austerity

No country for austerity pushing Democrats

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Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

deficit cutting

My biggest problem with centrist establishment Democrats has been their insistence on trying to prove they’re the bigger grown-ups in the room by embracing punitive conservative economic ideas and more successfully implementing them. Welfare reform was a perfect example of this. Democratic support for it, including President Clinton’s, was supposed to neutralize the issue for Democrats forever. Oddly, though, I never noticed the tendency of voters to associate Democrats with “welfare” to diminish. What happened was that the idea of “welfare” simply expanded to include any public assistance whatsoever, whether or not the recipient worked for wages, and then further to mean 47% of the country. People still defend welfare reform to me on the policy merits but no one can reasonably argue that it was a long-term political success for Democrats, unless they want to make the perverse case that Mitt Romney lost because at least half the country was offended that he thought they were on welfare.

President Obama embraced deficit reduction from the beginning of his presidency. And he did succeed in shrinking the deficit. Does he get any credit for it? Nope.

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In Light of Local Poverty, Tucson Needs Creative Direction & Progressive Economic Ideas

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Development33-sig-sm72by Pamlea Powers Hannley

Business friendly? Tucson’s been there, done that, … and got the t-shirt at Goodwill. As former City Councilwoman Molly McKasson said, we put all of our eggs in the development basket and look where it got us.

Twenty percent of Tucsonans are living in poverty.

Thirty percent of Tucson children are living in poverty.

Fifty-two percent of Tucson children live in a one-parent household.

Seventy-one percent of Tucson Unified School District students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. (Statistics from the Arizona Daily Star.)

How did we get here?

The Back Story on Tucson’s Poverty Rate

In a November 2011 “What If?” article published just a few days before the last mayoral election, former Arizona Daily Star reporter Josh Brodesky interviewed activist, writer, and artist McKasson and mused about how Tucson would be different today if she had beaten former Mayor Bob Walkup back in their 1999 match-up.

I remember that election well. Walkup– a former Hughes Aircraft executive and former head of the Greater Tucson Economic Council– was the quintessential business candidate. Bankrolled by Tucson’s business community, Walkup’s campaign successfully painted McKasson as a flighty hippie artist whose no-growth, tree-hugging, water-conserving policies would be bad for Tucson (ie, bad for business and bad for growth). Meanwhile, Walkup was championed as a business savvy savior who successfully ran a business, and, therefore, (of course!) could successfully run a city.

As mayor, the glad-handing, ribbon-cutting Walkup promoted business development, Rio Nuevo, and ill-conceived, taxpayer-funded private projects like the downtown hotel (which went down in flames, thank goodness). Except for his pro-business, pro-growth cheerleading, Walkup was a do-nothing mayor who depended upon defense funding, the occasional TREO call center moving to Tucson, and housing boom construction jobs to bolster Tucson’s chronically low-wage tourist economy. The Tucson Weekly’s endorsement of McKasson (here) eerily  predicts what happened to Tucson under three terms of Walkup. Read it and more background and new ideas after the jump.

Misplaced Congressional Priorities: Pork for the Pentagon but Not for Children

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Pentagon-moneyby Pamela Powers Hannley

During the Bush II Era, excessive deficit spending was no big deal for Republicans. Congressional Republicans like Mitch McConnell, Jon Kyl, John McCain, Jeff Flake, Lindsay Graham, and even current “budget hawk” Paul Ryan “spent money like drunken sailors”– particularly when the spending benefited the 1% (remember the tax cuts we couldn’t afford?) or corporations (two wars, Medicare Advantage, off-shoring jobs, more tax cuts, privatization, etc.)

But as soon as a Democratic President occupied the White House, the siren song became: We must tighten our belts and live within our means! Cut government jobs…er… spending! Cut Social Security… er… “entitlements”! 

This austerity screed intensified after the Democratic “shellacking” in 2010 when Teapublicans took control of the House of Representatives and the budget, and Senate Teapublicans began playing games with people’s lives by filibustering everything. (No wonder Congress has a 16% approval rating.)

For the past few months, Congress has been weighing the pros and cons of budget cuts and pork barrel projects. Food stamps and schools lunches are on the chopping block, while the Congress considers passing the National Defense Authorization Act of 2014, which authorizes $640 billion more in defense spending than the Pentagon asked for. (This action was passed by the House Armed Services committee last week; the full vote in the House of Representatives is scheduled for today– Wednesday, June 12.) More details about Pentegon pork after the jump.

PDA Calls on Members to Fight Against Food Stamp Cuts

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2013-02-24 16.52.57by Pamela Powers Hannley

Earlier today, I posted a story about Republicans’ draconian and racist amendment to the Farm Bill that would deny food stamp benefits for ex-convicts– for the rest of their lives. (Obviously, a great way to pump up recidivism.)

But ex-cons are not the only people that Republicans want to starve. Overall, they want to cut billions from the food stamp program (while working behind the scenes to lessen the burned of regulation on the banksters. Who elected them? I thought it was real people– not corporate persons– who elected them.)

Below is an action alert from the Progressive Democrats of America (PDA). It’s time to call your elected Congressional representatives and tell them thatAusterity is Not an Option! Starving people, taking their jobs, taking their houses, reducing benefits… these austerity measures haven't worked in Europe. They won’t work here.

From PDA…

Extremists in Congress want to slash funding for Food Stamps (aka SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program). We must stand up against this heartless effort. Call and write your Senators and Representative, and tell them to oppose the Farm Bill unless full funding for food stamps is restored. We must do more to end hunger, not less.

Please watch this video in which I interviewed PDA Advisory Board member, Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts about the upcoming Farm Bill–and the despicable plan to cut food stamps in a time of great hunger. Call and write your Senators and Representative, and tell them to reject the Farm Bill if it contains these hunger-causing cuts.

In the video, Rep. McGovern describes what he calls “a defining moment.” More details about food stamp cuts after the jump.