Day: April 22, 2009

Volunteers In Service To America

Calling on Americans to volunteer, Pres. Obama signed a $5.7 billion national service bill Tuesday that triples the size of the AmeriCorps service program over the next eight years and expands ways for students to earn money for college. “What this legislation does, then, is to help harness this patriotism and connect deeds to needs,” said Obama, a former community organizer in Chicago.

The law dedicates $5.7 billion over five years to encourage volunteerism, including providing $500 summer scholarships to middle school and high school students and granting $1,000 educational stipends to older volunteers, who could pass the cash on to their children, grandchildren, or another young person.

Further, the law vastly expands AmeriCorps, putting the 16-year-old domestic volunteer program on track to increase from its current level of 75,000 volunteers to 250,000. Those volunteers – who receive a living allowance of about $12,000 for 10 to 12 months of work – would staff programs for poor people, veterans, the environment, healthcare, and education.

I will wait and see just how far the Right will go to condemn this effort.  I recall months ago when this was first brought up, there was a wealth of criticism on the Right and even accusations that the President was attempting to organize an army similar to the Brown Shirts of old.

How far will the Right go to bad mouth the efforts of the President?  Watch and learn.

Oops! There Goes Another Primary Promise!

At the height of his primary-season contest against Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, Obama said the United States should use the “hammer” of threatening to withdraw from NAFTA if Canada and Mexico did not agree to change the pact.  To that I wrote that there would be no renegotiation of NAFTA.  I said that it was a primary promise that would go nowhere.  Damn!  I do so enjoy being a seer!

Pres. Obama wants to work with the leaders of Canada and Mexico to strengthen the North American Free Trade Agreement without renegotiating it, his top trade envoy said.

Obama promised last year to add “enforceable” labor and environmental provisions to the core of the text agreement and change investment provisions that critics say give business too much leeway to flout government regulations.

“The three leaders are all of the mind that we should look for ways to strengthen NAFTA,” U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said Monday. “I think they can be addressed without reopening the agreement.”

Obama pledged during the presidential election campaign that he would use the threat of opting out of NAFTA to force the Canadians and Mexicans to accept new standards for labor and the environment.

The partial reform miscalled free trade, which consists in the mere abolition of protection — the mere substitution of a revenue tariff for a protective tariff — cannot help the laboring classes, because it does not touch the fundamental cause of that unjust and unequal distribution which, as we see today, makes “labour a drug and population a nuisance” in the midst of such a plethora of wealth that we talk of over-production. True free trade, on the contrary, leads not only to the largest production of wealth, but to the fairest distribution. It is the easy and obvious way of bringing about that change by which alone justice in distribution can be secured, and the great inventions and discoveries which the human mind is now grasping can be converted into agencies for the elevation of society from its very foundations.

Agreements like NAFTA, CAFTA, etc are not promoting free trade.  They are however, destroying the manufacturing sector in the US.  It did however promote the spread of globalization which in turn out sourced thousands of American jobs to overseas locations.

State’s Saddled With Growing Budget Problems

New reports have begun to reveal the ways in which the economic crisis has led to further hardships for poor and working class people across the United States. To cope with extreme shortfalls in their budgets, state governments have begun to dismantle essential social programs, placing the burden of the economic crisis squarely on the shoulders of workers.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) reported last month that 47 states are facing budget shortfalls. The CBPP has called it “a fiscal crisis of historic proportions.”

The CBPP has estimated that “Combined budget gaps for the remainder of the current fiscal year and the next two years are estimated to total more than $350 billion.

The list of cuts is staggering, The CBPP writes that “At least 18 states have enacted or implemented cuts that will affect low-income families’ eligibility for health insurance or reduce their access to health care; at least 18 states and Washington, D.C. are cutting medical, rehabilitative, home care, or other services needed by low-income people who are elderly or have disabilities; at least 21 states are cutting K-12 and early education; and at least 28 states have implemented cuts to public colleges and universities. Also, at least 37 states and Washington, D.C. have proposed or implemented cuts to their state workforce.”

In an effort to balance budgets, state governments have started laying off state workers, including those responsible for evaluating and approving disability claims. Social Security Commissioner Michael J. Astrue acknowledged that the decision to lay off state workers responsible for disability claims was “completely illogical,” pointing out that states ultimately do not save any money. The federal government, he said, reimburses states for the cost of any disability benefits paid out as well as the salaries of those workers overseeing such decisions. The decision to dismiss workers in this field is particularly destructive due to a recent increase in requests for disability benefits.

Leaders in state government continually point to federal stimulus money as a means of coping with such difficulties. However, the funding guaranteed by the federal government is woefully inadequate for confronting the crisis at hand. The CBPP estimates that only 40 percent of the shortfall in state budgets across the US could be filled by federal aid.

Yes, everyone is having economic problems.  Things could not be more clear. While no expense can be spared to bail out the Wall Street elite and financial speculators who have contributed to the crisis currently leading the world into an economic catastrophe, the working class is being forced to accept the most drastic assaults on their living standards and basic necessities.

How long will the American people continue to allow this assault on the middle class, the working class, the bill payers of the country?