Jim McDermott. Their concerns about the forbidding requirements to even get into the Federal Building have yet to be addressed by Social Security.
The existing Belltown office at Ninth Avenue and Lenora Street and the International District office at 675 South Lane Street serve about 300 persons per day. Both offices are readily accessible to a clientele that includes immigrants, the elderly, people with disabilities, troubled veterans and the mentally ill. Interpreter services are available.
The Federal Building is a whole other thing.
Can you imagine immigrants, people with disabilities, and folks with PTSD even entering this Level IV high security facility? Valid state or federal identification is demanded. All who enter must pass through a magnetometer. All must pass their belongings though an X-ray machine. Security guards are ever present.
The guards presumably speak only English – a serious problem for elderly immigrants being asked to put their purses, backpacks or wallets on the conveyor belt, or to submit to an electric wand being run all around their bodies. If it’s intimidating to us, what about our elders?
How would innocent persons, seeking only information about their benefits, respond to having an electric want run all around their bodies?
On the streets outside there are just two handicapped parking spaces. Commercial parking is expensive. Even when a friend or family member offers to drive, there’s no place to park!
At the long-established neighborhood offices, valid identification is not needed. There are no magnetometers or x-ray machines. Employees can interpret for non-English speaking visitors in several languages. Telephone interpreter service is also available. There is plenty of free or low-cost parking nearby.
Low-income visitors who can’t afford a state identification card, clients with disabilities and those with limited or no ability to speak English deserve to be served in their communities.
The change in offices would guarantee that many innocent persons, fearful of running the Federal Building gauntlet, would forfeit not only the information they need, but the benefits they may be entitled to.
PSARA is strongly opposing the move to the Federal Building. There’s still time to rescind this harsh, bureaucratic decision. Call Social Security Regional Commissioner Stanley Friendship at 206-615-2100. Urge that low-income visitors who cannot afford to purchase a state ID card, clients with disabilities, and those with limited or no English continue to be served in their own communities.
It’s simple justice.
As 2012 Approaches
by Robby Stern
The last half of 2011 is a precursor to what promises to be a very challenging and potentially exciting 2012. This morning I watched a dramatic video of the Chancellor of U.C. Davis walking through a phalanx of students sitting in absolute silence on the ground as she exited a meeting to walk to her car. Their silence was a powerful condemnation of the immorality of the Chancellor and her campus police force that attacked nonviolent sit in protestors on the U.C. Davis campus over the weekend. The shocking film of two campus policemen spraying students as they sat on the ground has been broadcast worldwide.
Also broadcast worldwide is the picture of 84 year old PSARA member Dorli Rainey, as the pepper spray drips from her hair and face. One must ask why the Seattle police chose to pepper spray Dorli and the others with her. If the police believed that the street needed to be cleared, then the appropriate action was to arrest these nonviolent activists who were acting in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street, which had also been subjected to a brutal attack. To Dorli’s credit, she used the opportunity presented by the national and international media to focus on the issue of the 1 % and the 99% rather than allowing the discussion to be about police tactics. We send our thanks and admiration to Dorli for her bravery and determination.
It is impossible to miss that the level of physical violence being exerted on Occupiers and their supporters has escalated. There is now coordination among local officials around the country to contain and perhaps eliminate the Occupy movement. At the same time, there is talk of escalating economic activity by the grassroots. Occupy Oakland have called for a total west coast port shutdown on December 12th. This is a tall order and may not come to fruition, but the fact that it can even be discussed in realistic terms suggests the economic power that may be building at the grassroots level. As the labor song says, “We Do the Work” and we create the wealth.
Meanwhile, another unprecedented event has occurred in Washington. To quote from “The Stand”, the online news service of the Washington State Labor Council, “After consulting with its affiliated unions and community allies, the Washington State Labor Council will try something new in the special legislative session that begins Nov. 28 and the 2012 session. The WSLC will pursue a budget agenda in coordination with community, religious and small business groups that share labor’s concerns about all-cuts budgets harming our families and Washington’s economic future, and that agree that significant investment in public infrastructure is needed to create jobs now.”
The article goes on to say, “The Wall Street Recession continues to decimate Washington state’s economy and harm families. Our state budget has been slashed by $10 billion in the past three years — eliminating thousands of jobs, costing families their health care coverage, increasing school class sizes, sending college tuitions skyrocketing, and shredding our social safety net. Unemployment remains high; near 9% statewide and up to 60% in certain construction trades. And state economists say we are only halfway through this ‘Second Great Depression.’”
Labor is joining with these other forces to demand that the state protect our communities by investing in jobs and public necessities, like education and health care. They have agreed on the following common agenda:
“1. Substantially increase revenue and utilize revenue bonding to protect critical services and jobs in education, health care and public safety.
2. Create 30,000 direct jobs, and many more indirectly, by building and repairing community assets — including public buildings, bridges, state parks, water and irrigation systems, and college campuses — with a $2 billion general obligation bond on the spring ballot.
3. End unjustified tax breaks that don’t create jobs, and reform our tax break system to make it more transparent and accountable.”
In the past, these organizations enter the legislative session with their own legislative agendas. While cooperation on agreed upon proposals happens frequently, never, to my knowledge, has there been an agreement before hand to enter a legislative session with an agreed upon common agenda. This level of engagement between organized labor and other sectors could presage a very powerful force in our state. PSARA strongly endorses this legislative program.
Finally, we can all celebrate the failure of the Super Committee to come to an agreement. It is horrifying, if it is true, that the Democrats were prepared to make cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid in order to reach an agreement with the Republicans. Evidently, the Republicans were trying to drive a deal the Democrats could not stomach. Thank goodness no agreement was reached. We need to make our voices heard that the cut in the Social Security payroll tax must be allowed to expire and not be renewed at the end of December, 2011. It imperils Social Security.
In addition, we will insist that the debate around the 2012 election be about who will be served, the 1 % or the 99%. The Bush tax cuts for the wealthy must be allowed to expire at the end of 2012, and besides government job creation, the payroll cap on Social Security contributions must be scrapped so we can create an even better and stronger Social Security system for our children and grandchildren.
The last half of 2011 is a precursor to what promises to be a very challenging and potentially exciting 2012. This morning I watched a dramatic video of the Chancellor of U.C. Davis walking through a phalanx of students sitting in absolute silence on the ground as she exited a meeting to walk to her car. Their silence was a powerful condemnation of the immorality of the Chancellor and her campus police force that attacked nonviolent sit in protestors on the U.C. Davis campus over the weekend. The shocking film of two campus policemen spraying students as they sat on the ground has been broadcast worldwide.
Also broadcast worldwide is the picture of 84 year old PSARA member Dorli Rainey, as the pepper spray drips from her hair and face. One must ask why the Seattle police chose to pepper spray Dorli and the others with her. If the police believed that the street needed to be cleared, then the appropriate action was to arrest these nonviolent activists who were acting in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street, which had also been subjected to a brutal attack. To Dorli’s credit, she used the opportunity presented by the national and international media to focus on the issue of the 1 % and the 99% rather than allowing the discussion to be about police tactics. We send our thanks and admiration to Dorli for her bravery and determination.
It is impossible to miss that the level of physical violence being exerted on Occupiers and their supporters has escalated. There is now coordination among local officials around the country to contain and perhaps eliminate the Occupy movement. At the same time, there is talk of escalating economic activity by the grassroots. Occupy Oakland have called for a total west coast port shutdown on December 12th. This is a tall order and may not come to fruition, but the fact that it can even be discussed in realistic terms suggests the economic power that may be building at the grassroots level. As the labor song says, “We Do the Work” and we create the wealth.
Meanwhile, another unprecedented event has occurred in Washington. To quote from “The Stand”, the online news service of the Washington State Labor Council, “After consulting with its affiliated unions and community allies, the Washington State Labor Council will try something new in the special legislative session that begins Nov. 28 and the 2012 session. The WSLC will pursue a budget agenda in coordination with community, religious and small business groups that share labor’s concerns about all-cuts budgets harming our families and Washington’s economic future, and that agree that significant investment in public infrastructure is needed to create jobs now.”
The article goes on to say, “The Wall Street Recession continues to decimate Washington state’s economy and harm families. Our state budget has been slashed by $10 billion in the past three years — eliminating thousands of jobs, costing families their health care coverage, increasing school class sizes, sending college tuitions skyrocketing, and shredding our social safety net. Unemployment remains high; near 9% statewide and up to 60% in certain construction trades. And state economists say we are only halfway through this ‘Second Great Depression.’”
Labor is joining with these other forces to demand that the state protect our communities by investing in jobs and public necessities, like education and health care. They have agreed on the following common agenda:
“1. Substantially increase revenue and utilize revenue bonding to protect critical services and jobs in education, health care and public safety.
2. Create 30,000 direct jobs, and many more indirectly, by building and repairing community assets — including public buildings, bridges, state parks, water and irrigation systems, and college campuses — with a $2 billion general obligation bond on the spring ballot.
3. End unjustified tax breaks that don’t create jobs, and reform our tax break system to make it more transparent and accountable.”
In the past, these organizations enter the legislative session with their own legislative agendas. While cooperation on agreed upon proposals happens frequently, never, to my knowledge, has there been an agreement before hand to enter a legislative session with an agreed upon common agenda. This level of engagement between organized labor and other sectors could presage a very powerful force in our state. PSARA strongly endorses this legislative program.
Finally, we can all celebrate the failure of the Super Committee to come to an agreement. It is horrifying, if it is true, that the Democrats were prepared to make cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid in order to reach an agreement with the Republicans. Evidently, the Republicans were trying to drive a deal the Democrats could not stomach. Thank goodness no agreement was reached. We need to make our voices heard that the cut in the Social Security payroll tax must be allowed to expire and not be renewed at the end of December, 2011. It imperils Social Security.
In addition, we will insist that the debate around the 2012 election be about who will be served, the 1 % or the 99%. The Bush tax cuts for the wealthy must be allowed to expire at the end of 2012, and besides government job creation, the payroll cap on Social Security contributions must be scrapped so we can create an even better and stronger Social Security system for our children and grandchildren.
OWS: Where do we go from here?
By Michael Moore
This past weekend I participated in a four-hour meeting of Occupy Wall Street activists whose job it is to come up with the vision and goals of the movement. The discussion was both inspiring and invigorating. Here is what we ended up proposing as the movement's "vision statement" to the General Assembly of Occupy Wall Street:
We Envision:
[1] a truly free, democratic, and just society;
[2] where we, the people, come together and solve our problems by consensus;
[3] where people are encouraged to take personal and collective responsibility and participate in decision making;
[4] where we learn to live in harmony and embrace principles of toleration and respect for diversity and the differing views of others;
[5] where we secure the civil and human rights of all from violation by tyrannical forces and unjust governments;
[6] where political and economic institutions work to benefit all, not just the privileged few;
[7] where we provide full and free education to everyone, not merely to get jobs but to grow and flourish as human beings;
[8] where we value human needs over monetary gain, to ensure decent standards of living without which effective democracy is impossible;
[9] where we work together to protect the global environment to ensure that future generations will have safe and clean air, water and food supplies, and will be able to enjoy the beauty and bounty of nature that past generations have enjoyed.
The next step will be to develop a specific list of goals and demands. I would like to respectfully offer my suggestions of what we can all get behind now to wrestle the control of our country out of the hands of the 1% and place it squarely with the 99% majority.
Here is what I will propose to the General Assembly of Occupy Wall Street:
1. Eradicate the Bush tax cuts for the rich and institute new taxes on the wealthiest Americans and on corporations, including a tax on all trading on Wall Street (where they currently pay 0%).
2. Assess a penalty tax on any corporation that moves American jobs to other countries when that company is already making profits in America. Our jobs are the most important national treasure and they cannot be removed from the country simply because someone wants to make more money.
3. Require that all Americans pay the same Social Security tax on all of their earnings (Normally, the middle class pays about 6% of their income to Social Security; someone making $1 million a year pays about 0.6% (or 90% less than the average person). This law would simply make the rich pay what everyone else pays.
4. Reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, placing serious regulations on how business is conducted by Wall Street and the banks.
5. Investigate the Crash of 2008, and bring to justice those who committed any crimes.
6. Reorder our nation's spending priorities (including the ending of all foreign wars and their cost of over $2 billion a week). This will re-open libraries, reinstate band and art and civics classes in our schools, fix our roads and bridges and infrastructure, wire the entire country for 21st century internet, and support scientific research that improves our lives.
7. Join the rest of the free world and create a single-payer, free and universal health care system that covers all Americans all of the time.
8. Immediately reduce carbon emissions that are destroying the planet and discover ways to live without the oil that will be depleted and gone by the end of this century.
9. Require corporations with more than 10,000 employees to restructure their board of directors so that 50% of its members are elected by the company’s workers. We can never have a real democracy as long as most people have no say in what happens at the place they spend most of their time: their job. Germany has a law like this and it has helped to make Germany the world’s leading manufacturing exporter.)
10. We, the people, must pass three constitutional amendments that will go a long way toward fixing the core problems we now have:
a) A constitutional amendment that fixes our broken electoral system by 1) completely removing campaign contributions from the political process; 2) requiring all elections to be publicly financed; 3) moving election day to the weekend to increase voter turnout; 4) making all Americans registered voters at the moment of their birth; 5) banning computerized voting and requiring that all elections take place on paper ballots.
b) A constitutional amendment declaring that corporations are not people and do not have the constitutional rights of citizens. This amendment should also state that the interests of the general public and society must always come before the interests of corporations.
c) A constitutional amendment that will act as a "second bill of rights" as proposed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt: that every American has a human right to employment, to health care, to a free and full education, to breathe clean air, drink clean water and eat safe food, and to be cared for with dignity and respect in their old age.
Occupy Wall Street enjoys the support of millions. It is a movement that cannot be stopped. Become part of it by sharing your thoughts with me or online (at OccupyWallSt.org). Get involved in (or start!) your own local Occupy movement. Make some noise. You don't have to pitch a tent in lower Manhattan to be an Occupier. You are one just by saying you are. This movement has no singular leader or spokesperson; every participant is a leader in their neighborhood, their school, their place of work. Each of you is a spokesperson to those whom you encounter. There are no dues to pay, no permission to seek in order to create an action.
We are but ten weeks old, yet we have already changed the national conversation. This is our moment, the one we've been hoping for, waiting for. If it's going to happen it has to happen now. Don't sit this one out. This is the real deal. This is it.
This past weekend I participated in a four-hour meeting of Occupy Wall Street activists whose job it is to come up with the vision and goals of the movement. The discussion was both inspiring and invigorating. Here is what we ended up proposing as the movement's "vision statement" to the General Assembly of Occupy Wall Street:
We Envision:
[1] a truly free, democratic, and just society;
[2] where we, the people, come together and solve our problems by consensus;
[3] where people are encouraged to take personal and collective responsibility and participate in decision making;
[4] where we learn to live in harmony and embrace principles of toleration and respect for diversity and the differing views of others;
[5] where we secure the civil and human rights of all from violation by tyrannical forces and unjust governments;
[6] where political and economic institutions work to benefit all, not just the privileged few;
[7] where we provide full and free education to everyone, not merely to get jobs but to grow and flourish as human beings;
[8] where we value human needs over monetary gain, to ensure decent standards of living without which effective democracy is impossible;
[9] where we work together to protect the global environment to ensure that future generations will have safe and clean air, water and food supplies, and will be able to enjoy the beauty and bounty of nature that past generations have enjoyed.
The next step will be to develop a specific list of goals and demands. I would like to respectfully offer my suggestions of what we can all get behind now to wrestle the control of our country out of the hands of the 1% and place it squarely with the 99% majority.
Here is what I will propose to the General Assembly of Occupy Wall Street:
1. Eradicate the Bush tax cuts for the rich and institute new taxes on the wealthiest Americans and on corporations, including a tax on all trading on Wall Street (where they currently pay 0%).
2. Assess a penalty tax on any corporation that moves American jobs to other countries when that company is already making profits in America. Our jobs are the most important national treasure and they cannot be removed from the country simply because someone wants to make more money.
3. Require that all Americans pay the same Social Security tax on all of their earnings (Normally, the middle class pays about 6% of their income to Social Security; someone making $1 million a year pays about 0.6% (or 90% less than the average person). This law would simply make the rich pay what everyone else pays.
4. Reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, placing serious regulations on how business is conducted by Wall Street and the banks.
5. Investigate the Crash of 2008, and bring to justice those who committed any crimes.
6. Reorder our nation's spending priorities (including the ending of all foreign wars and their cost of over $2 billion a week). This will re-open libraries, reinstate band and art and civics classes in our schools, fix our roads and bridges and infrastructure, wire the entire country for 21st century internet, and support scientific research that improves our lives.
7. Join the rest of the free world and create a single-payer, free and universal health care system that covers all Americans all of the time.
8. Immediately reduce carbon emissions that are destroying the planet and discover ways to live without the oil that will be depleted and gone by the end of this century.
9. Require corporations with more than 10,000 employees to restructure their board of directors so that 50% of its members are elected by the company’s workers. We can never have a real democracy as long as most people have no say in what happens at the place they spend most of their time: their job. Germany has a law like this and it has helped to make Germany the world’s leading manufacturing exporter.)
10. We, the people, must pass three constitutional amendments that will go a long way toward fixing the core problems we now have:
a) A constitutional amendment that fixes our broken electoral system by 1) completely removing campaign contributions from the political process; 2) requiring all elections to be publicly financed; 3) moving election day to the weekend to increase voter turnout; 4) making all Americans registered voters at the moment of their birth; 5) banning computerized voting and requiring that all elections take place on paper ballots.
b) A constitutional amendment declaring that corporations are not people and do not have the constitutional rights of citizens. This amendment should also state that the interests of the general public and society must always come before the interests of corporations.
c) A constitutional amendment that will act as a "second bill of rights" as proposed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt: that every American has a human right to employment, to health care, to a free and full education, to breathe clean air, drink clean water and eat safe food, and to be cared for with dignity and respect in their old age.
Occupy Wall Street enjoys the support of millions. It is a movement that cannot be stopped. Become part of it by sharing your thoughts with me or online (at OccupyWallSt.org). Get involved in (or start!) your own local Occupy movement. Make some noise. You don't have to pitch a tent in lower Manhattan to be an Occupier. You are one just by saying you are. This movement has no singular leader or spokesperson; every participant is a leader in their neighborhood, their school, their place of work. Each of you is a spokesperson to those whom you encounter. There are no dues to pay, no permission to seek in order to create an action.
We are but ten weeks old, yet we have already changed the national conversation. This is our moment, the one we've been hoping for, waiting for. If it's going to happen it has to happen now. Don't sit this one out. This is the real deal. This is it.
KEYSTONE XL: The pipeline from Hades
By Will Parry
The determined intervention of scientists, public figures and rank-and-file environmentalists has delayed for a full year a decision on the horrific Keystone XL pipeline, intended to run its oily 1,700-mile course from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, across sensitive U.S. aquifers to the Gulf of Mexico.
On November 6, the activists, twelve thousand strong, took the pipeline issue directly to the White House. In possibly the largest civil disobedience in U.S. history, 1,250 were arrested. President Obama, who will make the ultimate decision, then announced that he will defer action until early 2013.
The best scientific opinion says Obama’s decision could well determine whether our planet survives as a viable habitat for most living creatures.
Among those arrested at the White House was James Hanson, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Hanson, who has focused his work for decades on the impact of fossil fuels on the environment, is considered a foremost authority on global warming.
Hanson has a blunt two-word summary for the significance of the campaign to block the Keystone XL pipeline: If the pipeline is built, it’s “Game over” for the environment, he says.
Obama’s one-year delay was a major victory, said Bill McKibben, the legendary founder of the grassroots campaign “350.org,” which has coordinated 15,000 “save the planet” rallies in 189 countries over the past three years. The “350” refers to the maximum number of parts per million of carbon dioxide a breathable atmosphere may tolerate.
McKibben cited an October poll of “energy insiders,” conducted by the National Journal, that found “virtually all” of those polled expected easy approval of the pipeline. TransCanada, the would-be builder, was moving huge quantities of pipe across the border and seizing land by eminent domain. The mighty propaganda engine of the petroleum industry was in high gear. The fix was in. The deal was done.
Except it wasn’t. Not yet. A year of titanic struggle is in prospect, with the environmentalist legions arrayed against the riches of the petroleum industry and its vast network of stooges in Congress, the media and the regulatory agencies.
The industry is transfixed by the gleam of gold in the tar sands of Alberta. To seize it, they must build the pipeline from Hades.
The U.S. Department of Energy reports that in 2010 humanity (especially the U.S., China and onrushing India) pumped more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than at any time since the start of the industrial revolution – 564 million tons more than in 2009.
That’s more CO2 than in the worst case scenario outlined by climate experts just four years ago.
“We’re talking more greenhouse gases than have entered the Earth’s atmosphere in tens of millions of years,” says McKibben.
Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency, says that without an effective international agreement to staunch greenhouse gases within five years, the door will close on preventing a potentially disastrous rise in the planet’s temperature.
To keep that door open, ministers and mothers will lie down in the path of bulldozers. Earth’s children are at risk. We’ll have more –- much more – to say on this subject. Our next article will deal with the tragic downstream effects of BP’s Gulf oil spill.
The determined intervention of scientists, public figures and rank-and-file environmentalists has delayed for a full year a decision on the horrific Keystone XL pipeline, intended to run its oily 1,700-mile course from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, across sensitive U.S. aquifers to the Gulf of Mexico.
On November 6, the activists, twelve thousand strong, took the pipeline issue directly to the White House. In possibly the largest civil disobedience in U.S. history, 1,250 were arrested. President Obama, who will make the ultimate decision, then announced that he will defer action until early 2013.
The best scientific opinion says Obama’s decision could well determine whether our planet survives as a viable habitat for most living creatures.
Among those arrested at the White House was James Hanson, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Hanson, who has focused his work for decades on the impact of fossil fuels on the environment, is considered a foremost authority on global warming.
Hanson has a blunt two-word summary for the significance of the campaign to block the Keystone XL pipeline: If the pipeline is built, it’s “Game over” for the environment, he says.
Obama’s one-year delay was a major victory, said Bill McKibben, the legendary founder of the grassroots campaign “350.org,” which has coordinated 15,000 “save the planet” rallies in 189 countries over the past three years. The “350” refers to the maximum number of parts per million of carbon dioxide a breathable atmosphere may tolerate.
McKibben cited an October poll of “energy insiders,” conducted by the National Journal, that found “virtually all” of those polled expected easy approval of the pipeline. TransCanada, the would-be builder, was moving huge quantities of pipe across the border and seizing land by eminent domain. The mighty propaganda engine of the petroleum industry was in high gear. The fix was in. The deal was done.
Except it wasn’t. Not yet. A year of titanic struggle is in prospect, with the environmentalist legions arrayed against the riches of the petroleum industry and its vast network of stooges in Congress, the media and the regulatory agencies.
The industry is transfixed by the gleam of gold in the tar sands of Alberta. To seize it, they must build the pipeline from Hades.
The U.S. Department of Energy reports that in 2010 humanity (especially the U.S., China and onrushing India) pumped more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than at any time since the start of the industrial revolution – 564 million tons more than in 2009.
That’s more CO2 than in the worst case scenario outlined by climate experts just four years ago.
“We’re talking more greenhouse gases than have entered the Earth’s atmosphere in tens of millions of years,” says McKibben.
Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency, says that without an effective international agreement to staunch greenhouse gases within five years, the door will close on preventing a potentially disastrous rise in the planet’s temperature.
To keep that door open, ministers and mothers will lie down in the path of bulldozers. Earth’s children are at risk. We’ll have more –- much more – to say on this subject. Our next article will deal with the tragic downstream effects of BP’s Gulf oil spill.
Distributing the dollars up!
By Mike Andrew
Income inequality in the United States is at its highest level since the “Gilded Age” of trusts, monopolies, and Robber Barons.
The numbers are staggering.
In 1915, a time when the likes of John D. Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan dominated the US economy, the richest 1% of Americans pulled in roughly 18% of all income. Today, the top 1% account for 24% of all income.
A CBO study in 2011 found that the top 1% increased their incomes 275% over the period 1979-2007. During that same period, the incomes of the bottom 80% actually declined.
In 1980, top-paid US CEOs made 42 times more than the average worker. By 2007 they made 531 times more.
As of 2006, the US had one of the highest levels of income inequality among similar high-income, developed countries. It is one of only a few developed countries where inequality has increased since 1980.
According to Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, income inequality in the US was very high from 1870 to sometime around 1937. In part as a result of the New Deal – and also because government spending on World War II acted as a massive stimulus package – inequality dropped dramatically between 1937 and 1947.
The level of inequality remained fairly steady for about three decades until the late 1970s when income again began to become more concentrated in the hands of the richest Americans.
Inequality increased during the 1980s – the Reagan era – decreased slightly during the late 1990s, and has since continued its overall increasing trend.
The productivity of US workers continues to be one of the economic wonders of the world, increasing steadily year by year.
Real wages, on the other hand, have stagnated during the same period. By some measures, they have actually declined.
The steadily increasing gap between the “productivity” line and the “real wage” line represents, in graphic form, wealth flowing from working people to corporate employers.
Part of that stream of wealth goes to pay CEOs more and more lavish wages and bonuses, increasing income inequality even as workers produce more than ever.
“Real compensation,” by the way, includes benefits as well as wages, and much of the increase in that category can be accounted for by increases in healthcare premiums. In other words, insurance companies and healthcare providers benefit from increases in “real compensation” but workers might not.
All of this amounts to a huge redistribution of income – but a redistribution upwards, favoring the richest Americans at the expense of working families.
Along with this redistribution of wealth has come a dramatic shift in the structure of the US economy.
In 1950, 70% of US workers were employed in manufacturing, generally high-paid jobs. Some 20% were employed in generally low-paid service industries. One-third of US workers at that time were union members.
Within the space of a single lifetime, the situation has been reversed. Today, only 21% of the workforce is in the manufacturing sector while 70% work in service industries.
In the same period, union membership has declined to a mere 11%, and less than 9% in the private sector. In other words, workers are losing both their fair share of the national wealth, and their ability to fight back against income inequality.
No wonder the Occupy movement has struck such a chord!
Income inequality in the United States is at its highest level since the “Gilded Age” of trusts, monopolies, and Robber Barons.
The numbers are staggering.
In 1915, a time when the likes of John D. Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan dominated the US economy, the richest 1% of Americans pulled in roughly 18% of all income. Today, the top 1% account for 24% of all income.
A CBO study in 2011 found that the top 1% increased their incomes 275% over the period 1979-2007. During that same period, the incomes of the bottom 80% actually declined.
In 1980, top-paid US CEOs made 42 times more than the average worker. By 2007 they made 531 times more.
As of 2006, the US had one of the highest levels of income inequality among similar high-income, developed countries. It is one of only a few developed countries where inequality has increased since 1980.
According to Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, income inequality in the US was very high from 1870 to sometime around 1937. In part as a result of the New Deal – and also because government spending on World War II acted as a massive stimulus package – inequality dropped dramatically between 1937 and 1947.
The level of inequality remained fairly steady for about three decades until the late 1970s when income again began to become more concentrated in the hands of the richest Americans.
Inequality increased during the 1980s – the Reagan era – decreased slightly during the late 1990s, and has since continued its overall increasing trend.
The productivity of US workers continues to be one of the economic wonders of the world, increasing steadily year by year.
Real wages, on the other hand, have stagnated during the same period. By some measures, they have actually declined.
The steadily increasing gap between the “productivity” line and the “real wage” line represents, in graphic form, wealth flowing from working people to corporate employers.
Part of that stream of wealth goes to pay CEOs more and more lavish wages and bonuses, increasing income inequality even as workers produce more than ever.
“Real compensation,” by the way, includes benefits as well as wages, and much of the increase in that category can be accounted for by increases in healthcare premiums. In other words, insurance companies and healthcare providers benefit from increases in “real compensation” but workers might not.
All of this amounts to a huge redistribution of income – but a redistribution upwards, favoring the richest Americans at the expense of working families.
Along with this redistribution of wealth has come a dramatic shift in the structure of the US economy.
In 1950, 70% of US workers were employed in manufacturing, generally high-paid jobs. Some 20% were employed in generally low-paid service industries. One-third of US workers at that time were union members.
Within the space of a single lifetime, the situation has been reversed. Today, only 21% of the workforce is in the manufacturing sector while 70% work in service industries.
In the same period, union membership has declined to a mere 11%, and less than 9% in the private sector. In other words, workers are losing both their fair share of the national wealth, and their ability to fight back against income inequality.
No wonder the Occupy movement has struck such a chord!
Greece: Bankers bailed out, workers sold out
By Mike Andrew
Greece’s debt crisis came to a head on November 11, when socialist Prime Minister George Papandreou resigned to make way for a coalition “national unity government.”
The new Prime Minister, Lucas Papademos, is a former Vice President of the European Central Bank committed to pushing ahead with the package of austerity measures demanded by European bankers in return for a “bailout” of Greek debts.
This “bailout” properly speaking is not a bailout of Greece, still less a bailout of Greek workers, but a bailout of the German and French banks which invested in Greek bonds and now stand to lose substantial assets if Greece defaults on its debts.
Some 20% of the bailout money Greece receives is slated to go to recapitalize Greek banks, and another 20% must be invested in top-rated AAA bonds that can be used as collateral in future debt-swap deals with lenders.
The austerity program the EU has imposed on Greece is not designed to help Greece repay its debts – or if it is, it is sadly misdirected. In fact, their austerity program is designed to impose the EU economic model which views inflation as the main economic risk.
In an effort to reduce Greece’s deficits and keep inflation below the EU-sanctioned maximum of 2%, the Greek government was compelled to cut wages and pensions, eliminate COLAs, and reduce the number of public sector workers by one-third.
Last year unemployment hit almost 19%, with the rate for workers under 30 going to almost 40%. The Greek economy as a whole contracted by 4.5% in 2010.
If the goal was to reduce Greece’s debt-to-GDP ratio, the austerity program was clearly misdirected.
Papandreou was elected Prime Minister in 2009 on an anti-austerity platform, when the debt crisis was only just breaking.
The right-wing New Democracy Party, which held power from 2004 to 2009, precipitated the debt crisis by cutting income and social security taxes and then cooking the books to conceal the real dimensions of the resulting budget deficit.
Instead of the EU-approved 3% deficit, or the rumored 6% “real” deficit, Papandreou found the deficit was almost 13% when he took office. Unemployment at that time was over 10%.
What made Greece’s situation even worse was that it had joined the Eurozone in 2001, and therefore no longer controlled its own money supply.
Papandreou’s father, the late Andreas Papandreou, who was Prime Minister in 1981-1989 and again in 1993-1996, had brought his country an unprecedented period of economic prosperity by an admittedly inflationary policy – financing public works projects, and wage and pension increases by increasing the money supply.
That option was no longer open in the current crisis, and George Papandreou realized he had no choice but to ask for a restructuring of Greece’s debt, the consequence of which was the austerity package demanded by European bankers.
Papandreou’s seemingly reasonable proposal to put the austerity policy up for a vote was vetoed by Greece’s creditors, including the United States.
The referendum proposal did have one positive result, however. It forced the right-wing opposition into entering a national unity government and accepting shared responsibility for the austerity measures.
The long term future for the Greek economy remains in doubt, as does the issue of whether Greece will retain the Euro or try to return to the drachma, its former national currency.
Greece’s debt crisis came to a head on November 11, when socialist Prime Minister George Papandreou resigned to make way for a coalition “national unity government.”
The new Prime Minister, Lucas Papademos, is a former Vice President of the European Central Bank committed to pushing ahead with the package of austerity measures demanded by European bankers in return for a “bailout” of Greek debts.
This “bailout” properly speaking is not a bailout of Greece, still less a bailout of Greek workers, but a bailout of the German and French banks which invested in Greek bonds and now stand to lose substantial assets if Greece defaults on its debts.
Some 20% of the bailout money Greece receives is slated to go to recapitalize Greek banks, and another 20% must be invested in top-rated AAA bonds that can be used as collateral in future debt-swap deals with lenders.
The austerity program the EU has imposed on Greece is not designed to help Greece repay its debts – or if it is, it is sadly misdirected. In fact, their austerity program is designed to impose the EU economic model which views inflation as the main economic risk.
In an effort to reduce Greece’s deficits and keep inflation below the EU-sanctioned maximum of 2%, the Greek government was compelled to cut wages and pensions, eliminate COLAs, and reduce the number of public sector workers by one-third.
Last year unemployment hit almost 19%, with the rate for workers under 30 going to almost 40%. The Greek economy as a whole contracted by 4.5% in 2010.
If the goal was to reduce Greece’s debt-to-GDP ratio, the austerity program was clearly misdirected.
Papandreou was elected Prime Minister in 2009 on an anti-austerity platform, when the debt crisis was only just breaking.
The right-wing New Democracy Party, which held power from 2004 to 2009, precipitated the debt crisis by cutting income and social security taxes and then cooking the books to conceal the real dimensions of the resulting budget deficit.
Instead of the EU-approved 3% deficit, or the rumored 6% “real” deficit, Papandreou found the deficit was almost 13% when he took office. Unemployment at that time was over 10%.
What made Greece’s situation even worse was that it had joined the Eurozone in 2001, and therefore no longer controlled its own money supply.
Papandreou’s father, the late Andreas Papandreou, who was Prime Minister in 1981-1989 and again in 1993-1996, had brought his country an unprecedented period of economic prosperity by an admittedly inflationary policy – financing public works projects, and wage and pension increases by increasing the money supply.
That option was no longer open in the current crisis, and George Papandreou realized he had no choice but to ask for a restructuring of Greece’s debt, the consequence of which was the austerity package demanded by European bankers.
Papandreou’s seemingly reasonable proposal to put the austerity policy up for a vote was vetoed by Greece’s creditors, including the United States.
The referendum proposal did have one positive result, however. It forced the right-wing opposition into entering a national unity government and accepting shared responsibility for the austerity measures.
The long term future for the Greek economy remains in doubt, as does the issue of whether Greece will retain the Euro or try to return to the drachma, its former national currency.
Super committee not so super
The so-called Super Committee that was supposed to come up with a bipartisan $1.5 trillion deficit reduction package announced on November 21 that they had failed to cut a deal.
No one expected them to fail until they did, and then it became perfectly obvious to everyone why they had to fail.
The assumption behind the Super Committee was that both Democrats and Republicans would be willing and able to put political differences aside in the interests of deficit reduction.
That was the biggest weakness of the whole concept, and the fundamental reason that the Super Committee would fail.
Both sides did, in fact, make concessions. Democrats put social spending cuts on the table. Republicans indicated they were willing to raise revenues.
The problem, however, is that deficit reduction will do nothing to help the sagging economy or put a single unemployed worker back to work. In fact, further cuts in government spending would certainly lead to reduced economic activity and increased unemployment.
In other words, it’s not hard to think of ways to cut the deficit, if that’s your only goal. But it’s impossible to cut the deficit and – at the same time – pull the country out of the Great Recession.
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chair Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) put the problem very simply.
"The American people want an end to this gridlock with a balanced approach to reducing the debt that creates jobs, protects the Medicare guarantee, and brings shared sacrifice from the ultra wealthy and Big Oil," he said in a statement. "Voters have a chance to end this gridlock in November 2012."
You can’t create jobs and guarantee Medicare to all eligible seniors without spending money, and that means – in the short term – you really can’t cut the deficit until the country has recovered from the recession.
But once the country has recovered, it will be much easier to pay down the deficit because employed workers pay taxes, and they don’t need unemployment or other government-financed benefits.
Republicans, of course, still adhere to the old Reagan-style supply-side economics, and believe – against all the evidence – that economic austerity will revive the economy.
Too many Democrats believe this as well, and it was only because the Super Committee negotiations were being conducted against the background of the Occupy movement that the political issues of income inequality and economic justice came to the fore at all.
"After Occupy Wall Street, a month later, you were getting a lot more attention to income inequality, and that's a tremendous change in the politics of the country," said Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), whose district includes Wall Street.
The failure of the Super Committee is not entirely good news, however.
Assuming that nothing else happens, $1.2 trillion of automatic across-the-board spending cuts will kick-in on October 1, 2012. These will include cuts to the defense department as well as social safety net programs.
The so-called Bush tax cuts will expire for everyone at the end of that year. In addition, the temporary cuts in the payroll tax and the extension of unemployment benefits may not be continued.
This result will undoubtedly be challenging not only to individual working families, but also to the entire national economy, as people pay more in taxes, have less to spend on goods and services, and – if they are still unemployed – see their benefits at risk.
No one expected them to fail until they did, and then it became perfectly obvious to everyone why they had to fail.
The assumption behind the Super Committee was that both Democrats and Republicans would be willing and able to put political differences aside in the interests of deficit reduction.
That was the biggest weakness of the whole concept, and the fundamental reason that the Super Committee would fail.
Both sides did, in fact, make concessions. Democrats put social spending cuts on the table. Republicans indicated they were willing to raise revenues.
The problem, however, is that deficit reduction will do nothing to help the sagging economy or put a single unemployed worker back to work. In fact, further cuts in government spending would certainly lead to reduced economic activity and increased unemployment.
In other words, it’s not hard to think of ways to cut the deficit, if that’s your only goal. But it’s impossible to cut the deficit and – at the same time – pull the country out of the Great Recession.
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chair Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) put the problem very simply.
"The American people want an end to this gridlock with a balanced approach to reducing the debt that creates jobs, protects the Medicare guarantee, and brings shared sacrifice from the ultra wealthy and Big Oil," he said in a statement. "Voters have a chance to end this gridlock in November 2012."
You can’t create jobs and guarantee Medicare to all eligible seniors without spending money, and that means – in the short term – you really can’t cut the deficit until the country has recovered from the recession.
But once the country has recovered, it will be much easier to pay down the deficit because employed workers pay taxes, and they don’t need unemployment or other government-financed benefits.
Republicans, of course, still adhere to the old Reagan-style supply-side economics, and believe – against all the evidence – that economic austerity will revive the economy.
Too many Democrats believe this as well, and it was only because the Super Committee negotiations were being conducted against the background of the Occupy movement that the political issues of income inequality and economic justice came to the fore at all.
"After Occupy Wall Street, a month later, you were getting a lot more attention to income inequality, and that's a tremendous change in the politics of the country," said Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), whose district includes Wall Street.
The failure of the Super Committee is not entirely good news, however.
Assuming that nothing else happens, $1.2 trillion of automatic across-the-board spending cuts will kick-in on October 1, 2012. These will include cuts to the defense department as well as social safety net programs.
The so-called Bush tax cuts will expire for everyone at the end of that year. In addition, the temporary cuts in the payroll tax and the extension of unemployment benefits may not be continued.
This result will undoubtedly be challenging not only to individual working families, but also to the entire national economy, as people pay more in taxes, have less to spend on goods and services, and – if they are still unemployed – see their benefits at risk.
Fair Trade or ‘Free Trade’ Where is our Congressional delegation?
By Kristen Beifus
Early in 2011, Kim Kyung-Ran of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions met with staff members of Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell and Representatives Adam Smith, Jay Inslee and Jim McDermott. She advised them that in Korea hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets in opposition to the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement.
Over the months that followed, members of the Washington Fair Trade Coalition, including PSARA members and trade justice allies, met with our elected leaders in Washington State and in the District of Columbia, wrote letters as individuals and organizations, made numerous phone calls, attended cyber-town hall meetings, called into radio programs, attended coffees and events with our elected leaders, held rallies, bannered and circulated self-produced educational media.
We worked to educate and activate. We know they heard us. They said as much.
And then on October 12, with the single exception of McDermott's vote against the Colombia Free Trade Agreement, the entire Congressional delegation voted for Free Trade Agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama.
We appreciate Rep. McDermott's lone “No” vote. However his “Yes” votes on South Korea and Panama indicates his support for Free Trade.
So-called “Free Trade” is opposed by organized labor and environmental and human rights activists, as well as by millions of people around the world. It makes little sense that elected leaders who are progressive on such issues as health care and Social Security, continue to vote in favor of trade policy that hurts their constituents.
At the moment the views on trade policy of the majority in our state are unrepresented.. With big money dominating politics and an election year on the horizon, it is clear that our state elected leaders are at the mercy of corporate lobbyists when it comes to trade. Campaign finance reform is urgently needed to level the debate on trade policy.
This year, both nationally and in our State, unions have begun to withhold endorsements and contributions from elected officials who do not represent them. In our State, Machinists Local 751 un-invited Senator Cantwell and Rep. Inslee to their political gala after their support of trade deals with South Korea, Panama and Colombia, which directly threaten jobs of their members. IBEW locals, hurt by the reduction in manufacturing jobs, are also withholding contributions because of trade votes.
As Greg Paulson of the Association of Western Pulp and Paper explains: 'It doesn't matter if it is a Republican or a Democrat off-shoring jobs. It is still a lost job and an unemployed worker. Actually it hurts more when it is Democrat because we elected them into office to represent us.'
A 2012 goal for the Washington Fair Trade Coalition is to make is to make fair trade an election year issue.
We are also monitoring the emerging Trans Pacific Free Trade Agreement (TP-FTA), involving the US and 8 other countries: Peru, Chile, New Zealand, Australia, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore and Vietnam.
As this complex agreement moves through rounds of negotiations with the potential for many more countries to join, one concern is access to generic drugs. Many pharmaceutical corporations are demanding strong investor protections in the TP-FTA. That threatens the public health systems of countries and communities that rely on generics.
The fight for fair trade is an important opportunity to defend our values: the health of our communities, the rights of workers, protection of our natural resources and the rights of indigenous communities. Until those values are incorporated in our trade agreements, those agreements will enable corporations to win while many of us will continue to lose.
(Kristen Beifus is executive director of the Washington Fair Trade Council and a member of PSARA.)
Early in 2011, Kim Kyung-Ran of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions met with staff members of Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell and Representatives Adam Smith, Jay Inslee and Jim McDermott. She advised them that in Korea hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets in opposition to the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement.
Over the months that followed, members of the Washington Fair Trade Coalition, including PSARA members and trade justice allies, met with our elected leaders in Washington State and in the District of Columbia, wrote letters as individuals and organizations, made numerous phone calls, attended cyber-town hall meetings, called into radio programs, attended coffees and events with our elected leaders, held rallies, bannered and circulated self-produced educational media.
We worked to educate and activate. We know they heard us. They said as much.
And then on October 12, with the single exception of McDermott's vote against the Colombia Free Trade Agreement, the entire Congressional delegation voted for Free Trade Agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama.
We appreciate Rep. McDermott's lone “No” vote. However his “Yes” votes on South Korea and Panama indicates his support for Free Trade.
So-called “Free Trade” is opposed by organized labor and environmental and human rights activists, as well as by millions of people around the world. It makes little sense that elected leaders who are progressive on such issues as health care and Social Security, continue to vote in favor of trade policy that hurts their constituents.
At the moment the views on trade policy of the majority in our state are unrepresented.. With big money dominating politics and an election year on the horizon, it is clear that our state elected leaders are at the mercy of corporate lobbyists when it comes to trade. Campaign finance reform is urgently needed to level the debate on trade policy.
This year, both nationally and in our State, unions have begun to withhold endorsements and contributions from elected officials who do not represent them. In our State, Machinists Local 751 un-invited Senator Cantwell and Rep. Inslee to their political gala after their support of trade deals with South Korea, Panama and Colombia, which directly threaten jobs of their members. IBEW locals, hurt by the reduction in manufacturing jobs, are also withholding contributions because of trade votes.
As Greg Paulson of the Association of Western Pulp and Paper explains: 'It doesn't matter if it is a Republican or a Democrat off-shoring jobs. It is still a lost job and an unemployed worker. Actually it hurts more when it is Democrat because we elected them into office to represent us.'
A 2012 goal for the Washington Fair Trade Coalition is to make is to make fair trade an election year issue.
We are also monitoring the emerging Trans Pacific Free Trade Agreement (TP-FTA), involving the US and 8 other countries: Peru, Chile, New Zealand, Australia, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore and Vietnam.
As this complex agreement moves through rounds of negotiations with the potential for many more countries to join, one concern is access to generic drugs. Many pharmaceutical corporations are demanding strong investor protections in the TP-FTA. That threatens the public health systems of countries and communities that rely on generics.
The fight for fair trade is an important opportunity to defend our values: the health of our communities, the rights of workers, protection of our natural resources and the rights of indigenous communities. Until those values are incorporated in our trade agreements, those agreements will enable corporations to win while many of us will continue to lose.
(Kristen Beifus is executive director of the Washington Fair Trade Council and a member of PSARA.)
Thursday, November 3, 2011
The Special Session: A Call to Action
An Editorial
Governor Gregoire has called the Legislature into a Special Session starting November 28. Her goal: To make up for declining revenues with an additional $2 billion in cuts from state programs. The Legislature has already carved a cruel $10 billion from health care, education and other essential services in the past three years. We cannot hold still for even more drastic cuts.
In the next weeks, every PSARA member will be needed in this struggle that will shape our future as a state. You will be asked to call and write your legislators/ To testify about the impact on your life of specific cuts. If possible, to come to Olympia with thousands of others to create a human wall of protest. With our allies from the labor movement and the community, we must make it clear to our legislators that business as usual is a thing of the past.
Plainly, the life-and-death need of the hour is substantial new revenue.
And hidden in hundreds of special-interest tax exemptions, the needed revenue is there to be tapped. The Washington State Budget and Policy Center has identified these tax breaks. They drain $6.5 billion in revenue annually, year after year. They are never examined to see whether they fulfill a useful purpose.
The alternative to new revenue is unthinkable. The governor’s approach, to look for $2 billion in additional cuts, will lay waste to programs that meet fundamental human needs.
The proposals currently on the table would wipe out long term care services for more than 17,000 people, a 29 percent cut from the current case- load. Here’s who would lose the services they depend upon, as reported in the Senior Scene for October:
• 11,700 who would lose homecare assistance
• 1,000 now living in Adult Family Homes
• 2,700 living in assisted living facilities
• 1,000 living in boarding homes
• 450 living in nursing homes
And that’s just one aspect of the reductions in human services, that impacting long-term care. Other proposals include the elimination of the Basic Health Plan, the Disability Lifeline, interpretive services, health care coverage for immigrant children, maternity support services, adult pharmacy benefits – and the list goes on.
In the budget adopted in the 2011 session, funding for long term care was cut by $98.1 million, translating into a 10 percent reduction in personal care hours per patient per month. Many in long term care need assistance around the clock and have nowhere else to turn. No one, least of all elderly men and women, should have to worry about being deprived of the care they need.
In the current economy, the state’s modest safety net programs are needed more than ever. Families and communities are struggling to get by. Unemployment is rampant, people are losing health insurance, homes are heavily mortgaged or are being foreclosed.
Confronted with these multiple challenges, an all-cuts budget is simply indefensible. It shifts the burden of the budget deficit still more oppressively onto the backs of the most vulnerable.
The Legislature must hear from the people.
Governor Gregoire has called the Legislature into a Special Session starting November 28. Her goal: To make up for declining revenues with an additional $2 billion in cuts from state programs. The Legislature has already carved a cruel $10 billion from health care, education and other essential services in the past three years. We cannot hold still for even more drastic cuts.
In the next weeks, every PSARA member will be needed in this struggle that will shape our future as a state. You will be asked to call and write your legislators/ To testify about the impact on your life of specific cuts. If possible, to come to Olympia with thousands of others to create a human wall of protest. With our allies from the labor movement and the community, we must make it clear to our legislators that business as usual is a thing of the past.
Plainly, the life-and-death need of the hour is substantial new revenue.
And hidden in hundreds of special-interest tax exemptions, the needed revenue is there to be tapped. The Washington State Budget and Policy Center has identified these tax breaks. They drain $6.5 billion in revenue annually, year after year. They are never examined to see whether they fulfill a useful purpose.
The alternative to new revenue is unthinkable. The governor’s approach, to look for $2 billion in additional cuts, will lay waste to programs that meet fundamental human needs.
The proposals currently on the table would wipe out long term care services for more than 17,000 people, a 29 percent cut from the current case- load. Here’s who would lose the services they depend upon, as reported in the Senior Scene for October:
• 11,700 who would lose homecare assistance
• 1,000 now living in Adult Family Homes
• 2,700 living in assisted living facilities
• 1,000 living in boarding homes
• 450 living in nursing homes
And that’s just one aspect of the reductions in human services, that impacting long-term care. Other proposals include the elimination of the Basic Health Plan, the Disability Lifeline, interpretive services, health care coverage for immigrant children, maternity support services, adult pharmacy benefits – and the list goes on.
In the budget adopted in the 2011 session, funding for long term care was cut by $98.1 million, translating into a 10 percent reduction in personal care hours per patient per month. Many in long term care need assistance around the clock and have nowhere else to turn. No one, least of all elderly men and women, should have to worry about being deprived of the care they need.
In the current economy, the state’s modest safety net programs are needed more than ever. Families and communities are struggling to get by. Unemployment is rampant, people are losing health insurance, homes are heavily mortgaged or are being foreclosed.
Confronted with these multiple challenges, an all-cuts budget is simply indefensible. It shifts the burden of the budget deficit still more oppressively onto the backs of the most vulnerable.
The Legislature must hear from the people.
Occupy Wall Street:: It's spontaneously explosive
By Will Parry
Occupy Wall Street presents an unprecedented challenge to the corporations and financiers who oppress and exploit people the world over.
It is bigger than big. It is incredibly complex. Now well into its second month, it continues to develop daily and hourly.
This article is an initial appraisal of a dynamic movement whose ultimate impact, though uncertain, carries within it the hopes of humanity. Believe me, it is a subject to be approached with humility.
One report says ongoing demonstrations are taking place in more than 1,500 cities globally. Another report tells of actions in 951 cities in 82 countries. Still another tells of meetings in 1,383 cities in the U.S. alone.
In our own state, 600 in Tacoma took their protest to major banks. Other activists are occupying the streets of Bellingham, Olympia, Spokane, Tri-Cities, Wenatchee and Yakima, as well as Seattle. In Portland, organizers estimated a protest crowd at 10,000. In his monthly column (page 4), PSARA President Robby Stern tells of a meeting of 600 in modest Sequim, Washington.
At least since the Great Depression, nothing as spontaneously explosive as this has come along to shake up the masters of the universe.
The millions who are with the marchers do not have a five-point program. They are not united around a single political demand. What they do share is a common, bone deep anger at an unjust economy, where profit is God, and where 99 percent of the people are bled day in and day out by the wealthiest 1 percent.
“The movement doesn’t need a policy or legislative agenda to send its message,” wrote Katrina Vanden Heuvel in The Nation. “The thrust of what it seeks – fueled both by anger and by deep principles – has moral clarity. It wants corporate money out of politics. It wants the widening gap of income inequality to be narrowed substantially. And it wants meaningful solutions to the jobless crisis. In short, it wants a system that works for the 99 percent.”
“Everybody has different grievances, but we all feel the country is being lost,” said Frank Bader, 44, an unemployed Portland real estate title examiner.
In every major city, the authorities are responding to the non-violent occupations with a police presence. In response, there have been repeated examples of civil disobedience by heroic men and women, in the tradition of those who went to jail over Viet Nam and during the civil rights struggles.
In Oakland, the police were especially ugly, using tear gas and firing “non-lethal” rubber bullets indiscriminately. One victim was hospitalized in serious condition. The next morning the occupiers were back on the street – and the mayor apologized.
In New York, more than 700 were arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge. On another occasion, a police motorcycle ran over the leg of an attorney and video showed police wildly beating protesters with their batons and even charging horses into the crowd.
Also in New York, police strung orange netting across streets to trap protesting groups like schools of fish, a tactic described as “kettling.”
“They put up orange nets and tried to kettle us and we started running and they started tackling random people and handcuffing them. They were herding us like cattle,” said Kelly Brannon, 27.
Everywhere the occupiers’ cameras documented each confrontation.
In Seattle, in New York, everywhere, youth responded in numbers to the call to occupy parks and city squares and other public spaces. Many, including veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, were jobless and broke. Others were college graduates, over their heads in debt and unable to find a job. At one protest, Nate Smith carried a sign that read, “Seventeen and no future.”
“People want their voices to be heard,” said Peter Kass, 26, who works in a residential treatment facility. “You get strength in numbers. I’ll be a number.”
On October 5, in an organized expression of support, students at 90 U.S. colleges and universities walked out of class and held rallies and teach-ins.
Organized labor, which had already planned a week of intensive lobbying for jobs in the nation’s capital, noted the power of street protests to get the attention of the politicians.
“I think being in the streets and calling attention to issues is sometimes the only recourse you have because, God only knows, you can go to the Hill (Congress) and you can talk to a lot of people and see nothing ever happen,” said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka..
The occupiers have the attention of those in power. And they plan to stay through a winter that looms raw as a second Valley Forge. This is not a “come to a demonstration and then go home” kind of operation.
We need to do all we can to see that it has staying power. If you can, join the nearest occupation in person. Listed on page ___ are other ways you can help. Young, middle-aged and old, men and women, the occupiers are out there for all of us.
Indeed, “we all have different grievances, but we all feel the country is being lost.”
Occupy Wall Street presents an unprecedented challenge to the corporations and financiers who oppress and exploit people the world over.
It is bigger than big. It is incredibly complex. Now well into its second month, it continues to develop daily and hourly.
This article is an initial appraisal of a dynamic movement whose ultimate impact, though uncertain, carries within it the hopes of humanity. Believe me, it is a subject to be approached with humility.
One report says ongoing demonstrations are taking place in more than 1,500 cities globally. Another report tells of actions in 951 cities in 82 countries. Still another tells of meetings in 1,383 cities in the U.S. alone.
In our own state, 600 in Tacoma took their protest to major banks. Other activists are occupying the streets of Bellingham, Olympia, Spokane, Tri-Cities, Wenatchee and Yakima, as well as Seattle. In Portland, organizers estimated a protest crowd at 10,000. In his monthly column (page 4), PSARA President Robby Stern tells of a meeting of 600 in modest Sequim, Washington.
At least since the Great Depression, nothing as spontaneously explosive as this has come along to shake up the masters of the universe.
The millions who are with the marchers do not have a five-point program. They are not united around a single political demand. What they do share is a common, bone deep anger at an unjust economy, where profit is God, and where 99 percent of the people are bled day in and day out by the wealthiest 1 percent.
“The movement doesn’t need a policy or legislative agenda to send its message,” wrote Katrina Vanden Heuvel in The Nation. “The thrust of what it seeks – fueled both by anger and by deep principles – has moral clarity. It wants corporate money out of politics. It wants the widening gap of income inequality to be narrowed substantially. And it wants meaningful solutions to the jobless crisis. In short, it wants a system that works for the 99 percent.”
“Everybody has different grievances, but we all feel the country is being lost,” said Frank Bader, 44, an unemployed Portland real estate title examiner.
In every major city, the authorities are responding to the non-violent occupations with a police presence. In response, there have been repeated examples of civil disobedience by heroic men and women, in the tradition of those who went to jail over Viet Nam and during the civil rights struggles.
In Oakland, the police were especially ugly, using tear gas and firing “non-lethal” rubber bullets indiscriminately. One victim was hospitalized in serious condition. The next morning the occupiers were back on the street – and the mayor apologized.
In New York, more than 700 were arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge. On another occasion, a police motorcycle ran over the leg of an attorney and video showed police wildly beating protesters with their batons and even charging horses into the crowd.
Also in New York, police strung orange netting across streets to trap protesting groups like schools of fish, a tactic described as “kettling.”
“They put up orange nets and tried to kettle us and we started running and they started tackling random people and handcuffing them. They were herding us like cattle,” said Kelly Brannon, 27.
Everywhere the occupiers’ cameras documented each confrontation.
In Seattle, in New York, everywhere, youth responded in numbers to the call to occupy parks and city squares and other public spaces. Many, including veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, were jobless and broke. Others were college graduates, over their heads in debt and unable to find a job. At one protest, Nate Smith carried a sign that read, “Seventeen and no future.”
“People want their voices to be heard,” said Peter Kass, 26, who works in a residential treatment facility. “You get strength in numbers. I’ll be a number.”
On October 5, in an organized expression of support, students at 90 U.S. colleges and universities walked out of class and held rallies and teach-ins.
Organized labor, which had already planned a week of intensive lobbying for jobs in the nation’s capital, noted the power of street protests to get the attention of the politicians.
“I think being in the streets and calling attention to issues is sometimes the only recourse you have because, God only knows, you can go to the Hill (Congress) and you can talk to a lot of people and see nothing ever happen,” said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka..
The occupiers have the attention of those in power. And they plan to stay through a winter that looms raw as a second Valley Forge. This is not a “come to a demonstration and then go home” kind of operation.
We need to do all we can to see that it has staying power. If you can, join the nearest occupation in person. Listed on page ___ are other ways you can help. Young, middle-aged and old, men and women, the occupiers are out there for all of us.
Indeed, “we all have different grievances, but we all feel the country is being lost.”
We are the 99%
One reason the Occupy Movement continues to inspire people and gain support in this country and around the world is that it’s based on truth.
There’s a vast gulf between the 1% who control the world’s wealth and the 99% who produce it.
Even if we’ve never studied political economy, we feel instinctively that we’re part of the 99% and we want to stand with them.
And even if we, personally, can’t camp out in Westlake Plaza or Zucotti Park, we can “occupy” where we actually are – our jobs, our unions, our community centers, our churches – and speak out for our needs, the needs of the 99%.
We have plenty of work that needs doing in this country and millions looking for full-time work. We could use the money being made on Wall Street and in corporate boardrooms across the country to put people back to work, and to strengthen our social safety net for those who can’t work or have retired.
The Retiree Advocate has a role to play. Every month we provide news and hard-hitting analysis to clarify the needs of the 99% and expose the machinations of the 1%.
Will you help us?
If you’re not yet a PSARA member, please join us! Help us give PSARA a strong voice.
If you are a member, please renew your membership. And invite your neighbors and friends to join us as well.
After all, we are the 99%. If we’re informed and organized, no one can stop us.
There’s a vast gulf between the 1% who control the world’s wealth and the 99% who produce it.
Even if we’ve never studied political economy, we feel instinctively that we’re part of the 99% and we want to stand with them.
And even if we, personally, can’t camp out in Westlake Plaza or Zucotti Park, we can “occupy” where we actually are – our jobs, our unions, our community centers, our churches – and speak out for our needs, the needs of the 99%.
We have plenty of work that needs doing in this country and millions looking for full-time work. We could use the money being made on Wall Street and in corporate boardrooms across the country to put people back to work, and to strengthen our social safety net for those who can’t work or have retired.
The Retiree Advocate has a role to play. Every month we provide news and hard-hitting analysis to clarify the needs of the 99% and expose the machinations of the 1%.
Will you help us?
If you’re not yet a PSARA member, please join us! Help us give PSARA a strong voice.
If you are a member, please renew your membership. And invite your neighbors and friends to join us as well.
After all, we are the 99%. If we’re informed and organized, no one can stop us.
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