Employee Free Choice Act

Number of U.S. workers with employer-provided health coverage down for the 7th year

The health insurance most Americans receive, employer-sponsored insurance (ESI), has dwindled each year since 2000, according to a report released today by the Economic Policy Institute [www.epi.org]. The Erosion of Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance, by EPI economist Elise Gould, focuses on the decline of ESI coverage - the coverage most Americans receive, as well as the type of coverage that has seen the steepest decline.

About 62.9 % of Americans under the age of 65 were covered by ESI in 2007, over 3 million fewer than in 2000. Having a job does not guarantee ESI coverage. Since 2000, the number of uninsured workers has grown by 4.1 million workers. About 45 million people under 65 are without health insurance coverage.

As unemployment rises across the nation, larger declines in ESI are expected. “The health care problem has reached a critical level,” said Gould. “Bold new solutions need to be considered to address the growing crisis.”

ESI coverage varies between states. For instance, Hawaii, which requires employers to provide health insurance to employees who work 20 hours or more per week, has a high rate of employer-sponsored coverage. Currently, the states with the highest employer-provided coverage rates for those under 65 are New Hampshire (75.4%), Hawaii (72.5%), and Connecticut (72.3%). The lowest coverage rates were found in New Mexico (50.7%), Texas (53.5%), and Mississippi (53.7%). (See Snapshot.) http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_snapshots_20081009

The decline in ESI coverage of children has left over 3.4 million fewer children covered in 2007 than in 2000. Coverage by publicly provided health insurance like Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Coverage Program (SCHIP) has increased to cover the slack.

“It is only the strength of government programs, particularly those aimed at children, that has insulated many from losses in coverage,” said Gould. “The trends indicate a significant shift from private to public coverage, especially among children.”

The erosion of employer-sponsored health insurance: Declines continue for the seventh year running.

http://www.epi.org/briefingpapers/223/bp223.pdf

Epoch Times: Potentially Contaminated Products from China flowing into U.S.

The Epoch Times http://en.epochtimes.com reports:

Countries around the world are working to ban the import of melamine-contaminated products from China. But in the U.S., melamine-products and ingredients continue to flow through ports of entry, almost unchecked.

There have been widespread worldwide reports in recent weeks of milk products from China contaminated with melamine. The industrial chemical was also at the core of a series of pet food recalls in 2007. At least four infants in China have died from ingesting melamine-tainted baby formula

"We're very leery of the Chinese food safety system," says Tony Corbo, Legislative Representative for Food and Water Watch. "At best it's weak, at worst it's corrupt. It just reeks with corruption." Food and Water Watch is a nonprofit consumer organization that works on food and water safety issues.

Last month, the FDA issued an advisory that there is "no known threat of contamination in infant formula manufactured by companies that have met the requirements to sell such products in the United States." The same advisory warned that infant formula manufactured in China could pose a risk.

Some are not convinced that imports from China are safe for public consumption, though.

"The recent scandal involving contaminated milk products from China clearly demonstrates that significant work remains for China to reform its food safety system," said Congresswoman Rosa L. DeLauro (CT-3) in a statement on Oct. 3.

"While the FDA has said that no contaminated baby formula has been legally imported into the U.S. from China, it is certainly possible that other dairy products including powdered milk and milk protein products have entered the United States, as they have in Europe." DeLauro is Chairwoman of the Agriculture, Food and Drug Administration Appropriations Subcommittee.

Congresswoman DeLauro and Senator Richard J. Durbin (D-IL) sent a letter to the FDA seeking information about the status of ongoing investigations into the safety of products from China. Their letter points to the catastrophic results of delays in reports of contaminated products inside China — 54,000 sickened, 13,000 hospitalized, and at least four dead infants.

"According to the World Health Organization, delays in reporting, including a deliberate failure to report, contributed to the magnitude of the incident," states the letter, which was addressed to Andrew C. von Eschenbach, Commissioner of the FDA.

Corbo says that the FDA has a limited capacity to check imports from over 200 countries, of which China is only one. The risk is that contaminated products are flowing in, undetected, which is the same reason that other countries are stopping the flow of milk products altogether.

"They're finding contaminated milk powder in a bunch of other countries," says Corbo. "It's endless as far as how many things could be contaminated."

U.S. Blue Cat Flavor Drinks, White Rabbit Creamy Candies and Mr. Brown instant coffee and milk tea products were found to contain melamine. Recalls of the products are underway, and according to the FDA no known cases of illness have occurred in the U.S.

Media reports have named at least 41 countries that have imposed restrictions on Chinese products containing dairy items.

At least 25 of these 41 countries have imposed blanket bans on Chinese milk products or its derivatives including: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Burundi, Cameroon, Chile, Colombia, France, Gabon, India, Italy, Ivory Coast, Maldives, Mali, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Suriname, Tanzania, Togo, and the United Arab Emirates, and Vietnam.

At least 16 countries have imposed specific bans on Chinese dairy products which have tested positive for melamine. They include: Australia, Argentina, Burma, Canada, Chile, Indonesia, Taiwan, Japan, Laos, Macau, Malaysia, Peru, Qatar, United Kingdom, United States, and Yemen.

The FDA is the U.S. government agency responsible for protecting the public health by ensuring the safety of the nation’s food supply. It is responsible for monitoring and inspecting all fish and seafood, grain, produce, and food ingredient imports, amounting to about 80 percent of the nation's imported food. Meat, poultry and eggs are monitored and inspected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service.

http://en.epochtimes.com/n2/united-states/chinese-tainted-products-in-us1-5332.html

Florida Democratic leaders endorse Amendment 2

MIAMI- -Chairman of the Democratic League of Miami Dade County Dr. Eladio Jose Armesto and Ft. Lauderdale Mayor Jim Naugle were joined by Democrats from across the state to announce their support of Amendment 2 (The Florida Marriage Protection Amendment) at Miami Dade County Hall today.

“I’m proud to stand here today with my fellow Democratic colleagues to let the voters in our state know that there are Democrats from around the state who believe that marriage is, has always been and should remain the union of one man and one woman as husband and wife,” Dr. Armesto said.

On the eve of the Fort Lauderdale city commission taking up the marriage amendment issue for debate and decision, Jim Naugle, who has been the Mayor of Ft. Lauderdale since 1991, is one of many dozens of Florida’s elected officials who support Amendment 2. Ft. Lauderdale’s City Commission has not voted to oppose or support the Amendment to date but the issue will be taken up tonight.

“The greatest thing about being a Floridian is the diversity of our state and the personal beliefs that allow our Democratic process to evolve,” Mayor Naugle said. “While I firmly believe that marriage is solely defined as a matrimonial joining of one man and one woman, some of my colleagues may not share the beliefs of the vast majority of Floridians. However it is my hope that all of our commissioners properly research Amendment 2 before making any hasty decision on whether or not to support or not support the Amendment.”

Democrats around the state are stepping forward to support the common sense goal of Amendment 2, protect the definition of marriage between one man and one woman. An internal review of a sample from the more than a half million petitions collected statewide indicated that more than 33 percent of the petition requests came from registered Democrats. The value of family and the importance of marriage is a bipartisan principle that transcends time and politics.

“Hundreds of thousands of Black American Democrats support this issue. This is a moral issue and a human issue.” said African American Democratic supporter of Say Yes to 2 Brenda Lewis-Williams of Bay County in North Florida.

The most recent poll done by the St. Petersburg Times/Bay News 9 found that 44 percent of Democrats and 65 percent of black poll respondents said they would vote for Amendment 2. The poll which was taken on Sept. 19 was also underwritten by the Miami Herald.

“Our internal polling indicates that Democrats strongly support keeping marriage defined between a man and a woman,” said John Stemberger, State Chairman of the Yes2Marriage.org campaign. “This is an issue that many Democratic families understand and we believe they will support Amendment 2.”

Yes2Marriage.org is the official campaign of the Florida Marriage Protection Amendment, Amendment 2 which will appear on the general election ballot on Nov. 4.Yes2Marriage.org (formerly Florida4Marriage.org) is a coalition of thousands of families, churches, seniors, organizations, community leaders and elected officials who have come together from around the state to protect the definition of marriage in Florida between one man and one woman.

For more information on Voting Yes on Amendment 2 visit the Democrats for Marriage page at www.Yes2Marriage.org

NO BAILOUT! Without Protection

Populist Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur D-OH explains the rule for playing Wall Street bailout.

Contact your Senators and Representatives and urge them to say no to the bailout.

Dear Senator/Representative,

Please personalize your message

(sample letter)
Congress has no right to give the White House and its Secretary of the Treasury the power to transfer the people's money to the richest bankers in the country. Vote No to the Bailout legislation. The Bailout legislation is being rammed through Congress in a matter of days. This is an illegal power grab by the White House and their richest friends on Wall Street. The Legislation allows the Treasury Department to appoint the same bankers who created the crisis to administer and dictate the use of trillions of our tax dollars. It is also one of the biggest transfers of wealth from working families to the ultra-rich in the history of the United States.

Congress should help families stay in their homes. Wealthy executives should be forced to disgorge their obscene profits, fees and bonuses that made them ultra-rich while they ran the economy into the ground.

http://www.votenobailout.org/

How to Build a Populist Democratic Majority

Check out this 1996 paper from the Social Democrats, USA archives. Twelve years later, this is piece still offers timely advice about how to divide the Republican coalition and build a new populist Democratic majority.

http://web.archive.org/web/20010411072250/www.socialdemocrats.org/miller.html

Splitting the Republican Coalition

Irving Kristol is a leading spokesman among neoconservatives. He co-edits the Public Interest, a journal that is often an excellent source on political and economic matters. Kristol did a piece for the Wall Street Journal in June called "Times of Transformation." In it he delivers a seminal analysis of the current political scene. The article, although not so intended, suggests a winning strategy for Democrats.

Kristol points out that the conservative revolution in the Republican Party occurred in 1964 when Rockefeller lost the presidential nomination. He argues that the liberal revolution captured the Democratic Party in 1972 with the nomination of George McGovern.

Kristol described the current Republican coalition as consisting primarily of two main strains: economic and social conservatives. The economic conservatives are anti-state and the social conservatives are anti-liberal who view liberalism "as corroding and subverting the virtues that they believe must be the bedrock of decent society." He believes that the differences between the economic conservatives and the social conservatives produce "tensions" between the two groups. Kristol's long range view is that the social conservatives represent "an authentic mass movement that gathers strength with every passing year."

The Kristol analysis, however, while close to the facts, is not complete. He does not fully explain the nature of the tension between the economic and social conservatives. The economic conservatives are anti-state because of their belief in the free market as the be all and end all of economic policy. As a result, they remain loyal to the business community in advancing programs to de-regulate the economy, eliminate effective health and safety regulations, undermine public schools, weaken trade unions, create employer-dominated worker councils and propose tax cuts for their business benefactors.

The social conservatives are not driven by economic issues. They are hostile to the Democratic Party because they perceive it as the home of a liberalism that believes that traditional values and beliefs are unfounded while at the same time supporting individualist lifestyles based on the pleasure principle. All of this offends their traditional idea about the family, religion and responsibility. They believe in a "moral" and cohesive society that is illuminated by the application of traditional values expressed in terms of country, community and family.

The relationship between the two groups is potentially more than one of tension but rather basic instability. Much of this instability arises out of the fact that each has a different social base that is differentially effected by trends in the economy. For example: since 1973 real annual earnings of the bottom 20% of wage earners has dropped by 24%, a staggering loss, while real earnings in the top 20% have increased by 10%.

The economic conservatives tend to be well-off and unaffected by negative economic trends. The social conservatives, on the other hand, are for the most part middle class, largely blue collar and rural and churchgoers who predominate in the Baptist, evangelical, Pentecostal and Catholic communities.

But, the economic needs of the social conservatives do not automatically open them to the message of the Democrats. These Americans do not live by bread alone. They are appalled by the perceived breakdown of the social fabric that threatens their families and the future of their youth. Hence the dilemma and the opportunity for the Democrats: address their social concerns in a way that is meaningful and thereby get an audience for the bread and butter message that speaks to their self interest: expanded job training, improved public education, college scholarships, job protection through strong health and safety laws, increased minimum wage, fair trade that protects American jobs and a labor policy that protects the rights of workers to freely organize at the work place in organizations of their own choosing.

The Democratic Party does not have to look far for an example of how re-inventing itself can produce major political gains without any sacrifice of core values. Until recently, the British Labor Party had so marginalized itself that is was no longer a factor in British politics. It looked for a long time that this would be the Tory century. Now they lead the Tories by 30 points in the polls. A New York Times journalist correctly observed that this change in fortunes is because the Labor Party "abandoned [their] old class-warfare oratory and [their] more radical leftist policies, stole the initiative from the Tories on issues like family and crime [and] built respect in the business and financial communities for [their] economic policies." Through this process, the Party expanded the size of its tent and brought into its orbit a new constituency not limited by its trade union core.

A political party cannot hope to rule unless it speaks to the traditional culture of the people it seeks to lead. Once the Democrats learn that lesson they will become a party of values and economics, the combination of soul and bread, that will win back the social conservatives who deserted the Democratic Party in droves. It seems that President Clinton understands this but does not yet have a consensus for this view within the Democratic Congressional and organized party.

Bruce A. Miller
Social Democrats, USA

Boeing vs. Airbus: Outsourcing defense

Stop The NAFTA Trucks

Public Citizen www.citizen.org warns:

The administration is continuing its push to expand the NAFTA trucking program -- the controversial "pilot program" giving Mexico-based trucking companies full access to U.S. roads, without adequate measures to ensure public safety.

President Bush is continuing this program even though he signed a bill into law cutting off all funding for it.

The Bush administration insists on pushing forward, despite requirements to put the public's safety first. Act now and tell Congress to follow up on their work and demand Bush follow the law!

www.stopnaftatrucks.org

Sen. Tester on the clearness of the 2nd Amendment

Senator Jon Tester D-Montana defends our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

A quote from a great American and Democrat about the need to protect gun rights.

"Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of the citizen to keep and bear arms. This is not to say that firearms should not be very carefully used and that definite rules of precaution should not be taught and enforced. But the right of the citizen to bear arms is just one more safeguard against a tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible."
—Hubert Humphrey, 1960

The Case for Single Payer Health Insurance

Graham, a medical student and blogger (Over!My!Med!Body!), makes an excellent case for a single payer system of national health insurance:

Single-payer is basically a way some countries use to provide its citizens with health insurance. (Sounds very boring, I know. But keep reading!) Its name comes from the fact that doctors and hospitals are paid by one organization: a single payer. By having only one payer, you can simplify the health care system enormously.

Single-payer saves lives.

In a single-payer health system, everyone has health insurance. According to the Institute of Medicine, 18,000 people in the United States die every year from a lack of health insurance--that's two people every hour.

The US also has higher infant mortality levels(more children under 1 year of age die) compared to most other democratic companies. Babies would be healthier if all pregnant women could get access to a doctor while they're pregnant.

Or think of how much less-crowded emergency rooms would be if people could see a primary care doctor when they were sick, instead of only going to an ER when they become sicker.

Single-payer saves time.

Imagine if all doctors and all hospitals in the US had just one type of form to fill out. And all patients had one insurance card. And all patients had health insurance by virtue of being US citizens. And now think of the savings in time, money, paper-pushing. Doctors would have more time to care for patients; everyone would have fewer headaches waiting to talk to their HMO to prove their coverage; nurses would be less frustrated with their work.

Single-payer saves money.

By having one organization handle all of the bureaucracy and all of the administration of the health care system (mostly consisting of paperwork and payments) paper-pushing greatly decreases in frequency and cost. More of each of our dollars that go toward health care would actually be used to care for people's health, instead of going toward managers and forms.

Single-payer eliminates the bulk of paperwork duplication, and in the process, could potentially save hundreds of BILLIONS (that's 100,000 million) of dollars. As it is right now, American businesses are at an economic disadvantage, because their health costs are so much higher than in other countries. The Canadian branches of Ford, GM, and Daimler-Chrysler all publicly support Canada's health care system, because it saves them an enormous amount of money, compared to their counterparts in the US.

What's more, a single-payer system would mean fewer personal bankruptcies due to medical bills--and an end to patients actually receiving bills. In most countries with a single-payer system, patients never see a bill. The billing process doesn't even involve patients. (This saves money, too--think of how much work goes into itemizing each bill, sending it to each patient, following up on the bill if there's been an error... and on, and on.)

Most single-payer systems save a ton of money by buying prescription drugs for its patients in huge bulk quantities. You know the money you save for buying in bulk at Costco or Sam's Club? Think of applying that concept to buying prescription drugs for America's 290 million people. (Hint: this is what Canada does--it's what makes their drugs much cheaper.)

Single-payer saves choice.

Americans love choices. We love having options. With a single-payer system, patients could go to any doctor they wanted (try doing that with your HMO!). You could see the doctor that's closest to you, the one that your friends all recommend, or pick one that's your same religion, ethnicity, or race. It'd be a much different experience than getting a specific list from your HMO, telling you who you're allowed to see, if you don't want to pay an arm and a leg for it.

Even better, people wouldn't be tied to their current job for the health insurance it provides. People could find jobs they're happier with or even consider starting their own businesses. It would make employers work harder to make employees happy, and employers could be more confident their workers were a good fit for their jobs.

http://www.grahamazon.com/sp/what.php

Reining in the free market

An excellent column from today's Dallas Morning News addressing the growing realization that free markets must be balanced with state regulation.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/points/stories/DN-goodman_13edi.ART00.State.Edition1.377d72b.html

Peter Goodman: Reining in the free market
As financial unease grows, regulation is coming back into vogue
09:22 AM CST on Sunday, January 13, 2008

For more than a quarter-century, the dominant idea guiding economic policy in the United States and much of the globe has been that the market is unfailingly wise. So wise that the proper role for government is to steer clear and not mess with the gusher of wealth that will flow, trickling down to every level of society, if only the market is left to do its magic.
That notion has carried the day as industries have been unshackled from regulation and as taxes have been rolled back, along with the oversight powers of government. Faith in markets has held sway as insurance companies have fended off calls for more government-financed health care, and as banks have engineered webs of finance that have turned houses from mere abodes into assets traded like dot-com stocks.

But lately, a striking unease with market forces has entered the conversation. The world confronts problems of staggering complexity and consequence, from a shortage of credit following the mortgage meltdown to the threat of global warming. Regulation – nasty talk in some quarters, synonymous with pointy-headed bureaucrats choking the market – is suddenly being demanded from unexpected places.

The Bush administration and the Federal Reserve have recently put aside laissez-faire rhetoric to wade into real estate, wielding new rules and deals they say are necessary to protect Americans from predatory bankers – the same bankers who, only a year ago, were being lauded for creativity. Were the market left to its own devices, millions could lose their homes, the administration now says.

Central banks on both sides of the Atlantic are coordinating campaigns to flush cash through the global economy, lest frightened lenders hoard capital and suffocate growth. In Bali this month, world leaders gathered in the name of striking agreement to slow climate change.

Adam Smith used the metaphor of the invisible hand to describe how markets should function: With everyone at liberty to pursue self-interest, the market omnisciently distributes goods and capital to maximize the benefits for all. Since the Reagan administration, that idea has weighed in as a veritable holy commandment, with economist Milton Friedman cast as Moses.

As the Cold War ended and Communism retreated, the invisible hand seemed to monopolize economic thinking. Even China, controlled by a nominally communist party, has blessed private entrepreneurs and foreign investment. In Latin America, the International Monetary Fund financed governments that embraced market forces while shunning those that were resistant.
But now the invisible hand is being asked to account for what it has wrought. In the U.S., many economic complaints – the widening gap between rich and poor, the expense of higher education – are being dusted for its fingerprints.

After two decades of disappointing economic growth, several Latin American countries have spurned the IMF while embracing the finance and thinking of Venezuela's avowedly socialist leader, Hugo Chávez. China's leaders, though still devoted to "reform and opening," are keeping tight control on the value of the currency while steering capital to powerful state-owned companies, concerned that freer markets could throw millions of peasants out of work.

Throughout history, regulation has tended to gain favor on the heels of free enterprise run amok. The monopolistic excesses of the Robber Barons led to antitrust laws. Not by accident did strict new accounting rules follow the unmasking of fraud at Enron and WorldCom. Now, the subprime fiasco and a still unfolding wave of home foreclosures are prompting many to call for new rules.

"We're revisiting the question of market flows with a deservedly wary eye," said Jared Bernstein, senior economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute in Washington. "For decades, economists and political elites have argued that any time you regulate any aspect of the economy, you're slipping the handcuffs on the invisible hand. That's demonstrably wrong in lots of ways."

But if markets can inflict pain, the harm from trying to tame them is often worse, argue those who would let the invisible hand carry on. The new regulatory tilt threatens to tie up innovation in a straitjacket of bureaucratic nannying while slowing the global economy, they say.

"Every regulation reduces people's freedom," said David Henderson, a libertarian economist at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. "The more regulation we get, the worse we do."
Mr. Henderson is critical of the Bush administration's effort to freeze mortgage rates and the new rules proposed by the Fed intended to curb nefarious lending. They undermine the sanctity of contracts, he said, and make mortgages harder to gain for everyone.

"The way they justify it is that you've got to protect the stupid people who can't read a contract," Mr. Henderson said. "But they're treating everyone as stupid."

But in Washington, and under the roofs of many homes now worth less than a year ago, there appears to be a shift in the nation's often-ambivalent attitude about regulation.

Back in the boom, banks made loans to homeowners who did not have to prove their ability to pay, then quickly sold the loans to other companies. By the time it emerged that a lot of homeowners could not pay, these loans had been pooled with other loans and chopped into strange new paper assets that were sold to unsuspecting buyers around the globe. The subsequent reckoning has forced major banks to write off vast sums of money.

"Here you had all these people who were supposed to be sophisticated investors, and it turns out they were buying billions of dollars' worth of debt where they didn't even understand what they owned," said Dean Baker, co-director of the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research. "There is going to be a willingness to re-regulate financial markets."

Liberal critics have long asserted that dogmatic devotion to market forces has skewed American society toward those of greatest means. More wealth is being concentrated in fewer hands, with rich people capturing the best housing, private education and health care services, and, as the argument goes, only crumbs left for everyone else.

That critique informs proposals from Democrats vying for the presidency, as they debate how best to expand access to health care and ways to shift the tax burden to the rich. They are in essence calling for market intervention to redress imbalances. With the gap between the richest and poorest now greater than it has been since the 1920s, these pitches have emerged as central components of their campaigns.

More notable, though, is how fervent proponents of unfettered market forces have lately come to embrace regulation.

The Bush administration, in seeking to freeze mortgage rates for some homeowners, put Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr. in charge of the campaign. Mr. Paulson not long ago ran the Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs. Now he is demanding that banks accept smaller payments than promised, while describing the market as a fallible thing in need of supervision.
"The government acted to prevent a market failure and to try to avoid unnecessary harm," he said.

More than a decade ago, when Bill Clinton occupied the White House, he pushed through the landmark North American Free Trade Agreement, which linked the fortunes of Mexico and the United States. But if his wife or one of her Democratic rivals captures the White House next year, they promise a more skeptical look at trade deals.

Some argue that the pushback against market forces is a momentary pause in a steady march toward unfettered capitalism. The libertarian Cato Institute recently issued a report finding that economic freedom – shorthand for smaller government and fewer regulations – has never been greater. "Global economic growth significantly increases with the growth of the world's economic freedom," said Ian Vásquez, director of Cato's center for global liberty and prosperity.

Few policymakers have a beef with that characterization as a generality. But when things go wrong, demands grow for the government to step in and make them right.

"Untethered market forces lead to bad things," said Mr. Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute. "You simply can't run an economy as complicated as ours on ideology alone."
Peter S. Goodman is a writer at The New York Times.

http://www.dallasnews.com/

John Edwards - Outsourcing

John Edwards is FDR with a Southern Accent

The Democratic Presidential candidate John Edwards is potentially the person most likely to realign the two major political parties for the next generation or two. Edwards is a Democratic political leader who is not only closely mirroring FDR as a historical figure but is doing so by following in the same political and economic traditions as FDR. The main differences are personal backgrounds and accents.

During the 1930’s, President Roosevelt essentially ended the dominance of the “Bourbon Democrats” in national Democratic politics and moved the Democratic Party solidly behind a political program of economic populism. As a result, the nation saw a couple generations of solid economic growth and mass prosperity.

A vibrant middle class emerged from the policies promoted by FDR. The Democratic Party clearly replaced the Republicans as the stronger of the two major parties as a result. Beginning with the election of Ronald Reagan, many Democrats in power drifted away from the core values of the Democratic Party and started running as “Republican-lite” candidates. They started trying to compete for corporate campaign money by permitting awful trade agreements that undermined the health of the American economy and weakened the American middle class while helping the economic elite become even more powerful.

Some Democrats playing footsie with Republicans and large corporations failed working Americans and the poor by letting the obscenely wealthy start paying much lower percentages of their incomes in federal taxes than the middle class majority. Many Democrats started turning their backs on some common sense elements of the Roosevelt tradition of having those able to pay higher taxes pay them. We call this progressive taxation.

The rich pay should be paying higher tax rates since they have more influence on government policies and benefit more from them. They completely abandoned our federal government commitment to preventing monopoly control by large corporations of many important aspects of everyday life. Price-gouging has become routine. Insider trading and excessive executive pay has become routine in the corporate world.

Wealthy foreign corporations are often having more impact on government policies than the needs of average Americans. Media consolidation has blocked out almost all non-corporate voices in the discussion of public policy issues. Edwards wants less corporate control over everyday life and has specific programs in mind to move in that direction.

The wages of Americans have been suppressed. The ability to unionize in order to achieve higher standards of living has been attacked by federal legislation, right wing court rulings and harassment by oppressive federal government regulation by the Bush Administration.

Edwards is the most labor-friendly Presidential candidate of the top-tier candidates. With Edwards, we have a candidate who both walks the walk and talks the talk. Edwards is strongly opposed to outsourcing American jobs and is committed to ending unfair international trade deals or tax policies that encourage corporations to move jobs out of the nation.

Poverty in America has largely been ignored by our political leadership since the 1980’s. We waste trillions of dollars fighting unnecessary wars but seem unwilling to seriously commit to eliminating institutionalize poverty. Edwards is the only candidate really talking about poverty in America. Poverty is a serious issue in many rural American communities and inner cities. Most candidates ignore the poor because they do not write big campaign donation checks. Edwards can give the poor hope and get them voting.

We remain the only nation out of the 75 most economically advanced nations not to have government guaranteed universal health insurance. We cripple our corporations in international competition by forcing them to provide for healthcare. As a nation we spend 17% of our economy on healthcare while our competitors spend 8%. Our competitors cover all citizens while we have 47 million uninsured citizens and even more underinsured. If we had not abandoned our FDR political traditions, this situation would have been corrected long ago.

Edwards is committed to universal healthcare. John Edwards is uniquely focused on returning Democrats to their FDR roots of economic populism. The Bush Republicans are committed to short-term “Greed Capitalism” that is as self-destructive as the Republican policies of the 1920’s.

FDR saved American capitalism by reforming it with the New Deal. Edwards can do the same. Edwards can restore the FDR coalition by running as an economic populist.

He can win in places like North Carolina, Florida, Colorado, Virginia and Oklahoma. Edwards might even win in places like Texas. He can win without abandoning Democratic traditional values. Edwards can carry rural communities and small towns without going Republican-lite. Edwards will carry all the traditional Democratic areas and much more because he truly represents Main Street instead of Wall Street.

Although from a working class background instead of coming from great inherited wealth, Edwards is much like our greatest American President, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Edwards has similar views with a Southern accent.

Written By Stephen Crockett and Al Lawrence (hosts of DemocraticTalkRadio.com and Editor of Mid-Atlantic Labor.com).Mail: P.O. Box 283, Earleville, Maryland 21919. Phone: 443-907-2367

Can't Find The Way

A great song with a strong populist message by country-folk singer Mary Gauthier.

CNN On Dems' NAFTA Expansion

Lori Wallach of Public Citizens Global Trade Watch makes the case against the Peru NAFTA expansion.

Wallach writes:

While many corporations are eager to obtain the new rights and privileges offered by this FTA, expanding the NAFTA-CAFTA model will harm the interests of most people in both countries. Recent polling has shown repeatedly that the American public has had it with our current trade model. The recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll found that, by a margin of 2-to-1, even GOP voters think our current trade policy is damaging to them. Democrats won congressional majorities in no small part because of the scores of freshmen elected across he country, including in GOP-leaning districts, who focused their campaigns on stopping more Bush job killing rade agreements. It is good politics – and good policy – for Democrats to create a new trade direction for our country.

Unfortunately, the Peru NAFTA expansion does not accomplish this important goal, nor will the public perceive it as anything but more of the same.
Worse, passage of the deal would give President Bush a high-profile victory, changing the message from the debacle in Iraq. It is hard to understand how a Democratic-controlled Congress would give Bush another NAFTA-style trade agreement under any circumstances, but more so the week after he announced he would veto the Democrats’ Trade Adjustment Assistance legislation, not to mention past vetoes of Democrats’ children’s health insurance and anti-war legislation.

There is a long list of trade policies on which the Democratic Congress could take initiative rather than helping President Bush expand NAFTA. We would be excited to work with you to address the imported food safety crisis, fix our disastrous China trade situation, halt the continuing importation of sweat shopmade goods, expand Buy America and anti-offshoring policy, and close the tax loopholes that promote offshoring. Such policies would be a foundation for a new direction on trade which could be built upon when a new president arrives in 2009. The first step towards this new direction is opposing more of the same. Please vote no on H.R. 3688, the Peru Free Trade Agreement.

Sincerely,
Lori Wallach
Director, Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch
http://www.citizenstrade.org

Impact of Immigration Policy on African Americans

T. Willard Fair, President of the Greater Miami Urban League describes the economic impact of illegal immigration.

Free market fanatics have a firm grasp on the GOP

Writing in the New York Times, Jonathan Chait draws attention to the grip that rabid free market types have on the Republican Party. Many within the red state Republican base are economic populists drawn to the party by appeals to patriotism and social conservatism but the Wall Street crowd always get their way instead. The message is very clear from the Republican establishment to all candidates who wish to receive PAC money - don't even think about questioning "free trade" or more tax cuts for the rich.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/opinion/09chait.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Captives of the Supply Side
by Johnathan Chait
New York Times
10/19/07

REMEMBER the Republican presidential debate a few months ago, when three candidates raised their hands to indicate they didn’t believe in evolution? Something just as laughable is likely to happen today, at the first Republican debate on the economy. Every candidate will probably embrace the myth that cutting taxes increases government revenues. At the very least, no one will denounce it as a falsehood.

It’s been said for years that the Republican nominating process is controlled by social conservatives, and that any aspiring nominee must kowtow to their demands. But this year’s Republican primary is making it increasingly clear that a different tiny minority — the economic far right — truly calls the shots.

Last year, Senator John McCain earned widespread ridicule for publicly embracing Jerry Falwell, whom he had once described as “evil.” But an equally breathtaking turnabout occurred earlier in the year, when Mr. McCain embraced the Bush tax cuts he had once denounced as an unaffordable giveaway to the rich. In an interview with National Review, Mr. McCain justified his reversal by saying, “Tax cuts, starting with Kennedy, as we all know, increase revenues.” It was the political equivalent of Galileo conceding that the Sun does indeed revolve around the Earth.

Mr. McCain is not alone. Every major Republican contender — Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, Mitt Romney — has said that the Bush tax cuts have caused government revenues to rise. No prominent Republican office-seeker dare challenge this dogma for fear of offending the economic far right.

Yet there is no more debate about this question among economists than there is debate about the existence of evolution among biologists. Most economists believe that it is theoretically possible for tax rates to be high enough that a reduction in rates could actually produce more revenues. But I do not know of any tenured economist in the United States who believes this is true of the Bush tax cuts.

Granted, economic growth sometimes causes revenues to rise faster than expected after a tax cut, as has happened since the 2003 tax cut. But sometimes revenues fall faster than expected after a tax cut, as they did after the 2001 tax cut. And sometimes revenues rise faster than expected after a tax increase, as they did after the 1993 Clinton tax increase.
Even very conservative economists who have worked for the Bush administration — including Greg Mankiw, a former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Bush who is now an adviser to Mr. Romney — have publicly stated that today’s tax revenues would be even higher were it not for the Bush tax cuts.

No Republican candidate can risk committing heresy by acknowledging this bipartisan consensus among economists. On social issues, however, Republicans actually tolerate diversity of thought. For example, Mr. McCain, Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Thompson all oppose, on federalist grounds, a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

The Republican Party is organized around a strategy of building political capital on social issues while spending political capital on economic issues. Republicans will advance the social conservative agenda, but they will rarely risk their popularity to do so.

As Trent Lott, the former Senate majority leader, recently observed: “Republicans tend to squabble, but when it’s fiscal issues, when it’s economic issues, we tend to come together. That’s what makes us Republicans.” Mr. Lott is right if he’s referring to the members of the Washington establishment who run the Republican Party. But when it comes to the party’s rank-and-file members, he has it exactly backward. Grassroots Republicans agree on social issues but disagree on economics.

The most recent Pew survey of the electorate, which came out two years ago, revealed that Republicans find common ground on social issues like discouraging homosexuality and teaching creationism alongside evolution in the public schools. They disagree on economic policy. In the survey, most members of the Republican coalition preferred deficit reduction to tax cuts.
Ardent anti-tax conservatives represent a clear minority among Republican voters. And yet the most extreme and counterfactual subgroup among them — supply-siders — remain firmly in control of the party.

The party’s economic priorities are reinforced at Grover Norquist’s weekly “Wednesday Group” meetings, where conservative activists, politicians, business lobbyists and pundits meet to hash out a common agenda. Mr. Norquist is known to cut off any mention of issues like abortion or homosexuality with a curt “No sex talk, please.”

A handful of fanatical ideologues, along with a somewhat larger number of money men who stand to gain a fortune from supply-side policies, relentlessly enforce the faith. They do so with far more success than the religious right, and they receive far less mockery for their efforts.
Just last month President Bush insisted, yet again, that “supply-side economics yields additional tax revenues.” Hardly an eyebrow was raised.

http://www.nytimes.com/

"SiCKO" offers activists a cure

What a difference a movie makes. Michael Moore’s “SiCKO” http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/ is breathing new life into the movement for non-profit national health insurance: “Enhanced Medicare for All.” Energized by “SiCKO,” Progressive Democrats of America is intensifying its campaign in support of HR 676, which would establish single-payer Medicare for All.

The House bill – authored by PDA advisory board member Rep. John Conyers – was endorsed by Michael Moore at a spirited rally Wednesday on Capitol Hill. HR 676 already has 75 co-sponsors. PDA activists will be out in force this summer leafleting for HR 676 at “SiCKO” screenings nationwide, beginning with sneak previews this Saturday in Los Angeles, Phoenix, Cleveland and many other cities. Contact Tim Carpenter (413-320-2015) for more details.

The Conyers bill/HR 676 is endorsed by dozens of labor, civil rights and consumer organizations, as well as thousands of physicians who have witnessed the takeover of healthcare by private insurance companies.

“Over a period of decades,” said PDA director Tim Carpenter, “we’ve watched Democratic leaders’ commitment to national health insurance decline as campaign donations from insurance corporations have increased.”

Carpenter continued: “SiCKO is a shot in the arm for HR 676, a bill that addresses our healthcare system’s central problem: That for-profit insurers treat and cure nobody while sucking billions of dollars out of the system in bureaucracy, paperwork, advertising, sales commissions and exorbitant profits and executive salaries.”

Movie clips from "SiCKO"

http://www.reelzchannel.com/moviedetail.aspx?movieid=226829

Fast Track demise is celebrated

Public Citizen's excellent blog Eyes on Trade has a clever take on the demise of Presidential 'fast track' trade authority. Let's hope that "Fast Track" stays dead and gone.

http://citizen.typepad.com/eyesontrade/2007/06/long-overdue-fa.html

Long Overdue, Fast Track Finally Passes into History
Millions of Those Harmed by Fast Track-Enabled “Trade” Deals Celebrate
OBITUARIES: Fast Track 1974-1995/2002-2007

After a brief, damaging existence, Fast Track was pronounced dead on June 30, 2007.
The demise of Fast Track allowed the U.S. Founding Fathers to stop rolling in their graves over Fast Track's trampling of constitutional checks and balances. As well, victims of Fast Track-enabled trade agreements welcomed the news, given the anomalous procedure's record of damage despite having been locked up and out of commission for blocks of time since its inception.

In April 1973, America first saw the faint glimmer in Father Nixon's eye that was to become Fast Track when the Nixon administration - always eager to seize power from the legislative branch - dropped the initial Fast Track legislation. The young Fast Track - the product of a broken and abusive home - had an unusually long gestation period, taking over a year and a half to be unleashed by President Ford, who signed the first Fast Track bill into law. Fast Track teethed on federalism and checks and balances, shredding basic tenets of our democracy.

Fast Track delegated away Congress' exclusive constitutional authority over trade - allowing the executive branch alone to choose trading partners, set the substantive terms of trade policy, and even sign trade agreements, all before Congress ever voted. The controversial delegation mechanism allowed Congress only a yes or no vote on trade agreements after they had been negotiated and signed and by its very design shut out public and congressional oversight.
Unleashed again in 1988, the troubled Fast Track became a violent adult with a pathological disregard for the middle class, family farmers and the environment. After enabling the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1993 and the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1994, Fast Track found itself friendless when in 1995 its 1988-granted parole ended.

In 1998, members of Congress explicitly voted to keep Fast Track locked away as the policy and political damage of the Fast Track-enabled NAFTA and WTO began to come home to roost. For only two years of the eight-year, 130-trade-agreement Clinton administration was Fast Track out and about. The facts of President Clinton being able to pass several controversial, major multilateral WTO agreements and the Jordan Free Trade Agreement and China PNTR without Fast Track does not in any way diminish the claim that it is impossible to do trade agreements without Fast Track, said Gucci Loafers, a major K Street lobbyist.

In 2002, after Fast Track had been kept locked up for a quarter of its 27 years, another power-grabbing president, George W. Bush, struggled through a two-year, arm-breaking-for-votes campaign that featured a one-vote margin that unleashed Fast Track one last time.

Fast Track's lifelong philosophy was, "Just trust the president." Even after being kept in chains for much of its existence, Fast Track's legacy includes millions of peasant farmers who have been displaced by fast-tracked trade deals, workers whose wages have remained stagnant since Fast Track's hatching in the mid-70's, millions of Americans made ill by fast-tracked trade deals that required food imports not meeting U.S. safety standards, the evisceration of the U.S. manufacturing base, and much more damage. Many Americans celebrated Fast Track's long overdue demise and joined a national day of prayer for a better procedure that in the future could replace Fast Track to ensure trade agreements would benefit the majority.

Those deeply connected to Fast Track, including President Bush and representatives of the National Association of Manufacturers, the American Chamber of Commerce, Pharma and other corporate lobbies, gathered at board meetings and campaign fundraisers to mourn their loss.

http://www.citizen.org/trade/index.cfm

What is social democracy ?

SOCIAL DEMOCRATS USA

Social democracy represents a "third way" between lasseiz faire capitalism and socialism. The greatest expansion of American prosperity took place during the years from FDR to LBJ when our nation was under a mixed economy which balanced markets with state regulation.

Twelve years ago, Social Democrats USA released the following statement titled "Why America Needs A Social Democratic Movement." I think that this declaration is a relevant today as in 1995. www.socialdemocrats.org/v.html

Social Democrats do not look forward to replacing our existing social and economic institutions with a wholly different system. We do seek change -- in some things, basic change. But we also seek to strengthen and uphold he institutions, traditions and values of today's society that we find decent, just and democratic.

To many, it appears that capitalism has emerged supreme, sweeping away all its predecessors and even its self-described successors. But, in our view, democracy has triumphed, not capitalism alone. While the market economy is surely necessary for political democracy, we do not believe it is sufficient.

In recent times we have again seen that capitalism is vulnerable to slumps, stagnation and crises which deprive people of their livelihoods and dash their dreams. Capitalism alone allows a few to enjoy wealth disproportionate to the value of their labor, and forces many to labor without ever enjoying wealth or even basic economic security. But the inequities and insecurities of capitalism encourage workers and other groups to band together to protect themselves, spawning great democratic movements of the working and middle classes, and the poor.

Social democracy developed in opposition both to laissez-faire indifference to failings of capitalism and to the dogma that capitalism must collapse in a spasm of righteous revolution. Social democracy has in many ways been vindicated by the events of the past few years. But this vindication brings new questions:

Will capitalism evolve into a democratic socialism in which society as a whole, through grass roots democratic government, directs the entire economy?

Is social democracy an obsolete concept, and is a welfare state that serves as a safety net for a dominant private sector and free market all that is necessary?

Or has society already evolved into a "mix" of socialist and capitalist elements -- a mix that today is moving into a "transnational stage of development"?

With the end of the Cold War, it is again possible to address these questions in a civil and open-minded way. Like Eduard Bernstein, we are evolutionists, animated by today's movements for democracy and social justice, rather than by schematic visions of the future. Like Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine, we believe in democracy as a way of life -- a guiding moral value.
We are convinced that the way forward is through the extension of democracy at home and abroad, in the social and economic as well as the political spheres. We will not advance through the exploits of omniscient elites who guide the "mindless masses" -- whether these elites are revolutionary "vanguards," sophisticated "think tanks," or Wall Street wizards.

An American citizens' movement for social democracy must be a community of values and a source of mutual aid -- not merely a weapon for class or political conflict. It must be a movement that creates a popular constituency for its values and ideas, not one that makes change through policies administered from the top down.

We are convinced that America needs such a social democratic movement, and that today our fellow citizens will welcome it.