Bush Attack on the Middle Class

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Bush Attacks Well-Being of Working Americans

Middle Class Economics in 2005

Families Pay the Price

 Once again American troops sent on a fool's errand are coming home in coffins, or without their right arms or left legs, or paralyzed, or so messed up mentally they'll never be the same. Troops are being shoved two or three times into the furnace of Iraq by astonishingly incompetent leaders who have been unable or unwilling to provide them with the proper training, adequate equipment or even a clearly defined mission.  . . . Lisa Hoffman and Annette Rainville of the Scripps Howard News Service have reported, in an extremely moving article, that nearly 900 American children have lost a parent to the war in Iraq. . .One of the things that President Bush might consider while on his current vacation is whether there are any limits to the price our troops should be prepared to pay for his misadventure in Iraq.  Herbert, NY Times, 12/24/04  MORE

 

Bush Puts Kids in Poverty*

Tina Taylor was a model of what welfare reform was supposed to do. 
. . . After 1996, when changes were made in welfare law to push people into work, she got a job that paid $400 a week and allowed her family to live independently. For the first time in a long time, she could afford to clothe and feed her two children, . . . After losing her job last year, however, Taylor has been unable to find full-time work in an economy that still has a million fewer jobs than it did . . .She is back in poverty. But she hasn't gone back on welfare. Her story illustrates a seeming paradox in the U.S. economy: Though the number of welfare recipients continues to decline, poverty rates -- particularly for single mothers and children -- have surged in recent years. Just last month, the government reported that the number of people on welfare had declined by 149,000 at the end of 2003 compared with 2002, while the number in poverty rose by 1.3 million.  Griff Witte, Washington Post, 9/26/04 MORE

 

Bush Poverty Push for Kids*

The number of Americans living in poverty increased by 1.3 million last year, while the ranks of the uninsured swelled by 1.4 million, the Census Bureau reported Thursday. 
It was the third straight annual increase for both categories. . . Approximately 35.8 million people lived below the poverty line in 2003, or about 12.5 percent of the population. . .The rise was more dramatic for children. There were 12.9 million living in poverty last year, or 17.6 percent of the under-18 population. GENARO C. ARMAS, AP, 8/26/04

How Does the U.S. Compare to Other Industrial Countries on Child Poverty?

22nd out of 23 Countries.
UNICEF

 

Blaming the Poor*

It is an age-old tactic to chalk up the ills of poverty to the poor themselves. Blaming the poor enables those in charge to shirk their responsibilities for ensuring at least a minimal standard of living for all citizens. . .   A clear example is the pending welfare reauthorization. Temporary Assistance for Needy Families—the legislation that pays for assistance to households with minor children—expires on June 30.  The Bush administration has proposed drastic and injurious changes to TANF that include reducing or eliminating access to education and training, denying additional funding for child care, eliminating the requirement for states to screen for barriers (i.e., disabilities, mental health problems, educational levels or substance abuse), and imposing harsh work requirements. Deborah Cutler-Ortiz, TomPaine.com, 6/29/04

 

Bush, The Uncompassionate*

The vote, 78 to 20, expressed broad bipartisan support for a proposal to add a total of $6 billion to child care programs over the next five years, beyond the additional $1 billion already included in the bill. The federal government now earmarks $4.8 billion a year for such child care assistance.

The vote came one day after the Bush administration expressed its objections to increasing the child care grant, saying in a written statement that it was not needed.

But despite the White House objections, 31 Republicans, including the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist of Tennessee, joined 46 Democrats and an independent in voting for the child care proposal, offered by Senators Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of Maine, and Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut.  ROBERT PEAR, NY Times, 3/30/04

 

Bush Rigs System for Rich*

the top 29,000 Americans have as much income as the bottom 96 million. And tax burden for the richest Americans has been falling sharply while everyone else's has risen. Most people making $60,000 pay a larger share of their income in federal taxes than the top 400 Americans, whose average income in 2000 was $174 million each. They paid just 22-cents on the dollar in federal taxes and under the Bush tax cuts would pay just 17.5 cents on the dollar.  . . ."Perfectly Legal" shows how the tax police, the IRS, have been cut in size and then handcuffed, ordered to go after the working poor and to ignore tax cheating by the politically connected rich. And it names names throughout.  BuzzFlash Review of David Cay Johnston, Author of "Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich -- and Cheat Everybody Else"

 

Bush Friends Regulate U.S. Government*

The federal official who runs Medicare and was intimately involved in drafting legislation to overhaul the program is the object of a bidding war among five firms hoping to hire him to advise clients affected by the measure. . . After federal employees resign, they are subject to a permanent ban on "switching sides." They cannot try to influence the government on a "particular matter" in which they were personally and substantially involved. In addition, federal law establishes a one-year "cooling-off period," during which former senior officials are not supposed to lobby at all before the agencies where they worked. . .In his last job, as president of the Federation of American Hospitals, a trade group for investor-owned hospitals, Mr. Scully made $675,000 a year.  Robert Pear, NY Times, 12/3/03

 

Bush Could Help, But *

President Bush and Congress could help by moving beyond their backing of programs to promote abstinence . . . It is the opponents of reproductive freedom, not pro-choice advocates, who pose an obstacle to achieving the humane goal of reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies and second-trimester abortions. Through political harassment and the imposition of various restrictions, they have made it increasingly difficult for women who are young or poor, or who live in rural areas, to obtain access to abortion services in the first weeks of pregnancy, thereby needlessly delaying procedures until the fetus is further along. While the pro-choice movement has been fighting to protect women from the need to have abortions later in pregnancy, the other side has been vigorously engaged in a battle that will inevitably make them more common.  NY Times Editorial 11/300/03

Bush's "Low-Wage America"*

About 27.5 million Americans – nearly 24 percent of the labor force – earn less than $8.70 an hour, not enough to keep a family of four out of poverty, even working full-time year-round. Job ladders for these workers have been dismantled, limiting their ability to get ahead in today’s labor market. Low-Wage America is the most extensive study to date of how the choices employers make in response to economic globalization, industry deregulation, and advances in information technology affect the lives of tens of millions of workers at the bottom of the wage distribution.  Eileen Appelbaum, Annette Bernhardt, and Richard J. Murnane, editors, Russell Sage Foundation, November 03

 

Bush Sells Legislation*

More than three dozen of President Bush's major fundraisers are affiliated with companies that stand to benefit from the passage of two central pieces of the administration's legislative agenda: the energy and Medicare bills.

 

The energy bill provides billions of dollars in benefits to companies run by at least 22 executives and their spouses who have qualified as either "Pioneers" or "Rangers," as well as to the clients of at least 15 lobbyists and their spouses who have achieved similar status as fundraisers. At least 24 Rangers and Pioneers could benefit from the Medicare bill as executives of companies or lobbyists working for them, including eight who have clients affected by both bills.  Thomas B. Edsall, Washington, Post 11/22/03

Medi-Gone?

Meanwhile, another proposal — to force Medicare to compete with private insurers — seems intended to undermine the whole system.
This proposal goes under the name of "premium support." Medicare would no longer cover whatever medical costs an individual faced; instead, retirees would receive a lump sum to buy private insurance. (Those who opted to remain with the traditional system would have to pay extra premiums.) . . .
But many studies predict that private insurers would cherry-pick the best (healthiest) prospects, leaving traditional Medicare with retirees who are likely to have high medical costs. These higher costs would then be reflected in the extra payments required to stay in traditional fee-for-service coverage. The effect would be to put health care out of reach for many older Americans. Krugman, NY Times 11/14/03

Support the Troops*

[L]ast week the magazine Army Times ran a story with the headline "An Act of `Betrayal,' " and the subtitle "In the midst of war, key family benefits face cuts."  The article went on to assert that there has been "a string of actions by the Bush administration to cut or hold down growth in pay and benefits, including basic pay, combat pay, health-care benefits and the death gratuity paid to survivors of troops who die on active duty." . . .it's hard to deny the stunning insensitivity of President Bush's remarks back on July 2: "There are some who feel like that, you know, the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is bring 'em on. We got the force necessary to deal with the security situation." Those are the words of a man who can't imagine himself or anyone close to him actually being in the line of fire.  Krugman, NY Times 11/11/03

Equal Opportunity in Bushland *

Of Chicagoans who are 20 to 24 years old, more than 26 percent are out of work and out of school. When the statistics are refined to focus on young blacks and Hispanics, they only get worse.

An incredible 45 percent of black men in Chicago aged 20 to 24 are out of work and out of school. That is not a condition that should be ignored.  HERBERT, NY Times 10/20/03

Corporate earnings are set to have their best quarter since the spring of 2000, with initial estimates of a 21 percent jump over last year's third quarter. Strong consumer spending, a weakening dollar and further cost- cutting all helped to improve the bottom line for companies that have already reported for the quarter, which ended Sept. 30. FUERBRINGER, NY Times 10/21/03

It's about the Profits *

An energy task force, led by Vice President Cheney, relied for outside advice primarily on "petroleum, coal, nuclear, natural gas, electricity industry representatives and lobbyists," while seeking limited input from academic experts, environ-mentalists and policy groups, the GAO said.

Among the previously disclosed meetings were private sessions for Kenneth L. Lay, then the chairman of Enron Corp., the Texas energy trading company that collapsed in the nation's largest accounting scandal. Lay was given a 30-minute meeting with Cheney and a conference with a top aide for the task force.

David M. Walker, comptroller general of the United States and head of the GAO, said in an interview that the standoff over the task force doc-uments called into question the existence of "a reasonable degree of transparency and an appropriate degree of accountability in govern-ment."  Mike Allen Washington Post 8/26/03

 

 

While Bush Fiddles*

This new era requires that workers shoulder more responsibility and risk on the way to financial security, economists say. It also demands that they be nimble in an increasingly fluid job market. Those who don't obtain some combination of specialized skills, higher education and professional status that can be constantly adapted will be in danger of sliding down the economic ladder to low-paying service jobs, usually without benefits. Meanwhile, those who secure the middle-class jobs of the 21st century will have to make $17 an hour stretch further than ever as they pay more for health care or risk doing without insurance and assume much or all of the burden for their retirement. . . many observers also say that the present economic restructuring may be more rocky than similar transitions in the past and that society should take additional measures to ease the struggles of those caught in the middle, especially the three-quarters of Americans who lack a college degree. . .[M]ost workplace experts are skeptical that the jobs of the future are likely to come with the same kinds of benefits as the jobs of the past. "It's not clear how the work will change," said Peter Cappelli, a management professor at the Wharton business school at the University of Pennsylvania. "But any kind of security will go away." . . .In the political world, debate over labor market restructuring has been dominated by finger-pointing about free trade or the ethics of offshoring, rather than by discussion of possible solutions. . .Carnevale, who was a member of the White House advisory committee on technology and adult education in the Clinton administration, argues that the country needs the equivalent of an industrial policy focused both on getting more people through college and on retraining them for new jobs. Otherwise, "we could have a permanent working poor," he said. "They don't live in America; they kind of live under it." 

Jonathan Krim and Griff Witte, Washington Post, 12/31/04  MORE