“Prison”, May 21, 2004

     Last August, you may recall, I wrote a column entitled, ‘Crime and Punishment’. I decried the U.S. imprisonment figures which were now at 2.2 million persons (federal, state and local), and which is by far the highest ratio in the world, and which costs an insane amount of public dollars.

Since 1980, for example, the State of Florida has been the second highest prison builder in America, with 84 new prisons plus 5,000+ prison beds in the 2004-05 budget (some in facilities already specified as privatized). In today’s dollars, aside from costs of construction, it will cost $1 million to feed and house ONE prisoner sentenced and serving a 40-year term. ***

What has this bought for America? In 1998, among 20 comparable countries, the U.S. still had the highest offender rate in the world; 5,375 offenders per 100,000 persons, nearly double that of Germany which was in second place and nearly triple that of third place Canada. Our U.S. murder rate of 6.32 per 100,000 persons was second highest in the world (behind only the Russian Federation) and 3 to 6 times higher than all the rest of the world. Per the FBI, the U.S. violent crime rate was 363.5 per 100,000 in 1970; 634.1 in 1996; 494.6 in 2002 (with 1.5 million U.S. violent crimes in 2002.

As of 2000, the U.S. crime victim percentage rate (exclusive of drug offenses) of all Americans remains at 21.1% or nearly 1 of every 5 of us, and virtually the same as the percentage of all the other 17 industrialized nations combined.

Per Yale Law School Professor James Whitman on May 10 in The Washington Post, “We incarcerate at a rate staggeringly higher than other Western countries. We criminalize a far wider range of conduct.” ***

And it does no good, we statistically accomplish nothing.

“Insane Budgets”, May 7, 2004

Last column, I promised to discuss Brookings Institution’s March 2004 book, “Restoring Fiscal Sanity”. First, however, let me note a little history about pre-emptive, invasive wars, and our willingness to pay for them or any war.

For at least a century, until GWB (and/or GHWB), this nation has seldom initiated a pre-emptive, invasive war. In WWI, Germany had declared war on France and invaded Belgium. In WWII, Germany invaded Poland and, later, most of western Europe, Russia, the deserts of North Africa. Japan invaded Manchuria, China, Indochina, and sent its fleet and aircraft carriers to Pearl Harbor. In 1950, North Korea invaded South Africa. In the 1960s-70s, North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam. In 1991, Iraq invaded Kuwait.

In 1989, GHWB invaded Panama. In 2003, GWB invaded Iraq.

In most every war before GWB, Americans were asked to and did raise taxes to help pay costs of a war …. For WWI, in 1913, the U.S. adopted the 16th Amendment to our Constitution providing permanently and constitutionally for an income tax. The maximum tax rate, in 1918, was 77%. In WWII, the income tax was applied to the masses; withholding and quarterly estimated payments were initiated; tax rates ranged from a 23% minimum to a 94% maximum. In the Korean War, excess profit taxes were reimposed and individual tax rates were increased from 1951 levels. The Revenue Act of 1964 reduced individual tax rates from the existing range of 20%-91% to a new range of 14%-71%. Tax surcharges went into effect in 1963 and 1969 to help finance the Vietnam War. With the Cold War at or nearing an end, the Deficit Reduction Act of 1984 was passed, followed by additional laws aimed at reducing the federal deficit in the 1980s-90s.

For most of the Reagan years, 1981-86, the top income tax rate was 50%. Now, however, the Bushies have been obsessed with reducing taxes for their rich cronies, even to the extent of fighting Iraq War II “on the cheap”, not paying war costs for their obscene foreign battle and shifting those burdens to future generations, while threatening the social security and medical benefits of our seniors. GWB and his pals have cut capital gains and stock dividend taxes in half; they have dropped the maximum tax rate to 35%. Instead of a tax rate range of 14%-71%, or even 23%-94%, we now, under GWB, have a tax rate range of 10%-35% (with those at the bottom of the scale paying an additional 6% for FICA on every dollar they earn). The rich have obviously benefited by far the most, while we fight Iraq War II and refuse to pay for it. Federal tax revenues are now less than 17% of our economy, compared to 21% in WWII and 19% during Korea.***

Getting back, now, to the 138-page March, 2004 book, “Restoring Fiscal Sanity”, Strobe Talbot, President of Brookings and Deputy Secretary of State from 1994-2001, said this in the book’s Foreword: “(T)he federal government is projected to run deficits in the neighborhood of half a trillion dollars a year over much of the next decade. These deficits reflect both rising expenditures, especially for Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security as the baby boom generation retires, and falling tax revenues related to recently enacted tax cuts. At the same time, the federal government appears to be neglecting key areas, including health care for the nonelderly, education, the environment, and the plight of low-wage workers and their children. The nation thus faces a crucial choice: continue down the path of future fiscal irresponsibility while underinvesting in critical areas, or increase resources … while also reducing the overall budget deficit.”

In my last column, I told you about my great honor in meeting Dr. Alice Rivlin at the Army War College a few weeks ago. She was founding Director of Management and Budget for some years, followed by years as Vice-Chair of the Federal Reserve Board. Co-editor and co-author of the Brookings’ book segments, she wrote: “One fact is indisputable: One fact is indisputable: the federal government is spending about $500 billion a year more than it is raising in taxes. On reasonable assumptions, the gap will widen to nearly $700 billion a year by 2014 and accelerate rapidly thereafter. *** Indeed, if temporary surpluses in Social Security, Medicare and federal retirement were not masking the size of the deficits in the rest of the budget, the deficit estimate for 2014 (alone) would exceed $1 trillion.”

Dr. Rivlin also noted that, “The United States is (now) the largest net debtor in the world.” Totalitarian, communist China now has bought and owns $400-450 billion of our U.S. Treasury Bonds (and continues buying), second only to Japan at some $700 billion. ***

Including past military expenses (veterans’ benefits and attributable interest on the national debt), for this year alone, 10/1/04-9/30/05, annual U.S. military expenses are projected by some at nearly $1 trillion. *** That trillion dollars equals or exceeds all of the rest of America’s non-military discretionary spending combined. ***

In her Executive Summary to the Brookings’ book, Dr. Rivlin concludes “that the nation’s fiscal situation is out of control.”

“2004 Will Be Monumental, Momentous”, January 2, 2004

*** On December 3, 2003, Heritage’s budget analyst, Brian Reidl, wrote and published on its website the following: “Budgets are about setting priorities. Each day millions of households find ways to live within their means. All of them would surely like to spend more than they have; yet they understand that separating necessities from unaffordable luxuries, even making unpleasant sacrifices, is required to stay out of the red. Congress and the President have lacked that belt-tightening discipline. *** This lack of discipline has raised the cost of government to over $20,000 per household for the first time since World War II. ****

Paul Krugman writes that “between 1973 and 2000 the average real income of the bottom 90% of American taxpayers actually fell by 7%. Meanwhile, the income of the top 1% rose by 148% …. The distribution of income in the United States has gone right back to the Gilded Age of inequality.” ****

*** (There’s) a recent article in the December 24 Miami Herald. The article cited the plight of thousands of elderly Florida Cuban Americans. They currently collect upwards of $500 per month, $6,000 per year in SSI, plus Medicaid, plus foodstamps, whatever. ***

Republican congresspersons Clay Shaw and Lincoln Diaz-Balart proudly proclaim that, in the mid-1990s, they led the fight to continue those federal benefits for another 7 years and continuing thereafter, contingent upon those persons becoming U.S. citizens. Many of them now face loss of the benefits because they have not become U.S. citizens.

“Immigration”, October 24, 2004

The Statue of Liberty stands as a beacon in New York harbor. It proclaims, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore; Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door.” Something gets lost in the translation, however, for hundreds who die each year in Arizona deserts …, for others who die each year in the Atlantic Ocean trying to flee Fidel Castro or the political and economic oppression in Haiti. ***

The Cuban Adjustment Act of 1996 supposedly allows 20,000 visas per year for “non-security risk” Cubans (although far less are said to be actually approved and issued). The “wet-foot/dry-foot” charade protects “dry feet” Cubans in the (supposed) sense of protecting them from immediate return to Castro/Cuba. ****

(Newly proposed legislation, none yet enacted, promise some relief to undocumented immigrants, but) none go quite so far as the Reagan-era Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 which allowed undocumented immigrants and their families, for one year, to legalize their status. All the considered legislation promises some progress, but all still far short of curing the problems described by Father Daniel Groody, Associate Director of Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame. In the April, 2003 issue of U.S. Catholic, Father Groody wrote, Undocumented immigrants today experience … economic, social, legal and psychological crucifixion that often dehumanizes them and … robs them of their human dignity, if not their lives.”

And the Statue of Liberty weeps about her broken promises.

“Environment and GWB”, October 10, 2003

After its creation in 1970, Russell Train became the second Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), serving 3+ years during the presidencies of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Per an article in Grist Magazine, dated September 22, 2003 (www.gristmagazine.com), Train writes, *** “The … EPA has been muzzled on the issue of global climate change; its independent appraisal of the airborne health threats from the World Trade Center disaster of Sept. 11, 2001, was apparently altered by White House spin artists. Its recent decision to give indefinite time to coal-fired energy plants to comply with the Clean Air Act appears to have been under White House pressure. (Given that the act has been in effect since the 1970s, one would think those plants have had ample time to get into compliance.). **** The real issue facing us today … is whether the Congress and the country will stand idly by to watch the continued weakening of the EPA by the Bush administration and its steady unraveling of the environmental protection programs that have been a crowning achievement of the United States ….”

“Health Solutions? Nixon to GWB”, September 26, 2003

On September 4, 2003, Matthew Miller wrote in The New York Times that, No serious Democratic contender today would endorse Richard Nixon’s plans from the early 1970s for universal health coverage and a minimum family income: Nixon’s package was far too liberal.” On February 6, 1974, Nixon delivered a “Special Message to Congress Proposing a Comprehensive Health Insurance Plan”. Nearly 30 years ago, he told Congress that, “For the average family … even normal care can be a financial burden while a catastrophic illness can mean catastrophic debt.”

Nixon’s proposal built upon existing systems. Employers would have been required to offer all full-time employees the Comprehensive Health Insurance Plan (CHIP), with the employers paying 75% of the premium, and employees 25%. Medicare would continue for those 65 and over. All others would be covered by “Assisted Health Insurance”, costs for which would be paid by federal and state governments.

Under the Nixon plan, every American would be given a Healthcard, i.e. a health credit card. Families would have an absolute limit of $1,500 per year that they could suffer for out-of-pocket health expenses including prescription drugs. Medicare persons over 65 would pay a $100 deductible toward out-patient drugs, and 80/20 thereafter but with a maximum of $750 in annual out-of-pocket costs. In the closing remarks of his 1974 message to Congress, Nixon said, “Comprehensive health insurance is an idea whose time has come in America.” Unfortunately, Nixon was wrong, of course, and the “idea” has not “come” to America even now, 30 years later.

“Education”, August 29, 2003

(H)ere in Florida we, right now as an example, are holding back, grade retaining 23% or 43,000 of our 9-year old 3rd graders because of failure to pass the FCAT reading test. Summer reading camps accomplished little; “portfolios” had limited effects. In Orange County, for example, 3,157 3rd graders failed the FCAT; 1.861 attended a reading camp; only 262 passed a post-camp test; only 150 were promoted based on “portfolios”; 87% of the failing 3rd graders were NOT helped by summer reading camps nor by portfolios.

Disregard the psychological harm of grade retention; most studies apparently indicate that retention generates little or no success particularly after the first 2 or 3 years that follow retention. Retention, in fact, is quite likely to increase eventual drop-out or push-out from school. For a story about the psychological harm, see The New York Times article about a retained 3rd grader, Giancarlo Perez, a student at Orlando’s Arbor Ridge Elementary School.

Retention aside, Florida’s answer to failing high school graduation rates is an even more bizarre plan to require only 3 years, 18 credits until kids can be kicked out of school. ****

If (one) really wants to help school children, most everyone agrees that the solutions include adequately paid qualified teachers; extra help from tutors and mentors; expanded pre-school and after-school programs; reduced class sizes without gimmicks; elimination for the 30% Florida families at or near the poverty line; elimination of unemployment for 400,000 Floridians; increased state spending per pupil; enriched learning environments that include sufficient computers and books; etc..

We do NOT need corporate tax-vouchers that siphon off public dollars; we do NOT need public supported charter schools that often siphon off the best students with even less accountability. We do NOT need high school exit exams that exacerbate school drop-out, nor FCAT tests that mandate grade retention and psychologically harm 9-year olds. ****

109 3- and 4-year old Monroe County children can’t get child care at the Martin Child Care Center. 57% of the more than 1,000 Floridians who served as AmeriCorps “Teach for America” school mentors and tutors last year are now eliminated. ****

*** Why not forget about a NCLB (No Child Left Behind) program that GWB won’t fund anyway and which EVERY Monroe County public school and 90% of ALL Florida’s schools have flunked?

“Jobless in America”, November 7, 2003

*** Despite how well our millionaires are currently doing, 1 of every 8 Americans, 34.6 million of us, are living BELOW poverty according to present reports of the U.S. Bureau of the Census and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Per U.S. Department of Health & Human Services present guidelines, poverty for 1 person is defined as $8,980 annually (or $4.32 per hour for a 40-hour week). 1 of every 8 of us lives BELOW that; in fact, 1 of every 5 of us, 61 million of us live below 150% of poverty, below $13,470 annually. ***

“Trickle down” has not enhanced the plight of America’s workers. As of a few weeks ago, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that our nation of 285 million people had a civilian work force of 147 million people, less than 130 million of whom are employed full-time or part-time. (When one adds some 9 million unemployed, plus 5 million people working part-time who want to work full-time, plus upwards of 5 million people not counted because they’ve given up and aren’t looking anymore), *** a realistic rate of unemployment (is) 10-11% at least. ****

Since 1996 welfare “reform” laws were enacted, welfare rolls have dropped from 12.2 million to 5 million persons, but upwards of 1 of 7 of the “dropped” persons have no jobs, no spousal support, no governmental benefits, no food and no money to pay rent and utility bills. ****

… when Bob Graham recently announced the end of his presidential campaign …, he said that he’ll continue to fight to “creat(e) real jobs by rebuilding our aging and unreliable electric systems, roads, bridges and schools.”

Stopping the loss of jobs isn’t rocket science. Franklin Delano Roosevelt showed us how to do it 70 years ago when our population was only 123 million … people. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) employed more than 8.5 million people. They not only constructed bridges, roads, public buildings, public parks and airports, but they also created 2,566 murals and 17,744 pieces of sculpture, and the federal art-theater-music-writing programs brought “culture” to more Americans than ever before or since. The FDR Civilian Conservation Corps involved 600,000 persons and planted 3 billion trees, and helped communities overcome floods, hurricanes and blizzards. 40 years ago, President Richard Nixon put into effect the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA), designed not only to take people off the welfare rolls, but to give them jobs, blue-collar, white-collar and artistic jobs. *** Nixon’s CETA … employed artists like Minnesota’s Jack Becker who got one of his first jobs via CETA as Gallery Director for the Minnesota Arts Commission. The bottom line is that our current poverty and jobless rates cry for attention. If we really want to create jobs, tax cuts for millionaires and overseas U.S. corporations aren’t really the best way to do that. If we really want to strive to eliminate inner-city crime and promote educational motivation, jobs are a super goal.

The best formula for creating decent jobs is just that, create decent jobs. *** It worked under FDR, JFK, Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. It can work now if we send GWB back to Texas.