Poverty

How do we fix Social Security/Medicare and the lack of Health Care for the general public?

jtbutler — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 19:35:52 -0400

September 12th, 2009

Everyone wants to fix the Social Security system, the Medicare system and provide Health Care for the general public. Hello, everyone is going at these issues from the wrong angle. What needs to be introduces is:

1. A law that stops the Senate and House of Reps from drawing such large salaries from the taxes us common folk pay. Yes they should be paid, but come one everyone, Social Security folk will not be getting their normal Cost of Living Increase for the next 2 or so years because the system is failing. But yet members of the Senate and House of Reps will still draw their huge salaries.

2. A law that says that once a Senator or House of Rep retires, the gravy train is done. Right now these people collect their pay for the rest of their lives with not exception. This is not right when we have millions of people that are living in poverty because there are no jobs. This is an issue of no money because the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer.

3. A law that says Senators and House of Reps has to pay into the Social Security System and collect the same amount as the rest of us common folk. After all right now they draw their full salary after leaving the job and never were made to pay into the system... How freaking backwards is this?

Well gee wiz, if Senators and House of Reps were forced to pay into the Social Security System and collect from it after they leave their jobs I would think that the Social Security System would be fixed in no time.

As far as Health Care for the General Public goes. I think the major issue is that when you pay for insurance you are covered for your health care. The insurance companies only pay a portion of the bill that is incurred. If you are an uninsured person you pay 100% of the cost of your health care. So dollar for dollar the poor person is getting hit with a full bill. I think that people that are paying cash/from their pocket should be getting the same deal that insurance companies make with Health Care Providers and Doctors. Then at least the poorer folk that are paying 100% would me more able to pay for their health care because they do not have to pay 100% of the bill.

My opinion is that if Elected Officials had to pay into the Social Security System like everyone else (and not be allowed to vote themselves a raise whenever they feel like it) and collect from it for their retirement instead of getting their full salary without ever paying into the system, the Social Security System would be fixed really quickly. Also, if uninsured people were given the same break that Insurance Companies get they would be able to afford Medical Care.

One other point I would like to make. We have lent millions upon millions of dollars to many countries that have never even attempted to pay us back. Why are we still helping these countries and giving to them when they already owe us? If I over borrow from the bank they will not allow me to borrow anymore until I pay it off... So why are we giving money to people whom on the most part do not even like the American People???

Thank you for reading my statements, it would be nice if the American people woke up and started telling the Government what to do instead of them doing whatever they feel like and totally ignoring the issues that face the general population of our great country.

Sincerely,

Joseph Butler

San Antonio, Tx

Confronting Two Big Lies: A Strategy for Democratic Revival

dlindorff — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 12:54:43 -0500

By Dave Lindorff

If Democrats want to come out of this economic crisis with a
powerful mandate to continue running the country, they need to bag the
nonsensical talk of “bi-partisanship” and tackle two big lies that have
been stymieing progressives for decades.

The first lie is that the only solution to the nation’s deepening
health care crisis, which now has over 42 million people—roughly one in
seven Americans—living without any health insurance or ready access to
medical care, is a combination of limitations on treatment and
continued reliance on the private health insurance industry.

The second lie is that Social Security, the single most important
economic “safety net” under the lives of America’s elderly, its
disabled, and children who lose a wage-earning parent, is headed for
“bankruptcy” and needs to have its already skimpy benefits cut back.

Let’s start with healthcare. The single biggest problem with health
care in America is that because it is run largely as a profit-making
venture, fully 20 percent of every healthcare dollar has to go towards
paperwork to take care of both the billing, and the monitoring of those
who do the billing, to make sure providers and insurers are not bilking
the system and/or the patients. Another significant percentage of each
healthcare dollar, despite all that paperwork, is wasted by fraud that
goes undetected—either in the form of unnecessary treatments and
medications, or simple billing fraud.

Just one example of this: Most hospitals, built with federal
assistance under the Hill-Burton funding program, are required to
provide a certain amount of free care to indigent patients who do not
qualify for Medicaid or Medicare, but who also have no assets. But as
anyone who has gone to a hospital emergency room without an insurance
card knows, when the bill comes for such treatment, it can easily top
$2000 for just a quick exam by a nurse practitioner and a dose of
aspirin. Why? Because the hospitals want these absurdly inflated
charges to count against their “uncompensated care” obligation. They
know that poor patients are never going to pay these bills, so they
later just shift them into their “free care” column. Insurers like Blue
Cross or state Medicare programs don’t reimburse them at anywhere near
those inflated rates, but that’s not the point.

In any event, where the big lie comes into play is in the
politicians’ refusal to consider simply making Medicare, the healthcare
program for the elderly, universal, which would effectively move the US
to a Canadian-style health system, with a few tweaks. Sure, making the
government the single insurer of all Americans would mean higher taxes,
but any honest accounting of this shift would have to consider how much
we ordinary middle-class and working-class Americans are paying now for
health care. For those who have employer-funded health plans, they are
typically paying anything from 20% to 100% of the premiums, or a
portion for themselves and 100% for other family members. These
payments can run into hundreds of dollars a month or even more. But
really, the sums being paid by the employer have to be added into the
cost too, because that is money that otherwise the employer could be
paying out in wages. For many working families, we could be talking
about as much as $10,000 a year or even more just for insurance
coverage. And of course, these plans don’t cover everything. There are
co-pays and deductibles that come out of the workers’ incomes, and that
can total several thousand dollars a year. The politicians neglect to
point out that by putting everyone on Medicare, all those costs are
eliminated.

Furthermore, by making the government the “single-payer” insurer,
the public’s bargaining power over private doctors and hospitals is
enormously enhanced, allowing us, as the government, to bargain for
lower rates for office visits, exams, and hospital stays and
procedures. Choice of physician is actually expanded, because no doctor
would be allowed to refuse to accept Medicare as payment in full, and
there would be no other option for doctors to receive payment.

There is a reason why the percentage of Gross Domestic Product
devoted to health care in the US is roughly 50% higher (and in some
cases two times higher) than in any of the countries with socialized
medicine, like Canada, Britain, France, Germany or Japan. There is also
a reason why the health statistics—life expectancy, infant mortality,
survival rates from various medical conditions, etc.—are higher in
those countries than in the US.--and are higher even in much poorer
countries that also have public health care systems. (There is also a
reason why socialized medical programs have survived in all those
countries even during periods when governments have been in the hands
of conservatives—the public would rebel if any effort were made to
eliminate them.)

As for Social Security, I always have to laugh when I hear
conservatives intone about the threat that Social Security will be
technically insolvent in 2041. These are, recall, the same people who a
year ago didn’t have a clue that the economy was about to go into a
death spiral. And we’re supposed to believe in their prognostications
about the state of a program whose fortunes are very closely linked to
economic growth models, not five years out or ten years out, but 32
years out. (The 2041 doomsday deadline is based upon a very
conservative estimate for annual average economic growth over the
intervening three decades.)

Just as an exercise, try to think back to 1977 for a minute. If you
are in your 20s or 30s, you are excused, since you cannot think back
that far. Let’s see: Jimmy Carter was president, oil was being
rationed, the Vietnam War had only just ended, songs like the Eagles’
“Hotel California,” Manfred Mann’s “Blinded by the Light,” Bob Seeger’s
“Night Moves” and the Sex Pistols’ “God Save the Queen” were topping
the charts, and the biggest existential threat to mankind was nuclear
war between the US and the USSR, which back then was still a country.

What will America and the world be like in another 32 years? You
can bet that it will be as far removed from anything you can imagine as
today is from what we were imagining back in 1977.

There are many things that should worry us a hell of a lot more
about that distant future a generation hence than the financial
condition of the Social Security Trust Fund. Just take the crisis of
global climate change. In 2041, scientists are pretty certain that
there will be no polar icecap in the summer. Now that is big—it has
never happened in the history of mankind on this planet, and we know it
is a change that will have profound impacts on climate all around the
globe, many of them terrifying. But are any of those people who are all
bent out of shape over the future of Social Security frantically
calling for action to deal with climate change? No. In fact, oddly, the
very people who get so worked up about the imagined crisis 30 years
from now in a government program are the ones most likely to be
unconcerned about climate change.

The big lie here is that Social Security is not some kind of
savings account, where you get back what you put in, with accumulated
interest. Social Security is a promise, by the government, and more
broadly—this being still a democracy of sorts—by the public, to provide
a basic income for retirees and the disabled. And the fulfillment of
that promise at any given time is going to depend upon the political
calculus of who wants to pay for that promise. I would argue that the
system is largely self-correcting. That is, when the demands on the
system are greatest, because of a larger number of retirees collecting
benefits relative to working adults who are paying taxes into the
system, those who are receiving assistance have a relatively greater
political clout, because of their increased numbers. The Baby Boom
population, which is the proximate cause of concerns about Social
Security funds “running out” will also be the most powerful senior
lobby in history when they (we, actually, as I am about to turn 60
myself!) are receiving Social Security benefits. With twice the voting
strength of the already powerful senior lobby today, Baby Boomer
retirees will be in a position to demand, and to get, decent retirement
benefits, even if that means higher taxes on current workers and
employers.

Nor does that imply a “generational war”—another boogeyman raised
by conservatives. The younger working generation, by and large, will be
the children and grandchildren of the Boomer retirees, and many if not
most of them will be enthusiastically supporting their older relatives’
demands for better benefits. Just ask yourself, when have you ever
heard a child complaining about the size of her or his parents’ Social
Security check? And yet even today, current benefits are at least
partially funded by current workers’ payroll deductions.

The point here is that progressives should resist any effort to
lend credence to conservative calls for cutbacks in Social Security and
Medicare. Any calls by Democrats, including President Barack Obama, for
“bi-partisan” commissions to study Medicare and Social Security are
simply cave-ins to ideologically motivated right-wing politicians and
their corporate backers, who want to destroy two of the most important
public-benefit programs run by the federal government. Democrats need
to mount a “Hands Off Social Security and Medicare!” campaign to put
themselves squarely in defense of these programs.

There is an urgent need to fundamentally change the way health care
is run in the US, and the way forward is to expand Medicare to cover
everyone. No longer will healthcare be primarily funded by employers,
who are able to use that benefit as a way of holding workers hostage to
their jobs (and discouraging them from going out on strike). No longer
will we have one in seven Americans unable to see a doctor. No longer
will we have staffs of medical personnel working at insurance companies
with the sole responsibility of denying needed care to insured people.
Longer term, we will find that as the grotesque profits are taken out
of the system, the type of person who is attracted to the medical
profession will change, from money-hungry entrepreneurs to people who
are motivated by a desire to do good and to serve mankind.

Creating a national health system will not happen through
bi-partisan compromise. Nor will the Social Security system be defended
by compromising with those who have been committed to its destruction
since the day it was established back in the New Deal. These are things
that Democrats need to do in the face of Republican opposition. They
are the bedrock progressive programs on which a lasting progressive
American political system can be built.
___________________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His
latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and
now available in paperback edition). His work is available at
www.thiscantbehappening.net

progressive ideas and art

cow2cow — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 18:31:06 -0500

I am an artist and have recently had two galleries that represent me close. Selective zoning might help create place that galleries can afford to rent or own. Also, most individual art grants are to estamplished artists, not to those who most need the money. Go to: http://www.progressivevisualarts.com

How to Get a Job By Shooting Up a Church

davidswanson — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 21:00:27 -0400

By David Swanson

Imagine being so angry that you couldn't find a job that you were able to decide, as a man in Tennessee just did, that the way to solve your problems was to attack liberals - the people who support (albeit ineffectively) workers' rights, union rights, and fair trade, who oppose NAFTA, oppose tax breaks for shipping jobs overseas, support investing in job creation at home rather than wars abroad, and want to tax corporations and the super-rich rather than small businesses and working people.

And imagine deciding that the way to attack the people who stand for everything that might help you is to go shoot up a bunch of men, women, and children. And then imagine telling those damn liberals: "You see, you were wrong at least about gun policies, because if angry desperate people who believe everything they hear on the radio weren't allowed to get mad and go buy guns I never could have shot up your children's play! And why are you showing a dumb play about poor kids, anyway? You never put on plays about people like me, potential billionaires down on their luck who've been threatened by Muslim terorists and mistreated by blacks and gays and women and liberals!"

And imagine the Associated Press report completely playing along with your delusion, and writing:

"Although individual Unitarian churches can vary dramatically in outlooks, most congregations retain a deep commitment to social justice, which has led many to embrace liberal stances on the ordination of women, civil rights and gay rights."

What if labor rights had been mentioned?

And then imagine that the Knoxville News Sentinel gives your heros credit for deranging your mind and filling you up with bizarrely misdirected rage:

"Inside the house, officers found 'Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder' by radio talk show host Michael Savage, 'Let Freedom Ring' by talk show host Sean Hannity, and 'The O'Reilly Factor,' by television talk show host Bill O'Reilly."

And what if you were then given decades behind bars, without ever a word of thanks from your heros, to think about what in the world you might have been thinking? What would your advice end up being for others in the same sort of trouble you were in?

I like to think you'd eventually recommend selling your radio and television and spending some time talking to real people.

Speaking as a liberal who supports a sustainable full-employment economy with guaranteed education, income, and health care, I'm sorry that we have failed you and so many others so drastically, in fact failed so badly that you don't even have the slightest idea who we are. I suspect that if you knew us you would find us to have goals you approve of but to be grotesquely and despicably timid, hesitant, and easily compromised in how we go about trying to accomplish anything. And you'd be right.

We'll tell your story, for a week or so, both as an example of the effect of hatemongering propaganda and as an example of desperate economic stress and lack of community. But will we DO anything to improve those situations? I seriously doubt it. This is an election year, after all.

No Minor Crime

davidswanson — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 23:23:02 -0400

My friend Keith Murphy, host of the best radio show in the United States, The Urban Journal, also makes some great television, including this powerful film focusing on the struggles of young black people in Milwaukee, an industrial city that had seen numerous factory closings: No Minor Crime.

How "Conservatives" Pick Your Pocket

davidswanson — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 14:00:42 -0400

By David Swanson

"Jacked: How 'Conservatives' Are Picking Your Pocket (Whether You Voted for Them or Not)" is a short book by Nomi Prins that makes an excellent education for those remaining Americans who still do not understand that right-wing politicians take from those who work and give to those who live in luxury off the sweat of others.

At the end of World War II, corporations paid half the cost of the federal government. They now pay 7 percent, and many of them pay 0 percent. Unless you are very wealthy, you pick up the tab, and the tab has grown. The federal government now spends more than what it spends on everything else on the military alone, and that cost keeps rising.

So does the price of oil and gas, which is great for oil corporations, and maybe even for the chance our species has of surviving on earth, but not for your wallet. Americans are going more heavily into debt than ever, which is great for the credit card companies, banks, and blowhard politicians, but the most reckless debtor of all is the federal government, which makes things even worse for us.

Pensions are vanishing along with unions and jobs. Student loans are shrinking and college costs rising. Health care costs, too, are rising, while health insurance slips out of reach. Washington is still working hard to trash (or "privatize") Social Security and Medicare.

New Orleans still lies in ruins. Home insurance companies have still not paid up. Washington has still not stepped up. And Bush has neither apologized nor ceased making jokes about people's suffering.

Bush, on one of his Katrina-damage tours, remarked:

"An old lady walked up to me... and I said, 'How are you doing?' And she looked at me and she said, 'Not worth a darn.' And I said, 'Well, I don't blame you.' She said, 'I've been paying all my life for my insurance. Every time that bill came, I paid it... And, all of a sudden the storm hit, Mr. President, and it came time to collect, and they told me, no.' And she was plenty unhappy and she was looking for anybody she could be unhappy with, and I just happened to be the target."

Prins comments:

"No, Mr. President, you actually WERE someone she thought might be able to help her, a subtle difference that may have gone above your head."

The trouble is that it may have gone above some of his listeners' heads too. There are people who take it for granted that Bush can choose to destroy entire nations, but who accept at face value his claim that he has no power whatsoever to see that the victims of a hurricane are cared for. And it goes over even more heads that the two things are intimately related. We are killing and dying for the fossil fuels that lead to the destruction of global warming, and the financial cost of the killing and dying produces massive destruction in our economy. Meanwhile, we've allowed our government to empower loan sharks and insurance agents of all varieties to defraud us and defenestrate us from our homes.

Prins' advice is to write hand-written letters to your congress member's district office. Mine is to get this book read by any non-millionaires you know who believe "conservatism" to be something other than a cover for robbing the poor to enrich the wealthy. If enough people understood what we were doing, perhaps we could go to Washington with the message: "We've come to collect, and you don't just happen to be our target, and we won't take No for an answer."

Kucinich - Out of Iraq and Back to the American City

CactusPat — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 20:57:39 -0500

So who do want to be President?

Out of Iraq and Back to the American City By Dennis J. Kucinich, Democratic Candidate for President of the United States - 10th Annual Wall Street Project Conference - Sheraton New York & Towers, Monday, Jan. 8, 2007
We are losing our nation to a philosophy of war and destruction. It is time for policies of peace and construction. It is time for the philosophy of peace, nonviolence and economic justice. This was the philosophy of Dr. King, Gandhi, Jesus, Fredrick Douglas, A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin, Fannie Lou Hamer, Sojourner Truth, Cesar Chavez, and Jesse Jackson.

We are all united with the philosophy which birthed the New Deal, the New Frontier, the Great Society, the dreams of social and economic justice which could be called forth by those who were ready to stand up, to speak out, to march, to demand, to testify about the good news...

The world is interconnected. The world is interdependent. We are not just our brother and sisters keeper, on a deeper spiritual level we are our brothers and sisters. This is the meaning of the Golden Rule, Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This is the meaning of Love Thy neighbor as thy self. This is why policies of unilateralism, first strike, and preemption are dead ends. This is why nuclear proliferation is a threat to every person on the planet. This is why the very idea that war should be an instrument of policy needs to be challenge. War is not inevitable. Peace is inevitable if we are prepared to work for it.

Dr. King understood this. In his speech in New York City nearly forty years ago, he created a synthesis of peace and civil rights. “Somehow this madness must cease,” Dr. King told those assembled at Riverside Church about the annihilation of the Vietnamese people and their nation. “I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are destroyed, whose culture is being subverted…. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world, as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our nation: The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours too.”

That is why tomorrow I will present Congress with a plan to get out of Iraq. We must end the occupation, close the bases, and use the money that is there now to bring the troops home while we prepare Iraq for an international security force. I led the effort in the House of Representatives challenging the Bush Administration’s march toward war in Iraq. I organized 125 Democrats to vote against the war.

There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But there are plenty of weapons of mass destruction here in the United States which need to be removed. Poverty is a weapon of mass destruction, homelessness is a weapon of mass destruction, joblessness is a weapon of mass destruction, poor health care is a weapon of mass destruction, theft of pensions, a weapon of mass destruction, hopelessness is a weapon of mass destruction.

Let’s deal with the WMD’s in our cities. It is time to get out of Iraq, which did not have weapons of mass destruction and into our American cities, which are loaded with weapons of mass destruction.

This then is a call for a politics of unity where human unity becomes an imperative. This is a call for a politics of economic justice, where wealth creation is available to everyone, where the government becomes an engine to create wealth for all, where it functions to equitably redistribute the wealth.

We know the challenges. The war in Iraq is the product of the same type of thinking which underlies racism. Us vs. them. The minute there is a THEY or a THEM it creates separation. Separation is the basis for discrimination. Separation is the basis for subjugation. Separation is the basis for insularity. Separation is the basis for conflict. Separation is the basis for war. Separation is the basis for the destruction of our environment. Separation is the basis for the destruction of the planet.

We are at a moment where our survival instinct causes us to declare the imperative of human unity. A unity of states is a superficial unity if it does not embrace policies which promote human unity, human equality, human striving, the practical aspirations of people.

There has been a massive redistribution of wealth in our society. Government has been turned into an engine to redistribute the wealth upwards. Our whole monetary system is based on debt creation for the masses and wealth creation for the few. War has become an engine of wealth for military contractors. Health care has become an engine of wealth for the pharmaceutical companies and the insurance companies. The tax system is used to accelerate wealth to the top. Our banking and credit systems accelerate wealth to the top. Our electric utilities, our gas companies, our oil companies accelerate wealth to the top. Our energy systems accelerate wealth to the top. Our transportation systems accelerate wealth to the top. Our information systems accelerate wealth to the top.

The concentration of wealth in our society has jeopardized our democracy. It has created a two class society. And in doing so jeopardizes the very institutions of wealth creation. Franklin Roosevelt recognized this in the creation of the New Deal which saved not only economic opportunities for the masses, but also saved capitalism itself.

There is an unlimited amount of wealth that can be created in our society. We need to teach our children wealth creation. But we need to challenge the fundamental assumptions that guide our society, assumptions such as “a certain amount of unemployment is necessary to the functioning of the economy.” or “let the market decide access to health care.” We need to perfect our union. This then is the perfect opportunity for us to perfect our union, to perfect the purpose of government, to perfect our mutual pledge to each other. It is time for a declaration of human economic rights of citizens of an urban society, and tie that declaration to legislation and use that legislation to create wealth and harmony and peace.

Langston Hughes wrote: “Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.” We know that experience, we also know that we can teach people to create wealth if we can help them find a way to get access to wealth.

I am a product of the city. My parents never owned a home. I grew up in 21 different places by the time I was 17, including a few cars. I’ve learned about opportunities. I’ve learned that if you believe it you can conceive it. I’ve learned about pulling oneself up by bootstraps. I’ve also seen the cynicism which comes when you tell people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and then you steal their shoes. I’ve seen people dreaming the dreams and stuck singing Sixteen Tons.

We are not going back to the days of Sixteen Tons.

So let it be said here:
We have a right to a job.
We have a right to a living wage.
We have a right to an education.
We have a right to health care.
We have a right to decent and affordable housing.
We have a right to a secure pension.
We have a right to air fit to breathe.
We have a right to water fit to drink.
We have a right to be free of the paralyzing fear of crime.
We have a right to be free of a government tapping our phones, opening our mail, checking out our library reading lists, snooping into our medical records, and our credit records.
We have a right to fair, open and verifiable elections where every vote counts and every vote is counted.
We have a right to peace.
We have a right to prosperity.

This means ending the war in Iraq.
This means bringing the money home to our cities.
This means a full employment economy.
This means good paying jobs.
This means a living wage.

This means a federal infrastructure bill to put millions to work rebuilding our schools, our bridges, our libraries, our universities our hospitals, our city halls, our recreation centers, our sidewalks, our street lights, our parks, our water systems, our sewer systems, our neighborhoods.
This means a more perfect union.
This means every child goes to a prekindergarten and every young person goes to a junior or a four year college.
This means universal health care.
This means a new housing initiative where everyone has access to affordable housing.
This means full protection of social security and no privatization.
This means protection of private pension funds.
This means giving workers access to the power of their pension funds to invest in job creation.
This means cleaner energy, greener energy.
This means programs for safer neighborhoods..
This means initiatives which bring people out of prison and into the mainstream of society.
This means a Department of Peace and nonviolence.

I don’t just talk the talk. I walk the walk.
The universal health care bill is called Conyers-Kucinich. It calls for a universal single payer not for profit health care system to lift everyone up. To give everyone access to health care.

I wrote the federal infrastructure bill.
I wrote the universal pre-kindergarten bill.
I wrote the bill for a Department of Peace and non-violence to make Dr. King’s dream of non- violence a reality. That bill will deal with the realities of violence in our society and take a path towards more peaceful relationships. It will help families who suffer from domestic violence, spousal abuse, child abuse; it will meet the challenge of violence in the schools, racial violence, violence against gays, police community conflicts, using the principles for which Dr., King lived. And it will create a context where a peaceful America can help to create a peaceful world. Imagine. Peace as an organizing principle. Prosperity as an organizing principle.

And when I am elected President of the United States, in my first day in office I will be ready to push. I will send to the congress a bill for universal single payer not for profit health care.
I will send to the congress legislation for creating millions of jobs through rebuilding America’s infrastructure, I will send congress legislation to create a summer jobs program.
I will send congress legislation to create affordable housing.
I will send congress a bill to establish a cabinet level Department of Peace and Non Violence.

I can do this because I have already written many of these bills. They are ready and so am I. I will move to restore the Constitution, restore habeas corpus, and repeal the Patriot Act. If you are ready, I am ready for a new America. And I am ready to unite this country in the cause of peace, justice and prosperity.

Our unity extends to all people everywhere. The Bible tells us to make peace with our brother because we are all one. We are told whatever we do for the least of our brothers and sisters, we do for the Lord, because we are all one in spirit. We are told that we have an obligation to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, clothe the naked not simply because we are our brother and sisters keeper, not just because there but for the grace of God go I, but because wherever there is a hungry person, there I am. Wherever there is someone who is homeless, there I am.

Wherever someone is walking the streets looking for a job. That person is my brother and that person is me. Wherever a child goes to bed hungry, I am there. We connect with each other in our profound, human experience. We connect with each other through the imperative to love one another. We bind to each other in all of our hopes, in all of our dreams, and in all of our sufferings. The awareness which bids us to pursue a more perfect union make us aware of the perfectibility of our social systems, our economic systems and our own lives. We are meant for higher things. We are meant for better things. We are meant for peace, for prosperity, for enlightenment, for health, for love, for a more perfect union with ourselves, with each other, with our nation and with the world. Human unity is the great path that we all can walk upon. The world is interconnected. The world is interdependent.

I know that we are on the threshold of greatness because the people are great and we just need to call forth that awareness, call forth that ability, give people the resources, show people the money, show them their power, show them their beauty, show them that we can all be more than we are, better than we are. It’s about reaching up and reaching out. It’s about Push. It’s about the Rainbow Coalition. It’s about Human Unity. It’s about a new America. It’s about a new world. Let us begin.

Shameful Milestone Reached For Minimum Wage

Bob Geiger — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 10:15:11 -0500

Another unfortunate milestone in the reign of George W. Bush and the recently-deposed Republican Congress was reached on Saturday when the federal minimum wage set a new record for the longest period without a raise since its establishment in 1938. As of December 2, the $5.15-per-hour wage rate has remained unchanged for nine years and three months.

Not surprisingly, the prior record also occurred under Republican administrations, when the minimum wage rate remained stagnant from early 1981 until April of 1990 under Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

“For nearly a decade, the prices of everyday necessities like gas, food, and prescription drugs have skyrocketed, while the paychecks of minimum wage workers haven’t increased a cent," said Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) over the weekend. "Year after year, the Republican Congress has blocked all attempts to raise the minimum wage, while voting a pay raise for themselves almost every year."

An American working 40 hours per week at the current minimum wage makes only $10,712 a year, which is less than $900 a month to cover housing, health care, food and all other living expenses. And, given that most workers being paid minimum wage do not receive health benefits, that salary would barely cover the cost of buying medical insurance alone, much less other necessities.

According to the Economic Policy Institute, the current minimum wage has also deteriorated in real value to the point that buying power for that compensation is at its lowest level since 1955.

“It is next to impossible for hard-working men and women to make ends meet for themselves and their families when they are earning wages established in 1997 and salaries that fall well below the poverty line," said Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) on Saturday, in response to this sad record being set. "The price of housing has increased, the price of higher education has increased, the price of health care and energy has increased. The only thing that hasn’t increased since 1997 is the minimum wage."

Six states overwhelmingly voted in November to raise their minimum wage -- which supersedes the federal wage rate -- and incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) have been clear on making a pay hike for working families one of their top priorities when Democrats assume control in the 110th Congress next month.

And Kennedy, who has long been the Senator fighting hardest to give workers a raise -- seeing his legislation to accomplish that killed three times by the GOP leadership in the last two years alone -- will be the new chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and will focus like a laser on the issue from the first day of the new Congress.

"If there’s one message from last month’s election that emerged loud and clear, it’s that no one who works for a living should have to live in poverty," said Kennedy. "The American people have spoken, and the new Congress will listen. When we convene in January, domestic priority number one will be to give minimum wage workers the long-overdue raises they deserve.”

You can read more from Bob at BobGeiger.com.

Please, Mr. Bush, I Want Some More

CactusPat — Sat, 18 Nov 2006 18:30:47 -0500

For those who don't get the reference, it's one of the classic lines in literature, theater, and movies. In Dicken's classic, Oliver Twist, the orphan, Oliver, asks the headmaster "Please, sir, I want some more". In modern day America, it's a question that's being asked as more and more Americans fall into poverty, despair, and hunger. But no, one can't say hunger anymore, you see under the Bush Junta the word hunger is no longer "scientific" enough for the USDA to use to gauge if someone isn't getting enough food to eat. Welcome to "very low food security"....

Some Americans Lack Food, but USDA Won't Call Them Hungry The U.S. government has vowed that Americans will never be hungry again. But they may experience "very low food security." Every year, the Agriculture Department issues a report that measures Americans' access to food, and it has consistently used the word "hunger" to describe those who can least afford to put food on the table. But not this year.... (more)

Mark Nord, the lead author of the report, said "hungry" is "not a scientifically accurate term for the specific phenomenon being measured in the food security survey." Nord, a USDA sociologist, said, "We don't have a measure of that condition."

The USDA said that 12 percent of Americans -- 35 million people -- could not put food on the table at least part of last year. Eleven million of them reported going hungry at times. Beginning this year, the USDA has determined "very low food security" to be a more scientifically palatable description for that group.

The United States has set a goal of reducing the proportion of food-insecure households to 6 percent or less by 2010, or half the 1995 level, but it is proving difficult. The number of hungriest Americans has risen over the past five years. Last year, the total share of food-insecure households stood at 11 percent.

Less vexing has been the effort to fix the way hunger is described. Three years ago, the USDA asked the Committee on National Statistics of the National Academies "to ensure that the measurement methods USDA uses to assess households' access -- or lack of access -- to adequate food and the language used to describe those conditions are conceptually and operationally sound."

Among several recommendations, the panel suggested that the USDA scrap the word hunger, which "should refer to a potential consequence of food insecurity that, because of prolonged, involuntary lack of food, results in discomfort, illness, weakness, or pain that goes beyond the usual uneasy sensation."

To measure hunger, the USDA determined, the government would have to ask individual people whether "lack of eating led to these more severe conditions," as opposed to asking who can afford to keep food in the house, Nord said.

It is not likely that USDA economists will tackle measuring individual hunger. "Hunger is clearly an important issue," Nord said. "But lacking a widespread consensus on what the word 'hunger' should refer to, it's difficult for research to shed meaningful light on it."

Anti-hunger advocates say the new words sugarcoat a national shame. "The proposal to remove the word 'hunger' from our official reports is a huge disservice to the millions of Americans who struggle daily to feed themselves and their families," said David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World, an anti-hunger advocacy group. "We . . . cannot hide the reality of hunger among our citizens."

In assembling its report, the USDA divides Americans into groups with "food security" and those with "food insecurity," who cannot always afford to keep food on the table. Under the old lexicon, that group -- 11 percent of American households last year -- was categorized into "food insecurity without hunger," meaning people who ate, though sometimes not well, and "food insecurity with hunger," for those who sometimes had no food.

That last group now forms the category "very low food security," described as experiencing "multiple indications of disrupted eating patterns and reduced food intake." Slightly better-off people who aren't always sure where their next meal is coming from are labeled "low food security."

That 35 million people in this wealthy nation feel insecure about their next meal can be hard to believe, even in the highest circles. In 1999, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, then running for president, said he thought the annual USDA report -- which consistently finds his home state one of the hungriest in the nation -- was fabricated.

"I'm sure there are some people in my state who are hungry," Bush said. "I don't believe 5 percent are hungry."

Bush said he believed that the statistics were aimed at his candidacy. "Yeah, I'm surprised a report floats out of Washington when I'm running a presidential campaign," he said.

The agency usually releases the report in the fall, for reasons that "have nothing to do with politics," Nord said.

This year, when the report failed to appear in October as it usually does, Democrats accused the Bush administration of delaying its release until after the midterm elections. Nord denied the contention, saying, "This is a schedule that was set several months ago."

Yep, sad but true, the corporatist fat cats on Wall Street have the stock market pushed up to an all-time high, but that concentration of "wealth" is made possible at the expense of ever growing poverty and hunger. 12%! That's one in every eight of us..... Plus, The weaseal bastard Bushite's had the report delayed so as to not affect the election.

Economy booming for billionaires

davidswanson — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 12:51:02 -0400

By Holly Sklar
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune News Service, September 27, 2006
Copyright (c) 2006 Holly Sklar

Millionaires are so last millennium. The new Forbes 400 list of richest Americans is billionaires only.

If you're net worth is a mere $999 million, forget it. A billion means a thousand million, and that's the Forbes 400 minimum -- up from $900 million in 2005.

Donald Trump and two of his kids grace the Forbes 400 cover, but ranked No. 94 with $2.9 billion, Trump's a long way from No. 1 Bill Gates with $53 billion.

The combined wealth of the 400 richest Americans is a record-breaking $1.25 trillion. That's about the same amount of combined wealth held by the 57 million households who make up half the U.S. population.

The economy is booming for billionaires. It's a bust for many other Americans.

A record 400 Americans are billionaires -- and a record 47 million Americans have no health insurance.

America has 400 billionaires -- and 37 million people below the official poverty line.

The official poverty line for one person was just $9,973 in 2005 (latest data). That wouldn't cover the custom-made men's shoes ($4,128) and Hermes purse ($6,250) on the Forbes Cost of Living Extremely Well Index. The official poverty line of $15,577 for a three-person family is lower than the cost of the Patek Philippe men's gold watch ($17,600).

The Forbes 400 minimum is up $100 million since 2005, but the federal minimum wage has been stuck at $5.15 an hour -- just $10,712 a year -- since 1997. GOP leaders in Congress have been holding a raise for minimum wage workers hostage to more giant tax cuts for wealthy inheritors.

Wealth isn't trickling down. It's flooding up -- from workers to bosses, small investors to big, poorer to richer.

The heirs to Wal-Mart founders Sam and Bud Walton have a combined $82.5 billion -- while the children of Wal-Mart workers swell the ranks of state health insurance programs for the neediest.

In today's corporate America, workers see gutted paychecks and pensions despite rising worker productivity, while CEOs get golden pay, perks, pensions and parachutes. The pay gap between average workers and CEOs has grown nine times wider since the 1970s.

The number of billionaires is a record high, but the share of national income going to wages and salaries is at a record low.

U.S. corporate profits increased 21 percent in the past year, Market Watch reported in March. "Profits have been so high because almost all of the benefits from productivity improvements are flowing to the owners of capital rather than to the workers," said Market Watch.

The wealthiest 1 percent of Americans (minimum net worth $6 million) owned 62 percent of the nation's business assets, 51 percent of stocks and 70 percent of bonds as of 2004, according to the latest data from the Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances -- which excludes the Forbes 400. That's way up from 1989, when the wealthiest 1 percent owned 54 percent of business assets, 41 percent of stocks and 52 percent of bonds.

Our growing economy is not producing a growing middle class, but a richer aristocracy.

The high point for median household income -- the income of the household in the middle -- was $47,671 in 1999, adjusted for inflation. In 2005, median household income was $1,345 less at $46,326. In the same period, the Forbes 400 gained more than 100 billionaires.

Government policies are fueling rising inequality. Taxpayers with incomes above $1 million will see their after-tax income grow by about 6 percent this year thanks to tax cuts the nation can't afford.

In an economy where money is flowing up to the very top, even college-educated workers are going backward. Inflation-adjusted median household income was lower in 2005 than 1999 even when the householder had a bachelor's degree, master's degree, professional degree or doctorate.

The problem is much bigger than the rich getting richer, while the poor get poorer. The really rich are getting richer at the expense of most everyone else.

Solutions include restoring the link between rising worker productivity and pay, raising the miserly minimum wage, narrowing the obscene pay gap between workers and CEOs, rolling back tax cuts for the wealthy -- and stop taxing income from work more than income from capital gains.

Holly Sklar is co-author of "A Just Minimum Wage: Good for Workers, Business and Our Future" (www.letjusticeroll.org) and "Raise the Floor: Wages and Policies That Work for All of Us." She can be reached at hsklar@aol.com.