Obama’s mixed message on Social Security

By Will Parry

In a State of the Union address an hour and eleven minutes long, President Obama devoted a single 56-word paragraph to Social Security.  Here is the paragraph in full:

“To put us on solid ground, we should also find a bipartisan solution to strengthen Social Security for future generations.  We must do it without putting at risk current retirees, the most vulnerable, or people with disabilities; without slashing benefits for future generations; and without subjecting Americans’ guaranteed retirement income to the whims of the stock market.”

The president’s statement was in part reassuring and in part troubling.

He is to be commended for defending the benefits of the millions who depend on Social Security today; for his opposition to “slashing benefits for future generations;” and for his rejection of any move toward privatizing the program.

On the other hand, his call for a “bipartisan solution” to strengthen Social Security should be weighed in the context of his recent bipartisan deal on taxes.  There has already been more than enough surrender of principle in the name of “bipartisanship.”  In dealing with the Republican Party, it is necessary to recognize that, with few exceptions, its members are ready to undermine basic Social Security protections in the name of tackling the budget deficit.  Few Republicans are interested in finding “bipartisan solutions.”

It is also troubling that the president did not confront the very grave threat of a raise in the retirement age to 69, supposedly to address a deficit Social Security had no part in creating.

Nor did Obama confront the implications of the impending one-year payroll tax “holiday.”  It’s estimated that the one-year cut will cost the Trust Fund $120 billion, an amount that will be replaced from general revenues.  This will be the first time in 75 years that the program will not be funded entirely by the dedicated payroll tax.  It’s an ominous precedent.

At the end of the one-year “holiday,” restoration of the 6.2 percent tax would amount to a bump of almost 50 percent in the deduction from workers’ paychecks.  This will surely be attacked as a tax “hike.”  A Congress that can’t let tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans expire will surely be reluctant to let the payroll tax revert back to 6.2 percent.  Continuing to replenish the Trust Fund with general fund revenues would aggravate the deficit and undermine public support for Social Security.

The president’s brief remarks surely reflected an awareness of the intense lobbying effort mounted by the Strengthen Social Security Campaign, a coalition of more than 200 organizations, including the Alliance for Retired Americans.

The coalition has been concerned about how Obama would react to proposals by the Simpson-Bowles fiscal commission to increase Social Security’s retirement age and to weaken its cost-of-living protection.

As the State of the Union date neared, “everybody and their cousin is talking to the White House about this,” said a Democratic strategist involved in the campaign.  “Nobody in the progressive world thinks the president ought to endorse the Simpson-Bowles Social Security stuff.  People feel very strong about it and have been working it very hard.”

The coalition is following through with a nationwide grassroots campaign to call on members of Congress to defend the integrity of Social Security.

Senators Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) and Mark Warren (D-VA) head up a group of 18 senators who believe the debt commission’s report is the best basis for bipartisan talks.  They plan to introduce a bill based on the commission’s proposals.  If the legislation clears the Senate, it will surely have momentum in the Republican-dominated House.

The danger is immediate, and a sustained grassroots campaign is essential.

Calling the White House!

Before the State of the Union address, the Social Security Works WA coalition held open and productive meetings, facilitated by PSARA President Robby Stern, with Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell.  At both meetings, representatives of coalition organizations spoke of the critical role Social Security plays in their lives and in the lives of their members.

They also discussed the political damage done when Obama put Social Security “on the table” in deficit reduction negotiations, and the further damage that could be caused if the president referred to cutting benefits or raising the retirement age during his address.

Both senators pledged to contact the White House, urging the president either to stress the need to defend Social Security or simply not to mention the program at all.  Both senators followed through with their commitments, and both let the coalition know that Obama would not call for cutting benefits and raising the retirement age.

Washington’s senators have clout.  Murray is in the Senate leadership and chairs the Senate Democratic Campaign Committee.  Cantwell is an influential member of the Senate Finance Committee, and a champion of legislation to improve the Social Security COLA formula.

“The two senators let Social Security Works WA know they found the face-to-face meetings informative and helpful,” Stern said.  “Together with our Alliance colleagues across the nation, we can take pride in having influenced, in a positive way, the content of the president’s address.”

Will Parry

State budget: Saving pennies, wasting pounds

By Diane Sosne

You are pregnant. Here is your choice: 

Option A: Pre-natal health screening and expert guidance on how to have a healthy pregnancy and birth. 

Option B: Go without the help and increase the risk of having a difficult pregnancy, premature birth and/or post-partum complications.

You are a taxpayer. Here is your choice:

Option A costs $785. 

Option B costs $52,000 for a pre-term birth. Or perhaps $500,000 if the baby needs care in the hospital neonatal intensive care unit.

The correct answer is pretty obvious, yet Washington state is right now choosing Option B – bad for moms, bad for taxpayers. 

In today’s state budget debate, the reason for choosing Option B – the more expensive option – is because we can’t afford Option A, the cheaper and more humane choice.

Run down the list of effective state programs that are facing the budget ax and you’ll see the same thing.

Basic Health coverage for 55,000 adults and Apple Health for 27,000 kids? 

Adequate funding for our community clinics? Too expensive to maintain – so instead we’ll treat those people when they become severely ill show up at emergency rooms, where it’ll cost a lot more to care for them. 

Those of us with health insurance will see the bill for that uncompensated care tucked into our rising premium costs.

Community mental health care and chemical dependency treatment?   The state can’t afford the $2,200 a year it costs on average to treat a person with mental illness in the community. 

Instead, people with mental illness and drug dependency will cycle into crisis, winding up in our prisons ($30,000 a year), state hospitals ($200,000 a year), and emergency rooms (thousands of dollars per visit).

Funding to keep our senior citizens and people with disabilities in their own homes? Also cut from the budget. So instead of getting quality home-care services, these vulnerable Washingtonians will end up in much more expensive hospitals and nursing homes.

None of this makes sense, of course, either from the perspective of sound fiscal policy or compassion. But this is what we are facing in the current debate over the state’s 2011-2013 budget. We can’t afford to invest in what works, so we will cut back and suffer the financial and human consequences.

Many people point to the results of the November ballot initiatives as “proof” we cannot raise revenue. But I don’t know any voters who approved of us having nearly 1 million Washingtonians without access to health care; of having 1 million Washingtonians on food stamps; 300,000 kids growing up without adequate nutrition; more than 200,000 people with mental illness – equivalent to the entire population of Spokane – lacking access to life-saving services.

The governor was right to say that her proposed all-cuts budget does not reflect basic human values. Indeed, there is no all-cuts budget today that is fiscally or morally sound.

We’ve heard a lot recently from elected officials about how in these times “there are no sacred cows” and “everything must be on the table.”

Our union agrees: Put everything on the table, including the hundreds of tax exemptions and loopholes that add up to $6.5 billion in foregone annual revenue.

Political leaders should scrutinize each one of these tax preferences and weigh their value against the programs that face cuts.

Tax breaks for out-of-state banks or health care for kids? Sales tax preferences for stockbrokers or community mental health care? Custom software tax loopholes or pre-natal care for pregnant women?

These are real choices we face as a state. And for the sake of fiscal responsibility and plain human decency, we need the Legislature to take the first step by putting these choices squarely before the public as they debate our state’s budget.

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Diane Sosne is president of SEIU Healthcare 1199 Northwest, Washington state’s largest health care union.

Another Rotten Trade Agreement

 

By Robby Stern

Kyung-Lan Kim, director of the External Relations & Outreach Department of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions recently paid a visit to Seattle, Ms. Kim discussed how the trade union movement in Korea is organizing to oppose the Korea/U.S. Free Trade Agreement otherwise known as KORUS FTA. 

Four years ago, significant elements of South Korea’s civic society came to Seattle and led a week of demonstrations against KORUS FTA.  Marching through Seattle’s streets were representatives of Korea’s labor movement, farmer organizations, students and other civic groups. On the last day of the protest, a delegation of Korean and U.S. activists submitted to nonviolent arrest to protest the negotiations that were proceeding behind closed doors. Among the U.S. protesters arrested were the newly elected President of the WA State Labor Council, Jeff Johnson, and myself. 

I was fortunate to be placed in a cell with five Korean activists who spoke eloquently of the harm the KORUS FTA will do to workers and farmers in South Korea.

The Bush administration was never able to push the KORUS FTA through. And candidate Barack Obama stated his opposition to the KORUS FTA. What a difference an election makes! The stalled talks were restarted in December despite the militant opposition of huge numbers representing civic society in South Korea.

KORUS, now supported by the two heads of state, is expected to go before Congress for an up or down vote next month.

This is the largest free trade agreement to be negotiated since NAFTA. We now know that NAFTA never came close to achieving what its advocates promised, i.e. an expansion of economic growth in Mexico, which would in turn lead to the creation of more jobs in the U.S. as Mexicans would be able to afford more U.S. exports. In fact, just the opposite has occurred. Mexican farmers have been driven off their land, Mexican workers are poorer than ever and the Mexican economy is in deep crisis. U.S. job loss as a result of NAFTA is indisputable -- and yet the drum beat for free trade agreements continues with the newest and biggest being the KORUS FTA.

In 2008, 700,000 South Koreans were in the streets of Seoul opposing KORUS FTA. The reasons why are clear. KORUS will create lower wage jobs in Korea and more “non-contracted” positions – that is, positions without benefits and job protections. The treaty will lower environmental and food safety standards, allowing local protections to be superseded. The treaty stresses the protection of capital benefits and investor benefits, even as it lowers worker benefits in South Korea. 

In the U.S., the Economic Policy Institute estimates that 159,000 jobs will be lost within seven years as a result of KORUS, and the same lowering of environmental and food safety standards will apply to the U.S., superseding local protections. The clear winners are U.S. investors and U.S. multinational corporations. 

Ms. Kim of the Korean labor federation stressed that the majority of South Koreans oppose the KORUS FTA, and that the minority parties in South Korea have come together to oppose approval.  The agreement will be bitterly debated when the South Korean Congress reconvenes in February. She stressed the need for an alliance between South Koreans and the treaty’s U.S. opponents. 

In September, 2010, the AFL.CIO and the Korean Federation of Trade Unions (KCTU) issued a Joint Labor Declaration announcing their united opposition to the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement as negotiated. The declaration states that the agreement privileges the rights of corporations over the rights of workers, consumers and the general public. The declaration cites the concern in the U.S. about the likely impact on our industrial base and technological sector. In Korea, there is a similar concern about weakening the nation’s industrial base and the agricultural sector. The Joint Labor Declaration also cites concerns with provisions in KORUS that limit governments from prudently regulating their financial sectors to avoid another economic crisis.

The Joint Labor Declaration ends by calling upon the two governments to “thoroughly review and renegotiate the KORUS FTA to ensure that it supports the creation of good jobs in both countries and to undertake the additional reforms needed to ensure that workers in both countries are afforded their fundamental labor rights…” 

The Agreement that will come before the U.S. Congress fails to meet the standards spelled out in the Joint Declaration. The KORUS FTA fails to protect workers, consumers and the public in both countries while it offers abundant protections to corporations, capital investment and the financial sector. 

As a member organization in the Washington Fair Trade Coalition, PSARA will make our voices heard when the KORUS FTA comes before Congress. We will also ask our individual members to contact our elected federal representatives. They need to hear from all of us that we do not want another rotten trade agreement.

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We are in a world of hurt.  Not since the 1920s has there been so grotesque a disparity in the distribution of wealth and income in the United States.

Bending the Arc - Together

By Jeff Johnson

Recently I was elected President of the Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO. As a trade unionist for 31 years and a member of the labor movement for even longer, it is both my honor and privilege to take on this job and to work with you for a stronger movement and a more just society. At the get-go, I also want to say that I am a proud member of PSARA, joining the first moment our dear friend Will Parry asked me.

One of my favorite quotes from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (paraphrasing a 19^th century preacher) is this:  “The moral arc of the universe is long but it bends towards justice.”  Of course Martin Luther King was referring, not to the physical laws of nature, but rather to the fact that social change occurs when the collective will and strength of the people “call the question” on those in power.  The labor movement has long worked at bending this arc.  I believe it has yet to play an even more important role.

Our power as workers comes from speaking with one voice. Workers have a stronger voice at work and in the legislature and Congress when our union density grows. While it is critical that we grow our union density, particularly in the private sector, it is at least as important to build our labor and community movement density.

Union density in Washington State in 2009 was 20.2% of the workforce,  fourth highest of all 50 states. This number does not include the 1,000 members of PSARA or the members of State Alliance for Retired Americans, the Pierce County ARA, or our local union retiree associations. Labor movement density rises when we add our retiree advocates to the numbers. And frankly, my experience with PSARA suggests that if we were measuring activism, and not just numerical density, each retiree activist ought to be counted two or three times.

But brothers and sisters, we are in a world of hurt. Not since the late 1920s has there been so grotesque a disparity in the distribution of income and wealth in the United States; in our state, poverty is at an all time high (one in four of our children lives in poverty); foreclosures are skyrocketing; and realistically when you include those who have given up looking for work because there is no work and those employed part time involuntarily, about 18% of our workforce is unemployed.

So we have hard work ahead. We have to organize more workers into unions, more retirees into the Alliance, and more community members into the movement. We need to set bold goals and then create realistic strategies for growing our labor/community movement density. I don’t think it is unreasonable to reach a density goal of 30% within the next 15 years.  

But to accomplish this we need to rebuild, and in some cases build for the first time, labor’s infrastructure. We need to identify, recruit and educate young people from the ranks of labor and the community to run for elected offices.  We need to develop sectoral organizing strategies, with a focus on “excluded workers.”

We need to drill down deep to reach into our rank and file with real news, analysis, and proposals.  We need to create a significant worker education center that provides leadership training for our labor and community members.  We need to strengthen our work with community groups and in particular with immigrant worker communities.  

And we need to rebuild an infrastructure for labor and community culture.  What’s wrong with having a little social life while we work? 

We can’t do this work without the support and activism of our retirees. You bring to the table an invaluable perspective, a sense of history, and a wealth of real-world experience. We need to work with you to recruit more members into PSARA and the Alliance and to find significant funding for your operations.

We need to create opportunities for you to mentor our youth as we work together to create a stronger and more just society. And finally we need you to help us develop our common strategy for organizing in the wider community for a shared sense of values and purpose.

The Washington State Labor Council and I look forward to working closely with you in 2011 and beyond.

Let us “bend the arc” together.

One Billion People on the Move

Take the pledge:  Drop the “I” word!

By Pramila Jayapal

December 18 marked the tenth anniversary of International Migrants Day and the 20th anniversary of the passage of the U.N. Convention to Protect Migrant Workers. Today nearly one billion people are on the move across the world, and they are increasingly the target of hatred and violence. That’s why I am celebrating International Migrants Day by signing the pledge to respect immigrants everywhere by dropping the i-word and demanding that the media do the same.

Politicians and media alike use the word “illegal” to describe human beings without immigration status, sometimes shortening “illegal immigrant” to “illegals.”  This may seem trivial to some, but the language of criminality plays an enormous part in moving people along the continuum from language to violent behavior. Calling people “illegal,” describing them in ways that make them less them human, recasts them as members of an undeserving sub-class owed less respect than that accorded “regular” human beings.

Up to and during World War II, language was a powerful factor in moving an ideological and genocidal agenda. The language of elimination of an entire race—described as the “final solution”—was used frequently and without apology.  In the decades following the Holocaust, this kind of language was widely condemned.  Even today, we see genocidal language directed at migrants worldwide. 

In the United States, anti-immigrant extremists have painted a picture of all-out warfare that threatens the very idea of nationhood. Conservative commentator Pat Buchanan branded the influx of undocumented immigrants into the U.S. “an invasion, the greatest invasion in history … the last scene is the deconstruction of the nations.”

The leap from fear-mongering to vigilantism or state-sponsored violence is surprisingly short.  War imagery ups the ante.  After all, if this is really war, we must protect “our own.” 

Across the world, violence against immigrants is on the rise.  Amnesty International reports that the Libyan government has been torturing undocumented African migrants through electric shock and beating, even shooting at fishing boats because they may have held “illegal immigrants.”

In Sweden, where the far right, anti-immigrant party won a place in Parliament for the first time, police arrested a man suspected of killing one person and wounding eight.  Nearly all were immigrants.

Our own FBI has documented a dramatic increase in reported hate crimes against Latinos, from 595 in 2003 to 888 in 2007. Along the U.S.-Mexico border, armed vigilante groups are on the rise. The New York Times reports on deaths in detention centers due to callous disregard for medical needs of immigrant detainees.

The most extreme proponents of dehumanizing immigrants have been legitimized by the media and politicians as representing the “other side” of the immigration debate.  The Anti-Defamation League, the Southern Poverty Law Center and Media Matters have repeatedly called out their connections to racist and xenophobic ideologies.   Yet groups such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform are routinely called on to testify in Congress or to comment for news stories. Their racism skews the bounds of reasonable discourse about immigrants—and as a result sets extreme new bounds for “reasonable” policy. 

As economic insecurity heightens, Americans and Europeans who would otherwise support rational and human polices on migration are drawn into fear. It becomes socially acceptable, and even personally necessary, to scapegoat or become violent towards someone else—namely, immigrants.

In this polarized environment, some policy makers have fueled the frenzy by embracing restrictionist policies that further criminalize immigrants. Fringe political parties across the world have exploited xenophobic fears and the fragile economy to come into power for the first time.

In Europe, reports The Guardian, these fringe parties “are now in the position of propping up governments.”  Anti-Muslim views have gained ground.  State-sponsored policies that ban core practices of Islam (burkhas in France; minarets in Switzerland) are increasingly common.  In the U.S., politicians with extreme anti-immigrant views, now in positions of power in Congress, are expected to introduce a spate of regressive legislation, including an attempt to amend the Constitution’s birthright-citizenship clause.

Some are pushing back.  Pope Benedict XVI, reacting to the riots in 2010 in Southern Italy in which African immigrants were attacked, reminded people that, “An immigrant is a human being, different in background, culture and tradition, but a person to be respected, and possessing rights and duties. Violence must never be a way to resolve differences.” 

We need to take the hate out of the debate. It’s time to stop using racist, fear-mongering language that promotes and even condones violence. We need space for a rational and humane discussion leading to migration and immigration policies that support the economic and moral need for managed flows of people.

Join me in taking a simple but significant stand for humanity. Take the pledge: Drop the I-Word.  For more information, go to http://colorlines.com/droptheiword/

(Pramila Jayapal is Executive Director of One America and a PSARA member.)