Three-Quarters of Progressive Caucus Not Taking a Stand Against Cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid

Three-Quarters of Progressive Caucus Not Taking a Stand Against Cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid | Common Dreams

Including Rep. Steve Cohen !

Class War and Austerity

The Trouble with Austerity: Cutting is More About Ideology than Economics | Common Dreams

As Predicted, Austerity Policies Send U.S. Economy Downward

CBO Report Reveals Economic Damage Done by Deficit Reduction

Sequestration is Austerity (But Not Enough for Simpson-Bowles)

You've Heard of the Birthers, Now Meet the Simpson-Bowlers

Fix the Debt's Fuzzy Math

Simpson-Bowles' New Deficit-Reduction Plan: Raise Less Revenue

"Fix the Debt" and Pete Peterson's Long History of Deficit Scaremongering

Stacking the Debt: The Phony "Fix the Debt" Campaign -The Nation

Collision With Austerity Will Sink Obama, say Progressives

And why isn't the media discussing the Progressive Alternative to Austerity budget cuts?

The Democratic Party and the White Working Class

Inequality’s the Issue | Viewpoint | Memphis Flyer

Inequality’s the Issue 

Dumbing down the reality of the class war helps only the corporatist elite.

by JIM MAYNARD

Like many liberal Democrats, Ruth Ogles Johnson (Viewpoint, February 7th issue) thinks that the way for the Democratic Party to win the support of white working-class voters is A) to assume they are too stupid or uneducated to understand racism and sexism and B) to win them over by appealing to that assumed ignorance.

click to enlarge

Johnson singles out the new national director of the Democratic Socialists of America, Maria Svart, as an example of how liberals have "insulted" white working-class men by speaking out against patriarchy and white supremacy.

She says, "This tired 'victim class' rhetoric only exaggerates the caricature of an egghead liberal from the big city. As a progressive, I find this woman's language silly and offensive, not to mention lazy and anachronistic. If my female, college-educated, solidly middle-class eyes glaze over when I hear this liberal blather, imagine the reaction of a male laborer with only a high school diploma."

Now who is "insulting" white working-class men? She just asserted that a "male laborer with only a high school diploma" would be insulted by the "egghead liberal" because he is too ignorant and uneducated to understand sexism and racism. But the reason liberal Democrats have lost white working-class male support is not because of "egghead" leftist purists who talk about racism and sexism.

The real reason the Democratic Party has lost white working-class votes is that it has become a corporatist party that has failed to defend the economic interests of the working class — white, black, brown, and yellow. Instead of taking on the corporate elites and the economic and trade policies that have decimated the "middle class" (i.e., working class), the Democratic Party alienated labor by supporting "free trade" and "free market" economic policies, and the result has been the destruction of the working class under both Republican and Democratic administrations.

Liberal Democrats like Johnson assail "ideological purists" on the left while they won't even address the class war being waged against the working class and seem to talk only about the mythical "middle class." The reason the Democratic Party has been losing white working-class voters is that they are afraid to talk about the working class and are afraid to address the class war being waged against them.

Instead of attacking the corporatist Democratic elites who have pulled the Democratic Party away from labor and aligned it with Wall Street, Johnson attacks socialists and leftist "ideological purists" for not dumbing down to talk to white working-class males.

Maybe liberal Democrats could learn something from socialists about how to appeal to the white working-class by defending them against global capitalism, which has destroyed the American working (i.e., "middle") class, betrayed by the Democratic Party time and again: by supporting "free trade" agreements that have destroyed American jobs; by being more willing to bail out Wall Street bankers than workers who are losing their homes and jobs; by caving in to health-care companies instead of pushing a single-payer national health-care system; by depending on labor unions for support to get elected but failing to defend labor once in power.

Maybe the reason the Democratic Party is losing white working-class people is not that they are too dumb and uneducated but that the Democratic Party has failed to represent their economic interests.

Democratic Socialists of America has been urging Democrats to reject Republican-lite policies like neo-liberalism and austerity and to defend the working class. Instead of insulting white working-class men and blaming "ideological purists" on the left for their political difficulties with white workers, maybe liberal Democrats should appeal to all workers, regardless of race, by defending their economic interests instead of those of the white corporate elites.

Jim Maynard is a Memphis organizer for the Democratic Socialists of America.

Obama’s 2013 State of the Union Address

Obama’s 2013 State of the Union Address: Tragedy Has Many Faces « Talking Union

 by Dr. Jack Rasmus

Jack Rasmus

On February 12, 2013, President Obama delivered his State of the Union address. He concluded with an emotional appeal for gun control, repeating a call for Congress to at least put the matter of gun control to a vote after referencing the Newtown, Ct., tragic massacre of 26 children and other recent acts of gun violence in the US. It was an emotional high point of his address, and a very moving moment.

But there was another reference in his speech that also addressed life and death matters, potentially impacting not 26 but hundreds of thousands of those other of America’s most vulnerable—our senior population.

Earlier in his address, Obama declared “the biggest cause of the nation’s long term debt” was “medical for the aged”, in other words, Medicare. Saying this, Obama repeated his remarks of January 1, 2013, when he publicly declared on TV, while supporting the agreement in Congress to raise token taxes on the wealthiest 1%, that Medicare was the biggest contributing source to the deficit and debt.

Reference to Medicare as the main cause of deficit and debt is of course blatantly false. As this writer has documented elsewhere in detail in several articles, the main causes of the $10 trillion additional run-up in deficits and debt since 2001 have been the Bush tax cuts ($3.4 trillion of the total), excess inflationary war spending ($2.1 trillion), tax cuts for the rich and corporations and other stimulus spending since 2008 ($3 trillion), and loss of tax revenue due to 5 years of more than 20 million still unemployed.

Obama’s fixation on Medicare as the prime target for deficit cutting is therefore disturbing. All the more so since he’s been calling for massive Medicare cuts for the past two years. To recall, last November he proposed $340 billion in Medicare cuts. And in July 2011 proposed $700 billion as part of a ‘grand bargain’. Massive cuts to Medicare have been on his mind for some time. But even more disturbing in his February 12 address was his statement that he agreed with and supported the Simpson-Bowles Deficit Commission’s 2010 proposals for cutting Medicare.

If you don’t know what Simpson-Bowles proposed back in November 2010 for reducing Medicare, allow me to enlighten you. Simpson-Bowles proposed a new $550 annual deductible for Part A (hospital) and Part B (physician) Medicare coverage. In addition to that $550, they also proposed that seniors now pay a 20% copay for Part A coverage as well as the present 20% copay for Part B coverage. Those seniors who can afford it, currently purchase additional supplemental private insurance to cover the 20% Part B copay. That typically costs from $150 to $300 a month. Presumably, the additional 20% copay for Part A would cost about the same additional $150 to $300 a month. So to keep their current part A hospital coverage they now have, seniors would have to pay out of pocket another $150 to $300 a month—in addition to the new $550 deductible for Part A & B.

The Simpson-Bowles proposal for Medicare means seniors will pay an additional $195 to $345 a month out of pocket for the same level of Part A and Part B coverage they now have.

The new $550 deductible means another $45 a month taken out of their monthly social security retirement checks, in addition to the current roughly $105 a month taken out for Part B coverage. That’s a major hit to monthly retirement checks from social security, which today averages only a mere $1100 a month. Plus the $150-$300 directly out of pocket for supplemental Part A insurance.

In short, that’s Simpson-Bowles. That’s what Obama called for. And that’s a financial disaster for tens of millions on Social Security-Medicare.

The other tragedy in Obama’s SOTU address was jobs. The proposals raised were rehashed old programs, like his September 2011 ‘jobs’ bill; more subsidies and tax breaks for multinational corporations and manufacturers; a token infrastructure spending proposal with no details; and a pre-school education proposal that was strangely offered as the first step toward a ‘job retraining’ bill.

The President also called for an Immigration bill, much needed no doubt. But that bill is currently being drafted in part by business interests, multinational tech companies in particular. As part of the immigration deal, multinational tech companies will be allowed to double the quota of jobs given to foreign skilled engineers from their offshore subsidiaries, raising the annual total of jobs under the H1-B visa program from current 65,000 to 130,000. So jobs will be created by the immigration bill, but not for American college youth, who are now being crushed under a mountain of student debt with little guarantee of a high paying job upon graduation. (And instead of expunging that debt in whole or part, as has been done for the banks these past five years, the President merely exhorted colleges and universities to stop raising annual tuition by double digit rates).

But the real jobs tragedy was President Obama’s proposal to conclude the nearly completed ‘Transpacific Partnership Program’—a euphemism for a pacific wide Free Trade on Steroids treaty that will dwarf the job loss impact of NAFTA since 1994 and preferred trade rights given to China since 2000. Those two major trade deals cost, at minimum, 5 million lost jobs. TPP will cost magnitudes more in terms of job loss. And that’s not all. Obama further called for replicating TPP Free Trade with a similar treaty with the European Union, a ‘TransAtlantic Partnership Program’, or TAP.

In summary, the State of the Union address last night, February 12, was proof, once again, that everything changes but nothing changes with the two parties in Washington. There is still no serious job creation program, only more free trade job destruction proposals and still more subsidies to multinationals and manufacturers. Meanwhile, if you’re long term unemployed and older than five years old, forget about job retraining. And if you’re a senior, expect to foot much of the deficit cutting bill through higher out of pocket payments for Medicare and thus fewer dollars in your social security retirement checks. And if you’re a student, expect to have to continue to pile on more debt in exchange for low paying service jobs when they graduate.

See also, Incomes, Jobs and the 2013 State of the Union

Dr. Jack Rasmus  is the author of the 2012 book, “Obama’s Economy: Recovery for the Few”, published by Palgrave-Macmillan and Pluto press. His website is:www.kyklosproductions.com; his blog is: jackrasmus.com; and he can be reached on twitter at @drjackrasmus.

The Democratic Party and the White Working Class

Here is my response to this weeks Memphis Flyer Viewpoint column (The Demography Trap) by Rugh Ogles Johnson, who attacks DSA's national director Maria Svart for "insulting" white working class males by speaking out against patriarchy and white supremacy…

(Jim M)

THE PROBLEM IS CLASS INEQUALITY NOT DEMOGRAPHY

Like many liberal Democrats, Ruth Ogles Johnson (“The Demography Trap,” Feb. 7) thinks that the way for the Democratic Party to win the support of white working class voters is (a) assume they are too stupid or uneducated to understand racism and sexism and (b) win them over by appealing to that assumed ignorance. 

 She singles out the new national director of DSA (Democratic Socialists of America),  Maria Svart, as an example of how liberals have “insulted” white working class men by speaking out against patriarchy and white supremacy.  She says, “This tired ‘victim class’ rhetoric only exaggerates the caricature of an egghead liberal from the big city. As a progressive, I find this woman's language silly and offensive, not to mention lazy and anachronistic. If my female, college-educated, solidly middle-class eyes glaze over when I hear this liberal blather, imagine the reaction of a male laborer with only a high school diploma.”

Now who is “insulting” white working class men?  She just asserted that a “male laborer with only a high school diploma” would be insulted by the “egghead liberal” because he is too ignorant and uneducated to understand sexism and racism.  But the reason liberal Democrats have lost white working class male support is not because of “egghead” leftist purists who talk about racism and sexism.

The real reason the Democratic Party has lost white working class votes is that it has become a corporatist party that has failed to defend the economic interests of the white (black, brown & yellow) working class.  Instead of taking on the corporate elites and the economic and trade policies that have decimated the "middle class" (i.e. working class) the Democratic Party alienated labor by supporting "free trade" and "free market" economic policies,  and the result has been the destruction of the working class under both Republican and Democratic administrations.

Liberal Democrats like Ruth Johnson assail "ideological purists" on the left while they won't even address the class war being waged against the working class, and seem to only talk about the mythical "middle class."  The reason the Democratic Party has been losing white working class voters is because they are afraid to talk about the "working class," and are afraid to address the "class war" being waged against them.

Instead of attacking the corporatist Democratic elites that have pulled the Democratic Party away from labor and aligned it with Wall Street, the author attacks socialists and leftist “ideological purists” for not dumbing down to talk to white working class males.  

Maybe liberal Democrats could learn something from socialists about how to appeal to the white working class by defending them against global capitalism which has destroyed the American working (i.e. “middle”) class,  which the Democratic Party betrayed time and again:  by supporting “free trade” agreements that have destroyed American jobs; by being more willing to bail out Wall Street bankers than workers who are losing their homes and jobs; by caving in to health care companies instead of pushing a single-payer national healthcare system; by depending on labor unions for support to get elected but failing to defend labor once in power.  

Maybe the reason the Democratic Party is losing white working class people is not because they are too dumb and uneducated, but because the Democratic Party has failed to represent their economic interests. 

Democratic Socialists of America has been urging Democrats to reject Republican-lite policies, like neo-liberalism and austerity, and to defend the working class.  Instead of insulting white working class men, and blaming “ideological purists” on the left for their political difficulties with white workers, maybe liberal Democrats should appeal to all workers, regardless of race, by defending their economic interests, instead of white corporate elites.

Jim Maynard, Organizer

Memphis Democratic Socialists of America

http://www.memphisdsa.org

Capitalism and Poverty: A Socialist Analysis

Capitalism and Poverty: A Socialist Analysis 
David Duhalde, DSA

Poverty is not created in a vacuum. Socialists understand that poverty is caused by the natural workings of a capitalist marketplace that has always excluded a significant part of the population from decent jobs and, thus, from the ability to purchase on the private market goods necessary for a decent life for themselves and their children. Socialists also recognize that poverty under capitalism is largely maintained by a skewed distribution of wealth and services, not by lack of a work ethic.

A socialist analysis of homelessness illustrates how the workings of capitalism cause one major aspect of poverty--a lack of affordable housing. Nearly twenty years ago, New York Mayor Ed Koch successfully closed many Single Room Occupancies (SROs), apartment buildings of one-room dwellings with shared kitchen and bath. SROs provided inadequate shelter for many of the city’s poor: alcoholics, the mentally ill and others unable to find permanent work or housing. Koch capitalized on the unpopularity of these abodes for his pro-gentrification agenda. Although SROs were hardly a paragon of housing, shutting them down inevitably increased homelessness, as did the Reagan administration’s deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill, without providing adequate out–patient treatment for this population.

Michael Harrington wrote about this troubling paradox in a 1988 piece “Socialism Best Informs Our Politics.” Harrington acknowledged that a democratic socialist, like any liberal, will defend SROs as an imperfect tool for preventing homelessness. However, a socialist will see the mayor’s actions not only as an act of illiberal inhumanity but also as part of the larger capitalist agenda to put profits above human needs and to treat the basic need for decent housing as a private commodity to be sold for profit. Socialists recognize that “gentrification” only benefits those who can afford expensive private housing. Socialism offers a vision of a just society that moves beyond piecemeal reforms. Socialists struggle not only to replace the SROs with a better government housing policy but also to create a society where everyone will live in good quality housing. Such a universal right to housing need not be provided solely by public housing; a mix of non-profit housing trusts, cooperatives and union pension-financed apartment buildings characterize much of the superior housing stock in such countries as the Netherlands and Germany. 

Socialists also understand the central role that deindustrialization and the resulting loss of well-paying union jobs has played in the devastation of our urban centers. If one travels to Detroit, the former auto capital of the world, one sees not only abandoned shopping centers but also vacated hotels and sports stadiums. But even in ostensibly wealthier urban centers, the financial sector’s gains do not eliminate poverty and the low-wage economy, as millions of non-unionized, vulnerable, low-wage workers work to serve the affluent 20% who represent close to 70% of American purchasing power. Thus socialists understand that our society won’t overcome poverty until democratic pressure from below forces the state to engage in the types of job training and public investment (in alternative energy, mass transit and infrastructure) that will create high-wage, productive jobs for all.

Growing numbers of Americans–especially the young–recognize capitalism’s unfairness and limitations. A 2010 Pew Research Center December 2011 poll found that 49% of young people (age 18-29) have a favorable view of socialism and 47%, a negative view of capitalism. Confronted by rising student debt and diminished job prospects, young Americans find our profit-driven society harder to justify.

The effort to re-elect an African-American president has enabled the Republicans to revisit racialized attacks on welfare. High unemployment caused by the recession diminished the effectiveness of workfare in getting unemployed single mothers into jobs. This jobs deficit led the Obama administration to accept (mostly Republican) governors’ requests that their states be allowed to experiment with new forms of fulfilling the workfare requirements, like job skills classes. Yet Republican advertisements juxtaposed videos of employed white workers with claims that the Obama has ended workfare requirements and sends “no strings attached” checks to welfare recipients. Of course, most welfare recipients are white. This “racialization” of welfare politics by both Republicans and some Democrats is an attempt to divide people by claiming that poverty programs only benefit “undeserving” poor people of color.

In reality, the Obama administration remains committed to strict workfare requirements, even though they prevent many poor mothers and children from accessing Temporary Aid to Need Families benefits. A study by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities illustrates the brutal consequences of 1996 “welfare reform.” In 1995, 67% of poor children received welfare; today, only 27% of poor children do. The report estimates that food stamps are the only source of income for over eight million Americans, mostly unemployed single mothers and their children.

Ultimately, today’s anti-poverty advocacy could benefit from a socialist consciousness. Our social programs need defense andexpansion. To achieve the long-term goal of abolishing poverty, we need a full-employment, productive, unionized economy. We also must present social and cooperative alternatives for the future, in which progressively raised public revenues finance the social provision of basic human needs–healthcare, childcare, education and housing.

Unbridled capitalism results in undemocratic policies. Thus, the more we can take aspects of economic security out of the market place, the more we can limit the power of private capitalists to determine our society’s future. Even liberals would agree that a strengthening of Social Security (a form of public pensions) would decrease citizens’ reliance on underfunded private and for-profit IRAs. Not every progressive knows that the fight to end poverty demands not only the expansion of universal forms of social provision but also an expansion of democracy itself. The visionary gradualism that Harrington wrote about nearly twenty-five years ago still guides the work of socialists today. Socialists work to critique the structural causes of poverty, and they envision a more just society than any well-meaning liberal can imagine. Despite our differences with our liberal allies, DSA believes that both socialists and progressives must strive to curtail unnecessary and unjust suffering today; but we must also do the “long distance” work of building a society that one day abolishes exploitation and poverty.

See also DSA Fact Sheet on Poverty

Hard Times, USA: Class War on the Poor and Homeless

Hard Times, USA: Would You Consider Thinking Differently About Poverty and Poor and Homeless People? | Alternet