People Before Profit blog

Prescription drugs under Medicare

Thu, 17 Apr 2003 09:07:00 +0000

For seniors, Medicare reform means getting a comprehensive drug benefit under traditional Medicare that is affordable and stable in price. They like preventive benefits and favor reforms that maintain Medicare as a program in which everyone contributes and everyone gets the same guaranteed benefits.

The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare supports a prescription drug benefit that is universal, comprehensive, affordable, guaranteed to all regardless of income or health status and offered as a standard benefit under Medicare. And, most importantly, we are committed to preserving the social insurance nature of Medicare.

Seniors who are spending an average of $200 a month on prescriptions need the assurance of meaningful prescription drug coverage. Yet the administration’s Medicare proposal would not give seniors this assurance. Instead, it uses the promise of prescription drug coverage for some to restructure Medicare and eventually undermine its social insurance principle – the same principle that now assures all seniors a defined set of benefits and should guarantee all seniors a defined prescription drug benefit.

We recognize that the country faces a deficit and fiscal constraints, just as we all recognize that the administration’s suggestion of spending $400 billion over 10 years for Medicare, including drug coverage, covers only a fraction of the $1.8 trillion that seniors will be spending on drugs over the next decade.

Can private insurance models provide these seniors the affordable, predictable and reliable health coverage they need? Let’s examine the scenario. Beneficiaries in different plans would have different benefits and costs. Those costs and benefits could dramatically change every year, as they have in managed care plans during the past five years. If premiums and costs increased, poorer and sicker beneficiaries might not be able to afford the same coverage as others. So far, evidence does not indicate that private insurance can promise seniors that premiums would not fluctuate substantially from year to year.

There is an underlying assumption operating in a number of Medicare proposals that private plans give better care. Certainly this assumption is present in the administration’s plan, which creates a new category of private Medicare insurance plans and uses private plans to deliver prescription drug coverage.

The shortcomings of private plans are well documented, from the earliest unsuccessful Medicare-risk HMO demonstration projects to today’s uncertain Medicare+Choice. Since the enactment of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 that created Medicare+Choice, managed care plans have dropped more than 2.4 million seniors, many of whom enrolled for the drug coverage the plans provided. When plans drop seniors, there often is not another Medicare managed care plan in the area, especially in a rural setting.

Medicare+Choice premiums have increased by 37 percent, compared to an 8 percent increase in Medicare Part B premiums. For example, one of our members, Lucille Bryson, joined a Medicare+Choice program five years ago, paying $19.98 a month. Over the next three years, her premiums increased to $80 a month and she says that her benefits are now being cut. Sadly, Mrs. Bryson is not unique.

HMOs have spent, on average, between 10 and 15 percent of their revenue on administrative costs compared to Medicare’s 2 percent. The dramatic increase in premiums and administrative costs are further evidence that the private sector does not have the track record to support the assertion that it can provide seniors adequate prescription drug coverage for a reasonable cost.

Managed care plans continue to ask Congress for more money to run the Medicare+Choice programs and threaten to refuse to cover seniors. When Congress did increase payments by $1 billion to plans in 2000, more than 544,000 beneficiaries still lost coverage

This information gains significance when considering whether to divert prescription drug coverage to private plans and funnel beneficiaries to private Medicare plans. Such plans, if modeled after Medicare+Choice, would perform in a manner similar to that of managed care, resulting in a policy of offering Medicare beneficiaries low-cost, low-coverage plans that attract younger, healthier seniors, leaving the sickest and oldest unable to afford the more generous plans.

Excerpted from the Congressional testimony of Barbara B. Kennely, president of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare (www.ncpssm.org)

National Clips

Thu, 17 Apr 2003 06:34:00 +0000

WASHINGTON, DC: ‘Bring the troops home, now’

As the peace movement debates its next steps toward curbing Bush administration militarism and deepening national unity for peace, demonstrations continued. On April 12, 30,000 marched in the nation’s capital demanding that the bloodshed end and that U.S. troops be brought home, immediately.

Many marchers changed their signs to read, “Stop the Iraq/Syria War.”

Nicole Dunckel, 21, of Michigan, spent all night on a bus to carry her sign – “The ends do not justify the means.” She said that she supports an international effort, not the U.S. alone, to rebuild Iraq.

SAN FRANCISCO: Halt first strike

Over 6,000 people marched through downtown keeping up the pressure to change Bush’s first strike foreign policy.

“I believe in capitalism, but what’s going on now is the corporate invasion of Iraq,” said marcher Tim Renstrom, 44, who trains foreign currency traders. “But all these marches aren’t going to do anything unless people get out and vote.”

Sushawn Robb, 47, another marcher, urged the peace movement to build and organize because Bush will not stop in Iraq. “We have a long way to go,” she said. “It’s been encouraging but the harder part comes now. War is more black and white than changing U.S. foreign policy.”

SARASOTA, Fla.: Peace activists sit in at Harris Office

The local office of Rep. Katherine Harris (R-Fla.), of 2000 election fame, was the site of a sit-in by 12 peace activists, April 11. Police were not called during the four-hour sit-in.

Harris did call her Florida office to speak to her constituents but refused to cast her vote in Congress against funding for the Iraq war.

As they left the Federal Building, one of the activists, Trudy Pratt, 58, a retired travel agency owner told reporters, “We’ve tried to get our voices heard so many times, in peaceful actions across the country. We’re being ignored.”

PHILADELPHIA, Pa.: Doctor sues for racial profiling

In August 2002, Dr. Bob Rajoomer, a resident of Palm Beach, Fla. of Indian descent, was taken off a plane in Philadelphia in handcuffs. Rajoomer, a retired Lt. Col. in the Army Reserve, filed a civil rights lawsuit charging U.S. Air Marshals with racial profiling.

“We don’t like the way you look,” a marshal told Rajoomer as he was handcuffed.

On a flight from Atlanta to Philadelphia, a passenger became unruly and federal air marshals took control of the passenger section of the plane. They pulled their guns, ordered all not to move and kept passengers in their sights for a half an hour.

When the plane landed, passengers were allowed to leave including Rajoomer and his wife. As he rose, an air marshal clapped on the handcuffs and led Dr. Rajoomer to a cell. He was detained in isolation, unable to contact his wife for hours, while his luggage was searched. “This is a clear cut case of racial profiling,” American Civil Liberties Union attorney, Stefan Presser, who is representing Dr. Rajoomer, said.

The suit asks for an apology, monetary damages and improved training for air marshals.

FORT WORTH, Texas: Machinists shut down Lockheed Martin

Increased wages and improved health care for their families were on the minds of 4,000 machinists, members of the International Association of Machinists (IAM) District Lodge 776, when they set up their picket lines around the Lockheed Martin complex, April 14.

Machinists, highly skilled tool makers for the 15,000-worker fighter jet factory, voted 2,835 to 426 to reject the company’s last offer. Then they voted 2,380 to 432 to strike.

The union is fighting for raises of 8 percent in the first year and 6 percent in the following two years to help workers pay for skyrocketing health care and drug co-payments. Workers are also demanding a pension increase with the formula of $70 per month of service.

Lockheed Martin declared a profit of $218 million in the first quarter of 2003, a soaring increase of 56 percent compared to the same period in 2002.

“We have foregone a lot of raises over the last few contracts because our company had not been in a good position,” said IAM picket captain Mark Hill. “But this year we absolutely are in a different position – there are record profits at Lockheed Martin. We are asking for a fair contract.”

RALEIGH (County), W.V.: Coal Miner’s daughter fights Massey Energy

Six years ago Julia Bonds’ grandson called her to a nearby stream and asked why all the fish had died. That was it for the grandmother. She had had enough of the blackwater spills, mountaintop blasting and overweight coal trucks. She forged a coalition with the United Mine Workers of America, environmental groups and her neighbors, organizing the Coal River Mountain Watch.

Bonds leads a movement that stopped Massey Energy, the nation’s fifth largest coal operator, from blasting off the tops of mountains, described as “strip mining on steroids” along Coal River, a rich coal seam in southern West Virginia.

She was awarded the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, called the Nobel Prize for the Environment. In addition to a bully pulpit to help organize to save the environment, the prize brings a $125,000 no strings attached cash award.

Bonds plans to pay for her grandson’s braces, pay off her house, help buy her daughter a car and devote $50,000 to the coalition.

In battles with Massey Energy, Bonds routinely receives threatening phone calls, faces armed coal company security guards and constant harassment.

Bonds is galvanizing grassroots support to overturn a decision by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals which ruled in favor of a motion brought by the Bush Administration to allow mountaintop blasting. That ruling was issued within days of Bush taking office.

“When powerful people pursue profits at the expense of human rights and our environment, they have failed as leaders,” Bonds said. “Responsible citizens must step forward, not just to point the way, but to lead the way to a better world.”

National Clips are compiled by Denise Winebrenner Edwards (dwinebr696@aol.com)

LA City Council: Let immigrants drive

Thu, 17 Apr 2003 06:06:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES – State legislation that would allow undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses won the support of the Los Angeles City Council recently and passed through the state Senate Transportation Committee April 2. The latter is the first step in an effort to revive a bill that has become a litmus test for Governor Gray Davis (D) in the Latino community.

State Senator Gilbert Cedillo, who authored the legislation, has made the fight to pass this bill one of his top priorities. Cedillo sees SB-60 as a matter of justice for undocumented immigrants and safety for all Californians. His office estimates that over two million immigrants are driving in the state without a license or insurance.

“Given that 22 million people take to the highways every day, we’d all be safer as Californians if one out of 10 of them were allowed to get tested, get licensed and get insured,” Cedillo told the media.

Davis has vetoed similar bills twice, claiming that he is concerned about security in the aftermath of Sept. 11. He called for criminal background checks and other “security” measures. This affected the vote of the Latino community for the governor last November, which was lower for Davis than it had been in the past election.

Cedillo has won an even broader coalition of support for his bill than in the past, including the California Federation of Labor, which has made passage of the bill one of its top priorities.

Members of the Los Angeles City Council voted to support the bill by a vote of 11 to 0. Mayor James Hahn; Cardinal Roger Mahony, head of the Los Angeles Catholic Archdiocese; and City Councilman Bernard Parks, former chief of police, have been solid supporters of the effort.

In 1994, the California State Legislature passed a law that would require California residents to provide a valid social security number and prove their legal status in the United States. Many organizations, including the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) and the Coalition for Humane Immigrants Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), strongly criticize the measure saying those strict requirements have prevented thousands of immigrants from obtaining driver’s licenses and obstructed the ability of working families to make a living, care for their families, and contribute economically to the state.

Cedillo’s bill would allow people to swear that they do not have a Social Security number and instead provide a federal taxpayer ID number. A broader range of immigrants has access to the latter.

While it is expected that the bill will be passed by the legislature, the big question is whether the Governor will sign the bill. While a handful of Republicans in the legislature voted for the bill in the last session, none have indicated support this year.

The author can be reached at evnalarcon@aol.com

Communist Party to hold conference on health care

Thu, 17 Apr 2003 05:59:00 +0000

In an effort to help mobilize and organize its members for action, the Communist Party is calling an emergency national conference, “The Crisis in Healthcare and the Fightback,” set for New York City on May 17 and 18.

A recent meeting in Chicago of its National Board noted that the health care crisis “is hitting the working class and the American people like a tornado,” and that health care is a life and death disaster for growing millions.

In making the proposal to hold the conference, Scott Marshall, chair of the Communist Party’s Labor Commission said, “Virtually every major union contract becomes a fight over health care. New thousands of workers in manufacturing and their families are losing all coverage. African American, Latino and other oppressed minorities, as well as women and children, are especially hard hit. We have to do something. In today’s world it’s much like the fight for unemployment compensation and Social Security in the Great Depression.”

Universal, comprehensive, health care is seen world wide as a basic human right. The war in Iraq and the worsening economy are eating up vital resources that are needed to provide for all. “More than 43 million people in this country have no coverage at all. Meanwhile the insurance and pharmaceutical companies are making astronomical profits while seniors can’t get a basic prescription drug benefit,” Marshall said.

The conference aims to broaden and deepen its efforts to help build fightback coalitions on healthcare issues. The conference will explore emergency action initiatives as well as building support for legislation like The United States National Health Insurance Act (HR 676), authored by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.).

Conference organizers are excited by the response from other healthcare activists and coalitions who are interested in participating in the conference. For more information contact: CPUSA, 235 W. 23rd Street, New York, NY, 10011. Phone: (212) 989-4994, or e-mail: cpusa@cpusa.org

National Clips

Fri, 11 Apr 2003 07:11:00 +0000

NATIONWIDE: Struggle for peace continues

With U.S. bombs falling on Iraq, the list of municipalities and counties enacting peace resolutions continues to grow. After March 20, the first day of the Bush war, Orange County, North Carolina, home to the University of North Carolina, and Isle au Haut, Maine, a small island off the coast, both called on the government to bring the troops home and place the reconstruction of Iraq under United Nations control.

As of April 8, 163 counties, cities and municipalities have taken official action for peace. Over 50 high school and college student councils have said “Books Not Bombs” including the University of Texas, the largest university in Bush’s home state. Student councils at the Universities of Iowa, Michigan, Ohio (both OSU and OU), Illinois, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and UCLA have voted for peace. Students at Yorktown High School in Arlington, Virginia added their voices, officially.

ALBANY, N.Y.: 40,000 workers say: Patient care, not cuts

Mayor Gerald Jennings looked out his window recently and saw 40,000 angry health care workers in the streets demanding that the state budget be balanced by taxing the corporations and super rich, not cutting live or death health care. He said it was the largest political demonstration in the city’s history.

Workers marched on the state Capitol behind banners of their union, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1199, New York City, and flags from the Greater New York Hospital Association and the League of Voluntary Hospitals. Their message to Republican Governor George Paktaki was clear: We care about our patients; we work to feed our families; tax the rich to plug the $2 billion hole in the state budget.

The coalition of health care workers and hospitals is proposing that the state place a 0.7 percent surcharge on incomes over $100,000. and closing tax loopholes. Their plan would restore vital health care services to thousands of working families.

“This many people? I’m not surprised,” said Diane Hinsch, a New York City nurse. “I’m glad, but not surprised. People are very upset with the governor. They know he doesn’t care about the people, about their health care.”

There were actually two rallies that preceded the march. When 25,000 workers jammed the Pepsi Arena, the legal limit, another 15,000 had their own rally in the parking lots surrounding the arena. When the rallies ended, workers lined up to deliver their case directly to the governor.

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn.: Civil liberties victories

The Minneapolis City Council overwhelmingly agreed April 4 not to use city resources to enforce some homeland security measures enacted after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The resolution, which passed 11 to 2, contends that the USA PATRIOT Act threatens constitutionally guaranteed rights and liberties. The resolution said the law gave the FBI broad access to sensitive medical, mental health, financial and library records. City resources, personnel and administrative or law enforcement funds cannot be used “to advance such unconstitutional activities,” the resolution said.

Another victory came when the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled in favor the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) striking down a Department of Public Safety requirement that the expiration of visas be noted on the driver’s licenses of non-citizens.

ADC and the Minnesota Civil Liberties Union, Jewish Community Action, Somali Justice Advocacy Center, Somali Community of Minnesota, National Lawyers Guild and others argued that differentiating the drivers’ licenses of citizens and non-citizens was unconstitutional. The Appeals Court agreed citing the 14th Amendment adding that a driver’s license shows that a person is a qualified driver and was never intended to show their immigration status.

SAN ANTONIO, Texas: Honoring Chavez

Four to five thousand people participated in the seventh annual march celebrating the birthday of Cesar Chavez, on March 29. The event, one of the largest in the country, was marked by the enthusiastic participation of various labor unions, who came out to celebrate the life and work of the late Chicano labor leader.

The Service Employees International Union took advantage of the gathering to announce their campaign to fight for a contract that would raise the salaries of their members to the equivalent of state public workers.

Many of the march’s participants held up anti-war signs like “Send us to school, not to war.” Many speakers such as Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers, Patti Radle, 5th district city council candidate, and Gabe Quintanilla, president of the Bexar County Democratic Party, reminded the crowd of the Cesar Chavez philosophy of non-violence.

PHILADELPHIA, Pa.: War protests

More than 2,000 rallied and marched in pouring rain on March 30 in opposition to the war in Iraq. One protestor carrying a sign that read “I love my marine but I fear my government,” told the press, “My husband is over there. This is not what he signed up for – he signed up to defend the Constitution.”

The next day more than three hundred protestors gathered across from the Philadelphia Coast Guard building where George W. Bush spoke about homeland security.

One demonstrator commented that what it cost in security and transportation to bring Bush for a 20 minute speech could fund all the cutbacks to the Philadelphia libraries.

Roberto Botello, Dan Margolis, Erwin Marquit and Rookie Perna contributed to this week’s clips. Denise Winebrenner

Edwards compiles national clips and can be reached at dwinebr696@aol.com

Child advocates to Bush: Stop war on kids

Fri, 11 Apr 2003 01:55:00 +0000

WASHINGTON – More than 2,500 Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) delegates gathered here April 8-11 to fight Bush administration cutbacks in food stamps, Medicaid, and education and to demand that Congress enact the Dodd-Miller “Leave No Child Behind Act.”

“This is the most dangerous time our children have faced since the Children’s Defense Fund Action Council began 30 years ago,” said CDF President Marian Wright Edelman. “As our nation wages a war against Iraq and is anxiously preoccupied with terrorism in our post Sept. 11 nation and world, the Bush administration is waging a radical budget war on children at home.”

She blasted Bush’s proposals to dismantle Head Start and turn Medicaid, foster care and Section 8 low-income housing into block grant programs. She also assailed administration plans to cut 570,000 children from after school programs and 500,000 from child care assistance over five years “while requiring more mothers to leave welfare and to work more hours.”

Edelman assailed Bush schemes to substitute faith-based charity for federal safety net programs that benefit poor children. “Charity is not a substitute for justice,” she said. “Charity can be taken away at any time by the giver.” Introducing a panel of experts on the global crisis facing the millions of children in poverty, she declared, “We must develop a world perspective. No person can live alone. No nation can live alone. The more we try, the more wars we will have. We will all perish as fools. … We are a superpower with millionaires and billionaires. We must become the moral superpower. … We have squandered $12 trillion on weapons of death. If we had invested that money in our children what a world we would have!”

She urged the crowd to demand that lawmakers “vote yes to investing in children and vote no to huge, irresponsible tax cuts for millionaires.”

She urged a grassroots effort to enlist co-sponsors for the “Leave No Child Behind Act” not to be confused, she said, with Bush’s under-funded “No Child Left Behind” Act. Authored by Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) and Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) “Leave No Child Behind” would lift all children out of poverty by 2010, ensure every child and their parents health protection under Medicare and decent affordable housing, while expanding food stamps to eliminate child hunger. It would increase federal aid to education to insure that every child can read by fourth grade.

Olara Otunnu, a UN representative for “Children and Armed Conflict,” told the conference that Iraqi children are now at grave risk. “It is a war crime to attack a school or a hospital,” he said, as the crowd erupted in applause, clearly an allusion to the bombing in Baghdad of a maternity ward by U.S. missiles “After the guns fall silent, war is not over for children,” he continued. “Therefore insuring healing, reconstruction, should be central. It could not be more true than in Iraq.” He decried the “deliberate targeting of civilian populations.”

Sandra Thurman, International AIDS Trust president, said children are among the hardest hit by the AIDS pandemic. With much fanfare, Bush announced he would seek $15 billion over ten years to fight the disease that has already killed more than 25 million, she noted. “But so far, it is only a promise. Bush just asked Congress for $75 billion for the war in Iraq. Surely with tens of millions of lives in the balance, the battle against AIDS deserves no less.”

Cindy Stovall, director of the Family Support Program in Springfield, Mass., told the World, “The people I work with are directly affected by these cuts. Children are falling through the cracks. The school breakfast program has been cut so our children come to school hungry and we can’t feed them.”

Veronica Morgan-Price, a retired juvenile court judge in Houston, assailed the disproportionate numbers of young African-American men imprisoned across the nation. “There is inequality in incarcerations, inequality in sentencing, inequality in legal representation,” she said. The struggle, she said, begins with childhood, preventing youth from falling into the criminal justice system.

Andrew Betita, a student at California Institute of Polytechnics in Pomona, told the World, “Our tax dollars are being funneled into the military. That money is being taken away from children. In any war, the biggest victims are innocent women and children.”

UCLA student Kelly Wynn added, “Children all over the world are suffering. Right here in D.C. we have homeless children. So many domestic problems are being ignored while this war is raging.”

The author can be reached at greenerpastures21212@aol.com

PDF version of 'Child advocates to Bush: Stop war on kids'

Get insurance biz out of health care

Thu, 10 Apr 2003 09:11:00 +0000

In February Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) introduced HR-676, the United States National Health Insurance Act (NHIA), which would establish a national single-payer health care system. Conyers said his bill will free our nation “from having to put up with the outrageous costs that keep millions of Americans from receiving medical care and needed medications.” Reps. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and Julia Carson (D-Ind.) are among its 26 co-sponsors.

HR-676 would be funded by an estimated 4.75 percent payroll tax that would replace employer contributions to present health insurance plans. It provides all medically necessary health care services to all residents and has no co-payments and no deductibles. The NHIA would operate on the principles of Medicare: government financing, with the care delivered by physicians and other providers of the patient’s choosing. Insurance companies would be barred from selling health insurance.

Most independent studies have shown that the elimination of existing administrative waste in the system would free up more than enough money to pay for coverage of the uninsured and truly comprehensive benefits for all. According to Dr. Don McCanne, president of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), “A single-payer system, funded at our current level of spending, would provide high quality, comprehensive, affordable health care for everyone. But we can achieve this only if we throw out the wasteful, ineffective middlemen – the health plans – and spend the money on patients instead.”

PNHP says the federal government spends $2,600 per person/year on health care through Medicare, Medicaid, public health and tax exclusions for employers who provide workers’ coverage.

In drafting the legislation, Conyers consulted with several eminent healthcare professionals, including Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, and two former presidents of the American College of Physicians, including two former U.S. Surgeons General. Some 4,000 physicians have endorsed the legislation.

According to Rep. Kucinich, a candidate for the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party, government expenditures account for 60 percent of total U.S. health care costs. “Our citizens re so close to paying for a universal health care system, but so far from getting it,” he said.

Introduction of HR-676 coincides with a growing recognition that the nation’s health care system – if you can call it a “system” – faces a meltdown. According to the United Auto Workers (UAW), as many as six million people are likely to be added to the ranks of the uninsured this year as states cut Medicaid reimbursement and federal budget increases for Medicare continue to lag behind inflation. Thousands of retired steelworkers and many other workers who once knew excellent health benefits are losing employer-paid coverage. More thousands lose their coverage when their plant closes. Coverage is shrinking, as more employers decide to cap their contributions to health insurance and workers find they cannot pay additional co-pays. Private health insurance premiums are rising at the rate of 13 percent per year – and as much as 25 percent in some areas, making it impossible for many families to pay for any health insurance, let alone adequate insurance. Increased unemployment brings with it an increase in the number of uninsured.

As Angell said, the system cannot be tinkered with; it needs to be changed. She added that disparities in income, material possession or social privilege “should not extend to denying some essential services” to people because of their income.

Ron Gettlefinger, president of the United Auto Workers, was even more direct when he recently put automakers on notice that they cannot stop rising health care costs by shifting the burden to workers and retirees. “You can’t fix the health care crisis in America at any one bargaining table with any one employer or with any one industry,” Gettlefinger told the Detroit Economic Club. “We need a universal, comprehensive single-payer health care program to cover every man, woman and child in the United States.”

For more information, contact Joel Segal, legislative assistant to Rep. Conyers, at (202) 225-5126, or e-mail at Joel.Segal@mail.house.gov.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

Cuts hit Michigan kids

Thu, 10 Apr 2003 09:02:00 +0000

Michigan’s poor are having an increasingly hard time making ends meet according to a recently completed study and numerous social service organizations throughout the state. According to the 2003 Market Basket Survey (which measures the buying power of the poor) cash assistance and food stamps, which make up all of what the poor receive, cover only 5 percent of the income needed to pay for food, clothing, and housing. One year ago public assistance provided 60 percent.

“That’s a very dramatic drop, one I haven’t seen in the seven or eight years that we’ve been doing this.” stated Ellen Speckman-Randall, executive directer of the Michigan County Social Services Association, which conducted the annual survey. According to a Muskegon Chronicle article on the subject the survey showed that “ a family of three would qualify for $9,830 a year in government cash assistance, food stamps and a back-to-school clothing allowance. That same family would spend an average of $18,137 in rent, utilities, transportation, food, and clothing.”

Cash assistance grants have not increased for ten years under conservative Republican Gov. John Engler and now, with a new governor, Jennifer Granholm, improvement is unlikely because of the state’s projected $1.7 billion deficit.

Child and Family Associates sees an urgency in the public need particularly for children. One suggestion is an added one cent tax on each can of beer to generate $20 million, the money to be used to increase the back-to-school clothing allowance from $25 to $100. Much more than just this is needed to ensure the well-being of poor children.

Michigan’s Republican-controlled legislature cut the clothing allowance from $75 to $25 to assist the Republican tax cuts for the rich. Another aspect to this plan was that lawmakers cut eligibility, limiting it to children four years and older who are on public assistance. This cut off infants and toddlers who were eligible before. It has been noted that this past winter many children have had to go to school without coats, without boots, without hats.

On a wider scale prominent West Michigan Social Activist and advocate for the poor, Father Jack LaGoe, said, “A nation willing to put itself into a debt of $400 billion a year, for the foreseeable future, asking only the poor and lower middle class to pay for it has lost it’s vision and any hope of peace.”

The author can be reached at brimac6@hotmail.com

Tax attacks

Thu, 10 Apr 2003 08:48:00 +0000

April 15, the deadline for filing federal income tax returns, has arrived again. Where do your income tax dollars go? According to the National Priorities Project, the largest share – 26 cents of every dollar – went to military and defense spending in 2002. Since then, the military budget has increased, and Congress is in the process of approving the first $75-$80 billion for the Iraq war.

It is likely that true military spending will exceed $500 billion this year – one-third of your income tax dollar. If we add in the cost of past wars – veterans’ benefits and the military portion of interest on the national debt – between 40 and 50 cents of your income tax dollar is going to war.

By way of contrast, education gets three cents, nutrition (including food stamps) gets less than three cents, and housing and natural resources each get less than two cents.

The president asked for and received nearly $75 billion for the first installment of the war. He didn’t ask for anything to provide relief for states and communities which are laying off teachers, cutting kids’ health coverage, closing museums, leaving potholes unfilled, and raising taxes. The amount needed to balance state budgets this year? About $75 billion. It’s not coming from Washington, so it is coming out of our hides instead.

In past wars, there has been at least a pretense that sacrifice would be shared. During World War II, the top income tax rate for the very rich went as high as 94 percent. In the Vietnam War, a 10 percent surcharge was added to all income taxes, although in practice, the rich escaped any meaningful tax increase and the whole burden fell on the working class.

But nothing in the past can quite match the brazen robbery being committed now. The House majority leader, Tom DeLay, arguing for the Bush administration’s $726 billion 10-year tax cut said, “Nothing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes.”

He’s not talking about cutting your taxes. Even The New York Times calls it an “upper-bracket tax cut,” a tax break “for the well-to-do.” Citizens for Tax Justice calls it a “big fat zero,” for a third of the nation’s taxpayers; they calculate that rich taxpayers will get more than $30,000 from the Bush plan, while a middle-income family will see less than $300. That $300 won’t go very far in the face of soaring state and local taxes and fees.

The Republicans are not against sacrifice – for the working class. Senator Ted Stevens, for example, called on New York City’s cops and firefighters to work overtime without pay as a wartime sacrifice, according to the New York Post.

And that is only the beginning of the sacrifices to be imposed on the working class. The Times reported on April 3 that the Republicans offer a “bleak budget outlook for a decade of red ink and depressed government programs ... the most vital services in education, health and welfare are certain to be crimped and hacked by hundreds of billions of dollars.” Mass outrage made it hard for DeLay to force the administration’s measure through the House. And a handful of Senate Republicans joined Democrats to cut by half Bush’s gift to the wealthy.

Organizing against unfair taxes can certainly be effective – the American Revolution was provoked, in no small measure, by taxes on Americans to pay the cost of King George’s military adventures. Sound familiar? Right wing ideologues take advantage of “Tax Day” and “Tax Freedom Day” to manipulate working people’s justified outrage. The National Taxpayers Union, for example, uses tax increases as an excuse to attack all government spending. They ignore the difference between taxes paid by workers and those paid by the wealthy. And they use examples of government waste – a relatively small part of the budget – to demand deep cuts in the entire budget.

We can all applaud when a news commentator tells us we’re paying too much in taxes. But if the solution does not include two magic phrases – “tax the rich” and “cut military spending” – the commentator is selling snake oil.

The author can be reached at arthur.perlo@pobox.com

EEOC could shut down

Thu, 10 Apr 2003 08:41:00 +0000

Approximately 10,000 private-sector charges and 1,200 federal-sector hearing cases will not be resolved this fiscal year if an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) furlough isn’t averted, according to EEOC Chair Cari M. Dominquez.

The EEOC may have to shut its doors for 16 to 19 days if an $18.3 million budget gap isn’t filled, according to a letter written by Dominguez that was sent on March 4 to members of Congress. With significant increases in their case inventory, it is expected the EEOC will be forced to indefinitely postpone plans to direct agency resources toward an expanded proactive prevention program, which was to include initiatives to forge strategic alliances with the business community, the letter said.

The EEOC’s current budget appropriation of $308 million, along with the across-the-board cutback of less than 1 percent to all federal agencies, has resulted in the $18.3 million budget shortfall. “If we don’t get the additional funds, the worst-case scenario would be the staff would have to be furloughed,” said EEOC spokesperson David Grinberg.

Part of what the EEOC’s mission has been, under Dominguez, is to eradicate employment discrimination through strategic alliances with the business community. If this furlough is to take form, it could have a devastating impact on such an alliance.

The EEOC is charged with enforcing Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, prohibiting workplace discrimination based on race, color, religion, gender or national origin. It also protects employees age 40 and older and enforces the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Excerpted from DiversityInc.com

National Clips

Fri, 04 Apr 2003 03:34:00 +0000

AROUND THE COUNTRY –

In the first 12 days of war, vigils, teach-ins, conferences, art and music events, public prayer meetings and protests continued in cities, towns, and neighborhoods in the heartland and on the coasts. Residents of Ogden, Utah; Shepardstown, W.V.; Naples, Fla.; Oak Ridge, Tenn.; Ruidoso, N.M.; Seattle, Wash.; Baton Rouge, La.; Martinsville, N.J.; Louisville, Ky., and Youngstown, Ohio, demonstrated their demand for peace, often amid pro-war rallies and provocations organized by corporate radio stations, including Clear Channel.

ST. LOUIS, Mo. – Midwest says no to Bush first-strike policy

In the city’s largest peace demonstration since the war began, over 2,500 jammed into Forest Park, March 30, funneling in from nine separate college, religious and neighborhood-based peace marches. Rallying beneath the flags of 37 countries whose governments oppose the Bush administration first-strike policy and invasion of Iraq, marchers carried signs condemning the president.

Hundreds of children, elementary and high school students, formed the core of the rally with a colorful display of hand made peace signs. Ringing them, adults held banners saying, “Pro-life? Stop bombing children.”

“I feel the world just isn’t the same when it isn’t in peace,” said Kreian Connelly, 8, who attended with his parents. “There’s a lot of innocent people, probably just my age, who are over in Iraq becoming victims of war.”

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. –Killing is not liberation

Carol Bruner, 52, and Adria Fernandez, 21, joined 1,000 of their neighbors winding their way through city streets March 29 chanting, “You can’t kill Iraqis to liberate them.”

“He’s (Bush) killing innocent people – innocent people – and that’s not OK,” said Bruner, a computer specialist. “He’s killed a lot more than Hussein.”

PHILADELPHIA, Pa. –Bush speech draws hundreds in protest

It was a photo-op for President Bush to announce additional federal funding under Homeland Security for the Coast Guard, but hundreds, cordoned off by fencing and police, showed up Monday to condemn his war on Iraq.

Marine Vietnam veteran, Cesar Alvarez-Moreno, 51, told reporters, “I’ve heard all this before. We believed all this before. We got there (Vietnam) and found those people hated our guts.”

PITTSBURGH, Pa. –March for peace gets maced

Hundreds stopped traffic in the city’s East End neighborhood March 30, raising their voices, banners and candles for peace. They were surrounded by cops from five different departments, including Pittsburgh.

Marchers stepped off from Frick Park determined to win hearts and minds and they were successful. Motorists, stopped because of the march, honked, flashed the ‘V’ peace sign, held up children to see and patiently waited for the demonstration to end. There was no road rage despite the major artery being the only access to the Parkway surrounding the city.

Despite the snow, residents came out onto their porches cheering the march, applauding and offering coffee.

Marchers filed onto the sidewalk as they left the city and entered Edgewood, another town. As they did, police maced, tear gassed, kicked and arrested three people.

DENVER, Colo. – Nuns face 30 years in prison for protest

The Federal trial of Sisters Carol Gilbert, 55, Jackie Hudson, 68, and Ardeth Platt, 66, opened March 31. They face charges stemming from an October 6, 2002, entry onto the Minuteman III missile site where they painted crosses on the concrete silos.

All three nuns are educators, and Platt served on the Saginaw, Mich. city council.

They are charged by the U.S. military with “willful injury, interference or obstruction of national defense causing more than $1,000 in damage.” The three women cut a hole in the chain-link fence surrounding the missile complex, used a ball peen hammer on a concrete silo and painted crosses in their own blood on railroad tracks and missile silos. As they sang hymns and prayed, military and local cops encircled them, weapons drawn, a helicopter hovering over head.

The nuns took action as Citizen Weapons Inspection Team and chose this site because it contains U.S. first strike nuclear weapons of mass destruction.

Their attorney Walter Gerash said with irony, “They didn’t interfere with national defense unless you think painting crosses on concrete does that.”

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. –Profit by any means necessary: Health care robbery

HealthSouth employs 52,000 people at 1,900 hospitals and other facilities in all 50 states and five countries, serves 100,000 patients daily, provides health care to 50 professional sports teams and 125 colleges, is the largest rehabilitation HMO in the U.S. and is ranked 374 on the Fortune 500. It also cooked its books to the tune of $1.3 billion, just like Enron, is in default to JP Morgan Chase and was barred from public trading by the New York Stock Exchange.

As March ended, its CEO Richard Scrushy resigned. Scrushy ordered accountants to “fudge” balance sheets. He is now facing 20 years in jail and a $5 million fine under the Sarbanes/Oxley Bill passed by Congress last year.

The Department of Justice is investigating charges that the corporation stole hundreds of millions of dollars in medicare fraud.

In their mission statement, posted on the corporate web site, HealthSouth proudly proclaims, “We are profit oriented.”

EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. – US Steel: Guilty as charged. Fined $250 million

In just 90 minutes, the jury returned with a guilty verdict fining the US Steel Corporation $250 million for knowingly using asbestos which causes lung disease.

The case was brought by Roby Whittington, 70, who worked at the Gary Works, the corporation’s largest single mill, from 1950 to 1981. In 2001, Whittington was diagnosed with mesolthelioma, lung cancer, resulting from working with asbestos.

US Steel said that instead of appealing the award, it reached a settlement with Whittington for an undisclosed amount.

Meanwhile, on April Fool’s Day, US Steel added to its growing Balkan Division with the purchase of another Serbian steel company, Sartid located in northern Serbia. The mill makes raw iron and steel with 2.4 million tons of sheet and tin as end products.

National Clips are compiled by Denise Winebrenner Edwards (dwinebr696@aol.com).

Budget battle continues over brutal cuts

Fri, 04 Apr 2003 03:17:00 +0000

News Analysis

In a statement released after the Senate approved a resolution setting the parameters for the 2004 budget, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney singled out the Senate’s 51-48 vote to cut Bush’s tax cut for the rich from $736 billion to $350 billion as one of a “handful of victories” for working families won during the Senate’s debate on the measure. He was particularly angry that Congress had invoked the war in Iraq as justification for “spending the nation’s scarce resources on trillion-dollar tax breaks for the very rich instead of investing in jobs, education and health care and other priorities of all Americans.

In barely a week the House and Senate each adopted their version of a resolution outlining their taxing and spending priorities. Each provided tax cuts for those at the top of income pyramid and cuts in social programs affecting those at the bottom. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the House approved cuts totaling $1.4 trillion over the next ten years while the Senate approved cuts in the $900 billion range, a difference of some $500 billion

When increased interest costs (House $361 billion; Senate $347 billion) are factored into the equation, the budgets adopted by both House and Senate will increase the deficit by nearly $2 trillion between 2003 and 2013.

The budget battle – more accurately the House-Senate fight over the size of any tax cut – has been one of the top stories coming out of Washington as the budget for fiscal year 2004 winds its way through Congress.

But that was only a skirmish. The Battle of the Budget will continue in the weeks and months ahead as Congress deals with 13 appropriation bills to fund government agencies ranging from the Department of Agriculture to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Although neither budget addresses the nation’s needs, there are differences – and those differences are worth fighting over:

• The House would cut entitlement programs by $265 billion over ten years, with more than 60 percent of the cuts coming from Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, Supplemental Social Security, food stamps, school lunches and other programs benefiting low-income people.

• About half of these entitlement cuts would be in programs that operate as grant-in-aid to states, thus making the state budget crisis even worse. (The Senate budget makes no cuts in entitlements.)

• The House cuts in domestic discretionary spending amount to $244 billion when inflation is taken into account. The Senate makes cuts of $144 billion in these programs.

Brutal as they are when presented in dollar terms, these cuts are even more brutal when calculated in human terms: The House proposal to cut food stamps by $14 billion over the next ten years means cutting the food allowance for an elderly person living alone from 91 cents to 84 cents per meal. And so it is down the line: a $18.5 billion cut from the Supplemental Social Security program means cutting poor people from 74 percent of the federal poverty line to 70 percent, while proposed cuts in child care would deny slots to 275,000 children.

While opportunities for struggle are limited, those opportunities do exist, beginning with the fact that the GOP leadership in the House had to rattle the rafters to scrape up a 215-212 majority – 12 Republicans voted “no” – to pass the budget. On the Senate side, the leadership went down in flames when three GOP senators voted for an amendment cutting Bush’s “growth” package in half.

Republican leaders are aware of the growing unease over budget issues and are doing their best to keep it under control. To that end, the budget resolutions of both House and Senate provide that debate on tax legislation will be put on a “fast track,” with limited debate, a ban on amendments and an up-or- down vote on the entire package.

The next round in the budget wars will occur in the House, which has the Constitutional responsibility for initiating tax and spending measures. The task is to help those lonely 12 House Republicans stand their ground and then to win one more vote, beginning with the eight Democrats who crossed over.

The options may be limited but battle continues! What choice is there?

The author can be reached at fgab708@aol.com

PDF version of 'Budget battle continues over brutal cuts'

ACLU fights Patriot Act

Fri, 04 Apr 2003 03:09:00 +0000

PITTSBURGH – The knock on the door in the middle of the night is not a fantasy for hundreds of thousands of Muslims, people of Middle-Eastern descent and those who express opposition to the Bush war on Iraq and the Bush corporate budget. Since Sept. 11, 2001, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has been on the job, 24/7, to protect the Bill of Rights, and to mute the draconian impact of the Ashcroft “Patriot Act.”

“Our core values are under attack,” charged Anthony D. Romero, ACLU national executive director, indicting Attorney General John Ashcroft and the Justice Department. Romero was the keynote speaker at the Pittsburgh affiliate’s annual meeting, March 23. “What you see after 9/11 is an attack on immigrant rights and an attack on our tolerance and diversity. Start with the USA Patriot Act, a complex 346-page piece of legislation that fundamentally re-wrote the rules of the road for immigrants. Under the new law, the government is able to hold and detain an immigrant for one week without charge. And continue to hold (immigrants) if the Attorney General ‘believes that immigrants pose a national security threat.’”

The ACLU was able to modify the original Patriot Act to set the one-week time limit. But, when Romero met with the FBI in October 2002, the number of immigrants detained under the act had grown to over 1,200. The agency has stopped reporting the number of people it has in custody. In addition, the FBI has questioned 8,000 young Muslim and Arab men.

Then the Ashcroft-led Justice Department closed deportation hearings to members of the press, the public, family and “to anyone who may have an interest as to what our government is doing on the war on terrorism.” The ACLU challenged and partially opened the hearings. In a ruling, Cincinnati-based 6th Federal District Court, Judge Keith decided, “Democracy dies behind closed doors.” In the New Jersey 3rd Circuit, the ACLU failed to convince the judge. The Supreme Court is reviewing both cases.

At the start of the Bush Iraq War, the FBI interrogated 11,000 Iraqi people living in the U.S. In the same week, March 17, the Justice Department announced the detention of Iraqis and people from 20 other countries seeking asylum in the U.S.

“Connect up these dots,” Romero warned, “notwithstanding the rhetoric coming from the President and the Attorney General, and they have created a palpable sense of fear and xenophobia in our country. They have used race and religion as a proxy for suspicion. Our government has taken our Arab and Muslim neighbors, friends, co-workers and family members and de facto turned them into the enemy.”

Since 9/11, the ACLU has experienced explosive national growth, 93,000 new members in 18 months. In Pittsburgh, 60 new lawyers have volunteered their services to the ACLU because of the threats to civil and democratic rights roaring out of the Bush administration.

In February, the ACLU launched a $3.5 million TV ad campaign to defend the Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights. The campaign called, “Keep America Safe and Free,” includes ads running in Vanity Fair, Spin and dozens of cultural publications.

A key grassroots element of the campaign is the mobilization of cities, towns and communities to pass resolutions opposing the “Patriot Act.” As of March 18, 73 communities around the country have enacted such resolutions.

Information, sample resolutions and access to local civil rights legal services are available at the ACLU web site: www.aclu.org.

The author can be reached at dwinebr696@aol.com

PDF version of 'ACLU fights Patriot Act'

Protesters to High Court: Uphold Affirmative Action

Fri, 04 Apr 2003 02:48:00 +0000

WASHINGTON – Tens of thousands of students, union members and civil rights activists rallied outside the U.S. Supreme Court on April 1 to demand that the court uphold affirmative action to overcome racist discrimination.

The crowd came on hundreds of buses as the justices heard arguments on two lawsuits seeking to overturn affirmative action admissions guidelines at the University of Michigan (U-M). The case poses the gravest threat to equal rights since the Supreme Court’s 1978 ruling in Bakke v. University of California, which outlawed quotas but permitted race-conscious measures in college admissions, hiring and promotion.

Protesters held signs reading: “By Any Means Necessary: Defend Affirmative Action,” and “Bush got ‘Daddy Preference.’ We got nothing.” At least 4,000 came from Ann Arbor and Detroit, Mich., including U-M students, members of the Detroit NAACP and hundreds of union members.

A cheer went up as 200 students from Ohio State University (OSU) in Columbus, Ohio, marched into the crowd chanting, “We say no re-segregation, we want quality education.”

Ty Lane, an OSU engineering major, told the World, “If the Supreme Court kills affirmative action, they kill Dr. King’s dream.”

A few steps away stood the Rev. Martin Luther King III. “True, my father spoke of a day when people would not be judged by the color of their skin,” he told the World. “But that day is not here yet. The people who run corporate America are 97 percent white males. Today we need affirmative action as one of many tools to achieve equality.”

Claude Praytor, a leader of the Laborers Union said, “We need fair distribution of work in the labor market. Affirmative action levels the playing field.”

U-M graduate student, Dave Dobbie, warned, “If the court overturns affirmative action, we will see fewer people of color getting into U-M. We must make up for 500 years of racist oppression, but we must also eradicate the present inequality that exists in our society today.”

Yael Harlat said her U-M classmates are also mobilizing against the Iraq war. “People have been able to make the link,” she said. “The military is recruiting heavily among people of color and poor folks for ROTC but they are not being recruited for other careers.”

Craig Nothnagel, president of United Auto Workers Local 22 was here with 55 members of his local. “The message we are sending is that without affirmative action there will be no equal opportunity,” he said, adding, “With George W. Bush in office, we lose on every front when it comes to the needs of working men and women in this country.”

In his speech to the rally, NAACP President Kweisi Mfume said, “We have a grievance and sure as hell, we don’t want re-segregation of our colleges and universities.”

Mfume was seconded by Hector Flores, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, who told the crowd “All people of color have benefited tremendously from affirmative action not only in academia but in corporate America and in government.”

Rev. Michael Eric Dyson, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania drew cheers when he said, “We have a president who is so arrogant that on Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday he called for rolling back affirmative action. We must stand against racism and we must stand against war. As Dr. King said about the war in Vietnam, ‘There comes a time when silence is betrayal.’”

Patricia Ford, vice president of the Service Employees International Union, pointed to the statue of freedom at the top of the U.S. Capitol. “I look at that statue of freedom but we don’t have freedom here,” she thundered.

Following the rally, protesters marched in a mile-long procession to the Lincoln Memorial chanting, “Get out of the way, Bush. Get out of the way!”

In his argument before the court defending the U-M admissions policy, Attorney John Payton said a “critical mass” of African American, Latino and other minority students is needed to create a multicultural, multiracial mix on college campuses.

The Michigan admissions process allocates points for high school grades, test scores and other factors, including coming from an underrepresented minority group.

The Bush administration stood virtually alone in filing a friend of the court brief opposing U-M’s diversity-building policy. The breadth of support for affirmative action policies is reflected in the array of legal briefs filed in support of the university’s admissions policies. Twenty-four states and territories, about 70 Fortune 500 companies and virtually all of the nation’s 3,900 accredited colleges and universities filed friend of the court briefs on behalf of U-M.

Rev. Jesse Jackson said, “I sat in the United States Supreme Court chambers, four days before the 35th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination, hearing arguments led by the president, attorney general and their allies to remove the fundamental under-pinnings of race remedy, after 40 years of racial injustice in America.”

Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women, said, “Last December, Sen. Trent Lott, that born-again civil rights supporter, said ‘I’m for affirmative action,’ in an interview with BET. But where is he now? Where is Sen. Bill Frist? Where are the conservatives who talk about opportunity but only offer excuses?”

The author can be reached at greenerpastures21212@yahoo.com

PDF version of 'Protesters to High Court: Uphold Affirmative Action'

Money needed to stop SARS

Thu, 03 Apr 2003 09:40:00 +0000

Not far below the media war-hype radar, an international worry is mounting over Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), a dangerous respiratory disease.

Not much is known about this disease except its outcome: many are becoming sick and too many are dying. In fact the physician who identified the disease died from it.

The origin of the disease seems to be South East Asia, but beware. This kind of identification is more a reflection of bias than an attempt to deal with SARS.

Information is slowly leaking from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the federal agency in charge of public health. The reason for the failure of the CDC is simple. The CDC is embroiled in a highly controversial small pox inoculation program.

The Bush administration is demanding that the CDC convince public health professionals and workers to be inoculated, even though there is no reason for such a program. The real reason for the program is the Bush administration’s war strategy – get everyone involved by making everyone fearful of terrorists. Now that it has become apparent that the smallpox vaccine may adversely affect people with heart conditions, they have issued an alert to stop all smallpox vaccination of anyone with a history of heart problems.

But, the damage may already been done. The CDC budget is crippled by the smallpox program. How much is left in their current budget for other public health programs is questionable.

Other problems lie in the $74 billion war chest that the Bush administration is insisting on. The right wing is correct about one thing, there is just so much money to go around.

The fact is that the federal treasuries are bare for the needed public health programs to protect us from problem such as SARS.

In addition, the ripping off of federal Medicare funds by Senate Majority leader Bill Frist’s Hospital Corporation of America and now Health South, another major for-profit hospital, means that many seniors and disabled persons will have even more difficulty getting decent health care from Medicare and other federal programs.

All of these Medicare monies should – and could – have been used to give all seniors a prescription drug program and other benefits.

Now, because of the political power of HCA and Health South, the Senate and House are attempting to feed them more money – money that should be used by CDC to protect the general population against SARS and other communicable diseases.

The ripping off of Medicare must be stopped. We can’t wait for the 2004 elections, actions are needed now.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

Conyers blasts Bush, Ashcroft

Thu, 03 Apr 2003 09:36:00 +0000

CHICAGO – In his speech to the March 1 Rally to Reclaim Our Rights, Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee, blasted President Bush’s drive to war with Iraq and warned of plans by Attorney General John Ashcroft to further weaken the Bill of Rights and other constitutional guarantees.

Conyers said Ashcroft has given instructions to United States Attorneys around the country to step up the number of cases in which they ask juries to impose the death penalty. He added that Ashcroft had ordered them to count the mosques in areas under their jurisdiction, with the clear implication that the number of terrorism investigations undertaken by each U.S. Attorney should be proportional to the number of mosques.

Conyers warned of the threat to civil liberties posed by the USA PATRIOT Act and the proposed Domestic Security Enhancement Act, often called “Patriot Act II.” Among those dangers, he said, is a provision that would allow the government to strip away the citizenship of people born in the United States. Conyers also warned of that section that allows the attorney general to deport legal non-citizens without judicial oversight or explanation.

Conyers also discussed his lawsuit against President Bush for violating the Constitution’s clear language giving Congress the sole authority to declare war.

The March 1 event was hosted by the Chicago Committee to Defend the Bill of Rights (CCDBR), an organization founded in the 1950s as part of a national network dedicated to opposing the constitutional infringements of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Luster Jackson, CCDBR president, chaired the event. Jim Fennerty, chairman of the Chicago Chapter of the National Lawyers’ Guild, served as master of ceremonies during the fast-moving program

Speakers representing labor and immigrant organizations spoke of a new level of harassment of immigrant workers and increased attacks on the rights of workers and their unions.

Greetings and messages of support came from Rep. Bobby L. Rush (D-Ill.), State Sen. Barack Obama (D-Chicago) and Alderman Dorothy Tillman and several religious and community leaders.

The Chicago Committee to Defend the Bill of Rights is working with local labor, community and religious organizations to repeal Patriot Act I and the Homeland Security Act and to prevent Patriot Act II from becoming law.

Social Security: safe for now

Thu, 03 Apr 2003 09:16:00 +0000

The Social Security Board of Trustees recently released its annual report on the long-term financial health of the retirement fund. The trustees found that the trust fund will continue to accumulate surpluses (payroll tax revenues exceeding outlays) through the year 2018.

Between 2028 and 2041 full benefits will continue to be paid, but this will require the gradual redemption of Treasury Bonds held in reserve by the trust fund. Unless obvious steps are taken to increase revenues the trustees anticipate that the reserves will be exhausted in 2042. At this time payments to recipients would have to be reduced to 70 percent of promised benefits.

Since the overall deficit in the trust fund is calculated by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities as 0.7 of gross domestic product, or $3.7 trillion, over the next 75 years a modest increases in the payroll tax (borne perhaps by employers), coupled with a modest “infusion of funds from the non-Social Security budget,” could easily restore long-term trust fund solvency.

But the Bush administration will hear nothing of this. They have another agenda. Rather than shoring up Social Security or Medicare, which faces its own long-term deficit of around $5 trillion over the next 75 years, the Bush administration is repeating the mantra of privatization. Rather than provide for the retirement and health needs of seniors, Bush hopes to make the dreams of Wall Street come true through the creation of private retirement and medical accounts. This could potentially shift hundreds of billions of dollars from Social Security and Medicare into the hands of stockbrokers, whose recent record should be kept in mind.

According to Mark Weisbrot, of the Center of Economic and Policy Research, the current Bush proposal calls for diverting one-sixth of current Social Security revenues into private, individual accounts. The problem, of course, apart from the betting nature of the diversion, is that it reduces the flow of revenues into the Social Security trust fund, thus hastening the moment when the retirement cupboard is bare.

For the Bush wrecking crew that moment can’t come soon enough.

Instead of helping seniors, the Bush plan calls for giving substantial tax breaks to the already wealthy and waging endless wars to extend the frontiers of empire. With the help of some Democrats in Congress debt service will increase. What was once, not long ago, a rosy 10-year projection of a $5.6 trillion budget surplus has now been replaced with a 10-year projected deficit of $1.8 trillion. With the blank check given to the Department of War the projected deficit is set to leap. The economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman predicted that the 10-year deficit will soon reach $3 trillion.

According to Krugman, “Without the Bush tax cuts, it would have been difficult to cope with the fiscal implications of an aging population. With those tax cuts, the task is simply impossible.” The costs of permanent war make it doubly impossible.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org

Government targets charities in witch hunt

Thu, 03 Apr 2003 09:12:00 +0000

DALLAS – Waseem Nasrallah, spokesperson for the Muslim Legal Fund, spoke to 25 activists at the Dallas Peace Center recently. He explained the case of the four Elashi brothers and their female cousin, all devout Muslims, who were arrested in a Dallas suburb on charges of having assisted terrorists.

They ran a computer company in nearby Richardson and assisted a local charitable association – the Holy Land Foundation. Among other projects, the Holy Land Foundation had raised money to assist needy Palestinian children.

The government charged that the defendants had shipped personal computer equipment to countries considered “terroristic” and had engaged in financial transactions in violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

People framiliar with the case said the computer company shipped no computer equipment to Syria nor Libya, and the financial transactions had nothing to do with terrorism. All the activities were open and above board. In fact, the U.S. government had full knowledge of the financial transactions for over six years

News reporters were alerted about the pending arrests so that they could participate in a media frenzy when the defendants were surprised by government agents just before Christmas last year, Nasrallah said. He told the group, “When they did the raid, those [media] people were there, and the pictures that they took were terrible.” U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft held a nationally televised press conference.

Normally, trial dates are set within three months of an arrest, but federal authorities asked the judge to delay the procedures while all but one of the accused are held in jail.

Nasrallah said official persecution against Muslims is growing. The FBI is now trying to get American mosques to reveal their membership lists.

“Some of the things that they are doing are unconstitutional,” he said.

Muslims and civil libertarians are joining together to fight back. The Liberty Task Force, formed with more than 10 organizations, has hired four Texas attorneys to defend the Elashis. They have made a short civil liberties video that is available at www.muslimlegalfund.org. On the video, Dallas County Commissioner John Wylie Price said the situation for Muslims reminds him of the McCarthy days of anti-communism. Price asks, “Just because the government says it, am I supposed to believe it? Where is the evidence?”

Even in the face of powerful forces against his efforts, Nasrallah told Dallas peace activists that he remains optimistic. “We are fighting this in court right now and we think we will be vindicated if there is still respect for justice in this country,” he said.

In the wake of Sept. 11, a series of raids against Muslim charities was conducted by the government. One, which garnered national attention, was in Chicago where the executive director of Benevolence International Foundation, Enaam Arnaout, was indicted in October 2002. Attorney General Ashcroft came to Chicago to announce the indictment personally. Arnaout was charged with crimes that included conspiracy to provide material support to terrorism. Originally the Justice Department claimed that Arnaout was the chief fundraiser for Al Qaeda. But on Feb. 10 all but one charge was dropped.

Arnaout admitted in federal court that, as head of the Benevolence International Foundation, he solicited money to help orphans and widows that was then used to buy boots, tents, uniforms and an ambulance for fighters in Bosnia-Herzegovina. He also used charity funds to purchase uniforms for fighters in Chechnya. But he did not concede that his $4 million-a-year charity was connected to terror in any way. His attorney told reporters that the deal was proof that Arnaout “had nothing to do with terrorism.”

Mark Flessner, a former assistant U.S. attorney in Chicago, told the press, “ … this agreement is also a clear indication that the government’s case was troubled. What this was was a fraud case that they tried to make into a terrorism case.”

Brandi Kishner contributed to this story. The author can be reached at pww@pww.org