Two month reprieve on fast-track commission

Looks like the House has raised the debt ceiling temporarily for the next two months, thus avoiding the Conrad-Gregg fast-track “deficit” commission that threatened to make cuts to Social Security and Medicare in the name of reducing the deficit. (See this previous post, and this, and this.) A group of Senators has vowed to hold up an increase in the debt ceiling unless such a commission is put in place. (Funny, why didn’t they try to do that when the previous administration was racking up such huge deficits?)

However, the pressure for some sort of cost-cutting commission is intense. On Monday, a coalition consisting of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, Pew Trust, and Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget held a press conference at the National Press Club to release the report of what they called the “Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform.” The Peterson Foundation was founded in 2008 with an endowment of $1 billion by its namesake, who made his money as a co-founder of the Blackstone Group, a huge multinational investment firm. With that kind of money (Peterson & Pew) behind the call for the fast-track commission, it’s hard to ignore.

Yet, a large coalition of nonprofit groups — more than 40 — has sent a letter to Congress urging it to resist the suggestion that a fast-track commission that starts off with a predisposition to cut social benefits is the right way to work on the deficit. In addition, thousands of individuals have signed a petition that we initiated urging President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and Majority Leader Reid to say no to such a commission.

And in a new wrinkle, CNN reported today that the Obama Administration is considering an executive order to create a similar commission. This would be preferable to the commission proposed by Conrad and Gregg:

If Obama signed an executive order to create the commission, however, it would not have the full force of law and thus the outside commission could not mandate that Congress vote up-or-down on the recommendations. This would also give the president more wiggle room to ignore the recommendations if the commission suggests, for example, raising taxes on people earning less than $250,000 a year, which would break an Obama campaign promise.

So, we have the next two months to fight the undemocratic fast-track commission idea. That’s better news than we might have expected…

AARP joins the protest against a “deficit commission”

This note just in from Roger Hickey of America’s Future:

“The AARP just released the attached 2-page letter from Nancy LeaMond, AARP Executive VP outlining their serious concerns about a Budget Commission.  Great work by one of America’s most powerful citizen organizations.    Here’s how it ends:

Given the significance of these programs to the well-being of nearly all Americans, AARP believes a full and open debate is essential to ensuring the development of equitable solutions.  As such, we oppose legislation that would bypass or short circuit the protections afforded by regular order.

Read the entire letter here: AARP Fiscal Taskforce Letter

Social Security: It’s Not Broke, So Please Don’t “Fix” It

One of the country’s most successful government programs, Social Security, will turn 75 in 2010. There will be fireworks, speeches, parades, and general revelry, right? Well, perhaps not—at least, not if some in Congress have their way.

In fact, the program that transformed American society with retirement pensions, unemployment insurance, survivors’ benefits, and a host of other essential services is about to undergo yet another attack.

In the name of deficit reduction, not itself a bad goal, there’s a proposal to create a fast-track commission to study so-called entitlement programs. What does “fast-track” mean? It means discussion is limited and amendments are prohibited, creating an undemocratic process that’s hidden from you and me.

And, if a fast-track commission is created, the deck will be stacked against Social Security.

The proposal submitted by Senators Conrad (D-ND) and Gregg (R-NH)—and a similar one submitted in the House by Representatives Cooper (D-TN) and Wolf (R-VA)—calls for a commission of eight Republicans and eight Democrats, with two of the Democrats nominated by the Administration.

The vast majority of elected Republicans are on record—historically since that first vote in 1935 and as recently as the privatization attempt of 2005—as favoring the reduction or even slashing of Social Security benefits. So the commission starts off with eight members ready to start cutting.

Now add the two Democrats pushing for the fast-track commission, Conrad and Cooper, to the “cut benefits” ranks. That makes 10 out of 16 commission members likely willing to make cuts. Include the fact that the Obama Administration is anxious to do something to show resolve in cutting the deficit, and you may reach a supermajority of 12 of the 16 commissioners coming to the table with scalpels sharpened. Those who would fight for Social Security are rendered powerless before the process even begins.

Such a hasty and undemocratic procedure would be unprecedented. Since 1935, Social Security legislation has always had the benefit of full hearings before the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee, executive sessions giving all members a chance to offer amendments, and unlimited debate and opportunity for amendments in the Senate and the House of Representatives.

It just doesn’t make sense to attack Social Security in the name of deficit reduction; it’s not part of the deficit. The 2009 Annual Report of the Board of Trustees, published May 12, 2009, stated that Social Security ran a surplus of $180 billion last year with a reserve of $2.4 trillion. The Congressional Budget Office, in its August 2009 forecast, said that full benefits can continue to be paid until 2043. There is ample time for Congress to review options for adjusting the Social Security system through the usual legislative process. There is time to create a well-rounded, balanced commission that recruits members from business, labor, and the general public.

But Social Security’s opponents have managed to convince too many Americans that the program is wasteful and in a terminal state. Unwarranted panic allows Social Security’s opponents to stage this stealth attack.

As the program’s 75th anniversary approaches, it’s helpful to recall the reason for Social Security’s original enactment. Senator Snowe wrote last June in a letter to the Frances Perkins Center: “As the chief champion and architect of the Social Security Act, which established not only Social Security but also the Unemployment Insurance program, Frances Perkins demonstrated unparalleled vision, courage, and determination that provided us with some of the strongest federal programs ever…”

Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins herself said in a radio speech in 1935, “The process of recovery is not a simple one. We cannot be satisfied merely with makeshift arrangements, which will tide us over the present emergencies. We must devise plans that will not merely alleviate the ills of today, but will prevent, as far as it is humanly possible to do so, their recurrence in the future.”

That goal has been met. Today, as we struggle to rise from the depths of the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression, we can thank Social Security for helping to save our economy from collapse. While trillions of dollars were lost in 401(k) and other pension accounts, Social Security remained dependable. Its guaranteed payments helped to fill in for lost earnings. The purchasing power those benefits brought to neighborhoods are keeping stores busy and people employed.

Chances are you know someone receiving Social Security benefits. More than 52 million people will get monthly benefits this year. Wounded soldiers and their spouses and children receive Social Security benefits, as well as the families of soldiers who have died for their country. Social Security continues to provide benefits to the families of those who lost their lives in the 9/11 attacks, and millions of others whose families met unthinkable calamity.

The mystery is, in the face of proof that the Social Security system benefits all of us, why would Congress consider reducing it? Instead, let’s get out the drums and bugles and celebrate this great American tradition. It deserves our support, not death by a thousand cuts.

Billionaires for Wealthcare — Guerilla Theater

[Side note: Frances Perkins appears as a character in the original musical "Annie," on which this piece is based. I think she would have appreciated this effort to humorously expose the opponents of reform.]

‘Emphatically and truly, a government of the people’

There was a fine opinion piece in the LA Times yesterday noting the anniversary of the signing of the Social Security Act. The title was “President Barack Obama could learn from Franklin D. Roosevelt” and the author is Nancy J. Altman, who wrote the recently published history, The Battle for Social Security: From FDR’s Vision to Bush’s Gamble.

Altman compares the current health care debate with the fight over the Social Security Act and finds many similarities:

Then as now, opponents played the socialism card. In hearings before the Senate Finance Committee, a senator from Oklahoma accusingly asked President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins, “Isn’t this socialism?” When Perkins emphatically answered no, the senator leaned forward and, with a conspiratorial whisper, pressed, “Isn’t this a teeny-weeny bit of socialism?”

Altman says that the difference is that FDR controlled the debate:

In a series of fireside chats and other broadcasts, the president anticipated arguments and responded before public opposition got out of control. “A few timid people, who fear progress, will try to give you new and strange names for what we are doing,” he said in one talk. “Sometimes they will call it ‘fascism,’ sometimes ‘communism,’ sometimes ‘regimentation,’ sometimes ’socialism.’ But, in so doing, they are trying to make very complex and theoretical something that is really very simple and very practical. … I believe that what we are doing today is a necessary fulfillment of what Americans have always been doing — a fulfillment of old and tested American ideals. … We remain, as John Marshall said a century ago, ‘emphatically and truly, a government of the people.’ “

You can read the entire piece here: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-altman14-2009aug14,0,6660527.story.

Let’s put a real fear of socialism in them

National, or federal, health insurance is not a revolutionary new idea.

In 1883, Chancellor of Germany Otto von Bismarck — a staunch conservative, he was known as the “Iron Chancellor” — instituted a national health insurance plan for workers. Why? Because he was trying to woo them away from the Social Democratic Party. In other words, 126 years ago people were demanding national health insurance and Bismarck found it necessary to deliver.

And fifty years later  in the U.S., it was considered a “practical possibility.”

In 1933, before accepting the job of secretary of Labor that Franklin Roosevelt had offered her, Frances Perkins read FDR a list of nine social programs, “practical possibilities,” for which she asked his support. After 12 years as secretary of Labor, she wrote him a resignation letter. In the letter, dated December 1, 1944, she enumerated all they had done together. This is the last part of the letter:

With one major exception all the items we discussed as “among the practical possibilities” before you took office as President have been accomplished or begun. That exception is a social security item providing for some form of benefit to persons where loss of income is due to sickness and provision for appropriate medical care for the same. [emphasis added]

I hope that this will be upon your agenda for the near future.

Faithfully yours,
Frances Perkins

The president’s response was a short and witty letter saying that her resignation was “refused and rejected.” Unfortunately, FDR died five months later.

The need for a national health insurance program has been recognized for more than 100 years. But you’d never know it today. Perhaps the usually non-political writer Jesse Kornbluth, who has an idiosyncratic blog called Head Butler, said it best (talking about the Obama administration’s effort):

This is leadership? How about staking out a position (say: single-payer) and selling the hell out of it? How about calling out the Congressmen (Democrats included) who are owned and operated by insurance agencies and telling us exactly how much they’ve been paid to vote against their community’s interest?

and

This issue is not beyond explanation. And there are actual facts involved. But all the lazy sots on TV care about is where the ball sits on the field and who’s got momentum. And can we have a brief sneer at the demagogues in the media and the Congress who know better but take pleasure in scaring people with talk of “death panels” and “socialism”?

It’s great to read a “rant” by someone whose regular topic is not politics. The fact is, a majority (72%) of the American public agrees with Jesse and would like to have single-payer option (see my July 16th post for details).

Maybe it would be better if those demagogues Jesse refers to were truly worried about socialism — worried that Americans would turn to a more radical form of socialism if we didn’t get single-payer health insurance. Hey, the “Iron Chancellor” was worried; why aren’t they?

Single-payer proponents ask for a seat at the table

The Senate Finance Committee, under Chair Max Baucus (D-Montana), has been holding hearings on health care reform, one of which was held last Tuesday. Proponents of a single-payer health care system–modeled on Medicare and, like Frances Perkins’s most significant accomplishment, Social Security, available to all–were upset that they did not have a representative at the table at any of these hearings. Jerry Call, who attended our conference on May 2nd and spoke up there for the single-payer system, was one of the protestors at the May 12th hearing. Here’s a YouTube video of that event (Jerry appears after about 7 minutes).

Here’s what Jerry said at our conference, talking about the discussion that took place in the Health Care for All workshop:

We’re basically faced with two choices. In probably June or July or maybe as late as August, the Administration will come out with a mandatory for-profit insurance program similar to what Massachusetts has done and failed at. And I think the sense of the group was that we’re pretty much going to lay down and accept it. We’re going to go with the political will of this mandatory insurance program. We’re not going to get a public program out of it. Not only is it not feasible, it’s not advisable. And Baucus already said last week that he is putting it aside, which is the same thing as if  he said it is off the table. It’s off.

So the other option to that is, the other side that we discussed was, well, we could be idealists, if you will. We could step out there and try to do something about it. We could stand up for our principles and say “Let’s go out and let’s demand a single payer Medicare for all system.” So that’s the simple choice. I mean, you can either go out and demand it or you can just lay back and take what Obama will give you. Which is a mandatory for-profit insurance system.

On the same day as the Senate Finance Committee Hearing, May 12, MoveOn.org sent an email to members asking them to call their senators and urge them to make sure that a Medicare-based health insurance option stays in the president’s plan. They claim that the Republicans are planning to kill that option:

Luntz wrote a confidential memo that laid out the Republican strategy: Pretend to support reform. Mislead Americans about the heart of Obama’s plan, the public health insurance option. Scare enough people to doom real reform.

If you want to know more about that public health insurance option, check out The Case for Public Plan Choice in National Health Reform: Key to Cost Control and Quality Coverage by Jacob S. Hacker of Berkeley. Here’s the PDF: Jacob_Hacker_Public_Plan_Choice

The end run around blocking change

Robert Borosage, co-director of Campaign for America’s Future, wrote a fiery blog post in the Huffington Post last night: “Corruption is Dangerous to Your Health.” In it, he excoriates the corporate lobbyists who effectively block so much legislation that would improve the lives of all Americans, such as paid sick leave:

More than 160 countries, the Times tells us, have laws that ensure all their citizens receive paid sick leave and more than 110 of them guarantee paid leave from the first day of illness. The US does not. The reason goes no further than the influence of money on politics.

There’s a way to change this culture of corporate influence and it’s a piece of legislation called “The Fair Elections Now Act,” H.R. 1826 and S. 752. Here’s what Congressman John Larson and Congresswoman Chellie Pingree wrote in a join editorial in the Kennebec Journal yesterday:

The Fair Elections Now Act, which has been in the works for more than a year, takes the big money out of our political system and empowers small donors and average Americans. Our proposal, which would be entirely voluntary, would require candidates for Congress to qualify by raising at least 1,500 small contributions of between $5 and $100 from in-state residents. Once they qualify, they will receive an upfront grant, based on the average costs of winning campaigns in recent elections, for their primary campaigns; and if nominated, another grant for their general election campaign. Candidates will also receive a 4:1 match for in- state contributions. No individual may give more than $100 and that match will stop after a certain spending level is reached.

The Fair Elections Now Act builds on the experiences of states to perfect a system that has cleaned up local elections across the country. In Connecticut and Maine, more than 80 percent of candidates for the state Legislature now participate in a clean- elections system. The clean-elections laws in these states have let lawmakers get back to doing the people’s business, tackling big issues such as the economy and the environment without the influence of lobbyists and big donors.

Senator Durbin is the sponsor of the Senate version of the bill, and Senator Arlen Specter is the co-sponsor. The House version is sponsored by Larson and has 24 co-sponsors. Without the need to raise millions of dollars to wage a competitive campaign, candidates (and thus, elected officials) would not be beholden to corporate pressuring. It’s not that the voices of corporations would be silenced; they would simply be a part of the chorus instead of the solo divas.

We advocates for social justice have a choice. In each battle — for health care, workers’ rights, etc. — we can fight the corporate interests lined up against us, or we can go to the root of the problem and free our legislative process from its addiction to corporate dollars. Systemic retooling is not easy but it’s the only way to make an end run around those powerful entities blocking change.

Frances would say, “Seize the moment — before it passes”

Much has been made of economist Paul Romer’s statement, “A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.” Yes, Congress passed the Economic Recovery Act, and yes, it was huge. But unfortunately, much of that money is now going to shore up states’ income-starved budgets — instead of stimulating the economy in new ways. And another huge amount has gone to shore up financial institutions, without a penny of that trickling down to regular people.

We’re not done, yet. I hope no one thinks that we are. We have decades of painful diminution to make up if we expect the middle class to return to its previous robustness, and that’s going to take massive investment. Of tax dollars.

If we don’t do it now, it may never happen. There may never be another chance, and the United States will continue its downward slide.

President Franklin Roosevelt and his Labor secretary, Frances Perkins, had a vision of the kind of place we could be living in today, the sort of standard of living we could be enjoying. It’s embodied in their “Economic Bill of Rights.” Their initial work — including social security, unemployment insurance, a minimum wage — was passed in 1935. But the rest of the list and most notably, national health care, was interrupted by the onslaught of World War II.

Yet, they never lost sight of those social justice goals.

January 11, 1944, FDR said this in an address:

It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth—is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.

This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.

As our nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.” People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.

Among these are:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.

America’s own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for our citizens.

As World War II came to a close, FDR and Perkins knew it was time to again turn to their social justice agenda. Unfortunately, illness and death intervened. FDR died on April 12, 1945, before these goals could be enacted.

Frances Perkins, upon hearing of FDR's death on April 12, 1945. (Image: NARA photo, SSA website

Imagine what America would be like if these rights were recognized and supported. Sixty-five years after the “Economic Bill of Rights” was announced, we have the opportunity to make them real. But only if we move fast. Who knows what fate lies in store for us?

The New New Deal: Building an Economy That Works for All of Us

The Frances Perkins Center is sponsoring a conference:

Saturday, May 2nd, 8:30 am – 3:00 PM
The University of Maine Hutchinson Center
Route 3, Belfast

Speakers include:
•    Teresa Ghilarducci (Distinguished Senior Fellow at Demos working on issues of retirement security and social policy and the Schwartz Professor of Economic Policy Analysis at the New School for Social Research): “Picturing an economy that works for all”
•    Maine House Speaker Hannah Pingree: “The role of government in building an economy that works for all”
•    Maine Commissioner of Labor Laura Fortman: “Lessons from Frances Perkins and the New Deal”

Workshop Topics and their leaders include:
•    New Kinds of Work for a New Workforce – Leader: Cliff Ginn, president of Opportunity Maine
•    Self-Employed, Part-Time, Under-Employed — Where’s my Safety Net? – Leader: Laura Boyett, director of the Maine State Bureau of Unemployment
•    The Changing Shape of Retirement – Leader: John Christie, Manager of the Augusta Career Center and member of the Older Workers Task Force
•    What Women Workers Want (and Need) – Leader: Sarah Standiford, executive director of the Maine Women’s Lobby and the Maine Women’s Policy Center
•    Health Care for All – Leader: Garrett Martin, economic policy analyst at Maine Center for Economic Policy
•    Unions in the 21st Century – Leader: Tim Belcher, executive director of Maine State Employees Association
Panel moderator: Ben Dudley, executive director of Engage Maine

Registration is $35 ($20 for high school or college students), payable by check in advance or at the door.
Continental breakfast, lunch, and snacks included.
To register online: http://tinyurl.com/May2register.
Questions? Call 207-208-8955 or email info@FrancesPerkinsCenter.org.

SPACE IS LIMITED – REGISTER TODAY!