News
Surgeon General Nomination Sends The Right Messages
Published July 14, 2009 @ 06:26AM PT
I am just so tickled over President Obama's nomination of Dr. Regina Benjamin for Surgeon General. She's one of those rare people who brings so much to the table it's difficult to know what to praise first:
- Her lifelong commitment to prevention, health and wellness, after tragically losing multiple family members to diabetes, HIV-related illnesses, and lung cancer;
- Her work in family medicine, undertaken in part as service to our country as part of the National Health Services Corp;
- Her tireless commitment to underserved communities, particularly Gulf Coast Alabama residents, in which the poor and immigrant and minority groups are over-represented and still struggling with post-Katrina recovery;
- Her recognized excellence and distinction in delivering compassionate care, as evidenced by her MacArthur Foundation genius grant;
- Her refusal to turn those in need away, regardless of ability to pay;
- Her investment in her own Gulf Coast communities, when too many of us activists grow up and move on to more exciting locales (or so we think);
- Her barrier-breaking career success, as "the first black woman to head a state medical society, and the first woman, first African-American woman, and first person younger than 40 to sit on the board of trustees of the American Medical Association."
The NY Times has a touching profile of her, which suggests that her faith may drive her commitment and service to the poor. The only alarm bell is how it may shape her views on reproductive health, which I know many of us are interested in better understanding.
RaceWire takes the opportunity of her nomination to wonder if her appointment - that of of an African-American woman working with poor men and women of color - will raise the profile of the new face of HIV/AIDS in this country: that of a black woman living in poverty. Reproductive justice may be about women's rights to control their own reproduction, but that includes our access to and enforcement of contraception and safe sex practices, which obviously offer protection against HIV and STDs. I too am curious to see if and how Dr. Benjamin and the Obama Administration addresses this deadly and unequal scourge.
Congrats to Dr. Benjamin for her nomination!
10 Most Broke-A** States
Published July 11, 2009 @ 03:00PM PT
Only Montana and North Dakota are not suffering budget shortfalls in the Great Recession. The remaining 48 face a combined $166 billion deficit - the fallout?
"High on the chopping block are benefits to the poor, money for education, highway repairs, hours that state offices are open and even closures of state parks and recreation areas."
Y'all know that California is the brokest of broke states and that the poor, disabled and ill are a pawn in Schwarzenegger's game. Who are the remaining 9 brokety-broke states? I hope you don't live in one of them! (Shortfalls are rounded)
- Arizona & Nevada: 40% of their budgets
- Illinois & NYC: one-third of their budgets
- Alaska, NJ & Oregon: 30% of their budgets
- Vermont, Washington & Connecticut: 25% of their budgets
Not that the rest of us should be breathing a sigh of relief - few of us aren't feeling the squeeze right now!
Is Flint a Model for Shrinking American Cities?
Published July 09, 2009 @ 11:11AM PT
For a country that prides itself on big growth, we sure do love knocking things down. (There's a great scene in Richard Ford's The Lay of the Land detailing the crowds that gather to watch the "festivities" of a building being demolished.) But does demolition sometimes make sense? When a city's economic and population base has shrunk so severely that the place needs to be reinvented from the bottoms up, does demolishing whole neighborhoods help that process?
Flint, Michigan believes it does, and is poised to become a model for other declining cities that can no longer support large, scarcely inhabited, tracts of land.
Paying Teens Not to Get Pregnant?
Published July 07, 2009 @ 12:43PM PT
Via Postbourgie, who gets it from AverageBro, I see that a NC-based maternity nurse has launched a program that pays teen girls $1 per day to remain pregnancy free. At least that's how the papers tell it. Founder Hazel Brown expands on the program's goals:
"Our three goals are that they avoid pregnancy, graduate from high school and enroll in college," Brown said.
So, as I wrote over at PB, why hasn't this been framed as "Program provides cash incentives to graduate" or "Students eligible for thousands in aid if they go to college". Too neutral? Too boring? Or inaccurate?
CA's Budget Shuts Down over Fingerprinting the Poor
Published July 07, 2009 @ 05:46AM PT
Courtesy of Felix Salmon at Reuters, I see California's plan to issue IOUs goes a little something like this:
People who will receive IOUs:
- The aged, blind or disabled who get grants
- Those receiving temporary assistance for basic family needs
- Those in drug prevention, treatment and recovery
- The developmentally disabled
- Those being treated for mental health
- Small business vendors
Folks who will continue to be paid:
- Univ. of Cal. employees
- Public Employees Retirement System
- Legislators and their staff and appointees
- Judges
- Department of Corrections employees
- Institutional Health Care Service providers
Apparently there are laws against not paying schools or state employees. (That's slick!) And no doubt some of the admin and support staff at any of these bottom entities need to feed families or themselves. True perhaps even for some legislators...maybe (financial hardship would not be the case for the vast majority of US Congress, for ex). But really?? The government brings CA to its knees then doesn't have the courtesy to forgo their own paychecks while stiffing the poor and disabled? Damn.
Anyway, I don't know if it gets more explicitly callous than this:
In California’s misery, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, has found some opportunity in standing his ground. Mr. Schwarzenegger has not only refused to sign off on stopgap measures like those proposed this week by Democratic lawmakers, but has also demanded that lawmakers adopt substantive changes in policy as part of any budget deal.
Democrats indicated Thursday that they were beginning to submit to Mr. Schwarzenegger’s demands, taking proposed tax increases that he opposes off the table as they worked to close a budget gap estimated to have grown to $27 billion. [...]
Mr. Schwarzenegger, weighing the discomfort and embarrassment of the i.o.u.’s against a short-term budget deal, apparently reached the conclusion that the i.o.u.’s were a price worth paying to force policy changes he pushed as early as 2005, even if it meant the budget crisis dragged on.
Among the changes Mr. Schwarzenegger insists be included in a budget agreement are the fingerprinting of recipients of certain state services for the poor and infirm, tighter checks on the job status of those who receive welfare benefits and changes to the state pension program.
I wonder if this helps the White House finally get the depth of our economic black hole. (Are black holes deep?)
(Photo by schumachergirl1956 of Schwarzenegger at his 2003 recall victory; what The Daily Show might call our "moment of zen")
Mobile banking, debt relief, & other hopeful stories
Published July 06, 2009 @ 12:00PM PT
I'm travleing this afternoon and am leaving you with a collection of good news, promising policy developments, and innovative anti-poverty strategies that, ideally, give us hope to continue our work for another day.
"Mobile money seen as chance for the world's poorest" - Banking via cell phone need not be just a developing world strategy. There are plenty of unbanked households and check-cashing dependent communities at home that could benefit from this.
Finally, the feds offer income-based student loan repayment, and loan forgiveness based on public service. This is great news!
Medicaid will be restored to hundreds of families wrongfully denied benefits in Nebraska.
Federal minimum wage rises to $7.25/hour this month. I remember writing about this 2 years ago (scroll down).
Finally, House Dems in PA vote to expand health insurance for low-income adults. Let's see how the Senate responds.
(Photo of her cell phone by Samantha Celera)
...Now What?
Published July 05, 2009 @ 08:31AM PT
So... what changed?
When we found out the unemployment was 9.4% for May, we were told that things were looking up, that there were "green shoots" of signs of possible recovery, that some time soon, maybe before the end of the year, the economy would turn around and things would get better...
And then June's unemployment rate turned out to be 9.5%... and everything went back to being awful.
What changed?
Not much, really - how else to explain only a one-tenth of one percent increase in the unemployment rate - but perhaps what had seemed like a leveling off in some graphs of the economic downturn continued on downward progressions instead. Turns out we have a housing crisis, a foreclosure crisis, a banking crisis, a credit crisis, and a consumer crisis... and none of them appear to be going away.
