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Contents *Featured
Articles Calendars of Events Communication with Our Members Opportunities Petitions Commentaries from Our Members Richard Curtis: Honduran Coup is Illegal Eshy Shahrazad: U.S. Should Encourage Democracy Liberals and Democrats Links to the Beef Let’s Attack Private Health Insurers?** Adam Smith Addresses Health Care Reform Issues Comments on Rick Larsen’s Health Reform Views Senator Maria Cantwell: Health Care Reform State and Local Links
to the Beef Let’s
Bring New Politics to Washington State** College
Budget Cuts Reduce Student Opportunities Featured
Advocacy Group: American Rights at Work Nation and World Links to the Beef Stop Illegal Actions against Union Organizing* John de Graaf: What Is Productivity For?* 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 · Substituting
a Progressive Income Tax · Replacing
Conservative Legislators Quote of the Week Pugnacity is a form
of courage, but a very bad form. Sinclair Lewis
(1885 - 1951)
Calendar of Events
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University – National
Vacations Matter Summit, with three
hundred experts, advocates, and stakeholders from the fields of health, travel
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for both nights, meals, and parking.
Sponsored by right2vacation.org
Communication
with Our Members
Our News Coverage
More
than almost anyone else we have defined what we mean by news. We express our Liberal political values on
our website
homepage. We express our Liberal priorities based on our understanding of
activities necessary to overcoming current and long term obstacles to our
values. Our news includes
(international, national, state and local) political, economic and social
happenings and trends, especially relating to our Liberal priorities.
Besides
our Basic
Training and Liberal
Resources sections of our website, our archived newsletters
attempt to enable Washington Liberals to be better informed about facts
relevant to our values and how to understand the various contexts and
perspectives for identifying and organizing these facts.
If
you consider all of the commentaries and links to commentaries, I believe we present access
to more news each week than is presented by any of our
I
draw on many newspapers, magazines, websites and blogs, helped by culling done
by such organizations as Sightline, AlterNet, Common Dreams, Campaign for America’s Future, The Progress Report, and The New Republic. I try to organize our commentaries and links
so that you can easily identify and read the ones that interest your. It might be nice to organize them into dozens
or hundreds of yellow page like categories, but the flow of news in each
category is uneven, particularly as the categories become more specific. So I have organized most of it under: (1)
Political, (2) State and Local, (3) National and International and (4) Our
Liberal Spirit.
I welcome your suggestions
concerning our values, obstacles and priorities. Our coverage, sources, and presentation. And anything else. As I have repeatedly expressed, I would
welcome a leadership council which protect us from my loose cannon actions and
look toward continuity when I wear out.
Endorsing Local Candidates
I don’t
have as much knowledge and expertise concerning local races and candidates as
do some of our local political reporters, bloggers and political party
organizations. So I am avoiding making
endorsements. I recommend you visit our
candidates’ various websites. Learn who
endorses them. Go to endorser’s websites
to see what more they may say about the candidates. I’ve got lots to do that I am better at.
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 congress members to stay in session to work on Health Care Reform.
Tell
your senators to not let anti-choice politics affect health care reform.
Tell
congress members to update 33 year old toxic chemicals regulations.
Tell
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to reject funding for tar sands oil
pipeline.
Tell
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to protect our wilderness heritage.
Tell
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to protect Tongass National Forest from
Logging.
Tell
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to protect our Grand Canyon from Uranium mining.
Tell
Senators Kerry and Lugar to send a strong message to Sudan concerning Darfur.
Tell
our Obama Administration to impose sanction on leaders of Honduran military
coup.
Commentaries
From Our Members
Richard Curtis: Honduran Coup is Illegal
Published by
Nazis also called policies
'the rule of law'
I am astounded state Sen. Pam Roach would have the
gall to argue that a military coup against a democratically elected president
of any country is a lawful measure. I
will assume Roach is intelligent enough to know the
The Nazi's told these kinds of lies, too. They
followed "the rule of law" as well. They had judges and courts, too.
But unlike
I know this is the type of political system Roach
prefers, but I think it is demonic of her to call that the rule of law. She
should be ashamed of herself. Richard Curtis
Also
see similar letters published by the times.
I agree that Honduran President Manuel
Zelayawas removed
illegally. Dissidents should have used
legal processes, which are available in
Eshy Shahrazad: Our Democrats Should Encourage Democracy in
Dear
friend, as a devoted democrat I volunteered for the past two years, I worked
hard for our victories. We all worked as a team. Now we need our team to put their
support behind Democracy in
In spite of all my effort, I have not been able to
convince any of our fellow democrats to join me in this effort. So far,
Mr. Bruce Chandler, Mr. Reagan Dunn, and Mr. Rob McKenna (twice) have participated
and delivered petitions to
The hostage crisis is not over in
I agree that
Seattle
marchers rally in support of Iranian protestors.
-Liberals
and Democrats-
Government Watch
Also go to Whitehouse.gov.
Health Care Reform
If
the Senate can’t pass Health Care Reform before August recess, they should stay
to finish it.
President
Obama says delay is OK. We want to get
it right.
To
pass health care reform, Obama should aim moral message at Blue Dog
constituents.
The
Blue Dog Democrats are opposing Health Care Reform for the money. Their PAC receives big bucks from opponents. However, Energy and Commerce Committee member
Blue Dogs on have negotiated a better health reform bill,
which will pass before August recess, with the House as a whole passing a bill
soon after recess.
Senate
Finance Chairman Max Baucus fails at watchdoging TARP and advancing Health Care
Reform.
Conservatives
hope that defeating health care reform will destroy President Obama’s support.
Note
that Social Security and all major legislated programs get modified every few years as new
realities, difficulties and solutions become apparent. Let’s pass reform health care now, then fix and perfect it
periodically.
Government
Department Evaluation and Accountability
Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton is instituting a quadrennial review of State Department
objectives and activities that is similar to the one conducted by our Defense
Departments. Let’s have such reviews for
all Departments.
Conducting Foreign Policy
Besides dealing
with economic recession, health care and other domestic issues, Obama
is fully involved in foreign policy decisions and action.
Military Spending
Our Senate has
approved 87 to 7, a $679 billion defense spending bill that includes most of
the weapons program cuts sought by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and an
expansion of the federal hate-crime law.
It’s
difficult to identify how much is spent on foreign military bases, Cold War
technology and other categories that might be reduced. I believe bases should be closed and weapons
procurement programs eliminated to release money to be spent for useful
non-military projects. People who lose
their military-industrial jobs could be employed in green infrastructure and
other needed jobs.
House Appropriations Bills
Transportation,
housing, health, welfare and military bills have all passed by significant
majorities, with
Other
If
Senate won’t complete Health Care Reform bill before recess, how about Employee Free Choice bill?
Should
the Community Choice Act to assist 37 million disabled people be part of health
care reform.
Obama
Administration is accused of continuing abuse of undocumented immigrants.
Court forces
government to prosecute Guantanamo prisoner in civilian instead of military
court.
Steps that Obama
Administration should take to stop coal mining from despoiling Appalachia.
Senator
Russ Feingold (D-WI) questions whether we should escalate Afghan War. For
More.
Let’s Attack Private Health Insurance?
Private health
insurers and their supporters continually attack public health insurance,
mostly with lies about government interference in the patient’s relationship
with his health providers and about the effectiveness of public health
insurance in other countries. Why
shouldn’t we supporters of public health insurance attack private health
insurance? It is easy to do so while
sticking to the truth.
I was glad to
watch Senator Christopher Dodd deliver an impassioned speech on C-Span, in
which he eloquently described various abuses by private health insurers:
·
They refuse to insure people with
pre-existing conditions
·
They accuse ill customers who make
claims of having pre-existing conditions (rescission), such as arguing that
headaches noted on an application indicated the presence of multiple sclerosis. More.
·
They invisibly, vaguely, or in small
print, deny coverage of various illnesses
·
They delay approval, such that
people become sicker or die due to lack of treatment.
·
They deny coverage of various
treatments, claiming they are experimental contrary to the judgment of his
patient’s physician. Rationing done by publicly unaccountable
private bureaucrats.
·
They offer a bewildering array of
deductions, co-payments, underpayments, and limits, such that insured patients
end up with enormous bills.
·
Their priority is increasing profits
instead of serving their customers.
Obama
sent me an email describing consumer protections to be included in health care
reform.
In addition:
·
Private health insurance is much
more costly than public health insurance, due to marketing, the cost of
disqualifying customers and treatments, and profits. There
is little competition with just 1 or 2 private insurers dominate many state
markets.
·
Private health insurance costs are
increasing more rapidly than costs of medical products and services. And more
rapidly than increasing public health insurance costs.
·
People with private health insurance
frequently find their insurance cancelled or treatments denied, often without
just cause. The resulting medical costs
often lead to mortgage foreclosure and bankruptcy. Something that doesn’t happen in countries
with universal coverage.
·
People with private health insurance are much less satisfied with their insurance than people with public health insurance. A majority of our people prefer public health
insurance. If we didn’t have private
health insurance lobbyists backed by campaign contributions, we would have
public health insurance like less corrupt democratic European countries. For benefits of Medicare.
Note that no Canadians run up large debts, lose their
homes or become bankrupt due to illness.
We need to
provide public health insurance coverage of necessary medical treatments,
allowing people to buy additional private health insurance for optional medical
treatments. To reduce costs of public
health insurance, we need to implement:
·
Low-cost single payer administrative
system, monitored to prevent fraud
·
Bargaining with health care
providers to create appropriate prices
·
Payment for health outcomes instead
of procedures, including preventive, chronic and hospice care
·
Various local, state and national
strategies to stimulate healthier lifestyles (such as dieting,
exercise, addiction prevention and treatment)
·
Coordinated care beginning with a
primary care physician, including shared electronic patient charts (as done
excellently by our Washington Group Health Cooperative)
·
Evidenced based care, based on
recommendations (or mandates) by health care specialist committees (with
members employed by providers or our government) based upon comparative
effectiveness health care research. For more. This will result in rationing by physicians
instead of private insurance clerks. For
more. For more.
·
Eliminating payment disparities
between regions, resulting from congressional responses to special
interests. Instead of congress, a
non-political commission should decide payment rates.
The
congressional delay in passing health care reform bills may have beneficial
consequences. Many of the
cost containment measures that are needed were not sufficiently included in the
various bills, due to their negative impact on various special interests in
various congressional districts. I
expect including some of the measures will be a high priority during and after
the congressional recess. For
more. I still believe that health
care reform has plenty of congressional support and will be passed. Democrats won’t let Max Baucus almost
single-handedly stop Health Care Reform.
Vermont
successfully implements a variety of health cost savings programs.
Vermont
Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders supports health centers (clinics) in every
county. Would reduce unnecessary ER
visits.
Lawmakers
try to limit patent protection tenure for drugs. Pharmaceuticals strongly oppose it. More.
Congressman Adam Smith Addresses
Issues
About Upcoming
Health Care Reform Legislation
The United States Congress is entering a critical stage in the
effort to reform our country’s health care system. I remain absolutely
committed to providing universal access to all Americans. I believe very
strongly that, with the right legislation, we can provide quality, affordable
care to all Americans while controlling costs and improving quality. I am
also very supportive of a public option to help to drive the reforms our system
so desperately needs.
The House has now introduced, through a tri-committee process, its
first bill aimed at substantially changing that system. I fear, however,
that this bill doesn’t recognize the need for reform that will not only create
universal access for all Americans, but that also fundamentally changes our
broken and inefficient health care system to control costs and improve
quality. The cost of adding the nearly 50 million uninsured Americans
into our current health care system, as this bill does, could collapse the
health system. And, by so doing, we will have missed a tremendous
opportunity to change how all Americans receive health care in ways that will address
the significant shortfalls that currently exist in the quality of that care.
The Tri-Committee legislation, while it makes great strides toward
covering more Americans, is unsustainable. The draft is too expensive and
misses the most fundamental problems with our current system. We will be
unable to provide quality care for those Americans who would gain coverage
under this legislation if we do not remedy the current wasteful spending and
out of control costs in health care. Further, I am concerned that the
Obama Administration has released several promising ideas but has not yet put
forth a solid legislative proposal around which Congressional leaders can
coalesce.
Achieving the essential goal of affordable health care and
universal access to care can only be achieved and sustained through cost
containment measures. In this country we do too many unnecessary tests,
prescribe too many unnecessary drugs, perform too many unnecessary surgeries,
and have too many unnecessary hospitalizations. With greater emphasis on
primary care, prevention, and paying for quality outcomes instead the amount of
services there is a way to reform health care that could not only rein in
costs, but could also improve the quality of care dramatically.
If we are going to be able to provide universal coverage to all
Americans without bankrupting our economy, we have to eliminate fee-for-service
(FFS) medicine. It has led to massive over utilization of treatment and
tests. The current FFS model, and basis of our health system, rewards the
quantity of services provided rather than the quality of care. In this
system, providers are overburdened and incentivized to fit in too many
patients. Providers must rush through appointments, which means that they
can often order treatments, tests, and specialists that they may have otherwise
determined to be unnecessary if they were afforded more time with their
patients.
Unfortunately, however, the debate on overhauling FFS medicine has
taken a disappointing turn in Congress. The argument has been made that,
if we move away from FFS, it will lead to rationing of necessary tests and
treatments. Correcting the flawed FFS system is not about rationing
medicine or valuing one kind of care over another. Rather, it is about more
efficiently expending resources. There are studies that show that regions
of the country that spend the most on health care and perform the most tests
and procedures have a lower quality of care than those areas that have lower
costs. The debate, then, should not be about denying care but about
reducing over utilization of unnecessary services and promoting higher quality
care, both of which save money.
The problem is particularly apparent in Medicare where the
reimbursement rate formula fails to reward efficient health care regions at a
fair rate and over utilization is rampant. As a result, Washington state
and others like it with very efficient health systems, where providers order
fewer unnecessary tests and treatments, have very low reimbursement rates
compared to other regions of the country.
This system is not only unfair to states like
If health care reform rewarded doctors for the quality of the care
they provide, rather than the quantity of tests, referrals, and visits, we
could greatly reduce the amount of services and provide better, more efficient
care and cover more Americans in a sustainable way.
A public plan option and broader health reform is our opportunity
to get off of fee-for-service medicine. I am extremely supportive of a
public option that includes both a reformulated reimbursement system and a
focus on preventative care with discounts for people that make progress on
preventable and controllable heath conditions.
As you know, preventative care is about more than tests and taking
medications, it is also about promoting healthy behaviors and individual
engagement. Health care should be a shared responsibility between
patients and providers and that should be reflected in how people pay for
insurance. There are several common preventable, controllable, health
conditions that can lead to larger problems such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol,
obesity, and smoking. Pricing that rewards efforts to improve or control
these problems is not only fair, but also incentivizes individuals to actively
engage in their own health, ultimately driving down the cost of care.
Many companies that self-insure their employees have had great
success with risk-based pricing. The system they uses gives discounts to
people who make progress on or control the issues mentioned above and charges
people who don’t control them more. Using this model, these companies
have had great success with not only improving the health of their employees,
but also with keeping health care costs low while the rest of the country saw
inflation in costs. There is no reason why this model could or should not
be applied to all federal health care programs including the Federal Employees
Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) in which Members of Congress
participate.
The Tri-Committee bill makes great progress toward covering more
Americans. But, the introduced legislation makes minimal progress toward
containing costs which will mean that our health system will remain
unsustainable, our federal debt will continue to grow, and the burden of an
excessively expensive health care system will continue to be an impediment to
economic growth.
It is also important for the White House to take a more active
role in formulating health care reform legislation. To date, the Obama
administration, while very supportive of Congressional efforts to reform health
care, has not yet introduced its own legislative text. It is necessary
for the White House to contribute concrete ideas to this debate so that
Congress and the American people can know exactly where President Obama
stands. I would encourage you to contact the White House and urge the
President to present his own version of health care reform legislation.
Now is the time to fundamentally reform our health care system in
a way that expands access while containing costs to instill efficiencies in the
system that pay for the expansion. I am hopeful that these issues will be
addressed as health care reform moves forward and I look forward to working
with my colleagues and President Obama on these important issues. Congressman
Adam Smith (WA-9)
Washington
Second District Congressman Rick Larsen opposes Public Health Care Option.
Member Comments on Congressman Rick Larsen’s Health
Care Reform Views
Note: Rick Larsen has refused to endorse
a public option.
Janet Lutz-Smith
Rep. Larsen's position on Health Care Reform is totally unacceptable to
me and to most of us Progressives.
We MUST come up with a viable candidate to run against him -- it's too
late now but maybe a candidate could at least argue with him stating the
positions he needs too support -- not supporting Pres. Obama's reform plan is
like saying he is supporting Republicans - and of course, being a member of the
DLC gives him that support for being obstreperous.
Some of us have been working for too many years on giving him
opportunities to make change in his position without any success. We must come up with a viable candidate to run
against him! I think a network is being
started to do just this. Anybody have
information to share on the list with us?
I'd like to say I think Todd Nichols would be a great nomination -- For
peace and love in the world, Janet
Lutz-Smith
I absolutely agree. Rick Larsen does
not represent the people. I have called
and called his office to try and speak to his indifference to the majority of
average citizens and their desire for peace and healthcare. He doesn't seem to care much about humans and
their very real needs. I'm quite sure he is wholly owned by the
military/industrial/health insurance complex.
I agree with Janet's statement except that I
don't agree that it's too late to run someone against Larsen for the 2010
election.
Excerpt from an Email on Health Care Reform by
Senator Maria Cantwell
“I heard from
many of you about the need to have a robust public option and other cost
managing components in the health care reform debate. I could not agree more.
To truly reform health care and ensure every American has access to affordable,
quality care, we have to make sure there is an alternative to private health
insurance that will help drive down costs and provide access to quality care.
This is what I am working to achieve in Congress and why I continue to fully
support a robust public option as part of health care reform in the Senate.
Make no
mistake. The giant health care industries are working hard to defeat the kind
of reform that you and I are pushing for. But we can't let them. You and I know
that we can't stop with a public option in our push to get true health care
reform. We have to do even more.
·
We
must take advantage of this far too brief moment in history to pass reforms
that will improve the lives of Americans and lower their costs. This health
care reform effort must not only successfully bring down overall costs, but it
must improve health outcomes for all Americans. I believe that we can do both
and I believe that we must.
·
We
have to improve primary care, with better care coordination and a focus on
preventative care.
·
We
must stop our system from paying for use and volume, and start paying for
healthy patients. Providers nationwide should be encouraged to provide
patient-driven high-quality health care, so Americans do better, not insurance
companies.
·
We
also have to do more to help seniors stay in their homes, healthier, for
longer. Home and community based long term care patients are dramatically
healthier than their counterparts, and the costs of delivering that high
quality care are 70 percent less.” Senator Maria Cantwell
Fairness, Not Class War
When we attempt
to make taxes more progressive, we are often accused of conducting class
war. This is not true. We would be glad to have everyone become wealthy,
such that they can obtain all the goods and services that they want which are
healthy and sustainable for themselves, others and our environment. We welcome people becoming rich, although we
also question some of the ways they become wealthy and how they use their
wealth.
We attempt to
make taxes more progressive, because present taxes are unfair. People often receive income that they haven’t
earned. That they don’t deserve to have,
like bank robbers. They must pay for the
labor, facilities, equipment and supplies that they use to earn an income. But they often don’t pay to maintain our
social heritage, our social and physical infrastructure and our safety net
which past generations have created, with is necessary to their productivity
and earnings. What they earn here, they
couldn’t earn in
A value added tax (VAT)
captures the now uncollected payments for our social heritage involved in
production. A progressive income tax
also captures the now uncollected payments for our private speculative and
investment earnings. For more. To
read about my recommended progressive income tax. Note that it would result in lowering taxes
for most people.
Conservatives
complain that it is unfair for the top 1.2% of taxpayers to pay 42.5% of all
income taxes. They don’t tell you that
these taxpayers own 50% of
Here’s the Beef
President Obama’s popularity remains high, falling
primarily among Moderate Republicans who worry that the Stimulus-Recovery
Package isn’t producing results.
Texas
Governor complains about U.S. gov’t.
Texas uses federal money to fund 97% of its budget gap.
In
Arizona, politicians say stimulus money is a waste; but want all they can get.
Democrats
may add to their House majority in 2010, as more Republicans may be vulnerable.
Bye
bye Kentucky Republican Senator Jim Bunning.
If
Senate won’t complete Health Care Reform bill before recess, how about Employee
Free Choice bill?
-State
and Local-
Let’s Bring New Politics to
I have decided that our Puget Sound Liberals will
emphasize our
·
Clean Elections
and other Election Reforms, such as Instant Run-Off and Fusion Voting Systems
·
Exposing and
weakening Conservative influence over our legislature
·
Replacement of
Conservatives who oppose these measures, with Liberals who support them
·
Fair Taxation
which yields sufficient revenue to adequately support necessary environmental,
education, labor, consumer, infrastructure-safety net and other state services
We support the efforts of Liberals and liberal
Advocacy Groups (including the Democratic Party, Labor Unions, Educational
Associations, Environmental and Consumer Organizations and many other Liberal
advocacy groups) to promote these and other public interest reforms. Focusing upon serving the public interests of
all of
We place a lower priority upon making ourselves
(including our Puget Sound Liberals) more powerful or catering to our private
interests. We need the financial and
political resources to succeed in our mission.
But, we should not let the means become the end. Our resources are to be used. Not just accumulated. Unfortunately, some of us who excel at
building political capital fail at spending it.
Unused political capital quickly fades.
We must use it or lose it. I also
believe that Liberal Groups that emphasize public
interests will better motivate and involve their own members than if
they concentrate mostly on their own private interests.
Liberal Groups should also give more attention to
basic viruses as well as symptoms. The
above reforms are the key logs in the log jam.
Once they are enacted, many other specific reforms will more easily
occur. Let’s cooperate to initiate New
Washington (Public Interest) Politics. Yes, we can. I believe we will.
Know Our Opponent: the
BIAW
With its many resources, the Building Industry Association of
Washington (BIAW) is the major opponent to using our government to provide
equal access to quality public services.
Without BIAW support, our Washington State Republican Party would be
much weaker. This commentary initiates a
series of commentaries which describe BIAW, its activities and their impacts
upon our state government, public services and people.
BIAW
They claim that “The Building Industry Association of
Washington exists to unite those in the building industry in
BIAW Resources
The Building Industry
Association of Washington (BIAW) has 12,500 members. Besides dues and contributions, it receives
money from our Washington State Government that is rebated when a surplus
occurs in a State disability fund, due to employer contributions having
exceeded amounts paid out for claims.
Bill SB 6035, which would have ended this practice, failed to pass.
This money supports the
activities of the BIAW and the Master Building Association of King and
Snohomish Counties, including the activities described below. It also enables them to support various
Political Action Committees (PACs), including Affordable Housing Council,
ChangePAC and Constitutional Law
PAC. The BIAW also supports Washington Policy Center which
describes its
mission as improving lives through market solutions and Evergreen Freedom
Foundation which promotes a broader Conservative agenda. BIAW’s political and legal expenditures
exceed those of any other
BIAW Activities
Activities include:
·
Contributing to
the campaigns of
·
Professional lobbying
·
Lobbying by
member companies
·
Development of
favored political candidates
·
Informing
supporters about their issues, actions and needs
·
Conducting policy
research in cooperation with the
·
Conducting law
suits
Financially Assisting Conservative Political Candidates
BIAW provides large campaign
contributions to Conservative candidates (Supreme Court Judges, governors
(Ellen Craswell and Dino Rossi) and Republican and some Democratic legislators). Without BIAW financial support, our
Washington State Republican Party would be much weaker.
Affecting
Often successfully, BIAW uses
the above described strategies to:
·
Reduce State
Taxes and Revenue. (It supports Tim
Eyman’s initiatives to reduce state taxes, revenue and expenditures)
·
Reduce State
Expenditures, especially for environmental, infrastructure (except housing) and
safety net programs.
·
Increase Tax Subsidies
for businesses
·
Deregulation of Business
Activities, including environmental, consumer and worker protection
·
Adopt Conservative
State Legislation and Block Liberal State Legislation, including legislation
pertaining to so-called cultural issues
BIAW attempts to achieve
these goals through many actions to pass or block passage of many specific
legislative bills. They also threaten
and initiate law suits. Major targets
are environmental regulations, funding for health care (including women’s abortions),
schools and anything except housing construction, worker benefits,
unionization, collective bargaining and other protections and consumer
protection (especially from abusive homebuilders).
Our future commentaries will
more fully describe BIAW’s activities and their negative impacts on our state
government and people. Collaborating
with others, we intend to create effective strategies to greatly reduce these
impacts. But first, we must know our opponent: BIAW. I welcome your suggestions for research,
sources of information, and other advice and comment.
College Budget Cuts
Reduce Student Opportunities
Media Release by Economic Opportunity Institute (7/27)
A
new report issued by the Seattle‐based
Economic Opportunity Institute says
is
falling behind in the effort to build a world class education system. Continued
cuts in state funding and corresponding tuition hikes mean fewer, more
expensive slots at Washington’s public universities and colleges; “sticker
shock” is likely to drive down applications from low‐income and minority
students despite increased financial aid; and middle‐income graduates are
taking on more debt to pay for school.
With
public funding for state higher education at a 30‐year
low, EOI’s report “Losing by Degrees” calls on state leaders to identify new
sources of public revenue to increase public investment in higher education in
order to build a more competitive economy, and warns of lost economic security
and decreased business competitiveness if no action is taken. Key findings
include:
·
Students and families are paying more than
ever to attend public universities and colleges. The
total cost (tuition, room, board, and expenses) of attending the
·
The number of available slots is
decreasing, even as our population grows. Despite tuition increases,
the state’s public research universities will be able to enroll about2,000
fewer students in 2009‐10
than in 2008‐09, and comprehensive
universities will have space for 2,362 fewer. Meanwhile, the number of seniors
enrolled in
· “Sticker shock” will likely lower applications from low‐income and minority students, despite higher financial aid packages. Legislators
and education administrators claim that higher income families can afford price
hikes, and that lower income students will receive increased financial aid,
both from the state and from new federal policies. But the experience of other
public universities using this “high‐tuition/high‐aid” financing model,
including the
At the
with rising tuition rates even before the
major tuition hikes scheduled for the next two years. Between
1997 and 2007, the percentage of freshmen
applying for aid consistently hovered at around 63% of the incoming class. Of
those 63%, roughly one in ten reported an annual family income of over $100,000
(adjusted to 2007 dollars) in 1997, yet by 2007 it was one out of every three
students.
·
Middle‐class families and students are shouldering higher
costs as the majority of “aid” is coming from loans. In 1991‐92, loans made up 36% of total aid packages, while grants were 61%. By
2007‐08, however, loans had grown to comprise 49% of the packages, while
grants fell to 45%. In 2008, the average student loan debt among borrowers at
the
· Washington needs new sources of public funding to
increase state allocations for public higher education, now at a 30‐year low. In 1980‐81,
undergraduate tuition accounted for 25% of the total costs of undergraduate
instruction in research universities, while the state covered the remaining
75%. By the 2007‐08 academic
year, tuition covered 62% and the state only 38%. In community and technical colleges,
the trend is in the same direction, with the state decreasing its share from
77% in 1980‐81 to 58% in 2007‐08. State‐need based grants, and federal aid and tax breaks cover only a fraction
of the total costs of higher education. The current severe recession and
consequent state budget crisis compound the problem, but the financing problem
will remain even when the economy recovers. As long as
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Here’s the Beef
Two
legislators say Washington provides many advantages for Boeing and other
businesses.
Vancouver,
BC may soon be our world’s greenest city.
Portland
businesses adopt green practices.
Seattle.com is
seeking volunteer bloggers to comment on neighborhood issues and actions.
Washington
congress members should support bill to create sustainable fair trade.
Washington
Second District Congressman Rick Larsen opposes Public Health Care Option.
Washington
health-care plan costs soar. State
workers premiums will increase.
King
County government needs to change to meet changing responsibilities.
King
County Executive candidate Dow Constantine proudly wears Liberal Label.
King
County Executive candidate Ross Hunter says he’s moderate. But proposes far-reaching
changes.
Candidate
Fred Jarrett emphasizes experience and analytical ability.
Money
plays an important role in KC Executive race.
Larry Phillips has most.
King
County Executive candidate Susan Hutchison says she is non-partisan. The heck she is. It appears the Republican strategy is to
never tell the truth if a lie sounds better.
3,500
housing units with 6000 residents planned for South Snohomish County.
Some
are attracted to mini-homes.
Berkeley
summer youth program trains them to be energy auditors.
King
County’s budget reductions for public defenders will deny justice to indigent
defendants.
Plastic
bags: chemical manufactures (with big bucks) against the environment
(volunteers).
Maine
community denies Nestle water for their bottled water.
Yakima
Indians are restoring Yakima Valley sockeye spawning areas. For
more.
Nation
and World
Immediately Stop Illegal Actions against Union
Organizing
We don’t just need more
jobs. We need more jobs which pay fair wages, offer job security, provide job safety
protections and otherwise protect worker’s
rights, (including rights to
unionize and increased penalties for businesses that violate these
rights. (See the movie Norma Rae). And rights which enable employees to meet
their family and other obligations. Obama
must address increasing worker’s earnings.
We must have immigration reform.
Now we learn that the card check provision may be
removed from the Employee
Free Choice Act, but leaving the important mandatory mediation. Until card check, contract
mediation, and other labor legislation is passed, our Administration should strictly enforce existing labor laws. We need card check. We need to stiffen penalties for rampant
employer violations of labor laws.
As I noted previously, our Obama Administration
doesn’t even include LABOR among the
issues listed at the bottom of the
homepage of Whitehouse.gov. Little
activity has been reported other than President Obama signing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair
Pay Act. Our Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis was appointed later than most other cabinet heads. I find no reports of what changes the Labor
Department is making internally or externally, such as the many reports our
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is making about our State Department. I believe the Obama Administration has
delayed labor legislation to avoid antagonizing our business community before
health care reform passes.
See Chuck
Collins’ 2000 book, Economic Apartheid in
America for measures which must be implemented.” This is a
must read for Liberals concerned with quality jobs and labor issues.
The Labor Day 2007 headline
in the Seattle Times caught my eye
immediately: WE
But, the article explained, a
big part of our annual lead comes because in the
So there you have it. We’re number one in productivity. We do have the Grossest Domestic
Product. But it’s a different story when
you compare other indices of our quality of life with those in
That way lies a decline in
health, well-being and sustainability.
And while there are no Utopias out there, other parts of the world will
find better examples of livable societies on the other side of that Atlantic
from New York.
Recently, another article
caught my eye. It seems a
So who cares? After all, I’m short myself. Napoleon was short. But the article explains that average height is a powerful indicator
of the social health of a society. It
tells you how well infants are provided for.
So it figures that the Dutch and the Danes also rank on top in a study
of child welfare in industrial countries released in February, 2007 by
UNICEF. The
But since then, and
especially since Ronald Reagan declared that “government cannot be the solution
because government is the problem,” we’ve followed a different path, toward
what has sometimes been described as market fundamentalism. Increasingly,
in the name of “personal responsibility,” our policies require more and more
Americans to provide privately for all their own economic security. For most of us, the “ownership society,” emphasizing privatization, de-regulation and
massive tax cuts for the wealthy, is really a “you’re on your ownership”
society. We’ve cut taxes dramatically for wealthier Americans, privatized and
de-regulated large sections of the economy.
By contrast, most northern
and western European countries have followed a different path they call “the
social contract.” To work well, they
argue, markets need strong rules, an activist government, and powerful
protections for the rights of workers and consumers. For the most part, the Europeans have
continued to strengthen their social safety nets, offering increasingly
generous unemployment compensation, old age pensions, paid family leave, long
vacations, and other benefits such as universal health care.
Two different
approaches. It seems fair to ask which
one has worked better. And that question
leads to another, more fundamental one: What’s
the economy for, anyway? How much stock can we take in the Dow
Jones? Is the Gross Domestic Product the
measure (the grosser the better), and stuff the stuff, of
happiness? Is the good life the goods
life?
If so, then our way seems a
winner.
But what if we measure
success by the happiness, health, fairness, and security economies provide for
their people? Here’s just a short list of where we fall behind:
·
Poverty: Our
poverty rate is two to three times European levels. Ditto for child poverty.
·
Gap between the rich and poor: Ours is by
far the widest and growing wider. Our
middle-class, as a percentage of the population, is smaller than anywhere in
·
Health: The
·
Mental Health: US rates of anxiety and depression are among
the highest in the world and double those in
·
Child Abuse: More than double European rates.
·
Crime and Punishment: We lead the industrial world
in violent crime despite an incarceration rate 7-10 times higher than in other
countries.
·
Environment: We’re worst in air pollution, carbon dioxide
emissions, and overall environmental sustainability, and next-to-worst in
municipal waste per capita.
·
Savings and Security: The
That’s not the end of the dismal
numbers, but I want to focus on one area where I think we can make an immediate
difference.
As other essays in this book
make clear, connecting more with the natural world and healing our planet,
wounded by over-development and sick with greenhouse gasses and industrial
wastes, is not only essential for our survival as a species but also for our
sanity and connections with one another.
Experiencing the wonder and joy of creation in wild and sparkling places
enables us to see, with John Muir, that “whenever you try to pick out anything
by itself, you find it hitched to everything else in the universe.” But what if you never get out there? What if you never have time to get out there?
Richard Louv (Last Child in the Woods) and others have
written eloquently about how American children are suffering from “nature deficit-disorder.” Compared with a generation ago, children
today spend only half as much unstructured time outdoors. I worry that children who have not been
exposed to the natural world will be less interested in protecting it.
Many environmentalists became
active because their parents introduced them to nature while on vacation. I know I care about the earth because my
father took me backpacking in the Sierra when I was very young. When I made a film about David Brower,
longtime leader of the Sierra Club, and perhaps the most effective
environmentalist of the 20th Century, he told me the same was true
for him. At age six, his parents took
him camping and the magic of the wilderness stayed with him forever. Back then, it took them three days to get to
Yosemite from
Among industrial countries,
only the
How do you find time to
experience nature in a situation like that, or time to do anything to protect
it?
This is an outrage, and it’s
time to call it so. There are clear
arguments for a paid vacation law:
·
Vacations are
shown to improve health—those who take them have only about half as much risk
of a heart attack.
·
Vacations are
family-friendly. For many of us, the
memories of family vacations are the strongest memories we have of childhood, a
time when we bonded most closely with our parents. Having just taken a one-week camping trip
with my son, I can attest to the value of this.
·
Vacations help
prevent worker burnout. They improve
productivity and, especially, creativity, central to success in the information
economy.
This is not about slacking;
this is about health and family and planet.
But the effort to reclaim vacations does challenge our values. It asks the question, what do we do with
progress? Must we use all of our
productivity gains to produce more and more stuff, more and more unequally
distributed?
Or do we value time in our lives—to learn, to think, to
eat slowly, to build friendships and strengthen families, to love, to
volunteer, to laugh and sing and paint and play, to exercise, to appreciate the
wonders of the earth at their own pace, to read to a child or raft on a
river? To fight global warming and
defend the earth for generations unborn?
The issue of time is one that
environmentalists must take seriously. A
2007 study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research found that if
Americans could only reduce their working hours to European levels they would
almost automatically cut their energy use and carbon footprints by 20 percent
or more.
What is progress for?
What is productivity for? What’s the economy for, anyway? When
will we raise these questions to a crescendo that cannot be ignored? I know from speaking around the country that
people are waiting to hear these things, wanting to hear them. A few months ago, a desk clerk at a hotel in
The American “conservative
revolution,” with its focus on income growth and consumption, has had more than
a generation to prove itself, and as I have shown, it has failed to make life
better while threatening the support systems all life depends on. The working definition of insanity is to keep
doing the things we’ve been doing hoping for a different result.
It’s time for a change.
A portion of this chapter appeared previously in
COMMON GROUND magazine.
Resources
Books
De
Graaf, J., David Wann, Thomas Naylor. 2001.
Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic.
Louv,
R. 2005. Last Child in the Woods: Saving
Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder.
McKibben,
Bill. 2007. Deep Economy: The Wealth of
Communities and the Durable Future.
Wann,
David. 2007. Simple Prosperity: Finding
Real Wealth in a Sustainable Lifestyle.
Websites
Take
Back Your Time’s website is www.timeday.org.
WHAT’S
THE ECONOMY FOR ANYWAY?’s Web site is www.citizeneconomy.org.
Also
see The Story of Stuff www.storyofstuff.org.
Here’s the Beef
Proof that humans haven’t
evolved very far (video).
Our New Economy must
primarily serve our people and environment.
Our
recession and recovery: What’s happened? What’s happening? What will happen?
Federal
Reserve reports U.S. recession is easing.
Economy
down. Charitable contributions
down. Volunteering up.
Confidence
in economic recovery produces purchases of corporate bonds, providing business
capital.
Our
recession extends to suburbia and exurbia.
Top 1% of high
income people received tax cuts of 5.8%.
They oppose 0.9% health care tax increase.
New
medicines and technologies save lives, but cost lots. Must avoid those that don’t help.
Early
childhood investments in the stimulus-recovery package will pay dividends for a
lifetime.
Our
education reforms must (1) reduce dropout rates and (2) produce world quality
education.
Will
CNN control run-amok Lou Dobbs?
China
is recovering fastest from global recession.
China
seeks minerals in Congo. And
Latin America.
China
wants U.S. to reduce debt. U.S. wants
China to become less dependent upon exports. More.
Iraqi
Kurds hold competitive election. Results
challenge incumbent corrupt parties.
Our
U.S. should strongly oppose the Guatemalan military coup.
Our international
institutions need to be democratized.
-Our
Liberal Spirit-
This commentary is stimulated by the recent
arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Lewis Gates.
I am
not an attorney. I suspect that
resisting arrest is almost always illegal.
I suspect that verbally expressing belligerence to a law enforcement
officer is almost never illegal. I
believe it shouldn’t be illegal. If you
are like me, you may often feel belligerent when confronted by a law
enforcement or other official: Border
crossing guards stand high on my list.
If you are like me, you know that expressing such belligerence is one of
the quickest ways to increase your difficulties. Quick release most likely comes from
disciplined fake politeness.
One
can understand that law enforcement officers need to be firmly in control of
situations in which they are considering an arrest. It is easy for them to extend this control
beyond controlling behavior to demanding attitudinal submission and respect. Because belligerent attitudes easily lead to
belligerent behavior.
Some
of us enjoy belligerent behavior toward us.
Some enjoy fighting. But most of
us, including officials, don’t. Law
enforcement officers with their lethal power should be held to a higher
standard. They need to be prepared to
accept the likely belligerence that they encounter, responding with fake
politeness to calm the situation and avoid physical struggle.
I
also believe that the use of handcuffs behind the back is often overdone. It is necessary to handcuff people who may
try to escape or behave dangerously. But
not behind their back if they don’t have the capacity to run. Gates is 58 years old and looks it, 5 foot 7
inches tall, weighs 150 pounds, has legs of unequal length and uses a cane. It was not appropriate to handcuff Gates
behind his back.
I
believe it is obvious that the officer should have shown his
identification. He should have
recognized that Professor Henry Lewis Gates was unlikely to be a burglar. He should not have arrested Gates for
disorderly conduct or creating a public disturbance. I can understand why Gates just after
returning from a trip and having difficulty entering his home failed to offer
disciplined failed politeness.
The
officer is said to have a fine record, including teaching a course in racial
profiling for five years. In spite of
that, I believe he needs retraining.
Future incidents should be followed by suspension of duties which
involve arrests. Officers have important
and tough jobs. They should be the most
sensitive and law abiding among us.
What
part did racism play in this incident?
It is difficult to be sure. The
officer might have treated a White Harvard professor the same way. It’s almost impossible to read people’s
minds. But a pattern of different
actions toward members of different ethnic groups suggests ethnic
discrimination. Have similar incidents
occurred involving Blacks, but not Whites?
I am
disgusted at the group of law enforcement officials who demanded an apology
from President Obama. There is nothing
wrong with raising questions about police conduct. I have personal experience with talking with
police who criticized their own department, but in public acted as though there
were nothing to criticize. Of course
attorneys, doctors, professors and other professionals and non-professionals
also are protective of their colleagues.
Police refuse to snitch, yet expect neighbors to snitch on their
wrongdoers.
-Recommended Books- See
our list of books
for liberals
Ray
Raphael, 2002, The First American
Revolution, Before
Roy
Morrison, 1997, We Build the Road as We
Travel, Mondragon, a Cooperative Social System
Our
Roy Morrison (see
previous review.) describes a more limited contemporary Basque movement
in