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sspl05 - Sat 02 Aug 2008 07:21 AM CDT
ihatehogconfinements - Mon 21 Jul 2008 06:45 PM CDT
no4gman - Tue 15 Jul 2008 10:46 PM CDT
evaroberts - Tue 15 Jul 2008 01:20 AM CDT
Sam Garchik - Mon 02 Jun 2008 10:10 AM CDT
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Saturday, February 26
The Bush Budget: All Guns, No Butter
by
Trish Nelson
on Sat 26 Feb 2005 12:00 PM CST
 The Bush Budget: All Guns, No Butter
MinutemanMedia
by Greg Tarpinian
[George W. ] Bush’s $2.57 trillion budget for 2006 increases military
spending by 4.8 percent – not including the war in Iraq – and cuts all
other federal government programs by 0.5 percent. The deepest cuts are
aimed at services for working Americans and the poor.
The primary purpose of this budget is to fund the war machine needed to
push foreign policy objectives in the Middle East and to guarantee
military dominance in the world. It represents a 41 percent increase in
military spending since 2001. For fiscal 2006, that spending will rise
to $419.3 billion, not including the $100 billion for Iraq and
Afghanistan, and billions more for the military, hidden in other agency
budgets.
U.S. military spending is now larger than the rest of the world’s
combined. The second largest is by China, at $51 billion, followed by
Russia at $50.8 billion, Japan at $41.4 billion and the United Kingdom
at $41.3. Iran and North Korea – the two countries that Bush most often
cites as military threats – spend about $5 billion each. The Bush
budgets no longer represent simple adjustments or new priorities in
spending, but a set of fundamental changes.
These include redirecting nearly all federal resources to the military,
channeling huge amounts of spending to the private sector, shifting the
tax burden away from the corporations and the wealthy and onto the
working class, and relying on deficit spending to finance the military
buildup without raising taxes.
Greg Tarpinian is the president and executive director, Labor Research
Association, a New York City-based non-profit research and advocacy
organization that provides research and educational services for trade
unions.
(Click here to read the entire story)
Thursday, February 24
Iowa to Face Federal Budget Cuts
by
Linda Thieman
on Thu 24 Feb 2005 11:00 AM CST
Iowa to Face Federal Budget Cuts
Iowa Fiscal Partnership
Analysis: Bush Budget Whacks Iowa Services
New report projects Iowa cuts of nearly $580 million in federal spending
MOUNT VERNON, Iowa – A new report reveals sweeping cuts in services for Iowa in the budget proposed by [George W.] Bush.
A
Washington budget watchdog group, the Center on Budget and Policy
Priorities (CBPP), reports that Iowans would see cuts in federal grants
in aid of more than $577 million from 2006 through 2010, including $178
million in 2010 alone.
"The administration is hiding the effects of its budget proposals
as no administration has done in over 15 years," said David Osterberg,
executive director of the nonpartisan Iowa Policy Project. "It's pretty
hard for Iowans and other Americans to battle back on cuts the
administration won't detail. Fortunately, this new report gives Iowans
a better idea of what they're facing – and information they can use to
talk to their representatives in Congress."
While
the proposed budget details the cuts only for 2006, the CBPP analysis
uses further information provided to congressional committees to make
estimates of future cuts in several areas.
This
is the first time since 1989 that an administration's budget has not
provided information about the proposed funding levels for individual
discretionary programs in years beyond the first year.
Nationally,
[Bush's] budget would cut $214 billion in domestic "discretionary"
spending in the five years. However, only the first $18 billion of
those proposed cuts – cuts that would occur in 2006 – are identified by
the administration.
"The
pain in the budget comes mostly after 2006, with the cuts growing
deeper with each passing year," said Sharon Parrott, CBPP director of
welfare reform and income and the report’s lead author.
Among the Iowa cuts:
-- $3.7
million in 2010 in the supplemental nutrition program for women,
infants and children (WIC), $5.1 million over the 2006-2010 period and
a projected loss in number of recipients of 5,600.
-- $38.1
million in 2010 in elementary and secondary education, including
education for the disadvantaged, impact aid, school improvement
funding, and special education, $108.7 million in total projected cuts
for 2006-2010.
-- $12.5 million in 2010 for vocational and adult education, $57.6 million in total projected cuts for 2006-2010.
-- $3.1 million in 2010 for low-income energy assistance, $4.1 million in total projected cuts for 2006-2010.
-- $9.1
million in 2010 for children and family services, including Head Start,
services for abused and neglected children, and other children's
programs, $26.2 million in total projected cuts for 2006-2010.
-- A loss of rental assistance vouchers for 3,800 families in 2010.
-- $23.2
million in 2010 in [Bush's] proposed "Strengthening America's
Communities" initiative, $100.7 million in total projected cuts for
2006-2010.
"These cuts will be a new burden on the people in Iowa who can least afford to bear them,"
said Charles Bruner, executive director of the Child & Family
Policy Center in Des Moines. "It is important for Iowans and all
Americans to understand that the proposed cuts in these services do not
provide deficit reduction. Instead, they will shift costs to state and
local governments, and will be used to help pay for tax cuts that are
primarily benefiting the wealthiest Americans."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The
new analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, "Large Cuts
to a Wide Range of Programs are Obscured in the Administration’s
Budget," is available at the Center’s website: www.cbpp.org.
The
Iowa Policy Project and the Child & Family Policy Center will make
federal budget information available in the coming months through their
joint initiative, the Iowa Fiscal Partnership, which is on the web at www.iowafiscal.org.
Saturday, February 12
WOMEN DESERVE MORE SOCIAL SECURITY, NOT LESS
by
Trish Nelson
on Sat 12 Feb 2005 07:15 AM CST
 WOMEN DESERVE MORE SOCIAL SECURITY, NOT LESS
MinutemanMedia
by Martha Burk
As we all know from
the State of the Union speech, [Bush] is pushing hard - on his own
party as well as the Democrats - to privatize Social Security. While
some of his folks know carving private accounts out of the present
system is a non-starter, they’re still trying to figure a way to please
their [pResident] and still get re-elected next year. Representative Bill
Thomas, chair of the House Ways and Means Committee and a heavy-hitter
in the debate, recently floated the idea of "gender and race adjusting”
benefits. Thomas strongly implied that since women live longer than
men, their checks should be reduced so an equivalent amount of money
would stretch over the additional years.
Great.
Women already have lower benefits than men because they make less over
their lifetimes due to pay discrimination and years spent out of the
workforce caring for kids and elderly parents, so Thomas’ idea adds
insult to injury. But putting aside the fact that gender or race-based
benefits would be against the law, Thomas ought to consider some
“adjustments” that would really be fair to women.
In 2003,
the last full year for which we have Census Bureau earnings data for
full-time, year-round workers, women earned only 75.5 cents for every
$1 men earned. Adjusting women's benefits upward to compensate for that
lower pay, would mean an increase in their benefits of 32.5 percent to
bring them in line with men's benefits.
Making
race based adjustments could help Hispanic and African American women
even more. Hispanic women earn only 52.5 cents for each $1 earned by
non-Hispanic white men, and African American women earned only 62.5
cents. So Hispanic women would need a 90 percent adjustment and African
American women a 60 percent upward adjustment to bring their benefits
into line with white men’s.
And, if
Rep. Thomas wants to compensate women for the time they spend out of
the labor market caring for children and other family members, the
upward adjustment would have to be much larger. The Institute for
Women’s Policy Research recently estimated that the typical woman earns
just 38 cents for each $1.00 the typical man earns over a lifetime,
taking years out of the workforce into account. Since Social Security
benefits are based on the highest 35 years of earnings (and the years
women spend at home are averaged in at $0). To compensate women for the
impact of this lost time doing unpaid care work, women's benefits would
need to be increased by 163 percent, more than double.
Of
course, privatizing Social Security would make all of these inequities
worse, not better, since women have fewer pennies to invest in that
great casino we call the stock market.
The
National Council of Women’s Organizations sent a strongly worded letter
to Thomas, urging him and his colleagues get serious about
strengthening Social Security in ways that preserve and improve
benefits for all those who rely on it, including women. The system is
not in crisis, but it will be if it’s starved by taking money out
through risky privatization schemes. Congress ought to be working to
stop that plan, not proposing ways to further disadvantage women
through disproportionate benefit cuts.
Martha
Burk is a political psychologist who heads the Center for Advancement
of Public Policy in Washington, D.C., a think tank focusing on the
wisdom of providing for more equal treatment of women in society. She can be found at MinutemanMedia.org.
Friday, February 11
Unifying The Democratic Caucus
by
Chad Thompson
on Fri 11 Feb 2005 12:13 PM CST
 Unifying The Democratic Caucus
Since it's Friday, I'll pass along two good things from "Kos" - unified Democrats producing good results.
In the Senate:
U.S.
Senate Democrats admitted on Thursday they did not do enough to protect
their ousted leader, Tom Daschle, from Republican attacks and vowed to
defend his successor, Harry Reid, who is now under fire.
Reid's
43 fellow Senate Democrats, along with a Democratic-leaning
independent, wrote [Bush] to protest a partisan offensive.
They
called on Bush to halt what they denounced as personal and unfair
attacks by the Republican National Committee and the Republican
senatorial campaign committee against Reid. The Nevada lawmaker
replaced Daschle last month as Senate minority leader [...]
"Calling
him (Reid) names is pointless and silly," Democrats wrote in the letter
sent on Thursday. "We feel that suggesting Democrats are simply
obstructionists because they have honest policy disagreements with your
administration is dishonest."
From the House:
Rep.
Paul Ryan (R.-Wis.) was asked at a CATO conference in Washington
yesterday whether he had persuaded any Democrats to back his plan to
rescue Social Security from its financial troubles. Under his
legislation (HR 4851), no new taxes would be needed to pay for
"transition costs," participation in the new system would be voluntary
and individuals would be allowed to divert a portion of their payroll
tax into a mutual fund.
A questioner from the audience, stressing his own Democratic
credentials, said he believed Ryan's plan should attract members of his
own party and wondered whether the Wisconsin lawmaker had secured any
Democratic sponsors. Ryan said he had been working with friends on the
"other side of the aisle" who were favorable toward his solution, but
he faced an enormous problem: intense pressure on his colleagues from
the minority leadership.
"We were in planning stages [with friendly Democrats]," said Ryan. But each essentially told him: "I
like what you're doing. I like this bill. I think it's the right way to
go. But my party leadership will break my back. The retribution that
they are promising us is as great as I have ever seen. We can't do it."
Aside
from the "posturing" from Ryan - Democrats acting as a unified block is
paying dividends, particularly in uniting Democrats to stand against
proposals like Social Security phase-out.
Kos also passes along this from the National Journal:
In
the latest example of his muscle flexing, incoming Democratic National
Committee Chairman Howard Dean agreed during a meeting Wednesday with
Reid to cede full control of the party's policies and agenda to
congressional Democrats and to provide financial and message support to
Reid's efforts, Senate Democratic aides said.
Dean
told Reid "he wants clear lines of communication [with Reid] to ...
amplify what the Democrats up here are doing," an aide familiar with
the conversation said.
While
careful to avoid criticizing former Minority Leader Daschle, many
Democrats also privately argue Reid's early emphasis on unity is
welcome within both the moderate and progressive factions and has
helped bring about the current détente between the two wings after
several years of increasing tensions.
Democrats
point to the fact that none of the party's moderate senators has broken
ranks with Reid's position on Social Security, despite an aggressive
White House conversion campaign aimed at "red state" moderates such as
Sen. Max Baucus of Montana.
The DNC, state parties and Congressional Democrats working toward the same goal. I like the sound of that.
Along those lines, Paul Krugman wonders if the Democratic Party will finally stand up to Republican class warfare.
Democrats
have surprised the Bush administration, and themselves, by effectively
pushing back against Mr. Bush's attempt to dismantle Social Security.
It's time for them to broaden their opposition, and push back against
Mr. Bush's tax policy.
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