NEA Sheds Crocodile Tears for the Poor

President Obama has sent his budget plan to Congress, hoping to appease Republicans by slashing $400 billion from Medicare and other health programs (according to NEA Today) and cutting cost of living increases for Social Security recipients. Not surprisingly, Republicans are saying this isn’t enough and they have no intention of supporting any tax hikes, whatsoever. Some pundits are referring to the process as Obama negotiating with himself.

Needless to say, the cuts will hurt seniors and the poor the most (but on the brighter side, the wealthy will be able to continue to enjoying record low tax rates and subsidies for their businesses). These cuts could also have a trickle-down effect on schools. By stripping away some of the safety net for poor families, children will inevitably feel some of the cuts, which could lead to increases in malnutrition, untreated medical conditions, premature births, stress and elevated levels of cortisol, and other factors that can impair cognitive development, memory and learning.

National Educators Association (NEA) President Dennis Van Roekel criticized the plan, saying:

“Right now the focus should be on protecting and increasing benefits for our seniors, not pulling the rug out from under them . . . Social Security belongs to the people who have worked hard all their lives, contributed to the program, and relied on the promise that they and their family will be able to collect benefits that accurately reflect the cost of living when they retire. . . Any budget proposal must be balanced and fair by demanding more of the wealthiest and corporations while staying true to our nation’s commitment to seniors and those most in need.”

These comments are little more than crocodile tears coming from a man who earns close to $400,000 per year in salary and benefits and who will likely be set for life with a comfortable retirement, thanks to his members’ dues. While he may in fact feel sympathy for the poor and seniors, he is completely unwilling to do anything about it besides making a few impotent complaints—and certainly nothing that might jeopardize his income, status or personal freedom.

If NEA was a fighting union, if it really gave a damned about the wellbeing of America’s poor families and children (or simply wanted to see significant gains in educational outcomes), it would mobilize its hundreds of thousands of members to protest the entire budget debate vigorously, with direct action, civil disobedience and even strikes. The NEA is the largest union in the country. It has vast resources and could have significant influence on policy if it were to move away from its unreliable and weak strategy of lobbying and campaign financing and start exercising its true power: its members’ ability to withhold their labor.

One reason why the NEA will not do this is because it does not want to offend its darling in the White House. Despite the fact that Obama has done nothing to reduce the damage caused by No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and actually worsened it with his Race to the Top (RttT), he continues to pay lip service to the notion of improving public education (which seems to be sufficient to mollify many on the left). In fairness, his budget proposal does include an additional $75 billion to fund pre-school for all low- to moderate-income 4-year-olds. Yet for many middle class families, the only preschool options available are expensive private schools that suck up large portions of their disposable income. Obama’s budget will provide no relief for these families. More to the point, since we know that pre-K programs have significant benefits for children’s long-term academic success, why not extend the existing free public education system to include all children, starting at the pre-K level? This would have the additional benefit of allowing many parents to get back to work without having to lose a large chunk of their income to overpriced private preschools.

Van Roekel is also probably pleased with the supposed billions of dollars that will go toward education jobs to replace those lost due to the sequester cuts. However, jobs, in and of themselves, are nothing to support, particularly if those jobs are for low pay, with poor benefits and unreasonable demands or lack security. Why not increase unemployment benefits, welfare and other safety net programs to a level that provides all Americans with material security and comfort until they get back on their feet, instead of continuing with the cynical and punitive system that provides only a fraction of what one needs to survive and only for a timeframe that is insufficient for finding another decent job?

Additionally, why strive for putting teachers back in front of 30-40 kids per classroom, which is all that will happen with Obama’s proposal? Why not demand sufficient funding to bring all high school classes in the country down to 20 students per teacher, and the lower grade levels down to 10 or 15 students per teacher? This would not only create a lot of jobs, but it would provide teachers sufficient time to attend to the individual and diverse needs of their students; identify physical, emotional or academic problems before they spiral out of control; and provide more engaging, student-centered, inquiry-based lessons and rely less on canned curriculum, bubble in tests and rote memorization.

Today in Labor History—January 31

Guy_Fawkes_by_Cruikshank

January 31, 1606 – Guy Fawkes jumped to his death moments before his execution for treason. Guy Fawkes belonged to a group of provincial English Catholics who planned the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Fawkes, who had converted to Catholicism, also fought in the Eighty Years' War on the side of Catholic Spain against Protestant Dutch reformers. He later travelled to Spain to seek support for a Catholic rebellion in England but was unsuccessful. In 1604 Fawkes became involved with a small group of English Catholics, led by Robert Catesby, who planned to assassinate the Protestant King James and replace him with his daughter, third in the line of succession, Princess Elizabeth (From the Daily Bleed and Wikipedia)

January 31, 1912 – A General Strike began in Brisbane, Australia that lasted until March 6. It came in response to the suspension of tramway workers for wearing union badges. (From the Daily Bleed)

Tanks and soldiers billeted in the Saltmarket area of Glasgow in the weeks following the 1919 Battle of George Square

 January 31, 1919 – Bloody Friday occurred in Glasgow when 60,000 demonstrators gathered in George Square in support of a strike and police launched a vicious and unprovoked attack on the demonstrators, felling unarmed men and women with their batons. The demonstrators retaliated with fists, iron railings and broken bottles and forced the police into a retreat. An estimated 10,000 English troops were sent to Glasgow in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of George Square. Monday February 10th the strike is called off. (From the Daily Bleed)

January 31, 1940 - Ida M. Fuller became the first person to receive an old-age monthly benefit check under the new Social Security law, receiving a check for a whopping $22.54. She paid in $24.75 between 1937 and 1939 on an income of $2,484. (From Workday Minnesota)

January 31, 1972 – The IRA called a general strike, the day after Bloody Sunday. (From the Daily Bleed)

America’s Class War Against Youth

Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons

If the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement accomplished anything it was to focus public anger on America’s extreme and growing wealth gap, portraying it as the product of the greed and selfishness of the richest 1%.

This overly simplistic view obscures the actual socioeconomic relationships that are responsible for the transfer of wealth from the majority to the few, as well as who comprises this “few.”

The wealth gap is actually the by-product and goal of capitalism and the sociopolitical institutions that bolster it. All bosses in private businesses, regardless of how rich they may be, make their profits by paying their employees less than the value of their labor and pocketing this surplus value as profits (i.e., exploitation). The owner and employer classes transfer additional wealth to themselves through a taxation system that allows them to pay a lower effective tax rate than their employees pay, and through a legislative and legal system that facilitates their acquisition of more capital, sometimes even if it injures, sickens or kills others.

Exploitation of workers is the primary source of the wealth gap, particularly between employers and employees and the source of the so-called obscene wealth we see among the “1%.” However, wealth is also transferred from the young to the old, resulting in a growing wealth gap between older Americans and the young.

The wealth gap between younger and older Americans is currently the widest on record. In 1984 Americans who were sixty-five and over made ten times as much as those under the age of thirty-five. By 2008, older Americans were earning nearly forty-seven times as much as the younger age group. (For more, see the following articles in Esquire and Newsweek).

This wealth gap is not small, either. The median net worth of households headed by someone 65 or older has increased 42% since 1984, to a comfortable $170,494, while the median net worth for younger households has declined 68% to a desperate $3,662, according to the Pew Research Center.

The Pew study attributes some of the wealth transfer to timing: The older generation benefited from living and working in a strong economy and a long rise in housing prices. Conversely, older Americans have suffered far less under the current recession, with the median net worth of those under 35 falling 37% between 2005 and 2010, while falling only 13% for those over the age of 65. The recession has also forced many older Americans to continue working longer than they would have in the past, squeezing many younger workers out of jobs. The percentage of the workforce under the age of 25 has declined 13.2% since 2008, while rising 7.6% for those over 55.

However, the trend began decades before the current recession and has been facilitated by changes in government policy, which have been promoted by an aging politician class (today’s Congress is the oldest since World War II). For example, the federal government now spends $480 billion on Medicare, but only $68 billion on education, according to the Esquire article. As a whole, the U.S. government spends 7 times as much on its seniors as it does on its children, per capita, according to a 2009 Brookings Institution study. Mike Males writes that younger workers are currently contributing 15% of their payroll income to pay for Social Security and Medicare payments for seniors, since Congress gutted the Social Security Trust Fund (originally designed to cover future generation’s benefits) to pay for current government needs.

The transfer of wealth from young to old has been a hallmark of the Republican Party and would have been taken to new extremes under the Ryan tax plan. According to Males, younger Americans would have suffered under this plan in direct proportion to how young they are. Virtually every federal program designed to benefit the young and the poor would have been gutted or eliminated, including food stamps, Medicaid and job training. Federal spending on education would have been slashed by one-third. But Social Security and Medicare for today’s seniors would have been preserved. At the same time, median-income households headed by people 55-65 would have received tax breaks of roughly $1,200, while median-income households headed by people under 25 would have lost hundreds of dollars.

However, the Democrats have also contributed to the generational wealth transfer. Under Obama’s 2012 budget, for example, Medicare and Social Security were left alone, while the Adolescent Family Life Program and the Career Pathways Innovation Fund were ended. Likewise, the AmeriCorps program was slashed and had to turn away 75% of applicants last year, while recent changes to the Pell grant program will cost students an estimated $100 billion over the next ten years, according to the Esquire article. Similarly, Obama’s plan for avoiding the “fiscal cliff” involves raising the age of eligibility for Medicare benefits and cutting benefits for future recipients of Medicare and Social Security. In other words, the benefits of today’s seniors would be preserved and subsidized on the backs of today’s youth.

So far I have only discussed the tangible, present-day ways younger Americans have been screwed. They have also been saddled with an enormous debt they will be paying well into the future through higher taxes, reduced benefits and services, and delayed retirement (or no retirement). The per capita debt in the U.S. is now $50,000, with much of it going toward paying for the longest wars in U.S. history (i.e., Iraq and Afghanistan) and huge tax breaks for the wealthy. Yet, the average student also owes $12,700 to the credit card companies and will owe $27,000 to college loans creditors, according to the Newsweek article. And despite incurring all this debt, college graduates’ income has dropped 11% over the last decade for men and 7.6% for women.

While some of this wealth transfer has merely helped middle class baby boomers live comfortable middle class retirements, much of it is really about helping banks, Wall Street investors, and large businesses reap ever larger profits on the backs of youths. Skyrocketing student debt, for example, contributes to the poverty of younger Americans. Yet, Obama’s student debt repayment plan may actually increase debt payments for many students, while his plan to cut spending on higher education by $10 billion could increase student need for loans, thus increasing profits for lenders and the hedge funds that trade students loans.

Unions Collaborate With Obama to Squeeze American Workers

Image from Flickr, by DonkeyHotey

With the country moving ever closer to the “fiscal cliff,” the Obama Administration is doing everything it can to strike a “grand bargain” that appeases the ruling elite. The grand bargain is a euphemism for an austerity package that will maintain low taxes for the wealthy and subsidies for their business by slashing social spending and services that help keep the rest of the country from sinking further into poverty.

Union leaders met with the president on Tuesday to give their support for his plan which will include large cuts to social programs like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, food stamps and other welfare programs, the WSWS reported this week. Because there is broad support for most of these programs, the President is depending on the unions to help quell popular opposition and avert the kinds of protests and mass discontent seen in Greece, Spain, Portugal and the UK.

While the unions have claimed they are fighting to protect American workers from austerity, their actions indicate that their actual goal is to sell the president’s scam as a good deal for their members.  AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, for example, said his organization was committed to making sure that the middle class and workers don’t end up “paying the tab for a party that we didn’t get to,” and he asserted that the president had the same commitment. Also present at the meeting were Mary Kay Henry, head of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Lee Saunders of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), and Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association (NEA). Mary Kay Henry said “We expect to have the president’s back on the agenda that the voters just declared support for. The president has always said he needs a movement behind his mandate.”

Unions Have President’s Back (As He Attacks the Middle and Working Classes)

In 2011 Obama proposed a deficit-reduction plan that would have raised the eligibility age for Medicare, cut Medicare benefits, reduced Social Security benefits, slashed Medicaid, and reduced tax deductions for the middle and working classes. According to the WSWS, William Daley (White House chief of staff when Obama first proposed this “grand bargain”) told Bloomberg News that this would be Obama’s starting point for the next round of negotiations with Republicans. To make matters worse, the extension on unemployment benefits will automatically expire on January 1, ending payments to over 2 million unemployed workers and Obama has said nothing about how (or if) he would avert this disaster.

The “bargain” in this Grand Bargain is Obama’s insistence that taxes must be raised on those earning more than $250,000 per year. However, he has indicated that he would be willing to consider other ways of increasing revenue from the wealthy, like maintaining current tax rates, but decreasing deductions. In either case, the rich earn most of their income through capital gains, which are taxed at the relatively low rate of 15%. Thus many, like Mitt Romney, end up paying a far lower effective rate than the majority of Americans (who earn most or all of their income through salaries) and will continue to do so even if Obama wins approval for tax increases on the wealthy.

Further evidence that Obama is planning austerity for the majority of Americans comes from a secret document leaked last week to Meet the Press. The document indicates that in 2011 Obama proposed over two dollars in cuts for every dollar in increased revenue ($2.8 trillion in cuts and $1.2 trillion in tax increases), setting the stage for raising the debt ceiling and the automatic spending cuts that comprise the “fiscal cliff.” The document revealed that Obama was willing to cut TRICARE (health insurance for the military and veterans) and to lower tax rates for business and for the wealthy. The document also suggested cutting Medicare by $250 billion between 2012 and 2021 and by $800 billion between 2022 and 2031. It proposed cutting Social Security payments by $112 billion over the next 10 years and cutting veterans’ disability payments by $24 billion. It also suggested slashing $11 billion from military retirement and $33 billion from benefits for retired federal employees, as well as $2 billion from nutrition assistance, $4 billion from flood insurance and $10 billion from higher education.

All this sounds exactly like an attempt to make American workers pay the tab for a party they didn’t attend. The Republicans have refused to sign off on any tax increases for the wealthy and Obama has indicated he would be willing to lower their tax liability. A few Republicans, like Mitch McConnell, have indicated they might accept a cap on deductions in exchange for cuts to entitlements (e.g., slashing Medicare and Social Security) and Obama has indicated he is open to this. In the end, the rich will sacrifice little or nothing toward closing the federal deficit, which will be subsidized almost entirely by reductions in services and programs that benefit the majority. Yet the deficit is almost entirely a byproduct of gifts to the wealthy, like subsidies to defense contractors, oil and coal companies, and big Agri-business; bailouts of banks; and tax breaks for the wealthy and their businesses.

Thanks for Your Vote, Now Prepare for Your Punishment

Obama handily won reelection yesterday, promising in his victory speech to work with both parties to slash the deficit (which means large cuts to social programs like Medicare and Social Security and generally reducing living standards for the majority of Americans).

Based on what he didn’t say during the campaign, he is unlikely to do anything different or more on climate change, which means U.S. carbon emissions will hold steady or climb and a continuation (or increase) in super storms, droughts and food insecurity.

Education policy will continue as it has for the past 12 years, with a proliferation of high stakes testing for children and accountability and punishment for teachers. We should expect more districts and states to adopt Value Added evaluation deform, merit pay, blended learning, common core and other giveaways to private education corporations.

The U.S. will continue the slaughter of civilians throughout the world by use of unmanned drones. There will be plenty of U.S. troops killing and being killed on the ground in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia. The war on immigrants will carry on with mass deportations and incarceration.

And the transfer of wealth from the majority of Americans to the very rich will continue unabated.

Thanks for your vote, suckers. Enjoy the ride!

Today in Labor History—August 14

August 14, 1846 – Henry David Thoreau was jailed for refusing to pay his taxes in protest of the Mexican War. (From the Daily Bleed)

August 14, 1850 – Squatters' riots occurred in California. 500 militia men were sent to Sacramento to quell the uprising and martial law was declared. 2 squatters and 3 militiamen were killed, as were 2 bystanders. (From the Daily Bleed and Wikipedia)

August 14, 1934 - The most successful anti-poverty program in U.S. history was created when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law. (From Workday Minnesota)

August 14, 1999 - Former AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland died. Kirkland was a staunch anti-Communist and strong supporter of the Solidarity movement in Poland. (From Workday Minnesota)

Today in Labor History—January 31

Guy_Fawkes_by_Cruikshank

January 31, 1606 – Guy Fawkes jumped to his death moments before his execution for treason. Guy Fawkes belonged to a group of provincial English Catholics who planned the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Fawkes, who had converted to Catholicism, also fought in the Eighty Years' War on the side of Catholic Spain against Protestant Dutch reformers. He later travelled to Spain to seek support for a Catholic rebellion in England but was unsuccessful. In 1604 Fawkes became involved with a small group of English Catholics, led by Robert Catesby, who planned to assassinate the Protestant King James and replace him with his daughter, third in the line of succession, Princess Elizabeth (From the Daily Bleed and Wikipedia)

January 31, 1912 – A General Strike began in Brisbane, Australia that lasted until March 6. It came in response to the suspension of tramway workers for wearing union badges. (From the Daily Bleed)

Tanks and soldiers billeted in the Saltmarket area of Glasgow in the weeks following the 1919 Battle of George Square

 January 31, 1919 – Bloody Friday occurred in Glasgow when 60,000 demonstrators gathered in George Square in support of a strike and police launched a vicious and unprovoked attack on the demonstrators, felling unarmed men and women with their batons. The demonstrators retaliated with fists, iron railings and broken bottles and forced the police into a retreat. An estimated 10,000 English troops were sent to Glasgow in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of George Square. Monday February 10th the strike is called off. (From the Daily Bleed)

January 31, 1940 - Ida M. Fuller became the first person to receive an old-age monthly benefit check under the new Social Security law, receiving a check for a whopping $22.54. She paid in $24.75 between 1937 and 1939 on an income of $2,484. (From Workday Minnesota)

January 31, 1972 – The IRA called a general strike, the day after Bloody Sunday. (From the Daily Bleed)

Today in Labor History—August 14

August 14, 1846 – Henry David Thoreau was jailed for refusing to pay his taxes in protest of the Mexican War. (From the Daily Bleed)

August 14, 1850 – Squatters' riots occurred in California. 500 militia men were sent to Sacramento to quell the uprising and martial law was declared. 2 squatters and 3 militiamen were killed, as were 2 bystanders. (From the Daily Bleed and Wikipedia)

August 14, 1934 - The most successful anti-poverty program in U.S. history was created when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law. (From Workday Minnesota)

August 14, 1999 - Former AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland died. Kirkland was a staunch anti-Communist and strong supporter of the Solidarity movement in Poland. (From Workday Minnesota)