BUCKNACKT'S SORDID TAWDRY BLOG
We should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive & well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate, bier or wein in hand, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WHOO-HOO, WHAT A RIDE!!!!!!"
THIS budget deal is nothing to be proud of, if fact Democrats should be ashamed of abandoning millions of unemployed Americans and caving to the demands for austerity for the 99% from the gop / teabagger minority in the Senate while agreeing to protect the wealth and power of the 1% and the military-industrial complex. Once again these jellyfish democrats have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Here is a petition from Credo to the Senate to eliminate the debt ceiling and to stand against further austerity measures when Congress votes on raising the debt ceiling by 15 JAN14. And see How To Destroy An Entire Country
& How the Defeat of Trade Unionism Gave Rise to Low-Wage Jobs &
Organized labor's decline in the US is well-known. But what drove it?
14&4DEC13 & 4SEP13
http://bucknacktssordidtawdryblog.blogspot.com/2013/12/how-to-destroy-entire-country-how.html
Tell Senate Democrats: Abolish the debt ceiling
The petition to Senate Democrats reads: "The Ryan/Murray budget bill wasn’t a compromise, it was a big
win for Republicans who have succeeded in moving the goal posts so far
that Democrats voted for a budget that had spending levels below the
original Paul Ryan budget.
With another debt ceiling showdown on the horizon, Democrats need to go
on the offense now and adopt an aggressive strategy in advance of the
next set of negotiations. Part of that should be pushing to abolish the
debt ceiling, which serves no useful purpose other than to give the
Republicans another opportunity to hold us all hostage to their
extremist agenda."
Automatically add your name:
Dear Craig,
The Senate just passed a two-year budget bill, and it’s headed to the president’s desk for his signature.
The politicos in Washington DC may be hailing this deal as a “compromise” or a good first step. But in fact, it’s
a big win for Republicans. Military spending goes up. Unemployment
benefits for nearly 1.3 million Americans go away. Incredibly, this
budget boasts spending levels lower than the original Paul Ryan budget.
How did we get here after the Democrats, led by Senate Majority Harry
Reid with strong backing from President Obama, so thoroughly routed
Republicans over the government shutdown in October?
It comes down to a deeply misguided and bipartisan belief in the myth
that, with millions of Americans still suffering through the
aftershocks of the economic collapse, what we really need right now is
austerity and deficit reduction.
This is a budget that is both cruel and counterproductive -- we
shouldn’t be limiting government spending to levels below Paul Ryan’s
original and heartless budget proposal at a time when government
spending is needed to lift us out of the economic slowdown. And if this budget deal wasn’t bad enough, in February we’ll
face another showdown over the debt ceiling. You can bet that
Republicans will be ready to build on the change of momentum represented
by this victory to extract even more concessions from Democrats in
exchange for raising the debt ceiling. Tell Democrats: It’s time to go on offense. Stop caving to Republicans and fight to abolish the debt ceiling before the next negotiation over revenues and spending. Click here to automatically sign the petition.
The Republicans have now set their sights on the looming need to
raise the debt ceiling as their next hostage-taking opportunity.
While thankfully the prospect of a grand bargain (a scenario where
Democrats accept cuts to Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid benefits
in exchange for tax increases) has diminished, far too many Democrats
support benefit cuts and many more are failing to adopt the type of
aggressive posture that they’ll need to stare down the Republicans.
If you want to see what aggressive looks like, look no further than
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. The budget hadn’t even passed
before Minority Leader McConnell said he’d use the February must-pass
vote to raise the debt ceiling as another opportunity to extract
budgetary concessions from Democrats.
This is what happens when the pretense of fiscal discipline is used
to mask an extremist agenda that amounts to an unwavering commitment to
the needs of the top 1 percent.
We need the Democrats to unabashedly adopt a posture that
aggressively seeks to close loopholes that subsidize corporations and
the wealthy and restore the cuts that Republicans have passed in their
relentless attacks on vital programs benefiting the poor and the middle
class.
Time and again, Democrats have compromised with Republican
extremists, leading to deeply pernicious results, including the cruel
and unconscionable refusal to extend emergency unemployment benefits for
millions of Americans set to expire just three days after Christmas. Democrats learned in October that they could win if they went
on offense and refused to cave. The best way to bounce back from the
recent setback and regain the momentum is for Democrats to set the stage
for the next round of negotiations with an aggressive campaign to do
away with the debt ceiling and end Republican hostage-taking of our
economy. Tell Democrats: Abolish the debt ceiling. Click here to automatically sign the petition.
Despite the cries from Republicans about out-of-control government
spending, the debt limit doesn't have much at all to do with spending.
Instead, the debt ceiling artificially prohibits the government from
issuing new debt to pay the bills that are already due based upon
previous budgets duly approved by Congress -- including budgets
supported by many of the people who used the debt ceiling as an excuse
to push their extremist agenda through blatant extortion.
While votes to raise the debt ceiling have traditionally been
opportunities for members of Congress to grandstand, the severe
consequences of not raising the debt ceiling have until recently served
to ensure it was increased as a routine matter -- including seven times
under George W. Bush.
But extremist Republicans -- many of whom voted for the tax giveaways
to the wealthiest Americans and the unfunded wars that caused our
government deficit to explode -- have now twice tried to used the threat
of a government default to hold the entire American economy hostage to
their radical demands. The Democrats shouldn’t sit back and let the
Republicans do it again. Tell Democrats: The debt ceiling serves no useful purpose
other than to give Republicans a hostage and should be abolished. Click
the link below to automatically sign the petition: http://act.credoaction.com/go/2959?t=6&akid=9651.179403.qHLFZJ Thank you for speaking out to stop Republican hostage-taking.
Matt Lockshin, Campaign Manager CREDO Action from Working Assets
Senate Approves Budget Deal, Reducing Chances Of A Shutdown
by
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell
(R-Ky.), walks to the chamber for the final votes on the bipartisan
budget deal on Wednesday.
J. Scott Applewhite/AP
The Senate passed a two-year bipartisan budget deal aimed at
easing automatic spending cuts and avoiding a government shutdown,
following a House vote on the measure last week.
The vote by a simple majority was absent the partisan brinksmanship that has become a hallmark of budget deals in recent memory.
The
appropriations committees in both chambers must now set in stone a
$1.012 trillion fiscal 2014 spending bill before current spending
authority expires. Congress also faces a Jan. 15 deadline to raise the
debt ceiling — another potential partisan standoff.
Last
Thursday, the House voted 332 to 94 to approve the deal, which was
hammered out by Republican Paul Ryan and Democrat Patty Murray.
outlines the details below:
"—
Discretionary spending would be set at $1.012 trillion for 2014 and
$1.014 trillion for fiscal 2015. This is basically all federal agency
spending and doesn't include 'mandatory' programs like Social Security
or Medicare or emergency spending on wars. It's also higher than the
$967 billion that was allocated next year under current law.
"Now,
we still don't know what each particular agency will receive in
funding. That will get determined by the appropriations committees in
the House and Senate, who now have to finish up spending bills by Jan.
15 to avoid a government shutdown. Think of the current bill as setting
an overall cap on discretionary spending and making that process easier.
"—
The bill would provide partial relief from the automatic
'sequestration' spending cuts, giving agencies an extra $63 billion over
two years, split between defense and domestic programs. So for 2014,
the defense budget will be $520.5 billion and the remaining domestic
discretionary programs, including health, transportation, and housing,
will get $491.8 billion."
Update at 6:50 p.m. ET. Obama: Budget Deal A 'Good First Step':
In
a White House statement, President Obama called the budget deal "a good
first step away from shortsighted, crisis-driven decision-making that
has only served to act as a drag on our economy."
"It's a
budget that unwinds some of the damaging sequester cuts that have harmed
students and seniors and acted as headwinds our businesses had to
fight," he said. "It clears a path for critical investments in things
like education and research that have always grown our economy and
strengthened the middle class. And it will continue to reduce our
deficits at a time when we've seen four of the fastest years of deficit
reduction since the end of World War II."
“Americans are fighters. We're tough, resourceful and creative, and
if we have the chance to fight on a level playing field, where everyone
pays a fair share and everyone has a real shot, then no one - no one -
can stop us. ”-- Elizabeth Warren REP ALAN GRAYSON D FL is spot on with his warnings about the damage government fiscal austerity causes to the social fabric and the economy of a nation. We already have different parts of our society fighting each other over the scraps of government funding available after sequestration, and these fights will only get uglier, and potentially violent, if fiscal conservatives are able to force even more budget cuts of social safety net, "entitlement" and economic stimulus programs. With high unemployment and underemployment, stagnant wages and loss of employment benefits along with a decaying national infrastructure our nation is being set up for the collapse of middle class America, and the forces pushing this agenda will be ready to impose a plutocracy (the 1%) to control the lower classes (the 99%). What a sad state of affairs for a country that used to be the envy of the world. The fat lady isn't singing a funeral dirge for our Republic yet, but listen, you can hear her warming up. The real question is, will the American people let her take the stage and sing, or will we stop bitching and start a new revolution? From Daily Kos & TRNN The Real News Network..... Alan Grayson
From a recent 188-page report by the World Health Organization come these ghastly and appalling factoids:
Suicide rates rose 40% in the first six months of 2011 alone.
Murder has doubled.
9,100 doctors in Greece, roughly one out of every seven, have been laid off.
Joining those doctors in joblessness are 27.6% of the entire Greek labor
force. By comparison, in the depths of the Great Depression,
unemployment in the United States peaked at a lower percentage than
that. Among Greek young adults under 25 years old, unemployment reached
an abominable 64.9% in May. (Yet the unemployment rate in Greece was
as low as 7% as recently as 2008.)
I'm sure that my Tea Party friends will blame universal healthcare,
paid sick leave and "generous" unemployment benefits for this
catastrophe. "If we simply stopped helping people, then they wouldn't
need our help," they would say. You can see where that "logic" leads.
The dead need no help whatsoever, except possibly burial. Sort of like
this: "The Republican healthcare plan: Don't Get Sick. And if you do
get sick, Die Quickly."]
Maybe you think that I'm kidding about what my Tea Party friends
would do. I'm not. A few years ago here in Florida, we had a
children's health insurance program called KidCare, with a waiting list
of over 100,000. The Tea Party Republicans didn't like that. So they
eliminated the waiting list.
But back to Greece. A lot of people blame Greek government debt for
the current suffering. According to the Central Intelligence Agency,
that most authoritative of all conceivable sources, Greek government
debt stands at 160% of GDP, which seems like a lot. But Japanese
government debt stands at 215% of GDP, and the unemployment rate in
Japan is only 4%.
Moreover, Spain's unemployment rate is virtually as high as Greece's,
but Spain's government debt stands at only 85% of GDP. That's less
debt than Singapore's, and Singapore's unemployment rate is 1.8%.
So we cannot properly attribute the catastrophe in Greece to labor
protection, nor can we attribute it to government borrowing. What is
the cause, then? The World Health Organization has the answer:
austerity. "Austerity" is a bloodless term for gross economic
mismanagement, animated by heartlessness. That robotic cut-cut-cut
mentality that deprives us of jobs, of public services, of safety, of
health, of infrastructure, of help for the needy, and – ultimately -- of
our economic equilibrium and the ability to survive. The mentality
that ushers in, and welcomes, a vicious war of all against all.
Austerity is destroying an entire country, right before our eyes.
Or, as the World Health Organization put it: "These adverse trends in
Greece pose a warning to other countries undergoing significant fiscal
austerity, including Spain, Ireland and Italy. It also suggests that
ways need to be found for cash-strapped governments to consolidate
finances without undermining much-needed investments in health."
In America, we have a rich and powerful lobby that has the same
prescription for every economic malady: austerity. Cut-cut-cut. Cut
Social Security and Medicare. Cut teacher and police and firefighter
jobs. Cut health care. Cut pay and cut pensions. It all boils down to
that one ugly word: austerity. And austerity always brings disarray,
disaster, decay and death.
People often ask me my position on various issues. Well, I'm for
certain things, and I'm against others. But on one issue, I'm very
consistent. I'm against pain and suffering. Especially avoidable pain
and suffering. And therefore, I'm against austerity. It begins with
seemingly innocuous budget cuts. It then leads inexorably to the
destruction of countless lives.
Why am I telling you about Greece? In 1935, Sinclair Lewis wrote a book called "It Can't Happen Here." But it can. And it's up to us to prevent it.
Courage,
Rep. Alan Grayson "The horror! The horror!"
-- The last words of Col. Kurtz in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1899).
JAISAL NOOR, TRNN PRODUCER: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Jaisal Noor in Baltimore. Fast
food workers are preparing to strike across the country Thursday,
demanding an increase of pay to $15 an hour. Thursday's major day of
action--organizers say 100 cities will take part--comes just six days
after more than 100 people were arrested nationwide at Black Friday
protests against major retail outlets. It's also important
to note that while it's commonly believed that the vast majority of
low-wage workers are teenagers, their average age is actually 35. More
than a quarter have children, and more than half work full-time, those
numbers courtesy of the Economic Policy Institute. Now
joining us to give some context to these latest strikes is Leo Panitch.
He's the Canada Research Chair in Comparative Political Economy and a
distinguished research professor of political science at York University
in Toronto, author of many books, including The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy of American Empire. Thank you so much for joining us.LEO PANITCH, PROF. POLITICAL SCIENCE, YORK UNIVERSITY: Glad to be here.NOOR:
So we wanted to give you a chance to kind of give some context to the
increasing use of low-wage workers across America and other countries
and the protest against that trend. And a big, a major driving force for
these protests--and it's been--this has been used to kind of criticize
them as well--are major unions like SEIU. But major unions weren't
always interested in organizing these low-wage workers. What's brought
about this change?PANITCH: Well, you know, I think people
are missing, in all the attention that's being paid to the vastly
growing inequality in the United States and other Western capitalist
countries, that the fundamental reason for it is not some shift in
taxes, but the fundamental reason for it has been the defeat of trade
unionism in the United States and elsewhere, at least since the early
1980s. Insofar as there was a tendency to the equalization of
incomes--and it by no means went all that far in the postwar period--it
was because for a few decades after 1945, trade unions were strong
vis-à-vis their employers. And that had to do with some legal rights
they'd won. It also had to do with the wage militancy of those unions
and their ability to coerce corporations to pay workers higher wages,
better benefits, give them more secure employment. And the reason that
CEOs didn't pay themselves the astronomical amounts they pay themselves
today was precisely because of the bad example it set in terms of the
next collective bargaining round. Now, what has happened
everywhere, although especially in the United States, is that unions
have been defeated. That was a concerted effort on the part of employers
through the 1970s and 1980s. It was aided by the Federal Reserve's very
high interest rate policy, which purposely drove up unemployment. And
in driving up unemployment, it gave the unions a loss of nerve. And
it was added to by such actions by the Reagan administration as the
ending of the PATCO strike, the strike of the air traffic controllers,
and the imprisonment of their members. And this was a union that had
voted Republican in 1980. It voted for Reagan in 1980. And it had to do
with a shift of a good deal of industry to the American South, to those
states where there were so-called right-to-work provisions, i.e., right
to not belong to a union--right of employers to prevent you joining a
union is what it really means. And then it had to do with the fact that
so much of the enormous growth in retail services in the United
States--and elsewhere, but especially the United States--has taken place
in jurisdictions where it is difficult to unionize, especially, again,
in the American South. And that then has spread like wildfire around the
country and capitalism more broadly. That's the fundamental reason for
the growth in inequality. The tax system only tinkers with
the incomes we get in the labor market. It can adjust those. It can
make some slight--have some effect on them, whether taxation is more or
less progressive. But the main fundamental reason has to do with the
incomes that people get in the labor market. And what has
happened increasingly is that even in those industries where there used
to be well-paid workers, increasingly unions have been forced to engage
in concession bargaining, and such new employees as are taken in are
taken in at half or two-thirds of the wages of those who'd been employed
there for a long time, with much worse benefits.NOOR:
Now, Leo, I wanted to just interrupt briefly and talk about the issue of
these millions of low-wage workers that obviously are contributing to
inequality in this country.PANITCH: [inaud.] McDonald's
workers. People who used to earn good wages as steel or autoworkers are
now McDonald's workers or Walmart workers; or at least steelworkers and
autoworkers who used to be able to get their sons or daughters or
nephews or nieces into steel or auto plants are now Walmart workers,
etc. So, you know, this isn't some other category. This
isn't some group from Mars that suddenly has arrived with the label
"low-paid workers" on their foreheads. This is the same working class.
And that applies whether they're black Americans or Latinos or whatever.
In fact, black Americans in the auto industry were precisely the ones
who benefited most from unionization, and they're the ones and their
children are the ones who have suffered most from the defeat of
unionization. So, yes, there's been this growth of low-wage workers, but
it is a growth that comes out of a working-class which previously had a
chance of becoming a high-wage working-class.NOOR: So, traditionally unions didn't try to unionize these sectors.PANITCH:
That's kind of the myth. Of course, these are very difficult industries
to organize. Do you know that Walmart employs an army of 200 lawyers
and public relations officials whose only job it is when there's any
attempt at unionization is to send in firefighters into any store to
prevent it happening? Do you know the number of times since Walmart's
existence that they have conducted what in any jurisdiction would be
considered unfair bargaining to prevent unionization? These are very,
very committed antiunion employers.NOOR: I'm not doubting
that at all. But can you talk about this recent push to unionize, or
even for these workers to come together and protest and demand a higher
wage and demand better working conditions?PANITCH:
[inaud.] a push than it is. There's no question that the fight for 15,
which is led by the SEIU, is impressive--or at least SEIU is behind it.
There's no question that our Walmart or the Walmart warehouse workers
campaigns are supported by some unions, such as the United Electrical
Workers union. But the amount that's been put into this is miniscule,
and the number of organizers who are spending most of their time on this
is miniscule compared to the people who in the 1930s organized the CIO
unions, the Canadian Auto Workers, the American autoworkers, or the
Steelworkers, or what have you.NOOR: I wanted to kind of
address some of the arguments against raising the wages for these
workers. For example, the argument goes that it'll create inflation,
that while wages may go up, prices will go up, too. Higher wages will
make it harder for the U.S. to compete internationally with the
developing world. PANITCH: [inaud.] question that the
growth of globalization, the spread of global capitalism, the extent to
which working classes have been created in so many developing countries
at such a quick pace, whether it's China or Brazil or what have you,
certainly has an effect in terms of pulling down and making less bold
the unions in the advanced capitalist countries. But this
has also been an explicit strategy on the part of the multinational
corporations in question, not least corporations like Walmart. So this
isn't just happening all of itself. Now, insofar as it
would have consequences, in terms of inflation the evidence is that the
Fed and the Treasury are much more worried about deflation. Interest
rates are so low, as in any other circumstance, to induce inflation. And
the reason that the Fed is so confident that it can keep interest rates
so low--and this is true not only in the United States but elsewhere,
in Canada and Europe, as well--is because precisely workers are so
defeated, are so beaten down, unions are so incapable of getting wage
increases for their members. Were they able to do so and
it were to produce some inflationary pressures, that would be a bloody
good thing. In fact, the Fed is very worried that despite its very low
interest rates, inflation is not getting anywhere near its target of
2 percent a year, which is considered healthy. And the reason it isn't
is because there isn't the consumer demand for capitalists to invest,
despite very low interest rates. And the reason there isn't consumer
demand is that people don't have enough income to buy this stuff,
especially after the financial crash made credit more difficult or made
people very worried about paying off their debt.NOOR:
We're going to wrap up this part of our discussion, and we're going to
continue this just in a moment, and we're going to post this, both
parts, at TheRealNews.com. We're going to talk about what the
labor movement can do, what the working class can do to address these
problems in just a moment. Thank you so much for joining us for part one, Leo.PANITCH: Happy to be here.NOOR: You can follow us on Twitter @therealnews, Tweet me questions and story ideas @jaisalnoor. Thank you so much for joining us.
Leo Panitch
is the Canada Research Chair in Comparative Political Economy and a
Distinguished Research Professor of Political Science at York University
in Toronto. He is the author of many books, the most recent of which
include UK Deutscher Book Prize winner The Making of Global Capitalism: the Political Economy of American Empire, and In and Out of Crisis: The Financial Meltdown and Left Alternatives. In addition to his university affiliation he is also a co-editor of the Socialist Register, whose 2013 volume is entitled The Question of Strategy.
To secure gains for working people requires a social transition that puts them in charge of producing society's services
Anonymous workers Photograph: Richard Baker/Corbis
Organized labor's decline in the US over the past half century is well-known; what drove that decline, less so. The New Deal's
enemies – big business, Republicans, conservatives – had developed a
coordinated strategy by the late 1940s. They would break up the
coalition of organized labor, socialist and communist parties: the mass
base that had forced through the 1930s New Deal. Then each coalition
member could be individually destroyed.
One line of attack used anti-communist witch-hunts (McCarthyism)
to frighten socialists and labor unions into dissociating themselves
from former communist allies. Another attack targeted socialists by
equating them with communists and applying the same demonization. Still
another attack, the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, directly weakened labor unions, their organizing capability and their alliance with the left.
Business and political leaders, mass media and academics cultivated a
paranoid anxiety among Americans: suspect anything even vaguely
leftist, see risks of "subversion" everywhere, and avoid organizations
unless religious or loudly patriotic. Legal, ideological and police
pressures rendered communist and socialist parties tiny and
ineffective. Destroying unions took longer. The unionized portion of
private sector workers fell from a third to less than 7% now. Since
2007, conservatives used crisis-driven drops in state and city tax
revenues to intensify attacks on public employee benefits and unions.
Both were denounced as "excessive and unaffordable for taxpayers". That
plus public worker layoffs reduced public sector unionization.
Nor did labor unions or the left find or implement any successful strategy to counter the 50-year program aimed to destroy them.
To reverse organized labor's decline and to rebuild the left
requires either reviving the old New Deal coalition or forming a new
comparably powerful alliance. That means confronting and outwitting the
long demonization of unions and the left. It requires a strategy that
engages and wins struggles with employers. More importantly, it
requires a strategy to reposition labor unions and their allies as
champions of broad social gains for the 99%. To escape the label of
"special interest" unions must work for far more than their own
members.
The needed strategy is available. It proposes a new alliance among
willing labor unions, community organizations and social movements. The
alliance's basic goal is a social transition in which workers
cooperatives become an increasing proportion of business enterprises.
The increasingly used term workers self-directed enterprises
(WSDEs) stresses democratic decision-making. In WSDEs, all workers
democratically decide what, how and where to produce and how to use the
net revenues their work generates. In WSDEs, whether or not workers are
owners or self-manage, they function, collectively and democratically,
as their own board of directors, "their own bosses".
This goal and strategy could solidify this alliance. Democratizing
enterprises realizes inside them the same goals that inspire many
community organizations and social movements. WSDEs established and
nurtured by community organizations and social movements could, in
turn, provide important financial and other resources for their allies.
Labor unions could regain strength from such an alliance. For
example, consider employers who demand concessions (lower wages and
benefits) and threaten otherwise to relocate enterprises, often abroad.
Unions have mostly compromised on concessions to retain employers. The
proposed new alliance offers a new bargaining tool for these
situations. If an employer relocated, the alliance would assist workers
to try to continue the enterprise as a WSDE. The relocated employer
risks competition from a WSDE asking customers to favor it over an
employer who had abandoned workers and communities for higher profits.
To establish new WSDEs in such ways, unions would draw upon their
allied community organizations and social movements to mobilize local
political support as well as funding. Local politicians could not
easily refuse job-saving demands from that alliance (proven daily in
Europe).
Another way for the proposed alliance to help form WSDEs would be a
bold new federal or state program to combat unemployment. This would
follow the example of Italy's 1985 Marcora Law. That law offers a new,
second alternative to the usual unemployment dole. An unemployed worker
can instead choose to take all unemployment benefits as an immediate
lump-sum payment and pool that with lump sums similarly chosen by at
least nine other unemployed workers. The total must then be used as
start-up capital for a workers coop. Marcora's success is one reason
why Italy has many more workers coops than the US.
These and still other actions by the proposed new alliance could
build a significant WSDE sector while helping to solve major US social
problems. That sector would enable many Americans to see and evaluate
WSDEs. A WSDE sector gives Americans two new freedoms of choice: (1)
between working in a top-down, hierarchical capitalist firm or a
democratized worker coop, and (2) between buying the products of
capitalist or cooperative enterprises. A significant WSDE sector would
add its demands for government technical, financial, and other supports
to those from other economic sectors.
As the Republican and Democratic parties increasingly cannot or will
not serve average Americans' economic needs, the proposed alliance,
strategy and actions would do exactly that. Here lie opportunities for
resurgence in the labor movement and the left.
While reminiscent of the old New Deal coalition, the proposed new
alliance would differ in one crucial dimension. The old coalition
believed that it could not win more than progressive taxation, new
regulations and new institutions (such as Social Security). It could
not transform enterprises themselves. The old coalition left in their
corporate positions the major shareholders and the boards of directors
they selected. Those shareholders and boards then used corporate power
and profits to systematically evade, weaken, and, when possible,
dismantle the New Deal across the past 40 years.
Building a WSDE sector in the economy applies the lesson of those
years. To secure gains for working people requires a social transition
that puts them in charge of producing society's goods and services. A
democratic society requires a democratic economy and that, the new
alliance would insist, means a transition to democratically organized
enterprises. When this September's AFL-CIO convention considers
building an alliance with community groups and social movements, the
strategic focus on WSDEs ought to be included.
Ludwig would have turned 243 today, so we'll be celebrating all day.
There's a global party at #LvBChat. And why not start with the "You Say
It's Your Birthday" boys, The Beatles, but this time with great live
version of "Roll Over, Beethoven." Then Chuck Berry live, after cool
intro (plus duck walk). Below that, Joni Mitchell's tribute to Ludwig.
And go here for our new film and book
on the amazing global influence of Beethoven's Ninth. The book is on
sale today only for $2.99 as an ebook and $9.49 as paperback.
The Beatles Remasters Documentaries - Roll Over Beethoven
fox's war on Christmas is great fodder for the comedy shows. Check this out from Jon Stewart's Daily Show... Jen Hayden
attribution: screenshot from video
Jon Stewart and Jessica Williams discuss the crazier-than-normal coming
out of Fox News and the so-called War on Christmas, including Megyn
Kelly's claims that Santa is white, just like Jesus, and people need to
get over it.
Video below the fold:
THE keystone xl pipeline is still a real threat. Pres Obama and Sec of State Kerry have had plenty of time and opportunity to end all the speculation and deny big oil and their cohorts in the dirty energy energy another victory at the expense of the American people and our Canadian allies who know the tar sands oil fields and this pipeline must be defeated for the sake of our nations as well as the rest of the world. The problem is Obama and Kerry are third way jellyfish democrats, not Bold Progressives. They are more interested in the campaign contributions and financial rewards they will receive from big oil than they are in honoring their pledges to protect the environment and take decisive action addressing climate change and global warming. We must keep up the pressure on the Obama administration to stop keystone xl. If you are a college alumni please consider joining 350.org's campaign for college and universities across the U.S. and Canada to divest from dirty fossil fuels and take a stand for green, renewable energy and conservation. Check out the video and sign on to the alumni campaign.
I spent my senior year of college trying to convince the University
of Delaware to divest from fossil fuels, and I can tell you one thing
for certain: the fossil fuel divestment movement is changing the
way young people like me think about climate change, and it’s just
getting started.
As much fun as I had being a student activist, now that I’ve
graduated I realize I have a new kind of power. Those of us who are
college & university graduates are in a unique position to impact
the divestment movement, and it’s time for us alumni to step up!
As 2013 draws to a close and the holiday giving season ramps up,
we’re asking college & university alumni around the country to take a
pledge: this year, don’t give to your alma mater. Don’t donate until they agree to divest from fossil fuels. Click here to take the alumni divestment pledge.
To college and university administrators, alumni are potential donors
first and foremost -- so let’s send them a message they can’t ignore.
Tell your alma mater that if they’re investing in fossil fuels, you’re
NOT investing in them. We need to remind them of the ideals they stand
for: the pursuit of truth, the development of a strong moral compass,
and the ability to use that compass to stand up for what’s right. But whether or not you’re a college or university alum, there’s something you can do to help the divestment movement.Click here to watch a great video about all the work we’ve done in just over a year (I promise you’ll be inspired):
Student divestment campaigners around the country have been doing
amazing work. They’ve run petitions, tabled on campus, held educational
events, pushed the envelope with marches and sit-ins, and met with
dozens of administrations. They’ve had some exciting victories — and
received a few (temporary!) rejections that have only made them
stronger. Now it’s time for the rest of us to pitch in. If you’re an alumnus or alumna, we need your voice. Click here to take the pledge.
Onward,
Jock & the team at 350.org
P.S. OK, I'm asking you not to donate to your alma mater (unless
they divest). But if you need a good home for those donation dollars,
the team at 350.org would like me to add a plug for their year-end
fundraising push. You could do a lot worse than helping to fund a bigger, better climate movement in 2014! 350.org is building a global movement to solve the climate crisis. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter, and sign up for email alerts. You can help power our work by getting involved locally, sharing your story, and donating here.
IF you have never heard a rabbit scream in pain let me tell you it will send chills down your spine. It is like a baby screaming in pain or terror. I do not know how anyone could pluck the fur from rabbits, and I don't know how anyone could buy and wear anything with this kind of fur. PETA, SumOfUs and other organizations have persuaded H&M, Topshop, New Look, Esprit, Asos and C&A to stop selling angora fur products but Zara refuses to do the same. Please click the link below to sign the petition demanding Zara stop buying angora fur and to stop selling angora fur products. You can also sign PETA's petition to China asking them to stop the barbaric practice of rabbit plucking here https://secure.peta.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=5171
H&M
has stopped production of all its angora products in response to
horrific video footage showing the torture of rabbits on angora farms in
China. But Zara refuses to do the same. Tell Zara to save the bunnies, and cease production of angora products.
Great news! Huge clothing retailer, H&M, ceased production of all its angora products last week,
in response to horrific video footage released by PETA that shows
rabbits screaming in pain as their fur is torn off at angora farms in
China, and to a 77,000-strong SumOfUs petition. Sadly, Zara is refusing to do the same -- at the time of writing, there are still 60 angora items for sale on the Zara website. Workers in China were secretly filmed by PETA, plucking angora rabbits of all their long, soft fur while they scream. Plucking
a rabbit without causing harm takes up to two weeks of gently removing
the loosened hair, but here it takes only a few, violent minutes. After
this tortuous experience, which the rabbits endure every three months,
many of them appeared to go into shock, lying motionless inside their
tiny, filthy cages. H&M has taken responsibility for this barbaric practice, Zara should too. Tell Zara to stop production of its angora products immediately, and save the bunnies! Ninety percent of angora fur comes from China, where there
are no penalties for abuse of animals on farms and no standards to
regulate the treatment of the animals. The reason for this
cruelty comes down to profit, pure and simple. Angora has a trade value
of $35 to $45 per kilogram, but the longer hair that comes from
plucking, as opposed to shearing, can sell for more than double that.
The big retailers have a responsibility to tell their suppliers that they won’t accept this brutal treatment of angora rabbits. H&M have acted, saying in a statement that it will step up inspections of its sub-suppliers before selling angora again. In the meantime, customers can take back their H&M angora products for a full refund. H&M isn’t the only one -- it joins Topshop, New Look, Esprit, Asos, and C&A. If they can act, Zara can too. But right now, its website is full of angora sweaters, gloves, hats, and scarfs. Zara thinks we don’t care where our clothes from, or how they are made. We need to prove it wrong. Tell Zara we don’t want to see angora on its shelves. Cease production of angora products!
UK retailers Topshop and Asos’ decision to stop the production of
angora was a direct response to our pressure -- SumOfUs members not only
signed petitions to those companies, but we kept the pressure
up by commenting on the Topshop and Asos Facebook pages, tweeting,
making campaign graphics, and writing personal letters -- all
leading to a huge victory for both consumers and bunnies! Now let’s
multiply our impact, by getting major global clothing retailer Zara to
stop selling angora.
Thanks for all you do,
Hanna, Johnny, Joakim, Martin, Ledys, Paul, and the rest of us at SumOfUs.org
SumOfUs is a worldwide movement of people like you, working together to
hold corporations accountable for their actions and forge a new,
sustainable path for our global economy.
HERE is a great piece on the battle now being waged for the heart and soul of the Democratic Party and the over the economic direction our nation will take. Will we continue our downward slide to becoming a Third World plutocracy or will the Democrats return to the Bold Progressive agenda that made us a great economic and political power in the past and can lift us from the unending recession we are wallowing in now? Sen Elizabeth Warren D MA, not the President, has taken the lead in this fight (see Elizabeth Warren takes sides in Democratic feud (and challenges third way) 4DEZ13 http://bucknacktssordidtawdryblog.blogspot.com/2013/12/elizabeth-warren-takes-sides-in_5.html) , joined by Sens Sherrod Brown D OH, Tammy Baldwin D WI and Jeff Merkley D OR for the American people. As noted in a recent Daily Kos call to action "Wall
Street Democrats (are) spooked by the party's embrace of politicians like
Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown, Tammy Baldwin and Jeff Merkley.
They should be spooked. The future of the Democratic Party is a populist
one, and all that's left is to whittle out the dead weight." That dead weight includes Pres Obama. He campaigned on a Bold Progressive platform and once elected took the road too often traveled since the Clinton era by Democrats, he took the third way. His 5 years in office has been trickle down economics disguised as Democratic policy. A great speech on income inequality is not enough. He needs to take his chained cpi proposal off the table and refuse to sign any budget deal that cuts SNAP, raises the retirement age, fails to expand Social Security, fails to lift the tax cap on Social Security wages, cuts Medicare and Medicaid and doesn't include an extension of emergency unemployment compensation. He must refuse a grand bargain that will be a grand betrayal of the progressive politics he was elected on. If he can't do that then he should at least support the Elizabeth Warren wing of the Democratic Party. No more jellyfish Democratic politics. No more corporate Democratic eunuchs. No more third way. From Daily Kos.... xaxnar
Despite the snarky title, NPR done good today on All Things Considered 12-5-13. Looking at Fast Food workers on strike and Social Security fixes that actually might fix things,
NPR actually dared go there with some reporting about things that are
finally becoming too outrageous to ignore. When NPR airs stories like
this, it's a sign that "the game is afoot" and a long overdue shift in
the political landscape regarding economics is changing the view through
the Overton Window. Elizabeth Warren is making a difference every time she speaks. It doesn't hurt that both the Pope and the President have started to hammer on that message either.
More below the Orange Omnilepticon.
It's just possible that America is finally starting to see
through the snake oil of supply side Reaganomics and blind faith in
market forces. Too many decades of failed promises, too many decades of
declining life quality for the majority of people in this country, too
many decades of the rich getting unspeakably richer (and becoming ever
more arrogant about it) - is it possible the 'common wisdom' is starting
to shift? (As espoused by the lamestream media and pundits, that is?) Starving on Fast Food
The NPR story on striking fast food workers
And the image problem for the fast-food industry is exemplified by this online petition
urging McDonald's chief executive officer, Donald Thompson, to cancel
his order for another corporate jet until he pays all his employees a
decent wage.
According to the petition, McDonald's just bought
a $35 million luxury Bombardier jet for its corporate executives. Yet
many of the company's employees make so little that they rely on public
assistance to get by.
"It's not right to impoverish your employees while sailing above them
at a rate of $2,500 an hour," reads the petition started by the Campaign For America's Future. "It's immoral to do it with a taxpayer subsidy."
In a recent study, economists at the University of California, Berkeley, found that 52 percent of fast-food workers rely on taxpayer-funded public assistance programs, such as food stamps or Medicaid. "Taxpayers are subsidizing the low-wage model of these employers, who are making record profits in some cases," says Dorian Warren, an associate professor at Columbia University who studies income inequality.
emphasis added
Food Stamps: they're not just for shiftless drug-abusing high school
drop outs and/or "those people" any more. (Though that has yet to
penetrate the skulls of the race-baiting, stereotyping demagogues of the Right Wing,
or their followers.) We're talking about ordinary people, people who
got educations with degrees like they were supposed to, people working
full time jobs if they can find them - people holding several part time
jobs because they can't get a full time job... People who ARE working,
people who WANT to work - and it's not enough to live on. The Other Side of the Coin
Let's look at the other side of working for a living: retirement. The NPR story on Social Security dares to look past the conventional story line that a tidal wave of retiring baby boomers will swamp Social Security unless we cut benefits!Elizabeth Warren's challenge to Third Way types has helped set the stage for an honest discussion on Social Security. As NPR notes, lifting the cap on wages taxed for Social Security would make a big difference:
Iowa Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin sponsored legislation that
would gradually remove the cap that currently makes only the first
$113,700 in wages subject to Social Security taxes. He says it's the
only fair thing to do.
"If I make $50,000 a year, I pay Social Security taxes on every dime I
make. If I make $500,000 a year, I only pay taxes on about the first 20
cents. After that, I don't pay any more Social Security taxes. That's
regressive," Harkin says. "You want to make it more progressive, raise
the cap so everybody pays their share on every dollar they make."
And as President Obama noted this week, an ever greater share of dollars are being earned precisely by those at the top.
"Since 1979, our economy has more than doubled in size, but most of that growth has flowed to a fortunate few," Obama says. "The top ten percent no longer takes in one-third of our income, it now takes half."
That concentration of wealth has taken place beyond the earnings
subject to Social Security taxes. Melissa Favreault, a Social Security
expert at the non-partisan Urban Institute, says that has meant an ever greater share of the national income is contributing nothing to Social Security.
"We do have this declining share of overall earnings that are taxed,
reflecting the fact that the top half of one percent or so has been
garnering a really large proportion of total earnings," Favreault says.
Favreault says three decades ago, 90 percent of the nation's
wage earnings were taxed for Social Security; that proportion has now
shrunk to 83 percent. And that's made an already regressive tax even more so.
emphasis addedThe Big Scam
People who are retired, or would like to someday be able to retire
are starting to notice that they can't count on anything, and just who
the economy really seems to be wired for. Charles P. Pierce looks at fast food workers in Detroit - and the rest of the story.
Not for nothing but, right at this very moment, and only a couple of days after a judge gave legal permission for the city to renege on its obligations to its retired workers -- the business elite is overjoyed
that aging and crippled sanitation workers can't "jump ahead" of the
bondholders in Malibu who want to pick the carcass -- Mike Illitch, the
billionnaire-with-a-B owner of the Detroit Red Wings, has his tin cup out
for the devastated city to kick in for a new arena for his hockey team.
Mike Illitch made his fortune by being the founder of the Little
Caesar's chain of pizza restaurants, wherein he paid his workers the
kind of wages that has brought them out in the streets today. Yes, this
[is] about a lot more than fast food and the people who prepare it. We are all one more economic temblor away from being a fast food nation. It is about a lot more than pizza and burgers.
emphasis added
Paul Krugman has long been a voice in the wilderness decrying the
wrong-headed thinking about the economy, and the obsession with deficits
instead of employment. Crooks & Liars has a video clip of Krugman talking with Ed Schulz over just how dumb it is. As Heather at C&L observes:
What we should be talking about first and foremost is
getting Americans back to work. It was also good to hear some push back
against the constant chatter we're hearing from the Villagers in the
media who are continually pushing for Chained CPI, and pretending as
though cutting Social Security benefits in exchange for "tax reform" --
a.k.a. lowering taxes on rich people and corporations -- is something
anyone should think is acceptable, or "balanced" or that would do a
thing to help lower the deficit. It would have been nice to hear either
of them say out loud that Social Security does not add to the deficit
during this interview, but it was only implied and not clarified for the
audience.
Krugman has repeatedly noted that deficit 'hawks' don't really care
about the deficit (which is shrinking). All they really care about is
cutting taxes on the rich and cutting the social safety net; deficits
are just the excuse du jour.
Charles P. Pierce has a pithier summary:
I will be submitting a paper entitled, The Blog's First Law
Of Economics: Fk The Deficit. People Got No Jobs. People Got No Money.
What's Next?
Prognostication is always a gamble. But, FWIW I think I see some
trends worth watching. The Republican Party has lost its mind and is
incapable of governing; it will be impossible for Democrats to split
differences with them to move the country forward. The hardcore
Ryan/Cruz tea bagger wing of the party would consider it the ultimate
form of treason to actually make government work for the people again.
So, expect more budget hysteria and hostage taking.
IF Democrats can't take back the House and hold on to the Senate,
it's not going to get better soon. The Supreme Court is as blatantly
partisan as its been in years. (God help us if Republicans get the White
House too.) Democrats who think they need to play to the 'undecided
middle' to win will only be prolonging the agony. It's time to do to the
GOP what they've been doing to Democrats for years: marginalize them as
extremists out of touch with the real America, elitists who have a
record of 30 years of failing to keep their promises to the country
while they have cashed in.
It's time to start driving a stake through the heart of Reaganism.
It. Just. Does. Not. Work. Republicans have been claiming for years that
cutting taxes (mostly on the rich) would make the economy grow. And it
has… but not as fast as it could have, and only for those at the very
top. The pie HAS grown - but 99% of us have seen OUR slices shrink!
Cutting back on government has not made us more free - it's left us
helpless in the face of natural disaster, victimized by a financial
sector out of control, and ripped off by corporations who've cut wages
and benefits, shipped jobs overseas AND demanded more and more tax
breaks. Air, water, food - even the weather is not going in a good
direction, wherever Republicans rule.
We supposedly can't afford to make sure everyone has a decent
education, decent housing, enough food, a living wage (no matter how
many billionaires we have) but God help us if we cut the military. The
multi-national corporations make too much profit building weapons
systems for it, supplying it, and using it for leverage on the rest of
the world. And given how good Republicans are at pissing people off, do
we really dare cut it back? (Except for the people in it who are
expected to fight our wars - screw them out of their pay and benefits,
of course.)
The point is, the Republican party has nothing to offer the country
but snake oil - and people outside of the beltway and the lame stream
media are starting to see through it. And if they don't, Democrats have
only themselves to blame for not pointing to the humongous pile of
evidence that it's so. Triangulating Third Way corporatist Democrats are
not the solution - they are just enabling the GOP by other means.
Jumping off the cliff in partnership with the GOP in the expectation
that they'll be able to stop halfway down is not exactly tenable - but
they keep trying to do it. The Elizabeth Warren wing of the party has
this advantage: it is prepared to embrace solutions that would actually
work. We may be hitting an inflection point, at which time things will
rapidly start going in new directions - if we are ready for it.
Obamacare is the joker in this deck at the moment. The Republicans
and the media have gone out of their way to portray it as a total train
wreck - but it keeps getting better and more people are signing up every
day. It is beginning to deliver on its promises despite unwavering
Republican opposition every step of the way. IF Democrats are not afraid
to run on it, it could become a potential pivot point in the larger
discussion about the role of government, and how the economy works.
Millions of people who've never realized just what a difference
government can make to them personally are finding out it can be
literally a matter of life and death who they vote for. They're already
becoming restive over an economy that seems to work for only a favored
few. Charles P. Pierce
has looked at Obama's recent speech about the economy, and views it as a
game changer. When the President of the United States, and the leader
of his party is willing to say things like:
"...the result is an economy that's become profoundly
unequal, and families that are more insecure. I'll just give you a few
statistics. Since 1979, when I graduated from high school, our
productivity is up by more than 90 percent, but the income of the
typical family has increased by less than eight percent. Since 1979,
our economy has more than doubled in size, but most of that growth has
flowed to a fortunate few.
The top 10 percent no longer takes in one-third of our income -- it
now takes half. Whereas in the past, the average CEO made about 20 to
30 times the income of the average worker, today's CEO now makes 273
times more. And meanwhile, a family in the top 1 percent has a net
worth 288 times higher than the typical family, which is a record for
this country.
So the basic bargain at the heart of our economy has frayed. In
fact, this trend towards growing inequality is not unique to America's
market economy. Across the developed world, inequality has increased.
Some of you may have seen just last week, the Pope himself spoke about
this at eloquent length."How can it be," he wrote, "that it is not a
news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is
news when the stock market loses two points?"
If you haven't read the entire speech by the President, I strongly suggest you do so.
The first necessary step in solving a problem is to recognize you
have one. The national political dialog is starting to come to grips
with that task, however slowly and defiantly. As Pierce comments:
This is where the speech begins to get important, and not
just because the president is quoting the barbed criticisms leveled by
the pope. It is here where the president begins to insist that there be a
new paradigm in how we talk about income inequality and what we do
about it. It is here where he begins to insist that income
inequality is not the result of the impersonal consequences of economic
transition but, rather, the result of choices made and not made, the
result of actions taken and not taken, and all of them deliberate and
calculated to benefit a specific class of people. The crash of
2008 was not inevitable. It had human causes that were very much
avoidable. It is here where he begins to talk about the dangers of
oligarchy, and about how oligarchy can turn the promise of
self-government into a sucker's game.
emphasis added
When even NPR starts to pick up on this vibe, it's
an indication the earth is shifting under us. What can Obama and the
Democratic Party do at this point? As long as Republicans hold the House
(and the Supreme Court), not a lot from the legislative end. But
getting the message out, finding a voice that reflects the will of the
vast majority of Americans who are not happy with the direction of the
country, using Obamacare as a wedge to start shifting the Overton
Window, challenging the lame stream media narrative that has served us so badly for so long, AND holding Republicans responsible for decades of failure… it's a starting point. 2014 and 2016 are not that far away. Pierce notes that one way Obama can take concrete steps to embrace this changing world view is to act on something coming down the pipeline.
But, as we often say around here, faith without works, Mr.
President. For example, the egregious Trans-Pacific Partnership is
coming down the fast track. You can't find a better example of something
aimed at enriching the people, and empowering the forces, that
deliberately have engineered income inequality, or a better example of
who engineered it and on whose behalf. Your move, Mr. President.
For my own part, I consider killing the Keystone XL Pipeline would also
be a step in the right direction, for similar reasons. There ARE things
that can be done. It's past time to start doing them.
For a closer, here's a classic video from 1982. Reagan was just
settling into the White House, and who knew just how hard "Workin' For A
Living" was going to get?
Hmmm, so far today we've seen that Third Way op-ed in the Wall Street Journal and Sen. Chuck Schumer's comparing us to the teabaggers.
Then there is DLC dinosaur Al From with a new book and rhetorical embrace of Hillary Clinton, unreconstructed racist
Richard Cohen's blasting of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and Fox News
"Democrats" Doug Schoen and Pat Caddell in Politico are back for another
stab at that whole "radical center" nonsense.
One or two of these would be random noise. All of this, all at once?
It's a coordinated counterattack by Wall Street Democrats spooked by the
party's embrace of politicians like Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown,
Tammy Baldwin and Jeff Merkley. The future of the Democratic Party is a
populist one, all that's left is for time to whittle out the dead
weight.
But this counterattack ... it's kinda pathetic. Warren will DOOM
Democrats! Except that she is on the right side of American public
opinion on issues of Wall Street dominance. That's the whole definition
of being "populist" after all. But Warren can only win in a place like
Massachusetts! Only if you ignore what Sherrod Brown did in Ohio with
virtually identical politics. Or the way Democrats like Jon Tester and
Heidi Heitkamp won their solidly red states. Hint: they didn't run Bob
Kerrey's playbook of campaigning on Social Security cuts and austerity.
Wall Street can't possibly see a future in the Republican Party. It
is increasingly a home for right-wing populists, the teabaggers, pushing
for economy-destroying austerity, reactionary social policy, government
shutdowns and national defaults. That's not good for business! And
neither is blocking immigration reform. So the Democratic Party—the
party that has saved capitalism by smoothing its rougher edges (it's no
coincidence the stock market does better under Democratic
administrations)—is the only choice. Except corporatists want less of
that "smoothing the rougher edges" stuff. A lot less.
For now, Wall Street and its allies are simply trying to claim that
cutting Social Security and other social programs are a path to
electoral relevance—a notion laughable on its face.
But if Wall Street was really smart, they'd start getting
the less crazy Republicans, like Mark Kirk and Susan Collins, to switch
parties, reinforcing the ranks of Wall Street Dems in Congress and
giving the corporatists a functional governing majority. And if that
happened, it would be our turn for a good ol' civil war, just like the
one the GOP is currently waging.
We're not there yet, but today's coordinate assault, inept as it might be, could be the first skirmish. 11:00 AM PT:
@markos Add @HFord2 to the coordinated attack; he just told @alexwagner et al the way to salvation is cutting SS & Medicare — @laguna_bob
Even Harold Ford is coming out of the woodwork. It's a corporatist Reunion Day!
Originally posted to kos on Tue Dec 03, 2013 at 10:30 AM PST.
THE US House has not reached an agreement on the federal budget, and the negotiations right now have not included an extension of unemployment benefits for the long term unemployed. gop and tea-bagger obstructionist are refusing to even consider extending these benefits while we are still deep in this recession, a 7% unemployment rate is not a healthy economy nor a vibrant job market. If an extension is not passed then 1.3 million unemployed will loose their unemployment benefits as of 28 DEC 13 and another 1 million will loose their benefits early next year. Please click the link to contact your Representative and tell them to vote against any budget agreement that doesn't include an extension of unemployment benefits. Time is short, Congress adjourns this week for Christmas and will not return until after 1 JAN 14. See more on this at THE NO HOLDS BARRED WAR ON CHRISTMAS
& Can A Scrappy Gang Of Republicans Save Christmas For A Million
Unemployed People? 6DEZ13
http://bucknacktssordidtawdryblog.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-no-holds-barred-war-on-christmas.html Here is my letter to my Representative, Gerry Connolly D (11th) VA Over 2 million Americans will lose their unemployment insurance soon unless Congress acts now. Make sure an extension of the Emergency Unemployment Insurance program is in any budget deal. No extension, no budget deal, it is as simple as that and I expect you to stand against those in the House who would abandon the long term unemployed. I am a member of the Elizabeth Warren faction of the Democratic Party and I expect you to support and vote for a Bold Progressive agenda.
George Zornick at The Nation has a dramatic update on the ongoing budget negotiations unfolding on Capitol Hill:
Thursday morning, House Democrats held a deeply emotional
hearing featuring several long-term unemployed Americans who pleaded
with Congress to extend the expiring federal Emergency Unemployment
Insurance program, which provides benefits to jobless Americans after
their state benefits run out.
The program has been extended or modified eleven times since it was
created in 2008 as the economy cratered, but is set to expire at the end
of 2013—meaning 2.15 million long-term unemployed would lose benefits
entirely.
The looming House-Senate budget negotiations have been viewed as the
best vehicle to extend the EUC program—and Thursday’s hearing ended with
some dramatic news from House minority leader Nancy Pelosi. She made
it clear that Democrats couldn’t support any agreement that didn’t have
an EUC extension, either in the actual budget or as a separate piece of
legislation.
This is a fight we can actually win, as Zornick explains:
Meanwhile, a senior Democratic Senate aide close to the budget negotiations confirmed to The Nation
that a EUC extension is still very much in the mix. Senator Murray, who
is leading the negotiations for Democrats, “continues to push for this
and it remains an open item as the negotiations continue.”
Details of a possible agreement have been leaking out in recent days,
though there is no mention of the EUC program either way. The agreement
is sure to be fragile, however, given the spending levels and federal
pension changes rumored to be included—meaning that every last vote will
be crucial in the House. That’s what makes Pelosi’s pledge so notable.
Additionally on Thursday morning, House Speaker John Boehner told
reporters he would be “willing to take a look” at a long-term
unemployment insurance extension.
Whoa--strong pledge from Pelosi just now: "We cannot sign a budget agreement that does not include unemployment insurance." — @gzornick
It's encouraging to see this bit of pushback against would-be austerity
measures. When a budget agreement was signed off on in early 2011,
however, the federally funded Emergency Unemployment Compensation was
included but with 26 weeks of extensions hacked out of it. Partly as a
consequence, only 34 percent of the nation's 4.1 million long-term
unemployed people are now receiving checks under EUC, a program
specifically designed to financially assist those who cannot find work
after 27 weeks or more without a job. The other 66 percent are flat out
of luck.
If EUC is not renewed by Dec. 28, when the program expires, 1.3
million long-term unemployed Americans will lose their average $269 a
week from the government. And in 2014, another 3.6 million Americans who
would have become eligible for EUC will not receive its benefits.
As Sarah Ayres points out:
This is because unemployment benefits are not just good for
workers; they are also good for the economy. By putting money into the
pockets of people who will spend it, unemployment benefits boost demand,
spur economic growth, and create jobs. In fact, the nonpartisan
Congressional Budget Office has found that unemployment benefits are one
of the most effective fiscal policies to increase economic growth and
employment. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, has found
that every $1 spent on unemployment insurance grows the economy by
$1.55. All these dollars circulating through the economy create jobs.
According to an Economic Policy Institute analysis, extending emergency
unemployment benefits would create 310,000 additional jobs in 2014.
Nine out of the 11 times the EUC has been renewed since it was first
enacted in June 2008, Republican lawmakers have resisted. Their
essential argument: unemployment compensation makes people lazy. In
other words, with just one job opening available for every three job
seekers, Republicans say Get a Job!
Meanwhile, the Council of Economic Advisers and Department of Labor have published a new report, The Economic Benefits of Extending Unemployment Benefits. Among its findings:
• Including workers’ families, nearly 69 million people have
been supported by extended UI benefits, including almost 17 million
children
• In 2012 alone, UI benefits lifted an estimated 2.5 million people out of poverty [...]
• Failing to extend UI benefits would put a dent in job-seekers’ incomes, reducing demand and costing 240,000 jobs in 2014.
• Estimates from the Congressional Budget Office and JP Morgan suggest that without an
extension of EUC GDP will be .2 to .4 percentage points lower.
• In 2011, CBO found that aid to the unemployed is among the policies with “the largest
effects on output and employment per dollar of budgetary cost”
The official unemployment rate of 7.3 percent is higher now
than it has been at any time in past recessions when extended
unemployment compensation has been removed.
Originally posted to Daily Kos Labor on Thu Dec 05, 2013 at 10:47 AM PST.
SumOfUs is a worldwide movement of people like you, working together to
hold corporations accountable for their actions and forge a new,
sustainable path for our global economy.
