People Before Profit blog

Cleveland in contention

Fri, 27 Feb 2004 09:38:00 +0000

Cleveland in contention

The Cleveland Cavaliers might make the playoffs.

That’s right – the worst team in the National Basketball Association last year is only one-and-a-half games behind a playoff berth. Though they currently have a losing record of 23-34, with 25 games left in their schedule, the Eastern Conference postseason is clearly within reach. It would be their first appearance since the 1997-98 season.

Before the season began, rookie sensation LeBron James said that his goal was to help his teammates play better every day. So far, the Cavs have done a pretty good job, amassing more wins in three-quarters of a season than they did in the full season last year. And James has certainly helped raise the caliber of defensive and offensive play in Cleveland.

Opposing teams are averaging six points less per game against the Cavs than they did last year. Cleveland is averaging nearly one point more. And the fans have taken note: home attendance rounds at over 6,000 more per game than last year.

A perfect example of their growth as a team came this week, when they won three straight games. The first victory was a squeaker over the defending NBA champion San Antonio Spurs, 89-87. The next win was at Madison Square Garden over the New York Knicks, 92-86. Finally, the Cavs came back from a 25-point deficit on Feb. 23 to beat the New Orleans Hornets, 104-100 – one of the largest comebacks in team history.

If their season keeps improving, Cleveland’s comeback could be even bigger.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org.

March 4 action for health care rights

Fri, 27 Feb 2004 06:28:00 +0000

Jobs with Justice and hundreds of local unions, retiree groups and health care advocacy organizations, including the Universal Health Care Action Network (UHCAN), have set a national “Health Care Action Day” to link workers’ struggles against premium cost-shifting and cuts in essential health care services to the larger movement to win universal health care reform.

On March 4 it is hoped that hundreds of thousands of workers and community activists across the country will wear stickers, hold rallies, and engage in creative actions to demonstrate their outrage about Bush’s Medicare sellout and to promote true reforms guaranteeing health care for all.

Everyone is on this train

Leaders of JwJ and UHCAN have fashioned a broadly-based health program that will appeal to everyone. They speak for Americans without health care who desperately need it. They speak for workers (union and not-yet-union) who have decent health care benefits and want to keep them and to prevent employer cost-shifting. They are a voice for caregivers and community activists fighting against cuts in essential services. They speak out for seniors opposed to Bush’s new prescription drug program, which encourages employers to cut back on retiree benefits and allows for privatization of Medicare.

With health costs spiraling out of control, most employers are demanding that costs be shifted to workers through premiums, co-pays, and deductibles. For example, 70,000 Southern California grocery workers have been on strike or locked out since October as their employers, led by Safeway Corp., demand the right to phase out funding of their health benefits program.

The Health Care Action Day coalition urges a targeted Congressional strategy that focuses on H.R. 99 and Senate Bill 41. These concurrent bills direct Congress to enact legislation by October 2005 that provides access to comprehensive health care for all Americans and includes points like these:

• Affordable, removing all financial barriers. • Cost-efficient, spending maximum monies toward patient care. • Comprehensive benefits, including long-term and mental health benefits. • Promotes prevention and early intervention. • Parity for mental and other services. • Eliminates disparities in access to care. • Addresses special health needs and underserved rural and urban populations. • Promotes quality and better health outcomes. • Adequate numbers of qualified health care caregivers to guarantee timely access to health. • Adequate and timely payments to guarantee access to providers. • Fosters a strong network of facilities. • Ensures continuity of care. • Maximizes consumer choice of providers. • Easy use system that reduces paperwork for patients, providers and practitioners.

An organizing kit for March 4 Health Care Action Day, including a sample outreach letter and the Health Care Access Resolution now before Congress, can be obtained at the Jobs with Justice web site, www.jwj.org. Please send in reports of your local action to this column.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org.

Wall Street loves Bush budget

Fri, 27 Feb 2004 06:06:00 +0000

Under the Bush administration, the federal debt has reached record dollar amounts. The latest budget, which claims to cut the deficit in half in five years, is a work of fiction – under the Bush program, real deficits will continue to soar.

Wall Street and the international financial community have been very accommodating of the Bush spending spree. It wasn’t always this way. In 1992, candidate Bill Clinton campaigned on a program to invest in jobs to help people recover from the first Bush recession. After he won, Wall Street gave Clinton its orders: “Forget your campaign promises. You can’t spend money for jobs – every cent has to go to pay off the debt that Reagan and Bush ran up.” Clinton did what he was told.

So, how come Wall Street didn’t object when Bush ran up deficits that reached $700 billion this year? Because the bankers and investment houses are among the biggest beneficiaries of this wholesale looting. They are confident that when the bill comes due, they will make the working class pay the price.

Throughout this recession, the labor movement, progressive political leaders, and a growing number of economists have called for different priorities, such as emergency aid to states and cities, better unemployment and health benefits for laid-off workers, a federal jobs and infrastructure program. The deficit would have been far less, working families would have benefited instead of corporate CEOs, and more jobs – probably millions more – would have been created.

Last October, the New York Times reported that Wall Street, a heavy contributor to both political parties in the past, is now Bush’s biggest donor, thanks to the administration’s “pro-investor policy.” These campaign contributions are important, but Wall Street’s control over government policy goes far beyond a few tens of millions in political donations.

The federal government owes over $4 trillion to the public – mainly to wealthy individuals, financial institutions, and the investment funds they control. Each month in 2003, $300 billion came due; to make these payments, the U.S. Treasury had to borrow $300 billion, plus another $60 billion to cover Bush’s new deficit.

Where can the government go to borrow $360 billion every month? They borrow from where the money is – Wall Street.

That’s why the financial elite has so much power over presidents. They can choke off the financing that government needs to keep operating. And they exercise that power over state and local governments, too. But despite the banks’ power, they can be beat.

In 1978, six Ohio banks forced the city of Cleveland into default because Mayor Dennis Kucinch refused to sell the city-owned electric company to a private utility. The mayor lost the next election, but the city-owned utility was saved. Fifteen years later, Kucinich began his political comeback, defeating Republicans for state senate and U.S. Congress. His campaign sign was a light bulb with the slogan, “Because he was right!” Kucinich’s record of standing up to corporate and financial power is an important part of his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination this year.

The Bush administration policies are designed to use the huge federal debt to tie the hands of any future president, giving Wall Street veto power over government spending. That is what Reagan and the first Bush did to Clinton.

Defeating Bush and his friends in Congress is the first step to a responsible federal budget. But we need more than that – a pro-worker, pro-people budget that will tax the rich, cut the military budget, and restore and expand spending to meet basic needs and get America working again. It will take a lot of organized strength from below to oppose the power Wall Street has at the top!

There’s an old song from the Great Depression. People are suffering, it says, but “The banks are made of marble / With a guard at every door / And the vaults are stuffed with silver / That the workers sweated for.” The song ends with a call for working people to stand together: “Then we will own those banks of marble / with a guard at every door / and we’ll share the vaults of silver / that the people sweated for.”

(Note: Although New York is still the financial center of the United States, I have used the term Wall Street to represent big financial interests from all over the country.)

The author can be reached at economics@cpusa.org.

Bush sneaks in another extremist judge

Fri, 27 Feb 2004 05:54:00 +0000

Reaction to George W. Bush’s Feb. 20 back-door appointment of Alabama Attorney General William Pryor as a U.S. appeals court judge was swift and scathing.

Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), one of the senior members of the Judiciary Committee, called President Bush’s going around the Senate – for the second time in five weeks – “a flagrant abuse of presidential power.”

“This is an outrageous appointment, of a nominee who has questionable commitment to the authority of the Supreme Court and the rule of law,” Kennedy said.

NOW President Kim Gandy said, “It is outrageous that Bush has again circumvented the legal process to appoint a right-wing judicial activist during a Congressional recess. This further demonstrates his total disregard for the women of this country and democracy in general.”

The Constitution gives the president authority to install nominees in office when Congress is not in session. President Bush has used this tactic when he can’t get his judicial nominees approved any other way. Last month, he did the same thing with Mississippi federal Judge Charles Pickering, appointing him to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.

Bush said Pryor’s “impressive record demonstrates his devotion to the rule of law and to treating all people equally under the law.” However, since the president picked Pryor last April for a seat on the 11th Circuit, which covers Alabama, Georgia and Florida, opponents have successfully blocked the nomination five times – most recently last November – based on the attorney general’s appalling record on civil rights and civil liberties.

The NAACP issued a statement in July opposing Pryor’s nomination based on his “demonstrated hostility toward protections for African Americans and other racial and ethnic minorities, women and [those] affected by the criminal justice system.”

Under Pryor’s leadership, Alabama was the only state to challenge the constitutionality of a provision of the Violence Against Women Act. He also argued that the Supreme Court should cut back on the protections of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, and the Clean Water Act.

In what the NAACP called “real contempt for voting rights protections,” Pryor has urged Congress to consider getting rid of a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, which protects the right to vote for African Americans.

In 1997, Pryor attended a “Save the [Ten] Commandments” rally in Montgomery, Ala., where he stated: “God has chosen, through his son Jesus Christ, this time and this place for all Christians ... to save our country and save our courts.” He has consistently criticized efforts to safeguard the rights of gays and lesbians.

Over the course of his career in the attorney general’s office, Pryor has been a vocal opponent of the rights of criminal defendants. In 1995, Alabama revived the practice of chaining unruly prisoners to hitching posts. One inmate had been handcuffed to a post on several occasions and denied access to water and the bathroom. Pryor vigorously defended these actions even though the U.S. Supreme Court, citing the “obvious cruelty inherent in this practice,” ruled the prisoner “was treated in a way antithetical to human dignity.”

“For Bush to declare this man as a ‘distinguished public servant’ is a slap in the face to anyone who has worked for equal rights in this country,” said Gandy. “By acting in this devious manner, Bush has once again proved that his agenda is completely out of touch with our society.”

The author can be reached at crummel@pww.org.

National Clips

Fri, 27 Feb 2004 04:59:00 +0000

NASHVILLE, Tenn.: State defies drug companies, Bush

Tennessee joins a host of Midwest and New England cities and states openly defying not only the huge drug corporations but also the Bush administration.

Gov. Phil Bredesen, a Democrat, met with a delegation from CanaRx, the Canadian government agency overseeing prescription drugs, to work out a deal whereby Tennessee will purchase medications from the land of national health care at an estimated savings of $2.5 billion.

The governor’s action drew the attention of multinational drug company Pfizer, which reported profits of $59 billion, an increase of 46 percent, in 2003. Workers at Pfizer make Lipitor, Viagra and Zoloft, among thousands of products. Pfizer called to meet with the governor while the Canadians were in town.

In the wake of city and state actions to provide affordable medications for municipal employees and those on state-run programs, Pfizer retaliated against Canada. In early February, it cut off a few Canadian pharmacies and companies selling medications to U.S. residents.

The recently passed Medicare Reform Act forbids U.S. residents to travel to Canada to purchase medicine.

“Canada, Ireland, South Africa, France and others – they pay a price (for medications) that is one-third of what Americans pay,” said CanaRx President Tony Howard of Windsor. Howard was part of the group meeting with Bredesen. “Our biggest concern right now is Mr. Pfizer. Pfizer is threatening to cut off drug supplies to Canada. We hope America stands up and says, ‘You do that and you’re in deep doo-doo.’”

Pfizer spokesman Jack Cox let the Cat out of the bag, explaining why prescriptions are less expensive in Canada.

“People need to understand the reason drugs are cheaper in Canada is that it’s part of their socialized health care system,” he told the Tennessean newspaper. “The U.S. is the only country in the world where the market determines the price of medicines, not the government.”

WASHINGTON: U.S. marshals provide poor health care

There are 40,000 people, an increase of 43 percent compared to 1999, under the thumb of the U.S. Marshals Service awaiting trial on federal charges. These folks have not been convicted, not had their day in court, but are only accused of breaking federal law. They could wait days, weeks or even years for a court date. Meanwhile, they get sick.

Federal marshals rely on local jail physicians to provide prisoners with medical attention. According to a report released Feb. 23 by U.S. Inspector General Glenn Fine, people awaiting trial have died of appendicitis and tuberculosis.

Marshals spent $43 billion to treat prisoners using private health care facilities in 2002. One of the authors of the report, Benigno Reyna, added that few of the country’s 3,618 jails meet health and medical standards set by certifying organizations.

The report revealed that there is no system for tracking contagious diseases like AIDS or hepatitis among prisoners.

NORCROSS, Ga.: Fifth-graders create Black history museum

Peachtree Elementary School is a public school in the bedroom community of Norcross, Gwinnett County, near Atlanta. For Black history Month, fifth-graders researched and created a Black History museum and will serve as guides for their younger classmates.

“How do you explain to fifth-graders that there was a time 4 million people were slaves?” asked Maureen Taylor, one of the teachers working on the project. Her students delved into the history and culture of U.S. slavery and revolts for freedom and created an auction of human beings and depictions of uprisings.

“I like it; it’s just confusing sometimes,” said 11-year-old Kevin Sangston, who researched the life of John Brown, the famous abolitionist. “Miss Taylor … I told her everything I know, but she keeps asking for more.”

Gwinnett County, according the U.S. Census, has 676,000 people of whom 72.7 percent are white and 13 percent are African American.

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

Kucinich: the most unreported story of 2004

Thu, 26 Feb 2004 15:37:00 +0000

WASHINGTON – The most underreported story of the 2004 election is the never-give-up, never-give-in campaign of Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) for president. With considerable grassroots support, the Ohio lawmaker has carried his message of world peace, jobs, equality and universal health care across the country. He has done it in the face of a near-total corporate media blackout

Kucinich, campaigning in California, launched the “Other America Tour” from the impoverished Sunnydale public housing complex in San Francisco. “I’m from the other America,” he said, noting that he grew up poor and sometimes homeless in Cleveland, Ohio.

An impressive 15 percent of Maine voters and 8 percent of Washington state voters came out for Kucinich in the Feb. 10 “mini-Super Tuesday” primaries. He also placed second in Hawaii’s Feb. 24 primary.

Sharon Gradischnig, head of the Kucinich campaign in southwest Iowa, is a native Iowan. She told this reporter she was drawn to Kucinich in part because his election could change her own life.

“I pay $637 a month for health insurance so even when I qualify for Medicare, I will need to keep working to provide myself with supplementary health coverage and prescription drugs,” she told the World. “One of Dennis’ billboards up the street says it all: ‘Health care not warfare.’ He is the only candidate advocating universal single-payer health care.”

She said, “This is the voters’ opportunity to tell the nation and the world exactly what kind of nation and world we want. We are a banner for change, for a world that is safe for people here at home and around the world.”

In the northwest corner of Washington state, Marion “Honey Bee” Burns was elected as a Kucinich delegate to the Clallam County Democratic Convention in Port Angeles when she and her neighbors decided to stick with a candidate that clearly supported their issues. “This is a time to take a stand on principle,” Burns said.

Kucinich received a standing ovation from hundreds who crowded the Modjeska Theater on Milwaukee’s near-southside Feb. 15, following his appearance at a Democratic candidates’ debate at Marquette University. Jim Carpenter, a Kucinich volunteer and a professor of economics at a community college in Milwaukee, said, “Dennis’ campaign is the most underreported campaign of this election. But people love the truth and Kucinich gives them the truth. He speaks from the heart.”

Carpenter said Kucinich is the clearest of the candidates on “peace over war, cooperation not domination, and supporting a single-payer health care plan that is not based on profits. He understands that we need a public works jobs program.”

Michael Berg, coordinator of the Kucinich campaign in South Carolina, said the Ohio lawmaker made a positive impression when he appeared in the first Democratic debate in Columbia, S.C., last May 3.

“The textile industry is being destroyed in South Carolina. It has crushed many small towns across the state. We’ve lost about 120,000 jobs. Kucinich was the only one who called for the repeal of NAFTA. He pushed the other candidates and some of them even plagiarize his positions,” he said.

Baltimore hospital worker Jim Baldridge is running as a Kucinich delegate in Maryland’s March 2 Super Tuesday primary. “I see the poverty and unemployment up close,” Baldridge wrote in an open letter distributed to his neighbors. “A vote for Kucinich is a vote to take back our country from the Halliburton corporate looters, to make the rich pay their share of the taxes … Our school deficit cries out for a president like Dennis Kucinich who will deliver on the promise, ‘Leave no child behind.’”

The author can be reached at greenerpastures21212@yahoo.com.

Ishmael Flory, fighter for equality, 96

Fri, 20 Feb 2004 07:01:00 +0000

Ishmael Flory, veteran trade union organizer, activist in the African American freedom movement, and a longtime leader of the Communist Party in Illinois, died Feb. 4 in Chicago following a long illness. He was 96.

Flory was born July 4, 1907, in Lake Charles, La., the youngest of nine children of Samuel and Leola Hancock Flory. In 1918, at the age of 11, his family moved to Los Angeles, where he graduated from Jefferson High School. In 1927, Flory entered the University of California at Los Angeles. After several interruptions of his higher education, he received his degree from University of California at Berkeley in 1933.

Flory had left UCLA in 1929 and was briefly involved in the real estate business in Los Angeles. In 1931 he became a Pullman porter, and was an active member of the Pullman Porters’ Union. He later became a railroad dining car chef and a leader of the Dining Car Employees Union.

Flory enrolled in a masters degree program at Fisk University in Nashville, Tenn., in 1934. While there, he organized one of the first civil rights demonstrations in the South, protesting the lynching of a Black teenager in Nashville. This activity led to his expulsion by Fisk. The episode is recounted by the poet Langston Hughes in his book, “Good Morning, Revolution.”

In 1939 Flory moved to Chicago, where he served as head of the Joint Council of Dining Car Employees, and later became an organizer for the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers Union, which later merged with the United Steelworkers of America. He also was elected president of the Chicago chapter of the National Negro Congress.

During the 1940s and ’50s, Flory worked closely with Paul Robeson, W.E.B. Du Bois, and William L. Patterson in early civil rights struggles. They pioneered the successful national campaign to integrate major league baseball.

In 1960 Flory founded the African American Heritage Association, an early champion of African and African American studies. In 1970-71 he was a leader of the national campaign to free activist Angela Davis from a murder frame-up in California.

Flory joined the Communist Party in the early 1930s. He ran for governor on the Communist Party ticket in 1972, the first time the CPUSA was allowed on the ballot in Illinois since 1932. He ran for the U. S. Senate in 1974, and Illinois governor again in 1976. He was also renowned for his unremitting efforts to build the People’s Weekly World and its predecessor publications.

Jarvis Tyner, executive vice-chair of the CPUSA, who worked with Flory for over 30 years, said, “Ish was more than a dear comrade and a friend to me. He was a living legend. Ish never lost sight of the necessity to bring Socialism and the ideals of our party to the grass roots. And he knew how to do it. He had a supreme confidence in the working class and he never wavered in his belief that our people would find their way to freedom. He also really enjoyed people and had a great sense of humor.”

Flory is survived by his wife, Cathern Davis Flory, two daughters, Patricia Flory Stocks and Eloise Flory Shaw, his sister, Thelma Racker, his niece Jacqueline Racker and nephew Lester Racker, four grandchildren, one great grandchild, many other relatives, and thousands of friends and comrades.

At the request of the family, donations may be made in the memory of Ishmael Flory to the People’s Weekly World or the Communist Party.

A memorial gathering for Flory will be held on Saturday, Feb. 28, at 1:00 p.m. at the DuSable Museum of African American History, 740 E. 56th Place, Chicago.

Rx gap hits Blacks, Latinos

Fri, 20 Feb 2004 05:13:00 +0000

Working-age African Americans and Latinos are much more likely than white Americans to report they cannot afford all of their prescription drugs, according to a new study by the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC).

Overall, about 20 percent of Blacks, 16 percent of Latinos and 11 percent of non-Hispanic whites did not fill at least one prescription in 2001 because of cost concerns.

Large gap for minorities with chronic conditions

Chronic conditions contribute substantially to racial and ethnic disparities in health status in the United States, particularly for African Americans, and are among the principal reasons why Blacks die at younger ages and at a much higher rate than white Americans. Black Americans also are more likely to have multiple chronic conditions.

Working-age African Americans and Latinos with chronic conditions were substantially more likely than whites to report not having filled at least one prescription in 2001 because of cost. More than 30 percent of Blacks and a quarter of Latinos with chronic conditions didn’t purchase all of their prescriptions in 2001 because of cost, compared with 17 percent of whites living with chronic conditions.

Prescription drugs are critical to ongoing treatment of many chronic conditions, and lack of access to appropriate prescription medication can result in pain, worsening of the condition and increased risk for other related health problems.

Gaps exist among insured but not uninsured

Uninsured people were more than three times as likely as those with private health coverage to have gone without at least one prescription in 2001 because of cost concerns. However, previous HSC research shows that drug-affordability problems are not limited to the uninsured – about a quarter of working-age people with Medicaid or other state coverage did not purchase at least one prescription in 2001 because they could not afford it.

African Americans and Latinos are more likely to be uninsured or to receive their health insurance through a public program, and, as a result, members of these minority groups are more likely to have problems affording all of their prescriptions.

Uninsured African Americans, whites and Latinos were equally likely to report problems affording prescription drugs. All three groups had extremely high rates of affordability problems, particularly among those with chronic conditions. Regardless of race or ethnicity, about 50 percent of working-age uninsured people with chronic conditions reported cost-related prescription drug access problems.

More disparities?

As private and public payers grapple with rising health care costs, including those related to drug price and volume increases, consumers are being asked to pay more for their prescription drugs in a variety of ways. Some have higher co-payments, and most plans now include tiered co-payments where patients pay more for brand name drugs and those not on a preferred list. Others have prescription drug coverage with coinsurance, where patients pay a percentage of the total drug cost rather than a fixed co-payment. Price sensitivity to prescription purchases is strong, particularly among low-income people, meaning that even minimal patient out-of-pocket costs can result in people failing to fill their prescriptions.

African Americans and Latinos are much more likely to have lower incomes than are whites, putting them at greater risk for increased problems paying for their drugs as out-of-pocket costs escalate. And since African Americans and Latinos with chronic health conditions are much more likely than whites to have problems affording all of their prescription drugs already, prescription drug access disparities among those with chronic conditions are likely to increase as patient cost sharing increases. Rising out-of-pocket prescription drug costs may undercut efforts to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in access to health care, including prescription drugs, with the greatest effect on reduced access for minorities with chronic conditions.

Excerpted with permission from Issue Brief No. 73, Center for Studying Health System Change, www.hschange.com.

Budgets of mass destruction

Thu, 19 Feb 2004 13:31:00 +0000

Psalm 2004

Bush is my shepherd, I shall be in want. He leadeth me beside the still factories, He restoreth my doubts about the Republican Party, He guideth me onto the paths of unemployment for the party’s sake. I do fear the evildoers, for thou talkst about them constantly. The tax cuts for the rich and thy deficit spending They do discomfort me. Thou anointeth me with never-ending debt. And my savings and assets shall soon be gone. Surely poverty and hard living shall follow me. And my jobless children shall dwell in my basement forever.

[ – Currently making the rounds on the Internet ]

After factoring out the Social Security surplus and adding in a pricey supplemental appropriation for the war in Iraq, the federal budget deficit for Fiscal Year 2004 could reach $700 billion. This would follow deficits for FY 2002 and 2003 of $318 billion and $639 billion respectively. In just three years, G.W. Bush’s fiscal policies will have resulted in a cumulative deficit exceeding $1.6 trillion.

It might be expected that “red ink” of this magnitude would generate some job growth. The President’s Council of Economic Advisers was optimistic, predicting 1.6 million new jobs by the end of FY 2003. But instead of 1,600,000 new jobs being created, 1,900,000 jobs were lost. (Economic Policy Institute Issue Brief 197, 2/12). And the wages in the emerging job markets were rapidly falling, 21 percent or $9,160 per year less in sectors actually adding jobs. (EPI “Economic Snapshot” 1/21).

This situation is not at all surprising given the recent remarks of Gregory Mankiw, chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors, praising the corporate practice of “outsourcing.” Shifting U.S. jobs to low-wage countries overseas is “just another way of doing international trade” and “probably a plus for the economy in the long run” according to Mankiw.

Outsourcing is also a contributing factor in the current “jobless recovery,” following the brief recession that the National Bureau’s Business Cycle Dating Committee reported ending in November 2001. While the recession is officially over, layoffs continue, with 500,000 factory jobs evaporating in 2003 alone.

Slashing corporate and upper income tax rates serves to create huge strategic deficits “as far as the eye can see.” The results, according to New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, are “budgets of mass destruction,” which “recklessly imperil the nation’s future with crazy tax cutting and out of control spending.”

In another New York Times column titled “Red Ink Realities,” Paul Krugman reports that the sharp drop in tax revenues “has come almost entirely from taxes that are mostly paid by the richest five percent of families: the personal income tax and the corporate income tax. These taxes now take a smaller share of national income that in any year since World War II.” The goal of creating “red ink realities” is to “starve the beast,” i.e. create a situation that shrinks state revenues so much that government programs which help the poor and the middle class will have to be slashed, with the savings going to the rich in the form of yet more tax cuts.

In May 2003 the administration cynically bundled their tax cuts in a bill called the “Jobs and Growth Act.” While the legislation provided millionaires with an average tax cut of $93,000, it failed to result in any net job gains.

Bush is now anxious to make his tax cuts permanent, at a cost estimated by Joel Friedman and Richard Greenstein of Center on Budget and Policy Priorities to be $2.2 trillion over the ten year span of 2005-2014 (CBPP, 1/30/04). In recent testimony before the Senate Banking Committee, Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve chairman, indicated that the Fed would support this budget madness, but only if government spending was dramatically reduced. He recommended sharp reductions in Social Security benefits for retirees to offset any fiscal impact these tax cuts for the wealthy would likely have.

The only way out of this economic dead end is a radical shift in policy. What democratically selected mechanism can assume economic stewardship in the face of gathering crisis is something to which we urgently need to turn our collective attention.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org.

Marchers denounce mental health cuts

Thu, 19 Feb 2004 13:26:00 +0000

SAN ANTONIO – Marching from historic San Fernando Cathedral to Travis Park United Methodist Church on Jan. 15, nearly 180 mental health consumers, family members, clergy and other mental health advocates brought attention to the fact that an incident involving an out-of-control mental health consumer never should have occurred.

The Jan. 13 incident involved an individual destroying $250,000 - $300,000 worth of statues in the cathedral. The individual was eventually subdued by people in the cathedral and is currently in the County Detention Center.

The marchers pointed out that the local mental health authority suffered a $7 million budget cut and that this incident is only one of many that will occur as consumers are left without quality mental health services.

The marchers also stressed that jail is not treatment. At present the Bexar County Adult Detention Center is the largest provider of mental health services in the state of Texas!

Many signs denounced the recent legislative budget cuts and one in particular asked: “Billions for war, zero for mental health services – Why?”

The march in downtown San Antonio was the brainchild of Father David Garcia from San Fernando, Rev. John Flowers from Travis Park UMC and Rabbi Barry Block from Temple Beth El.

Observers stated that the march is the beginning of what promises to be a long but badly needed struggle for those with mental illness who have limited incomes and no health care coverage.

The author, a social worker and veteran of the civil rights, labor and peace movements, can be reached at mentalhealthjustice@yahoo.com.

New bill aims to defend womens rights

Thu, 19 Feb 2004 12:35:00 +0000

National Organization for Women (NOW) President Kim Gandy and other women’s rights leaders held a Washington, D.C., press conference Jan. 22, the 31st anniversary of Roe v. Wade, to announce the introduction of the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) that would codify the landmark Supreme Court decision protecting reproductive rights.

The passage of FOCA (S. 2020/H.R. 3719) would be an important step toward permanently ensuring reproductive rights in the event that the Supreme Court allowed states to re-criminalize abortion, the feminist leaders said, and defeating George W. Bush in November is the number one priority.

Warning that Roe v. Wade “is hanging by a thread,” NOW declared that “the time is right for a public demonstration of historic size in support of abortion rights and reproductive freedom for all women” and called for an all-out mobilization for the April 25 March for Women’s Lives in Washington, D.C.

Along with the Black Women’s Health Imperative (BWHI), Feminist Majority Foundation, NARAL Pro-Choice America, National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health (NLIRH) and Planned Parenthood Federation of America, NOW is planning what it has predicted will be “the most significant and massive abortion rights march in over a decade.”

The BWHI, formerly the National Black Women’s Health Project, wants to make one thing clear: “Black women are seriously concerned about attacks on our reproductive health and we stand up for our rights. [Our] reproductive health agenda includes the right to have healthy children, and to be free of coercive and punitive government interference in matters as enormous and personal as when and whether to have a child.”

More than 51 percent of Latinas lack health insurance and more than 28 percent of pregnant Latinas do not receive prenatal care, according to the NLIRH. In addition, government policies restricting public funding for abortion are making it impossible for many Latinas to even consider abortion as an option.

“With George Bush looking at potential Supreme Court nominees who are not only very conservative, but very young – high 30s, young 40s – he has the opportunity to stack the court with judges who will carry out an anti-woman, anti-reproductive freedom philosophy for another 35 to 40 years,” said Gandy.

“It’s about more than abortion,” believes Trish Milner, one of several women in northern New Jersey hoping to organize a bus to Washington for April 25. “It’s about civil liberties and rights and everything that goes along with freedoms.”

Calling George W. Bush “a man who stole an election, who went to war without a consensus,” Milner agreed with those who warn that if President Bush is re-elected, Roe v. Wade will be in dire jeopardy.

Today’s young women grew up in a time when the option of legal, safe abortion has always been available to them, Milner said, and as a result they may underestimate the Bush administration’s determination to destroy reproductive rights for women.

NARAL Pro-Choice America’s annual review of reproductive rights laws released last month, “Who Decides? A State-by-State Report on the Status of Women’s Reproductive Rights,” revealed an unprecedented assault on a woman’s right to choose. In 2003, states enacted 45 anti-choice measures – a 32.4 percent increase from 2002 – and President Bush signed the first federal criminal ban on abortion into law.

“Not only do we have to get young people to march,” Milner said, “we need to get them to vote.” Defeating George W. Bush in November is job number one.

The author can be reached at crummel@pww.org.

* * * * * *

March for Women’s Lives, Sunday, April 25

The march will begin at noon from the Lincoln Memorial and proceed to the National Mall where a rally will be held from 1-4 p.m. Marchers will assemble at 10 a.m. Accessible march route and translators will be available for persons with disabilities. For more info contact the March for Women’s Lives, 1725 Eye Street, NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20006; (202) 349-3838, or visit www.marchforwomen.org.

National Clips

Thu, 19 Feb 2004 12:21:00 +0000

WASHINGTON: Defense contractors owe $3 billion in taxes

While swilling at the Pentagon trough of contracts, 27,000 private companies, or 14 percent of the total, did not remit their workers’ federal taxes (deducted from their paychecks), Social Security or Medicare payments to the U.S. Treasury. They defaulted on their payments even as they collected taxpayer-financed checks from the Pentagon.

According to an investigation by the General Accounting Office, the estimated $3 billion in taxes the companies owe is only for one year. The GAO found cases of abuse and potentially criminal activity where companies diverted payroll deductions for personal gain or to fund their businesses.

MONTGOMERY, Ala.: No charter schools in Alabama

Legislation that would have legalized “charter schools,” the third leg of the Republican education reform stool which includes privatization and vouchers, failed to get out of committee Feb. 11 in the Alabama Legislature.

There are 3,000 charter schools operating in 40 states. All Southern states have approved legislation to establish charters except Kentucky and, now, Alabama. Across those 40 states, there are 700,000 students attending charter schools, a student population just a little smaller than 730,000 children enrolled in Alabama public schools.

Susan Lockwood, a representative of Alabama school superintendents, said the track record for charter “experiments” is abysmal. Data shows, she testified, that charters do not deliver on their promises and take desperately needed funds from the rest of the school districts.

The Alabama teachers union, the Alabama Education Association, led the fight in the Legislature to keep public schools public. The union is also in a pitched battle to increase funding for the state’s schoolchildren.

NEW YORK: Librarians, booksellers launch petition drive against Patriot Act

Backed by 40 organizations representing libraries across the country and 81 publishing and distribution companies, including Barnes and Noble, Borders, Random House, Simon and Schuster and International Publishers, the American Library Association, the American Booksellers Association (ABA) and PEN American Center, announced Feb. 17 a campaign to gather 1 million signatures to support legislation to restore the freedom to read. Such freedom was stripped away by the Bush administration’s 2001 USA Patriot Act.

Librarians, writers and booksellers cite Section 215 of the Act as most onerous. Section 215 allows the FBI to search library and bookstore records, secretly, without probable cause, and bars the library or bookstore from telling anyone that their records were requested or searched.

“Booksellers are deeply concerned about the chilling effect of Section 215 and President Bush’s plan to seek blanket reauthorization of the Patriot Act,” said ABA Chief Operating Officer Oren Teicher.

Larry Siems, a spokesman for PEN, said, “This isn’t about stripping law enforcement of the power to investigate terrorism. It’s about confidence that our reading choices aren’t being monitored by the government.”

In his Jan. 20 State of the Union speech, Bush announced that he would seek reauthorization of the entire Patriot Act, unchanged. As of Feb. 4, 253 states, counties, cities and towns, representing over 43 million residents, have passed resolutions opposing the Patriot Act.

ARLINGTON, Va: Int’l panel says ‘give D.C. a seat’

In the land of the brave and the home of the free, 340,000 registered voters in Washington, D.C., have no representative in the U.S. Congress. They can be taxed, sent to war, have commerce regulated, but residents of the District of Columbia have no say.

In a largely symbolic ruling Dec. 29, 2003, by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, an agency of the Organization of American States (OAS) that the U.S. belongs to and finances, found the U.S. violated international law by denying residents of the nation’s capital a seat, vote and voice in the U.S. Congress. “No other federal state in the Western Hemisphere denies the residents of its federal capital the right to vote for representatives in their national legislature,” the ruling said.

“The decision represents America’s Achilles’ heel,” said Tim Cooper, a human rights activist and capital resident who brought the complaint. “It might shame the Congress into action. It strips the king of democracy of his robe.”

National Clips are compiled by Denise Winebrenner Edwards (dwinebr69@aol.com). Julia Lutsky and Betty Smith contributed to this week’s clips.

Breakthrough in struggle for same-sex marriage rights

Thu, 19 Feb 2004 12:14:00 +0000

While the Massachusetts Legislature adjourned Feb. 13 without having added an amendment to the state’s constitution banning same-sex marriage, the nation’s attention swung to the other coast when San Francisco began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

The debate over gay marriage is shaping up to be a key issue in this November’s elections. In his State of the Union address, President George W. Bush vowed to ban same-sex marriages, even going so far as to support a constitutional amendment to do so. Many conservatives are holding fast to the notion that gay marriage is an affront to morals.

However, for many, the debate is about more than the ability of a same-sex couple to be married. Massachusetts State Sen. Dianne Wilkerson compared the issue to the racism she was faced with as a Black child in Arkansas.

“I know the pain of being less than equal and I cannot and will not impose that status on anyone else,” Wilkerson said with tears in her eyes. “I was but one generation removed from an existence in slavery. I could not in good conscience ever vote to send anyone to that place from which my family fled.”

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom also invoked the broader principle of equal rights. He based his decision to allow marriage licenses to be issued to same-sex couples, a defiance of the California Family Code, on the state constitution’s guarantee of equal protection.

In the first week of issuing the marriage licenses, over 2,000 couples from around the country had waited in long lines for the opportunity to be legally married. The first couple to be married were veteran gay-rights activists Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, who celebrated their 51st anniversary – and third day of marriage – on Valentine’s Day.

In a statement released Feb. 13, Matt Foreman, executive director or the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, enthusiastically greeted Martin and Lyon’s marriage, saying it grants the couple “tangible rights and benefits, and – at long last – full equality with other married couples in the eyes of the law and society.”

But while same-sex couples continue to flock to San Francisco to be married, opponents of the marriages headed to the courts, hoping to force the city to stop issuing marriage licenses and make those already issued null and void.

Taking on some of the more extreme arguments put forth by conservatives, Foreman stated, “Contrary to the fear-mongering of our opponents, Phyllis and Del’s marriage will not result in the collapse of Western civilization or cause millions of heterosexual marriages to suddenly disintegrate.”

On May 17, same-sex couples in Massachusetts will also be able to marry. That state’s Supreme Court decided earlier this year that such marriages are legal. The debate there continues March 11, when the Legislature reconvenes its constitutional convention. While many hope that an amendment to the constitution can be defeated in the Legislature, the final approval of any amendment will lay with the state’s voters in 2006.

While the spotlight has been on Massachusetts and San Francisco this week, gay rights activists around the country took part in National Freedom to Marry Day on Feb. 12. In Ohio, many took the opportunity to protest Gov. Bob Taft’s recent signing of a ban on gay marriage in the state. The ban is the most far-reaching of the 38 such state-based bans. It makes Ohio only the second state to deny benefits such as health insurance to unmarried partners.

In Denver, a Valentine’s Day protest in opposition to a ban on gay marriage drew nearly 2,000 people, including that city’s mayor, John Hickenlooper. Those at the protest called on Rep. Marilyn Musgrove (R-Colo.) to withdraw her support of a constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriage and on the state Legislature to reject a resolution declaring support for such an amendment.

“I hope in the full spirit of justice and equal rights for all citizens of this city and this entire state, our legislators will choose not to send this divisive message,” Hickenlooper told the crowd. “I hope instead that citizens and leaders of both Denver and Colorado will send a message to Washington that we want equality, fairness, hope and unity for all our citizens.”

The author can be reached at jbarnett@pww.org.

Ending needless deaths

Fri, 13 Feb 2004 06:18:00 +0000

A recent report from the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) shows that the nation’s health care system is riddled with “quality gaps” that end up in patient deaths that are completely preventable. NCQA uses the term “avoidable deaths” and reports on “estimated annual deaths attributable to failure to deliver recommended care.” They cite more than 57,000 deaths which could have been prevented by appropriate treatment (*see table).

High blood pressure

For example, the most rampant, yet simplest, health problem is high blood pressure. The successful monitoring of high blood pressure can yield dramatic results. Everyone knows that a person’s blood pressure can be taken in a few minutes. Yet, according to the NCQA report, only about 40 percent of the 31 million people in the U.S. with diagnosed high blood pressure have their blood pressure adequately controlled. By just increasing the 40 percent to 68 percent, an estimated 28,000 lives would be saved.

If you examine each of the conditions listed above, it is easy to make the case for the need to establish a preventive health program that would dramatically reduce death rates. Yet, all too often, those opposed to prevention programs cast doubt on how many people would be helped if money were to be spent to hire professionals and utilize physical facilities to establish the prevention program. Thanks to the NCQA report there are now actual figures that document the life-saving results of such programs.

*Preventable deaths in 2003 Beta-blocker treatment 1,700 Breast cancer screening 2,500 Cervical cancer screening 700 Cholesterol Management 6,500 Blood Pressure Control 28,300 Diabetes Care HbA1c 13,600 Prenatal Care 1,500 Smoking Cessation 2,700 Total 57,500

(To see the full report go to the NCQA web site: ncqa.org/index.asp)

Profits are the problem

The report does another great service by substantiating the assertions by labor, community health activists, and others that maintaining health care as a profit-making business places pressure on hospitals, physicians and other health providers to charge the most they can for their services. Making a profit in the U.S. health system has become a top goal of all administrators, including those in nonprofit hospitals and even hospitals that are publicly owned. Reversing the 1980s Reagan/Bush (and now the new Bush) ideological drive to make health care a market commodity will require a major political struggle.

The health policy struggles in the early part of the Clinton administration began the process of placing health care above profits. Now that every Democratic Party candidate for the White House is committing to a national health program, the pressure must be maintained. Every member of the House and Senate seeking to be re-elected should be asked the question: “How will you make universal health care a reality insuring that no one in the U.S. is denied all of the health services they require?”

For starters, greatly expanding the federally supported community health and mental health clinic system would make blood pressure screening a reality for those millions of Americans in need.

The author can be reached at pww@pww.org.

Peoples Gas gives Chicagoans cold shoulder

Fri, 13 Feb 2004 06:08:00 +0000

CHICAGO – Miriam Cienfuegos, 26, had her gas turned off illegally Jan. 20. Under Illinois law, no person should be disconnected after Dec. 1. This latest shutoff, in the midst of a record low temperature cold wave, gives more weight to growing sentiment that profits should not keep people in the cold.

Raising awareness about the issues associated with dangerous levels of freezing temperatures is the aim of Affordable Power to the People, a Chicago group fighting for fair and affordable energy. The group was back in the city’s downtown Jan. 26 in protest. Beginning from the State of Illinois Building, which houses the office of Gov. Rod Blagojevich, the group marched to City Hall, where Mayor Richard J. Daley’s office is situated. From there, the group moved onto the offices of Chicago’s gas company, which is ironically named Peoples Gas.

Peoples Gas acknowledges the fact that 13,000 households within the city’s limits are living without heat and hot water. Under the Good Samaritan Program, announced by Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn at a press conference in with Peoples Gas in December, anyone in the city whose gas is shut off can be re-connected for 20 percent of their bill or $250, whichever is lower. However, within days of that announcement, Affordable Power to the People saw evidence that the agreement was being violated. Apparently, the gas company that serves Chicago has decided to stick to their profits rather than their word.

The author can be reached at chochozz@aol.com.

Hospital VP tells packed hearing: Stock health comes first

Fri, 13 Feb 2004 06:05:00 +0000

PHILADELPHIA – When Tenet Healthcare System closed the historic Medical College of Pennsylvania Hospital Dec. 18, the for-profit corporation did not ask the city or state for help or inform them of its plans because earlier notice would have affected Tenet stock market shares, Tenet Vice President in charge of Pennsylvania operations Phillip S. Schaengold testified at a Philadelphia City Council hearing.

Since the closing, there has been a groundswell of organizing by employees, patients, community groups, elected officials and labor leaders to keep the 153-year-old hospital open. The Save MCP Coalition has fought back with rallies, candle light vigils, community meetings and a court suit.

The hearings have brought out important information to the public. In 1998, Tenet bought MCP and seven other Philadelphia hospitals from bankrupt Allegheny Health after the city gave the for-profit corporation tax breaks and incentives such as a lower rate on heating gas. Tenet promised to keep its doors open to indigent patients and continue the Level one Trauma Center.

Later Tenet closed two hospitals that were not profitable and sold another one, then bought a hospital that it deemed profitable. For several years Tenet refused to hire an adequate number of nurses at MCP, forcing nurses to work overtime double shifts for regular wages. In November, the nurses went out on strike for five weeks. Just when a settlement was reached between Tenet and OPEIU Local 112, Tenet announced that it was closing MCP Hospital.

“Tenet has destroyed our trust,” said Councilman Michael Nutter, who chaired the hearings. Nutter had served as chairman of MCP’s Community Board. Two longtime employees accused Tenet of “killing the hospital.” Ann Davis and Lee Russow said major departments that brought revenue to MCP were moved to other Tenet hospitals: the cath lab and its cardiologists, dentistry, ob-gyn, plastic surgery and orthopedic surgery.

Nutter and other Council members grilled Schaengold about Tenet’s history in Philadelphia. “Tenet is willing to turn over MCP to any viable operator, including the state or city, for $1 a year,” said Schaengold. “Tenet lost $35 million operating MCP last year. It can’t be saved.”

There has been standing room only at the hearings. Many patients pleaded to keep the hospital open. It is the only Level One Trauma Center in northwest Philadelphia. Its emergency department served 25,000 patients last year. MCP serves a mixed income, multiracial community of 70,000 people.

The problems of MCP go beyond Tenet. Dr. Walter Tsou, the former health commissioner for Philadelphia and a spokesperson for the Philadelphia Area Committee to Defend Healthcare, testified that the city is facing a health care crisis with 136,000 uninsured residents. Low reimbursement rates, high malpractice costs and no financial support for indigent care will cause other hospitals to close, he said. Tsou asked the City Council to find the funds to keep MCP open and save the 1,000 health care jobs. Tsou also called for City Council members to work for a national health insurance system for the entire nation.

The author can be reached at phillyrose1@earthlink.net.

Social Security doing just fine

Fri, 13 Feb 2004 05:59:00 +0000

You may have heard that our Social Security system is headed for trouble when the generation known as the baby boom begins to retire. You heard wrong.

In fact, the first baby boomers will begin to draw Social Security benefits just four years from now. Maybe then this ridiculous urban legend will finally be put to rest.

You don’t have to take my word for it. Anyone with a computer and a modem can go to www.ssa.gov and read the Social Security Trustees’ report. It shows that the program can pay all promised benefits through 2042, without any changes at all. That’s nearly four decades. Most of the baby boomers will be dead by then.

If you’re the type who likes to worry about unlikely events that may occur in the far-off, science-fiction future, you’re still going to have to find something else to worry about. The Social Security Trustees plan for 75 years, and even for this immensely long period of time, the much-hyped gap in financing is quite small relative to our economy. In fact it is less than three-quarters of one percent of our income.

To put this in perspective, consider that the average wage will be about 45 percent higher – after adjusting for inflation – in 2042 than it is today. Will we be willing to pay a little more for our most popular federal program, in order to finance the retirement of people who are living longer? I would guess yes, because our population has been aging for decades and Americans have always been willing to come up with the money. The additional funding would be less than our payroll tax increases in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, or 1980s.

But in any case this will be decided by future generations. In the mean time there’s no cause for concern. The Social Security Trustees are not trying to paint an overly-optimistic scenario. The numbers above are assuming less than 2 percent annual economic growth, the slowest in our history.

And four of the six trustees that signed off on these projections were appointed by President George W. Bush. The Bush administration has tried to paint as dismal a picture as possible of Social Security, in an effort to partially privatize the program.

A number of verbal and accounting tricks have been used to convince millions of Americans that Social Security needs “reform.” One is to lump the program together with Medicare, which has costs that are projected to rise explosively. But Social Security is a separate program from Medicare, financed by different taxes.

And even Medicare’s problems are not due to the government program itself. Nor are they primarily a result of demographic changes, such as the baby boomers’ retirement. Medicare’s cost increases are driven by the cost of health care in the private sector, which is rising once again at an unsustainable rate.

In fact, the United States now spends 15 percent of its income on health care – almost twice as much as the average for other high-income countries. This is a serious problem that will have to be fixed in the not-to-distant future. But it has little to do with demographics, and nothing to do with Social Security.

There are other disturbing economic trends: besides rising health care costs and an increasing share of the burden being shifted to employees, most Americans are facing increasing job and retirement insecurity. Over the last 30 years we have also suffered the most massive re-distribution of income in American history, in which most of the labor force barely shared at all in the gains from economic growth.

There are plenty of economic problems to worry about, but Social Security is not one of them.

Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (www.cepr.net), in Washington, D.C. Reprinted from Knight-Ridder/Tribune newspapers with the permission of author.

$5.15 an hour doesnt pay the bills

Fri, 13 Feb 2004 05:55:00 +0000

NEW YORK – Raising the minimum wage, currently $5.15 an hour, will be the top legislative priority for this state’s Working Families Party, said Dwight Loines, political director of United Auto Workers Region 9A Community Action Program Council and executive committee member of the WFP at a press conference organized by community groups on the steps of City Hall here Jan. 29.

“This year, the WFP will not settle for words of support. Working families can’t accept anything less than passage of a bill,” he said.

The minimum wage bill that passed the Assembly four years ago has been stalled in the Senate. The coalitions are urging state Sen. Olga A. Mendez of the Bronx to put together a enough votes to push this bill through.

The federal minimum wage, currently $5.15 an hour, is not indexed to preserve its purchasing power and has not been raised since 1997. According to the Fiscal Policy Institute, the inflation-adjusted value of the minimum wage is approaching its lowest point in a half-century. One million New York workers would benefit immediately from the passage of this bill, said Pete Sikora of the New York State Public Research Interest Group.

James Parrot of the Fiscal Policy Institute said that the poverty rate among working families has doubled in the last 20 years. Too many employers pay their workers minimum wage or below, he said, and thus have an advantage over employers who pay decent wages. “Increasing the minimum wage is probably the single best thing that Albany can do this year for low-income and immigrant communities,” he concluded.

Loines pointed out that taxpayers are subsidizing those employers who pay minimum wage.

Ashor Blake, a member of Community Voices Heard, is a minimum wage worker raising two children. At the press conference she said it is impossible to pay her bills without public assistance. She presented her budget: rent $1,200, utilities $300, transportation $70. There is no money for childcare, she said. Maria Amiaga, of Make the Road by Walking, said that immigrant workers sometimes don’t get paid at all, even after toiling long hours.

The coalitions are pushing for a $7 dollar minimum wage, which would match some of the twelve other states that have raised their minimum wage above the federal level.

The author can be reached at gfalsetta@pww.org.

bushgreenwatch hits environment budget

Fri, 13 Feb 2004 04:46:00 +0000

Conservation groups accused the Bush administration of singling out environmental spending for larger cuts than other domestic programs in the year 2005 budget, putting at risk environmental and public health protections under the guise of fiscal constraints.

“The Bush administration’s budget reveals a ballooning environmental deficit that is growing even greater than the fiscal deficit,” said Wesley Warren, a former official in the White House Office of Management and Budget, now with Natural Resources Defense Council, on Feb. 4.

Looking at the budget’s five-year spending projections, Warren said the deficit shows the “degree to which the Bush administration has singled out environmental protection for a disproportionate reduction – not just next year, but for the next five years.”

From forest protection to Everglades restoration to oceans, the budget President Bush has proposed to Congress puts protection of the nation’s air, land and water at risk, say environmental leaders who analyzed the budget this week.

Total spending on environmental programs is slated for a $1.9 billion reduction, nearly 6 percent below FY 2004, falling from $32.2 billion to $30.3 billion. But the cuts do not stop there; the environment takes another whack in the President’s long-term budget plan, dropping to only $29.6 billion in FY 2006, with significant additional cuts falling on land conservation efforts.

Funding for EPA would shrink by more than $600 million, with the biggest impacts on water quality and science and technology programs. Land conservation would fall far short of current needs, with the greatest deficiencies occurring in land acquisition, wildlife protection and parks funding.

The largest cut is in water-quality infrastructure funding for reducing sources of pollution. This category includes a broad range of activities, including sewage plants, water purification facilities and targeted pollution-prevention investments. The total investments drop from $2.6 billion to $1.8 billion, an $822 million cut that represents more than 30 percent of the total for water infrastructure investments. This is despite $450 billion in needs identified by EPA in the Clean Water and Drinking Water Infrastructure Gap Analysis of 2002.

Reprinted with permission. For more information, visit www.bushgreenwatch.org.

20,000 Marylanders say: Save Our Schools

Fri, 13 Feb 2004 04:24:00 +0000

ANNAPOLIS, Md. – Holding neon light sticks in the chill darkness and placards that read “Fund Public Schools,” parents, students, teachers and other school workers marched on the State House Feb. 9 to demand that Gov. Robert Ehrlich and the Legislature deliver on their promise of $1.3 billion in state aid to Maryland’s schools.

The demonstrators arrived on hundreds of yellow school buses from every county in the state. Organizers estimated the crowd at 20,000, the largest demonstration here in decades. They filled the Naval Academy stadium parking lot and marched a mile to the Capitol.

Signs among the huge crowd read, “Leave No Child Behind,” “Books Not Bombs,” “Education is Homeland Security” and “Save Our Schools.”

Tim Causion, a teacher at Baltimore’s Leith Walk Elementary, was leading 100 of his pupils who arrived on two buses. “We are Leith Walk, mighty, mighty Leith Walk,” the youngsters chanted.

Causion blasted federal, state and city officials for a budget crisis that has already forced the termination of 800 Baltimore school employees. Another 1,200 are threatened with pink slips.

“They’re laying off teachers,” he said. “Our facilities are run down. Baltimore schools are $58 million in deficit. Now they are demanding that we take a 6.8 percent pay cut and a 10-day unpaid furlough. Enough is enough! If they can spend $87 billion in Iraq, they can find money to help our schools here.”

Baltimore Teachers Union President Marietta English exulted that 4,000 union teachers turned out in an ice storm Feb. 6 to vote resoundingly against the takeaways and three days later traveled en masse to Annapolis.

“We filled 18 buses,” she told the World. “The federal government owes us the money to provide education for our children. The state has a constitutional obligation to provide for our schools. Here we are on the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education and our schools are still ‘separate and unequal.’ No Child Left Behind is an unfunded mandate. We need a president in the White House who cares about public education, cares about our children.” Asked if George W. Bush fits the bill, she retorted, “No! No! No!”

The main demand of the Feb. 9 march, “Full Funding of Thornton,” referred to a state commission’s recommendation that the state come up with $1.3 billion for equalizing per-pupil funding. Baltimore City Public Schools alone would receive an additional $250 million between now and 2008 under the plan already approved by the General Assembly.

Ehrlich, a right-wing Republican closely allied to George W. Bush, said money will be available for the Thornton program only if slot machine gambling is legalized.

Ehrlich said it was “arrogant” and “improper” for school districts throughout the state to mobilize teachers, parents and pupils to attend the rally. His press spokesman snarled that the demonstration was a “rally for slots.” The crowd answered with signs such as, “Don’t gamble with our children.”

Leslie Backus, a teacher of horticulture and life sciences at Montgomery-Blair, a high school in Montgomery County, told the World, “I don’t like Ehrlich holding our schools hostage for the benefit of his cronies who are into gambling.” Baltimore music teacher Scott MacLeod accused Ehrlich of “holding a gun to the heads of legislators” to get slots approved.

Patricia A. Foerster, president of the Maryland State Teachers Association, told the crowd, “It’s time to end the rhetoric. A promise is a promise.” Addressing the legislators in the Capitol building behind her, she added, “This is your chance to make good on your promise.”

Esther Parker, president of the Maryland Congress of Parent Teacher Associations, told the lawmakers, “Stop fighting within yourselves. Get together and find us the money.”

The community organization ACORN filled 21 of the estimated 60 buses that came from Baltimore City. ACORN leader Wendy Foy, mother of four children in Baltimore schools, told the crowd a state of emergency exists in public school funding. “We are at war and the troops are here, parents, students, teachers, community organizations, union members and more. … The future of our children is now! Let’s not fail them.”

The next afternoon, demonstrators rallied in front of the Baltimore Board of Education for yet another protest. Joyce Wheeler, laid off after 34 years in the Baltimore schools, hailed the nationwide upsurge in defense of public education. School officials estimate that $16 million in additional cuts is necessary to stave off bankruptcy and Mayor Martin O’Malley had just announced that the city would lend the school system $8 million if teachers would agree to a 3.5 percent pay cut to cover the other half. “If the city can come up with $8 million, why not ask George W. Bush for the other $8 million so no Baltimore child is left behind?” Wheeler demanded as the crowd applauded. “Teachers didn’t create this deficit. Why should they sacrifice to eliminate it?”

The author can be reached at greenerpastures21212@yahoo.com.