Enhancing Freedom, Opportunity and Cooperation in
Through informing and networking Liberals and Liberal Organizations.
Our vision is hundreds of thousands of well-informed
Our Website Our Editor To Unsubscribe Table of
Contents * Featured Articles Calendars of Events Communication with Our Members Opportunities Petitions Commentaries from Our Members Norm
Conrad: Don’t Replace One Regressive Tax with Another David Spring: Washington Pays for Boeing Outsourcing Dean Baker Corrects the Commercial Media Pundits Rich Austin:We Need Peaceful Protest & Work Stoppage Liberals and Democrats Links to the Beef State and Local Links
to the Beef Join Our Washington Needs a New Democratic Party* Featured Advocacy Group: Fair School Funding Coalition* Nation and World Links to the Beef Community Colleges Train for Changing Job Markets Thinking Differently about Health Care* Reverse Mortgages Are Attracting Fraudulent Practices Pope Calls for Government to Regulate Global Economy Building a Just and Sustainable World Scientists Aren’t Conservatives or
Republicans Our Liberal Spirit Our
Political Priorities ·
Fair Clean
Elections and Open Government ·
Fair Taxes and
Competent Spending ·
Investment for
Productivity ·
Quality
Health, Education, Jobs, Income ·
Environmental
Protection and Energy Independence ·
Security and
Equal Rights ·
Justice and
Peace Everywhere ·
International
Cooperation and Leadership Conservatives oppose all of these Let’s
End Our National Nightmare
Let’s
Restore Our American Dream More on Conservative opposition to our
American Dream Washington State’s 5 Major Needs ·
Federal
Funding for Health and Education ·
Replace Old
Special Interest Politics with New Public Interest Politics · Substitute
a Progressive Income Tax · Replacing
Conservative Legislators Quote of the Week A Scout is trustworthy,
loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty,
brave, clean and reverent. Be
Prepared. Boy
Scouts
Calendar of Events
Monday,
July 27 at 7 PM at REI (
Thursday, July 30 at 7 PM at Issaquah Public Library
(10 West Sunset Way, Issaquah) – 5th Legislative District
Democrats Speaker Series hosts Seattle Port Commissioner Gael Tarleton,
discussing issues which the Port is addressing.
Monday, August 10 at 6 PM to Wednesday, August 12 at 12:30 PM at Seattle
University – National
Vacations Matter Summit, with three
hundred experts, advocates, and stakeholders from the fields of health, travel
and tourism, family studies and the environment with other interested citizens. $95. To Register. $120-180 for room
for both nights, meals, and parking.
Sponsored by right2vacation.org
Communication
with Our Members
Several weeks ago, I
commented upon intentional budgeting, indicating that I contribute to a
variety of organizations. I usually
listen to the 5 AM news on KPLU. I usually watch the 6 PM evening news on KCTS and also their other commentary shows on
Friday evening. For years, I contributed
to our public stations, KPLU and KCTS.
I hate radio and television
commercials. They continually interrupt
the presentation of valuable information or the flow of entertainment. They go against constructive values. They advertise stuff that harms us and our
environment. They are usually
deceptive.
Now KPLU and KCTS are presenting
commercials. Worse yet, their
advertisers, such as ADM and Chevron are among our worst corporate
abusers. What could be more deceptive
than Chevron’s repeated claim on KCTS that our responses to global warming are
not a Liberal or Conservative issue?
Conservatives (including Chevron and other oil companies) have
continually argued against taking steps to reduce carbon emissions. Liberals are the ones who are taking action.
So I have quit contributing to KPLU and
KCTS. I discussed this with John de
Graaf this week. He informed me that the
advertising is arranged by the national public television network, such that
KCTS have no choice. He also informed me
that KCTS has a high base of individual supporters, compared to other public
television supporters. So now I am
rethinking my position. Sometimes we
have to make painful compromises.
Particularly in dealing with political issues
Opportunities
Useful
Websites: contacts, maps, community organizing tools, and more.
Access
to jillions of political cartoons.
Download
Sightline Institute’s climate policy primer ‘Cap and Trade 101’. About
Sightline.
Conduct your own home energy audit.
See all of President Obama’s
weekly (Saturday) addresses.
Petitions
Tell
your house member to support the house version of health care reform.
Tell your
senators to support health reform which includes reproductive health services.
Tell
the television networks to include single payer in their coverage of health
care reform.
Tell your
senators to support the Hate Crimes Prevention Act.
Tell
Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate possible torture crimes during Bush
Administration.
Tell
President Obama that indefinite detention of suspected terrorists without trial
is a no no.
Commentaries
From Our Members
Our most recent issue of this newsletter contained:
“Dean Baker recommends government grant tax
credits to businesses which give employees more time off (paid family
leave, sick leave, vacations and shorter work weeks). If employees worked 5% fewer hours, 7 million
addition employees would be needed.
I have long believed that asking employees to provide
more time off with out being paid for it is an unfair unfunded mandate. I also believe that Democrats should be
sensitive and responsive to the needs of small businesses. We can do much more for them than can
Republicans, including provision of publicly financed health care and tax
shifting from our FICA jobs tax to another tax, probably a VAT.
Norm Conrad: Don’t Replace One Regressive Tax with Another
I agree with your first and disagree with your second
comment about Dean Baker's call for a tax credit for employers who give extra
time off/reduce hours for employees so as to make room for more work for more
people. The Employees working fewer hours definitely should get most if not all
of their "old" pay in exchange for the tax credit.
Your second comment suggested FICA relief through a VAT (a fancy name for a
sales tax). I see no progress in replacing one highly regressive tax with
another one. I think a better choice would be to make FICA
progressive. Start with a lower rate, say 4 - 4.5%, on the first $15,000
of income. Tax incomes from there to about $120,000 at a rate of, say 5.5
- 6%. Tax everything above that at about 7.5%. One danger of this,
however, is the prolonged cry of victimhood from the very wealthy who will not
get a comparably greater income to match their greater contributions. A
small "doughnut hole" may be useful to help forestall the gnashing of
teeth, the wails of despair and the epidemic of baldness from so many pulling
out their hair.
It should be remembered that Social Security is not in
real danger of running out of money to pay benefits and that the only reason
Reagan and Greenspan raised the FICA rate and significantly
increased the SS Trust Fund (which they promptly plundered, as did Clinton
and the Bushes) was to reduce Reagan's massive deficits. Norm
Conrad
I agree that the Value Added
Tax (VAT) is not more progressive than the FICA Jobs tax, or more regressive.
But it taxes consumption which we need less of instead of jobs which we need
more off. Working people can come out ahead if they consume less. For more on
tax shifting. I have other tax fairness proposals, which center on making
our income taxes more progressive. For more.
[Commentaries concerning the possibility that
Boeing may expand airplane production in
Published by
Boeing
just paid over one billion dollars to buy an airplane production plant in
But
the real question is: where did Boeing
got the $2 billion dollars it is using to move jobs away from our State?
The answer is from $3 billion in tax breaks granted to Boeing by our State
legislature. These tax breaks include, but are not limited to, reductions from
our State sales tax and from our State Business and Occupation tax. A Boeing
Lobbyist called it turning our State
legislature into a “Cash Cow.” Boeing union workers have referred to it as
the “Disappearing Boeing Airplane”
because this outsourcing of high paying jobs has been going on for many years.
Many legislators privately refer to it as Corporate
Welfare. In reality, it is nothing more than blackmail. At Boeing’s
request, our governor recently convened a special Taskforce to see what other
kinds of tax breaks can be given to Boeing. This was during the same
legislative session that billions of dollars of cuts were made to public
schools and other essential State programs. Our entire State budget fell from
$18 billion per year to $16 billion. By comparison, our legislature gives away $50
billion per year in tax breaks, most of which goes to millionaires and
major corporations like Boeing.
Yet
at the same time, Boeing executives have the nerve to complain about how poor
the education and poor transportation systems are in our State. They demand
better “accountability” on how public dollars are spent. I agree. We should
demand better accountability on how the $3 billion we give to Boeing is spent.
For starters, we should demand that the money only be spent keeping jobs in
our State… not moving them out!
These
$50 billion per year in tax breaks for millionaires have led the State of
It
is time to re-examine this insane and broken system of corporate give-a-ways
and demand that major corporations start paying their fair share of State
taxes. It is time to tie tax breaks to a requirement that the money be used to
keep jobs in our State and must be refunded plus interest if those jobs are
outsourced. It is time for corporate accountability. Instead of closing schools
and cutting teachers, it is time to start closing tax loopholes and cutting tax
breaks for millionaires.
David Spring is the
Executive Director of the Fair School Funding Coalition, a non-profit research
and educational organization dedicated to restoring school funding in
Boeing Follows Wal-Mart, Not Costco
I have been proud of our
This contrasts with Southeast companies like
Wal-Mart, which hires people, threatens and abuses them, and then replaces them
when they quit. Boeing seems more and
more like a Southeast company, so it may be appropriate that they move to
However,
South Carolina Republican Governor of Argentina fame may not care about
attracting Boeing.
Dean Baker Corrects the Commercial Media
Pundits
·
If
China and other country countries quit buying U.S. bonds, good things might
happen.
·
Dean
Baker explains simply why he believes more stimulus is necessary for economic
recovery. For
more.
----------
I don’t believe we should attempt to restore private consumption
to bubble amounts. Instead we should
have more jobs result from public investment.
Rich Austin: We Need Peaceful Protest &
Work Stoppage
Hi Dave, Here's my take on it: It relies on a process.
Neither a party nor a process will save us. We must save ourselves. We
folks who make up
We'll continue getting what we've been getting as long as we
continue doing what we've been doing. I am not adventuristic by
nature. Before jumping it’s wise to first pick out a spot on which to
land. In other words, there needs to be
clear reasons and stated objectives for taking actions. Having said that, we’ll have to take actions
in order to win our country back. I believe those actions must include
peaceful, civil protests and work stoppages.
Nothing threatens capitalists as much as threats to their bottom
lines. And nothing would threaten
politicians as much as seeing millions of people marching for justice while
chanting, “Lead, follow, or get out of the way”.
We must first organize around a few specific, attainable issues like
single payer, ending the war, creating jobs that pay family sustaining wages
and adequate support for public education.
The real job is getting working men and women to understand the
importance of acting in our collective best interests. Rich Austin
Liberals
and Democrats
Government Watch
Also go to Whitehouse.gov.
Economic Collapse
10
member Financial Services Inquiry Commission will investigate causes of our
economic collapse.
Health Care Reform
Our House of
Representatives is close to passing a health
care reform bill. For
complete text and more. The best
idea yet – it would be partially funded by raising
taxes on several percent of our highest income people. AARP, AFL-CIO, Consumer’s
A
robust public health insurance option would save $150 billion. Supporters
of Single Payer an Public Health Insurance Option should cooperate against
those who resist universal coverage.
Dennis
Kucinich argues for eliminating for-profit health care insurance. Will
health care reform limit costs by excluding non cost beneficial
treatments? How are cost beneficial
treatments decided? How do other
industrialized countries deal with health care?
House Committee Activities (on Wednesday 7/15 for example)
·
9:30am. Senate Judiciary Committee: Continuation of
the Nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to be an Associate Justice of the
Supreme Court of the
·
10am. House Financial Services Committee: Banking
Industry Perspectives on the Obama Administration’s Financial Regulatory
Reform Proposals
·
10am. Senate Homeland Security & Governmental
Affairs Committee: Identification Security: Reevaluating the REAL ID Act.
Janet A. Napolitano, Secretary, Department of Homeland Security; Jim
Douglas, Governor of
·
2pm. House Administration Committee: Examining
Uniformity in Election Standards
·
2:30pm. Senate Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs
Subcommittee on Securities, Insurance, and Investment: Regulating Hedge
Funds and Other Private Investment Pools
·
3pm. House Education & Labor Committee: Full
Committee Markup, H.R. 3200 -
House education
committee proposes to quit
subsidizing privately offered student loans, saving $87 billion.
Supreme Court Confirmation Hearing
Judge
Sotomayor’s opening statement (video)
Republican Senator Jeff
Sessions’ ridiculous commentary. Republican
war on empathy won’t fly with young and minorities. Bye bye Republicans.
Our Supreme Court has
been both activist (overturning precedents) and Conservative. For
more.
Vocational Training and Quality Jobs
Our U.S. is failing to provide
necessary higher education.
Several weeks ago, Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel said Obama would
ask for more money for job training at community
colleges.
Now, Obama proposes spending $12
billion over 10 years to enhance community colleges. Obama Administration still hasn’t guaranteed
fair pay for care workers.
Environment
Complying with court order, EPA will
require mining companies to pay cleanup costs.
Here’s the Beef
On
orders from Dick Cheney, our CIA withheld information from congress about
surveillance. More.
This is
the best commentary I have seen on Sarah Palin: simply not ready for prime
time.
Contrary
to what Conservatives say, it’s Conservative judges who are judicial activists.
Contrary to Republican
lies, the Stimulus-Investment Package and its results are on schedule.
Instead
of saying, “Yes, we can.”, our Democratic lawmakers are often saying, “It’s not
practical.”
Dean
Baker argues that $2 trillion stimulus is needed NOW, to save or create
millions of jobs.
Vermont Socialist
Senator Bernie Sanders calls for end of Federal Reserve secrecy.
Oregon Democratic
Representative proposes $10 billion Water Trust Fund legislation.
House
Democrats are considering a number of ways to pay for health care reform.
Court rejects Bush
Administration air pollution waivers.
House subcommittee
eliminates funding for failed abstinence education program.
Conservatives
are divided concerning treatment of undocumented immigrants.
State
and Local
An Invitation to Join Our
Despite the national recession,
It hasn’t always been this way. Just 12 years
ago,
First, many attempts failed to provide a source of stable additional
funding for public schools. Examples of a failure to
provide a real funding solution include Initiatives 728 and 732 in 2000, as
well as the Washington Learns Taskforce in 2004 and the Basic Education Finance
Taskforce in 2008. Unfunded mandates, even if approved by the voters, are not
real solutions to the school funding problem.
Second, efforts that would have provided an actual source of additional
funding failed because they focused on raising State taxes on our poor and
middle class. This includes several past efforts to enact an income tax and Initiative
884 in 2004 which proposed to raise our State sales tax. Voters have repeatedly
shown they will not support a funding solution which further raises State
taxes on our poor and middle class. One can hardly blame them given that
our poor and middle class already pay some of the highest State taxes in
Third, there was no broadly organized coalition to promote a win-win
solution. Past efforts to restore public school funding
failed not merely because they did not offer real solutions which could be
supported by the voters, but also because they were offered by groups with
relatively narrow interests. Legislative efforts have been hindered by
political grandstanding focused more on getting re-elected. Parent groups tend
to focus on solutions which would work in their community rather than solutions
which will work for all school districts in our State. Teachers groups have
promoted solutions which are unlikely to be approved by the voters, such as
raising sales taxes and/or property taxes. All of the above groups tend to
demonize each other too much and none have done a good job in reaching out to
community leaders and other organizations which are the key to building a broad
coalition.
The Fair School Funding Coalition intends to
go in a new direction. We hope to learn from and avoid mistakes of past reform
efforts. We will promote real solutions which solve the funding problem in a
way that the voters will actually approve. The path to better school funding is
working together to achieve national average school funding in a manner that
does not raise taxes on poor and middle class families.
We intend to build chapters in every
legislative district in the State. To help, learn more about our organization, or
learn more about the underlying causes of our school funding crisis and tax
reform options to restore school funding to the national average, visit our website. David Spring
According to one education website, Washington
needs 11,659 more classroom teachers to match the national student-to-teacher
average. If it costs $40,000 to pay the
costs of a classroom teacher, then we need to spend $466 million more dollars
to only reach the national average. At
$50,000, the needed additional expenditure and revenue would be $583 million
per year. I would welcome more precise
figures and detailed commentary. Dave
Thomas
Washington State Needs a ‘New Democratic Party’
Vision
I envision a New Washington
Politics which orients toward providing Washington people with access to high
quality natural and social environment and services. Instead of our Old Washington Politics which
orients primarily toward strengthening one’s political party at the expense of
the other.
Obstacles
Instead of strongly endorsing
robust environmental, energy, health, education and financial reforms, all but
one of our Washington federal legislators are using such issues to bargain for
their own political advantage.
Instead of seeking to correct
our unfair tax system which produces less revenue than needed to fund adequate Washington
State services, our governor and state legislators have trashed our services.
Our existing election system
renders it extremely difficult to replace incumbents, especially incumbents of
the ruling party. Voters must vote for
Democratic candidates, because if they vote for candidates of minor parties,
Republican candidates may win.
Tim Eyman has sometimes
successfully appealed to voters (who are paying too much tax) to pass
legislation which (instead of correcting our unfair tax system) places onerous
limits upon our expenditures.
Our civic culture is not producing
leaders and groups which advocate for needed tax reforms which require our
wealthy and powerful people and businesses to pay their fair share of taxes,
which would provide needed revenue.
Proposals
In order to elect federal and
state legislators and a governor whose highest priority is to provide Washington
people with access to high quality natural and social environment and services,
we need to create a New Democratic Party,
which is empowered with a fusion election system, instant run-off election
system or both.
A fusion election system allows a new party to endorse candidates of
an existing party, with their votes added to those of the existing party
voters, such that opposing candidates don’t benefit. The existing party pays heed to the new
party, because the latter may instead of endorsing the existing party’s
candidates, endorse different candidates.
For
more. For more. For more.
An instant run-off election system provides that if no candidate
receives a majority of the votes cast, the votes of the candidate receiving the
least votes are redistributed to the other candidates based upon second
choices. This process of eliminating the
least popular candidates continues until a candidate receives the required
majority. For more.
Both fusion and instant
run-off election systems would give voters a better range of choices, thus
promoting increased voter involvement. Both
would pressure Democratic candidates and legislators to pay more attention to
voter’s desires. Both of these election
systems will be opposed by our Democratic and Republican parties, because these
systems would empower minor parties.
Thus an
initiative is necessary. An
initiative might include a
variety of other election reforms. Dave
Thomas
Democrats
should use primary challenges like Republicans do.
Featured Advocacy Group --- Fair School Funding Coalition ---------------------
The Fair
School Funding Coalition is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit
research and educational organization dedicated to improving public school
funding through an interactive website, e-newsletters, pledges, petitions,
editorials, conferences and presentations. We provide interested groups
with information about fair tax reform options to achieve national average
school funding. We have two goals.
We
hope to restore school funding in our State to at least the national average.
And to restore school funding in a manner which does not raise taxes on our
poor or middle class. In other words, we believe the solution to the school
funding problem is tax fairness. The
underlying cause of the school funding problem is the lack of fairness in our
state tax structure. If we had a national average tax structure, we could also
have national average school funding.
Focusing on national average school funding
makes it clear that our school funding has plunged far below the national
average. It sets a specific measurable, reasonable and achievable minimum
standard. It is not merely a political argument, or an economic argument,
but a moral argument that our children have a right to a fair chance at success
in life.
Why National Average School Funding is Important
National average school
funding is essential to insure national average class sizes. The national
average class size in lower grades is 16 students and in upper grades it is 22
students. By contrast, in Washington State, actual class sizes often exceed 30
to even 40 students. As a consequence of our State’s failure to adequately
fund public schools, our kids must endure some of the most over-crowded
classrooms in America. This leaves them so unprepared for future careers
that we now have the lowest percentage of 9th Graders who go on to complete
college.
Thus, our Hi Tech industry is forced to do their recruiting by bringing
in better trained applicants from out-of State. Our children and our economy
suffer when we short change our public schools. Extensive research has shown that small class
sizes are very important in the lower grades. But small class sizes have also
been shown to be extremely important in the middle and upper grades. For
example, students with smaller High School classes are more likely to remain in
school through graduation and have greater chances of completing college and
thus have higher wages and less unemployment later in life. Under-funding public schools also harm kids in
dozens of other less noticeable ways:
· Overcrowded cafeterias mean that some kids will
get lunch starting at 10 am while other must wait until one pm.
· Fewer computers in our schools causing kids to
line up just to get a chance to go online.
· Overcrowded schools leads to more disruptive
student behaviors and less time available for productive learning.
· Overcrowded schools also increase teacher
burnout and reduce teacher retention.
· Overcrowded schools also cause more kids to
“slip between the cracks.” This is especially true for children with unusual
learning styles and kids from poorer economic backgrounds.
·
Our
kids will have to compete with kids from other States, not only for spots in
good colleges, but also for good jobs in the global market place. Overcrowded
classes place our kids at a severe disadvantage before the race for success has
even begun.
Our schools are over-crowded and falling apart.
Not only has our
legislature failed to provide adequate funds for operating schools, but they
have also failed to supply funds for the repair and building of schools. In
particular, our Legislature has failed to help growing communities build
urgently needed schools. While the State claims to “match” up to 50% of school
construction costs, the Legislature’s distorted school construction “formulas”
result in a “match” of as little as 3% of actual school construction costs. As
a consequence, over half of school construction bonds have gone down to defeat
in the past 10 years and over 10% of the one million children in our public
schools now go to school in particle board boxes. For
much more.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here’s the Beef
8th Congressional candidate Suzan
Del Bene reports $257,000 for the quarter and $572,000 for the first half of
the year. Worth noting is that more than half of that was a personal loan.
Dow
Constantine leads Democratic contenders for King County Executive, endorsed by
3 SEIU unions.
IAM 751 and UFCW 21 have also endorsed
Constantine. UFCW 21 has over 35,000 members in Washington
with a large number in King County and IAM 751 has
35,000 members and retirees in the state, also with large numbers in King County.
State
health insurers are greatly increasing premiums.
Tim
Eyman’s newest initiative would further curtail revenues.
Increasing
urban density is widely praised (if it’s in someone else’s neighborhood).
Residential,
shopping and work development is occurring in suburbia.
Seattle City
Council protests Metro bus service reductions.
Washington
imports Hawaiian garbage.
Amount
of money for weatherizing homes has increased 10 times.
New
young farmers are establishing mini-farms to produce organic produce for sale
locally.
31
ways to live more thriftily.
World’s
largest solar plant may be built in Cle Elum, Washington.
Group
of 30 Chinese Companies are preparing to manufacture solar panels in Eugene,
Oregon.
Nation
and World
Community Colleges Train People for Jobs in Changing
Markets
Our
1,200 Community college two year programs educate nearly half of U.S.
undergraduates, especially preparing them for changing job markets. There are ample jobs available for their
technician, nursing and other graduates.
Their graduates earn up to 30% more than people with only a high school
education, such that money invested in community colleges yields a 16% return
to state and local governments.
Unfortunately,
community colleges receive only 30% of the funding per student that state
universities receive. States similarly
under fund their community colleges. One
result is that community colleges are turning away students. Another is that only 31% of students graduate
within 6 years.
Federal
funding should be doubled. Emphasis
should be placed upon increasing graduation rates. For
more.
Thinking Differently about Health Care
By John de Graaf
There’s a problem with
today’s health care debate. It’s way too
focused on health care. How to fix the health care delivery
system. How to insure everybody. And it’s true that the American health care
system is on life-support. Priced at more
than $8,000 a year per American, and soon to be 20% of our GDP, it’s more
expensive by 40-60% than health care systems in any other industrial country
and totals nearly half the health care budget of the entire world. Yet it leaves 47 million Americans uncovered
by health insurance and it produces results that are arguably the worst in any
of the wealthy nations of the world.
According to the CIA,
Americans now rank 50th in life expectancy, a bit above Albania. After age 50, they are nearly twice as likely
as western Europeans to suffer chronic illnesses like heart disease,
hypertension and Type 2 diabetes. Even
in the hospital, US patients face unusual dangers. More than 100,000 of them die each year from
“healthcare” itself--errors or infections during treatment.
So the system is broken. But fixing it will require a far more
holistic approach than has been discussed in the health care debate.
HEALTH CARE: THE ROOF OF THE HOUSE
It’s not obvious in the
current debate, but no one would argue that good health care is our final goal. The
goal of course, is good health. Health care is only part of that. Let’s consider American health as a
house. Health care is the roof, the
final protection against illness. In our
case, it’s an expensive roof, gold plated yet with 47 million holes. In some ways—vaccinations, for example—it’s a
preventive system, but mostly it’s sickness
care.
In other industrial
countries, the roof is a simpler affair, asphalt shingles on a fiberglass mat
but with hardly any leaks. Their health
care systems rely more on prevention; less on high tech treatment. Yet the people in the house below live
longer, healthier lives. That’s because in those other countries, the foundation and
the walls of the house are stronger, with fewer cracks to let in the cold.
THE FOUNDATION
Let’s start with the
foundation. That’s the head start toward health that children
in most other rich countries receive.
There’s a stronger focus on pre-natal care, for example. In part because of this, infant mortality in
all other industrial countries is lower than in the United States, which ranks
45th in the world, again according to the CIA.
Moreover, fewer mothers die in childbirth in those countries. Here, the US ranks a comparatively poor 41st in
the world Maternal mortality rates for
poor and African-American mothers are particularly high. Every other rich country does better.
Moreover, in every country in
the world except, believe it or not, the United States, Liberia, Swaziland and
Papua New Guinea, mothers are guaranteed paid time off from work to take care
of newborns. In most rich countries,
fathers also receive paid time off to bond with young children. In many cases, such “family leave” extends
for up to a year or more. In the US, by
contrast, parents often return to work when children are only a few weeks
old.
Paid family leave, and the
parental bonding it ensures, pays off in terms of children’s health—fewer
childhood illnesses, fewer problems with attention-deficit disorder, less
obesity, easier socialization, better readiness to learn. Most countries find that such a taxpayer
investment in early childhood results in lower health and other costs as
children grow up. In Canada, where paid
parental leave—the government pays 55% of the stay-at-home parent’s salary—was
recently increased from six months to a year, health care costs for children
have dropped, leading to some interest in further extending the leave.
A 2007 UNICEF study ranked
the United States 20th out of 21 rich nations regarding children’s
welfare. The foundation of our “health
house” is weak. Metaphorically, the rich
enjoy a house with a marble floor, and our middle class, a wooden one. Poor Americans, far less likely to be
insured, have a dirt floor, with rain leaking through the holes in the roof.
WALL NUMBER ONE—LIFESTYLE
If Democrats talk almost
exclusively about universal health care as the solution to our health problems,
Republicans tend to focus on wall number one—lifestyle choices. It’s a
matter of personal responsibility, they say.
Americans should simply stop smoking, eat properly, avoid over-eating,
and excessive alcohol consumption, exercise regularly and sleep enough. And, the conservatives argue, they don’t need
government to do this. Of course, this
is sensible advice. Citizens of other
rich countries generally exercise and sleep more than we do. And they don’t eat as much so they are less
likely to be obese.
But it isn’t all a matter of
personal responsibility. Policy changes
would help here as well. Our tax system
subsidizes producers of sugars and fats and our marketing system relentlessly
advertises fast, unhealthy foods. At the
same time, Americans tend to work longer hours than people in other rich
countries. Europeans, for example, work
300-350 fewer hours each year on average.
Laws guarantee them sufficient time off, including a minimum of four
weeks of paid vacation a year, curbs on overtime and shorter weekly working
hours. This leaves them more time to
select foods carefully, eat more slowly—and, as a result, eat less—while
exercising and sleeping more. Laws
reducing work time have the effect of making them healthier.
WALL NUMBER TWO—STRESS-RELIEF
It’s no secret in the field
of public health that stress is a killer.
Sudden bursts of adrenaline worked to protect our early human ancestors
against attack by savage beasts. But
continued adrenaline response to the chronic stress of modern life leads to
heart problems, obesity, hypertension and weakened immune systems. Several factors make American life
particularly stressful. We are among the
most competitive of wealthy capitalist countries and have the widest gap
between rich and poor. Fewer people on
top; more on the bottom. Studies clearly
show that whether it’s humans or baboons, the lower your status, the higher
your stress levels. More economically
egalitarian societies, like Sweden or Japan, for example, are clearly less
stressful and more healthy.
Stress is also the result of
insecurity. As the American social safety
net has been gutted in recent years (with more of us losing health and pension
benefits, for example) and job protections have been reduced, life in America
is riskier than it used to be. It is far
more insecure than in other rich countries, where strong social safety nets
remain in place. Danes, for example, can
be fired as easily as Americans, but then they receive generous unemployment
benefits, job training and government jobs if they are unable to find a position
in the private sector. Insecurity also
leads to anxiety, a mental illness.
American rates of anxiety are double or triple those in western European
countries. Mental illness negatively
impacts physical health even further.
Europeans say their social safety net gives them a feeling of peace of
mind. It’s certainly good for their
health.
Finally, stress is also the
result of time pressures and overwork, which are far more common in the US than
in other rich countries. More breaks
from a stressful workplace are seen by Europeans as yet another way to improve
health. It’s unlikely that we will be
able to quickly change the levels of hierarchy and inequality in the US, or
that our safety net will be suddenly strengthened—though they should be. But policies offering shorter work time and
longer vacations, clear stress reducers, could be enacted more easily and
quickly, and they should be.
WALL NUMBER THREE—SOCIAL CONNECTION
It’s another clear
understanding in the field of public health that social connection strengthens immune systems and improves physical
well-being. In fact, connecting with
others may be the most important single thing we can do to be healthier. On the other hand, one of the worst things
you can do for your health is to be lonesome.
Yet, despite FACEBOOK and “social networking,” America is an
increasingly lonely country. More and
more people, and especially older Americans, live alone, far more than in other
rich countries. A recent study found
that the average American has only two close friends he or she can turn to. A quarter of us have none at all. Loneliness quickly turns into
depression. As with anxiety, Americans
are two to three times as likely to suffer from depression as western
Europeans. Depression further weakens
immune systems and lowers physical health outcomes.
A National Institutes of
Health study comparing frequency of chronic illness in the United States and
the United Kingdom found that Americans are far more likely to suffer from
heart disease, diabetes and hypertension in old age. Such diseases account of a huge part of our
healthcare costs. The study controlled for age, race, income and gender
differences and found, surprisingly, that poor Britons are as healthy as rich
Americans. The study didn’t find that eating fish and chips makes you
healthier. The major reasons for the difference were all related to the fact
that the British had more security and more free time, which they used to
exercise more, but especially to socialize more. Here again, public policies giving workers
more time off the job would improve health, in this case, by allowing Americans
more time to spend with family and friends.
Clearly, this would also strengthen families and communities.
WALL NUMBER FOUR—A SAFE ENVIRONMENT
Americans, according to the
UNICEF study of children’s welfare, rank at the bottom in child safety, with
the highest rates of accidents among children.
Part of this is due to time pressure on American parents, which leaves
them less able to supervise their children.
Other studies show extremely high rates of accidents in the American
workplace compared to other nations.
Preventable death rates in the US, including deaths from automobile
accidents, are the highest among industrial countries. Moreover, on average, Americans breathe in
air pollution at double the levels of western Europe. The European Union also has stricter controls
on the release of toxic chemicals into
the environment.
Finally, and this is no small
matter, every other industrial country guarantees its workers paid time off from
work when they are sick; only the US does not—half of American workers—and 86%
of restaurant workers—get no paid sick days.
In many other countries, as much as a month of leave is allowed. These countries know that without paid time
off, workers will come to work sick, as many American workers do. They will get others sick and stay sick
longer, often requiring more expensive treatment for their illnesses. This is not rocket science. Most Americans get this immediately. That is why more than 80% of them favor a law
that would guarantee paid sick days for workers.
WHAT CAN WE DO TO IMPROVE OUR HEALTH?
To achieve better health
outcomes, Americans must begin to see health as a holistic matter, like the
house I describe. Right now that house
has a foundation that is part marble, part rotting wood and part dirt. It has four walls that are a mixture of teak,
balsa wood and bamboo, all of them in sorry shape. And finally, it has a gilded roof with
millions of holes.
It is not enough to talk of
making the roof all gold and eliminating the holes, though we do need to
eliminate the holes. We need to
eliminate the gold as well, taking the profit and costly complexity from the
system and expanding a program like Medicare to cover everyone, potentially at
less cost. Such a system must rely more
on preventive methods rather than high tech cures.
But fixing the roof is only a first step. If we also
pay attention to the foundation and the walls, we can assure better outcomes
and probably, at lower cost, as is the case in other rich nations. We can:
·
Strengthen the foundation by improving pre-natal care and providing at least
three months or more of paid leave to
all parents of babies or very young children.
Make the Family and Medical Leave Act a paid provision and extend it to
all workers.
·
Strengthen the wall of lifestyle by encouraging consumption of whole grains and
vegetables, teaching children the value of eating healthy foods, eliminating
subsidies to the purveyors of sugars and fats, and especially, reducing working
hours to give Americans more time for exercise, sleep and healthy eating.
·
Strengthen the wall of stress relief by re-instituting tax policies that narrow the gap
between rich and poor, re-building our social safety net and adopting policies
like paid vacation time (the US is the only industrial nation without a law
guaranteeing paid vacations) that can assure Americans periodic relief from the
stress of our hyper-competitive and long-hour workplaces. We must also provide more resources for the
early identification and treatment of mental illnesses such as anxiety and
depression.
·
Strengthen the wall of connection by reducing
working time and by stimulating, through programs like national service,
greater volunteer involvement with our neighbors and communities.
·
Strengthen the wall of safety by improving OSHA and other protections for workers,
building more pedestrian and bicycle friendly cities, and regaining the
environmental zeal of the early 1970s, which led to much cleaner water and air
for all Americans. Pass the Healthy
Families Act, guaranteeing seven paid sick days to American workers.
Most of these changes are
taken for granted in other nations. All
of them will make the United States healthier, and almost certainly at less cost than our current system. Improving our health outcomes is less a
matter of better science and more money than of political will and an ability to see the connections between
things.
Many business leaders (though
certainly not all!) will object to these ideas on the grounds that they will
cost too much and make us less competitive in the world economy. But the cost of poor health is, and will
continue to be far greater than the price tag for such reforms. If there is one thing more than any other
which makes it harder for American businesses to compete, it’s the escalating
cost of health care. Health care
payments make the cost of producing an automobile thousands of dollars more
expensive in the United States than in Canada, for example. Contrary to common knowledge, countries with
the strongest social safety nets are among the most competitive in the world. We can do better. We owe it to ourselves and our children to
make these changes without delay.
John de Graaf is a documentary filmmaker, Executive
Director of Take Back Your Time (www.timeday.org) and co-author of Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic.
What Does Public Health Do?
·
Monitor health status to identify and solve community
health problems.
·
Diagnose and investigate health problems and health
hazards in the community.
·
Inform, educate, and empower people about health
issues.
·
Mobilize community partnerships and action to identify
and solve health problems.
·
Develop policies and plans that support individual and
community health efforts.
·
Enforce laws and regulations that protect health and
ensure safety.
·
Link people to needed personal health services and
assure the provision of health care when otherwise unavailable.
·
Assure competent public and personal health care
workforce.
·
Evaluate effectiveness, accessibility, and quality of
personal and population-based health services.
·
Research for new insights and innovative solutions to
health problems. For
more.
Reverse Mortgages Are Attracting Fraudulent
Practices
More than 12 million people 65 and older own their homes with no
mortgage debt, leaving them with home equity totaling $4 trillion. This is attracting predators, who arrange
reverse mortgages, with the money used for costly inflexible long term
annuities, speculation, or other inappropriate expenditures. As with the mortgage fraud that contributed
to our housing bubble and collapse, fraudulently high appraisals are allowing
loans which exceed house values.
Democratic Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill of the U.S. Senate Special
Committee on Aging is investigating reverse mortgage fraud and preparing
regulatory legislation. For more. For
more. For
more. For
more.
Pope Calls for Government to Regulate Global Economy
Reuters
reports that: Pope Benedict called on Tuesday for a "world political
authority" to manage the global economy and for more government regulation
of national economies to pull the world out of the current crisis and avoid a
repeat. The pope made his call for a
re-think of the way the world economy was run in a new encyclical which touched
on a number of social issues but whose main connecting thread was how the
current crisis has affected both rich and poor nations. An encyclical is the highest form of papal
writing and gives the clearest indication to the world's 1.1 billion Catholics
-- and to non-Catholics -- of what the pope and the Vatican think about
specific social and moral issues.
Parts of the encyclical, titled "Charity in
Truth," seemed bound to upset free marketers because of its underlying
rejection of unbridled capitalism and unregulated market forces, which he said had
led to "thoroughly destructive" abuse of the system and "grave
deviations and failures." The pope
said every economic decision had a moral consequence and called for "forms
of redistribution" of wealth overseen by governments to help those most
affected by crises.
Benedict said "there is an urgent need of a true
world political authority" whose task would be "to manage the global
economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of
the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result." Such an authority would have to be
"regulated by law" and "would need to be universally recognized
and to be vested with the effective power to ensure security for all, regard
for justice, and respect for rights."
"Obviously it would have to have the authority to ensure compliance
with its decisions from all parties, and also with the coordinated measures
adopted in various international forums," he said.
To
read the “Charity in Truth” encyclical.
Building a Just and
Sustainable World
The current economy is undermining the health of the planet and
the well-being of all but the wealthiest few. It's time to let it go. Here are the commonly-held beliefs that keep
us stuck in the current economic mess. What if we base our economy on a new
story: one that is true for everybody, not just for the rich?
Money
Myth: The measure of a healthy economy
is a growing GDP
Reality: A healthy
economy meets real needs within ecological limits.
Myth: You can't eat money. What we need
is healthy families, communities, and ecosystems.
Reality: All you need is money.
Myth: Booms and busts are inevitable in
a modern economy.
Reality: The boom/bust cycle is a result
of letting banks create money
Finance
Myth: Wall Street is the engine that
powers our economy.
Reality: Most real economic activity is local.
Myth: Corporate banks are too big to
fail. We need them to keep our economy going.
Reality: Small, responsible
banks and credit unions build real wealth in our communities.
Myth: The smart investor insists on
high returns.
Reality: Slow community
investments pay back in dollars and quality of life.
Work
Myth: Well-run businesses require a
hierarchy of highly paid executives.
Reality: Worker co-ops
are efficient and democratic, and workers keep the profits.
Myth: The freedom to do ecological
damage improves the business climate.
Reality: If we destroy the environment,
there is no business … or climate.
Myth: Large corporations are efficient,
innovative, and create jobs.
Reality: Locally rooted
small- and medium-sized businesses create the jobs and innovations we need.
Scientists Aren’t
Conservatives or Republicans
Maybe because
they believe in and understand reality. For
more.
Here’s the Beef
Stimulus-Recovery package is
already preserving and adding many jobs and much production.
Financial speculation
continues. Goldman
Sachs is successfully speculating. For more. For
more.
The
answer to our current economic recession must be an Earn, Conserve and Invest economy.
Wal-Mart
plans to label all products with a sustainability index.
Global
warming regulation should target rich people (economic inequality) instead of
rich nations.
U.S. needs a well
formed development strategy for poor nations independent of security concerns.
U.S.
is hoping to protect and entice Afghans away from the Taliban.
U.S.
is sending mixed messages concerning Honduran coup.
Iranian
president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad faces challenges from many quarters.
Nigerian
conflict about oil proceeds is increasing with more impacts on resident
civilians.
Chinese
government actions may stimulate Uighur extremism where little now exists.
Both
Americans and Israelis regard West Bank Jewish settlements as a barrier to
peace.
Our
Liberal Spirit
Scouting for Character
Examining
the components of the Boy Scout’s Creed reveals that 8 of the 12 components
relate to being sensitive and responsive to others or to our basic values (instead
of just oneself): trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind,
obedient, and reverent. Cheerful, brave,
thrifty and clean relate to living fully as a passionate and disciplined
person.
We
might compare these to our ancient Christian concern with poverty, chastity and
obedience. Suppose obedience is
obedience to our priorities (perhaps providing freedom and opportunity for
all). Suppose poverty is not letting
other habits and affections interfere with our pursuit of our priorities. Suppose chastity is remaining true to our
priorities, not be promiscuously distracted by other pursuits. That is, we reduce our desire for and
dependence upon luxuries which detract from our freedom to serve.
I
compared the messages that were taught by various elementary school readers
used in America during the mid-eighteen hundreds. Two predominated: Wealthy people should be
more sensitive and altruistic. Poor
people should be more disciplined. Later
in the century, readers changed to offering entertainment without moral
instruction. Some of us can remember
using the fanciful Dick and Jane
books to learn to read.
My
parents strongly believed that there are more important priorities than one’s
own satisfaction. That one has a major
obligation to serve others, particularly through working to improve our social
and political institutions. The Boy
Scouts were my major interest from age 11 through 17. I was a member of a Christian religious
order, during my early 40’s. Out of
these experiences, I early became and have remained a strong Liberal.
Unfortunately,
the pull of self service is enormously strong.
Throughout my life, I have given major attention to my own
satisfactions, at the expense of attention that might have followed the Boy
Scout way. I have found that building
and maintaining my character is a full time job, and even then is not always
successful. Dave Thomas
Recommended Books – See our list of books for liberals
Henry
Waxman with Joshua Green, 2009, The
Waxman Report, How Congress Really Works
An entertaining and
informative account of the importance of congressional oversight of our executive
branch activities.
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