The C+ President

(Cartoon by Jim Morin / Miami Herald (January 20, 2014) and featured at  MCCLATCHY DC.  Click on image to enlarge.)

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/01/19/214978/mcclatchy-cartoons-for-the-week.html#storylink=cpy

Yes, President Obama has done many good things in his six years in office, but I still maintain that he has a mixed record.  That's the reason for the grade of C+ I assigned in the title.  An article I read in McClatchy DC on Monday will illustrate my point.

BERLIN — The world’s richest 85 people control the same amount of wealth as half the world’s population, according to a report issued Monday by the British-based anti-poverty charity Oxfam.
That means the world’s poorest 3.55 billion people must live on what the richest 85 possess. Another way to look at it: Each of the wealthiest 85 has access to the same resources as do about 42 million of the world’s poor, a number equal to the populations of Canada, Kentucky and Kansas, taken together. ... 
The report also said that while the recent financial crisis was an enormous burden on the world’s poor, it ended up being a huge benefit to the rich elite. The very wealthiest people on Earth collected 95 percent of the post-crisis growth, the report said.
 
The report said that the trend is more pronounced in the United States than in other nations, but hardly limited to the U.S.  [Emphasis added.]

Now, I am willing to admit that the Democrats don't control both houses of Congress.  The GOP, especially the Tea Partiers (and those who are afraid of them), run the House of Representatives and that group has made it clear that it will obstruct any and all legislation proposed by the President.  That, however, doesn't make the president powerless, far from it. 

First of all, he has executive powers.  His administration could have done some real investigations into the nefarious actions of the large banks providing mortgages and their buying and selling of those mortgages on the derivative markets.  And, after the investigations, meaningful penalties/fines/prison terms for the malefactors could have been imposed.  What we got instead were a few gentle slaps on various wrists.

Second, the president has a bully pulpit.  He can use his Saturday radio address to announce his intentions to address the issue of wealth inequality.  He can call a press conference at which he can announce plans to address the issue and to answer questions in which he can outline the specifics on his plan.  He can urge the public to swamp their elected representatives with demands to pass legislation to extend unemployment benefits, to fund the WIC and SNAP programs.

So far he hasn't done anything along those lines.  The subject somehow just doesn't appear on his agenda, at least hasn't since he got elected in 2008.

Maybe I was too generous in giving him a C+.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/01/20/215140/worlds-richest-85-people-have.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/01/20/215140/worlds-richest-85-people-have.html#storylink=cpy

The Poor? Never Heard of Them

(Editorial cartoon by Joel Pett / Lexington Herald-Leader (October 16, 2012) and featured at McClatchy DC.  Click on image to enlarge and then return.)

There are several issues notable for their absence in the presidential campaign.  Climate change is one of them.  Another one is that of poverty in America.  We have been hearing a lot of rhetoric about Helping The Middle Class, but virtually nothing about the poor, many of whom have fallen into that status from the middle class in the past five years.

Steve Lopez has an interesting column in the Los Angeles Times on the missing issue.  He suggests several reasons for the absence of any meaningful discussion of poverty by the candidates.

 If you've been following the presidential campaign, you might easily have gotten the impression that the poor no longer exist. The word "poverty" was mentioned once in the first debate between President Obama and GOP challenger Mitt Romney. Together, the two candidates made 29 references to the middle class. And in Tuesday's debate, I lost count after Romney reeled off more than half-a-dozen references in a single answer.

In the vice presidential debate, the word "poverty" got one mention. But Vice President Joe Biden and GOP challenger Paul Ryan dutifully followed their leaders, with 33 references to the middle class. ...

And yet, said Harris-Dawson, many poor people have an interesting thing in common.

They don't consider themselves poor.

"We actually came up with a list of people on welfare and went door-to-door, and do you know what? The majority of people said they were not poor," said Harris-Dawson, who thinks the candidates may be aware of this phenomenon.

He said people who were out of work framed it as a temporary condition related to the distressed economy or some other factor.

"Being poor has been so demonized. Being poor means being on 'Jerry Springer.' That's what it means nowadays, and who wants to be on 'Jerry Springer?'"

Yes, and it means that in 2012, with 46 million people living in poverty — 16 million of them children — candidates for president of the United States seem to think it won't matter if they pretend you don't exist.   [Emphasis added]

I suppose that's one good reason the candidates have shied away from discussing poverty:  the newly poor don't want to claim that status because that would make them one of the 47%.  But I think there's a bit more going on, and I think Avedon Carol has done her usual excellent job in sussing it out in a post having to do with  the purpose of voting.

 Something I think I've mentioned before, and that Stuart Zechman and I talk about privately, is that without the New Deal framework, social progress goes down the drain. It was that New Deal framework that made social progress movements possible, and that's why the arch-conservatives and Big Business banded together to destroy it.

And it's working. It is already difficult-to-impossible to obtain local access to abortion in most parts of the United States. It is not only difficult but damn-near illegal to protest in public. And even where you can legally protest, you get diverted, attacked, and arrested anyway. The relationship between your politics and your ability to obtain or keep a job is increasingly so strong that anyone who isn't on board with the arch-conservative program is terrified to make any statement that can be interpreted as economically liberal in the hearing of anyone who might make their employer aware of it.

These things add up, especially in an environment where "equality" means little more than an equal shot at no jobs.

And this is why, above any other issue, I am on board with Stuart when he says:

    Restoration of the New Deal framework is my priority policy agenda.

    This is because I am convinced that social liberalism's successes, e.g. civil rights, the successes of liberation movements (sexual, women's, etc.), intolerance with respect to security state regimes, etc., follow from the small-d democratic, economic and cultural empowerment of the majority of ordinary citizens. The history of the 20th century is the history of the balance of powers created by such a modern liberal-democratic framework, and the "culture of liberty-entitlement" that such empowerment produces in populations of otherwise reactionary-agricultural or labor-competitive citizens.

    Without the New Deal, or a New Deal-oriented governing framework, there is no liberal democracy, only oligarchy. Without liberal democracy, the cultural forces of popular reaction take hold in American populations, and social liberalism's creativity has little value in solving the problems faced by ordinary folks

 under plutocratic rule. Without liberal democracy, majority literacy itself is at risk. Bedford Falls' economy's culture produces the broad acceptance and (therefore) legality of privacy rights. Pottersville's economy's culture produces the broad rejection of and (therefore) illegality of natural selection being taught in public schools. One comes before the other. In post-19th century capitalist America, there can be no civil rights, and no dominance of individual liberty without first securing the economic rights and democratic power of the majority against "the old enemies of peace."

    Of all of the policy agendas I support, such as limiting executive power, expanding privacy rights, de-industrial militarizing of America, reforming the justice system, inhibiting poverty creation, etc, there is a preference order, with "Restoration of the New Deal Framework" being at the top. My vote will therefore reflect what I believe to be the priority policy agenda for movement liberals.

Yes, because the New Deal framework is fundamental to any other social liberty.

Bingo!

We know that the key features of the New Deal, the ones still left, are "on the table" as far as the president, his administration, and entirely too many Democratic members of Congress are concerned.  Oh, they talk about "tweaking" Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, but it is clear that is only the first step in the drive to dismantle them (although I guess the favored euphemism is "privatize" them).  Federal programs which provide even a minimal safety net for the poor (Food Stamps, WIC) are slashed or eliminated as both sides fight to increase the defense budget so as to keep defense contractors fat and happy.

And those of us who object are marginalized, quite literally kept far away from the seat of power (hence the Pett cartoon above) and arrested for exercising the most basic of First Amendment rights.

It doesn't appear that there is much we can do this election cycle, but come January it might be time to put our comfortable shoes on.

The Least Of These

Editorial cartoon by Joel Pett / Lexington Herald-Leader (September 6, 2012) and featured at McClatchy DC. Click on image to enlarge and then come back.)

Well, the talk finally got around to the economy on Wednesday. Several speakers made it a point to talk about the mess President Obama inherited four years ago and what he has been doing to clean it up. That clearly was the featured speaker's job and Bill Clinton delivered. However, I tend to agree with rmj over at Adventus:

For my money the better speech last night was delivered by Elizabeth Warren. Bill Clinton did what Bill Clinton does: he eloquently defended the status quo. Elizabeth Warren delivered the truly radical concept that whatever you do for the least, you do for all. [Emphasis added]

That said, at least the Big Dog moved in that general direction with this line:

"The most important question is, what kind of country do you want to live in? If you want a you're-on-your-own, winner-take-all society, you should support the Republican ticket. If you want a country of shared prosperity and shared responsibility – a we're-all-in-this-together society – you should vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden." [Emphasis added]

President Obama will hopefully do likewise (this is written before I've watched or listened to his speech, which I won't do until later today anyway). Apparently he will refer to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, which in itself is a marvelous improvement. The question is whether he and his party are ready to do more than reference FDR, whether they will lift not just the middle class but also the poor. Quite frankly, they have not shown any interest in doing so, as this horrifying report shows.

Record numbers of U.S. households struggled at times to feed their families last year, according to a report Wednesday from the U.S. Department of Agriculture on the state of hunger in America.

A lack of resources forced others to cut back on meals and disrupt their usual eating patterns, it says.

A record 17.9 million U.S. households – 700,000 more than in 2010 – didn’t have enough food at all times last year to sustain active, healthy lives for all family members, according to the USDA.

This “food insecurity” affected a record 14.9 percent of U.S. households and more than 50 million people, about one in six U.S. residents. ...

The effect on children was significant. Nearly 9 million children lived in food-insecure households last year, and 845,000 were in households with very low food security.

And you can't just blame the Republicans and Paul Ryan:

The survey data comes as congressional Republicans, led by GOP vice-presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, push for massive cuts in food stamp-program funding to curb enrollment growth and to help balance the federal budget. The Democratic-controlled Senate also voted in June to cut food stamp funding, but by a smaller amount. [Emphasis added]

FDR would be appalled, as we all should be.

Our At-Bat

It's been kind of interesting to see how the press has spent its time and energies leading up to the Democratic Convention. They only had a few days because of the weird scheduling, but they obviously are determined to keep these dog-and-pony shows before us.

David Horsey, snarkmeister, took a look at the feud between Gov. Jerry Brown of California and Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey.

A blossoming feud between California Gov. Jerry Brown and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie could bring a little fun back into politics.

The spat began on the first day of the Republican National Convention in Tampa during Christie’s visit to the California delegation. Christie, who later in the week would underwhelm as the convention’s keynote speaker, pointed out to the delegates he was a mere 14 years old when Brown won the Democratic primary in New Jersey way back in 1980. The trash-talking governor of the Garden State called Brown “an old retread” and implied Brown was chicken for sending his current tax hike proposal to the voters instead of pushing it through the legislature and taking the heat.

In Los Angeles last Thursday, Brown fired back at Christie during a speech at an organized labor gathering. The veteran Democrat said age may have left him with a lot less hair, but the years had provided plenty of experience and knowledge that Christie may lack.

“Because when you were 14,” Brown said to his new rival, “I was passing the farm labor bill. I was passing worker protections in California."

Brown then challenged the famously rotund New Jersey chief executive to a three-mile run, a push-up contest and a chin-up contest. With the negative implication about Christie’s excessive weight abundantly clear, Brown said he would take any bet on the challenge, adding, “I have no doubt of the outcome.”

Nice lead-in to the Dem Convention, no?

And the newsletter I get from the STrib each weekday morning contained a nifty key word comparison of the two parties' platforms:

The Democratic and Republican parties have released their platforms, which act as guideposts for the parties’ values. The frequency each uses key words highlights the parties’ differences. The Democratic platform, which endorses “marriage equality,” mentions the word marriage four times; the GOP platform, which endorses “traditional marriage,” mentions marriage 21 times. The Democratic platform mentions Iraq 20 times and Afghanistan 22 times; the Republican platform mentions Iraq five times and Afghanistan six times. The GOP platform mentions “middle class” once; “family” 26; “children” 31 times; the Democratic platform mentions “middle class” 44 times; “family” 20 times; “children” 17 times. The Republican platform uses the word “liberty” 17 times and “freedom” 40 times; the Democratic platform -- “liberty” three times and “freedom” 15. The GOP platform mentions “taxes” 11 times and “government” 171 times; the Democratic platform mentions “taxes” 19 times and “government” 57 times.

One word which is noticeably absent from the comparative list is "poor." Apparently neither party is interested in that part of the demographics. I shouldn't be surprised, I guess. The only politician who would talk about poverty and the poor in the last decade, John Edwards, is persona non grata in the Democratic Party in much the same way George W. Bush in the Republican Party. From the Los Angeles Times:

The loss of another narcissistic, self-destructive politician might not amount to much in some ways. But along with Edwards went a moment in Democratic Party politics when national figures talked about an issue that has all but disappeared from the agenda — poverty.

There may be a caucus or meeting on the poor this week in Charlotte, but the topic has been pushed to the sidelines. It's hardly been mentioned in a prolonged Republican primary season, except as a negative: Mitt Romney and vice presidential running mate Paul Ryan insist (falsely) that President Obama wants to cut work requirements for people on welfare.

It wasn’t this way just four years ago, partly due to circumstance but also because of the presence of the native Carolinian, Edwards. Through much of his 2007-2008 race for president, he talked about the untenable divide between the “two Americas.”

I guess the poor, who don't contribute to campaigns and who might not be able to vote because of new restrictive voting laws, just don't matter to either party.

And that is a shame.

Our shame as a nation.

Well, OK Then

(Click on image to enlarge and then return.)

OK, OK, I know it's two days in a row for touting a Horsey cartoon and column, but I liked what he had to say and I'm also not feeling too sharp after falling yesterday and landing hard on my butt. It's hard to think clearly while sitting on an ice pack and popping pain killers.

In any event, Horsey provides us with the perfect picture of today's Republican Party, a picture which is supplemented by other news from the convention.

He begins the column by noting the parade of people of color during Tuesday's proceedings, both as speakers and as delegates casting their states votes for the nominee. And then he moves in for the kill.

Republicans truly believe that a rising tide lifts all boats, and that the best thing a poor Latino or an underemployed African American can do to better his or her condition is to vote for a party that intends to let rich people keep more of their money. Showing off all those non-Caucasian officeholders is a way of saying to skeptical minority voters, "These guys have chosen the Republican path and just look where it has gotten them!"

It is a way for a party dominated by affluent white people to not feel embarrassed by their lack of diversity and, in fact, to assert a kind of superiority: "Democrats pander to you and keep you in thrall to the welfare state; we Republicans offer you a better way -- the free-market, pull-yourselves-up-by-the-bootstraps way."

In a year when Republicans are brazenly trying to suppress the minority vote in Ohio and Florida and are taking the hardest of hard lines on immigration, voting Republican may be a tough sell in minority communities. Still, the party has found some forceful salesmen who have risen from those communities, and they are filling the stage in Tampa with them. [Emphasis added]

But, wait! There's more. Also on Tuesday, one of the uglier episodes of the week occurred on the convention floor: a CNN African American camerawoman was assaulted by two delegates.

Two attendees at the Republican National Convention were thrown out of the convention center in Tampa on Tuesday after throwing nuts at a black CNN camerawoman and saying, "this is how we feed the animals." [Emphasis added]

That was Tuesday. Yesterday, Anne Romney was apparently sent out to do some damage control (via Eschaton). Speaking about women and Hispanic voters, Lady Anne had this to say:

Romney said her “importance in speaking out is making sure that those coalitions,” referring to women and Hispanic voters, “that would naturally be voting for another party wake up and say, You’d better really look at the issues this time.”

“You’d better really look at your future and figure out who’s going to be the guy that’s going to make it better for you and your children, and there is only one answer,” Mrs. Romney said, giving a harsher pitch than we usually hear from the woman who wants to be the next first lady.

“It really is a message that would resonate well if they could just get past some of their biases that have been there from the Democratic machines that have made us look like we don’t care about this community,” Romney said. “And that is not true. We very much care about you and your families and the opportunities that are there for you and your families.”

Um, yeah. Sure. And that's why the GOP platform would outlaw abortion for any reason and would build a fence the whole length of the Mexican border, and why her husband promises to de-fund Planned Parenthood and lies about President Obama's rolling back welfare reform to appease "his base" (wink-wink).

I really hope the American electorate isn't as stupid as the Republican Party thinks we are.

Pleasant Surprises Are Always Welcome

It doesn't take much to cheer me up most of the time. As rotten as I felt yesterday after over-extending myself in the heat on Wednesday, I perked right up after reading this L.A. Times editorial. The editorial board got it right this time.

Its subject is the Romney campaign attack ad claiming that President Obama is gutting the 1996 Welfare Reform Act by erasing the return-to-work requirements. That law was mean-spirited and misguided, based as it was on a lot of myths about Welfare Cadillac Queens, but it passed (and was signed by an allegedly Democratic president). What this administration did, however, was simply listen to the complaints of states trying to comply with the law and finding some difficulty in doing so, and coming up with a way to remove some of the burdens on the states.

As much as lawmakers in Washington like federalism in concept, they have trouble accepting it in practice. In 2005, Congress eliminated some of the welfare law's flexibility and imposed new paperwork burdens, prompting several states to ask Washington for relief. Last month, the Department of Health and Human Services announced that it would use the authority granted by the law to let states experiment with new, potentially more effective ways to move parents from welfare to work. Most controversially, the department said states could apply for waivers to consider "work activities" and participation measurements other than the ones specified in the law. For example, the department said, a state might propose to allow longer vocational programs to be counted as work activities.

States get no more aid when their caseloads rise, so they have a strong incentive to move welfare recipients onto private payrolls. Nevertheless, critics of the administration cried foul over the administration's plan, and GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney produced ads accusing Obama of "taking the work out of welfare." On the contrary, the administration is trying to get the federal government off the backs of states eager to spend more of their (limited) welfare aid on programs that really do help put parents into jobs that can sustain their families. That task is hard enough, considering the cuts that California and other cash-strapped states have made to programs that help poor parents obtain child care and transportation. Yet when it comes to designing successful welfare programs, Romney and other administration critics seem to believe Congress knows best. That's principled federalism for you. [Emphasis added]

I think the editorial is unnecessarily kind. This ad really doesn't have anything to do with federalism. What it has to do with is the ongoing war against the poor, particularly the poor of color. It was a "dog whistle" aimed to rouse the worst part of the Republican base. The important thing, however, is that the editorial board blew its own whistle on the distortion and lies.

And that was a pleasant surprise.

Priorities

David Lazarus, business and consumer columnist for the Los Angeles Times, finds the GOP stance on Medicaid to be mean-spirited. Of course it is. The only family values these yahoos have involve their families and only their families.

My colleague Noam N. Levey reported this week that conservative politicians at the state and federal level are laying the groundwork to scale back Medicaid if the GOP takes control of Congress and the White House in November.

Some Republican governors are already cutting coverage for low-income people, arguing that Medicaid has grown ineffective and unaffordable. Meanwhile, GOP lawmakers in Washington are renewing calls to limit Medicaid funding from the federal government.

This is scary stuff. Medicaid, or Medi-Cal as it's known in California, is the safety net for individuals and families who can't afford health coverage or don't receive medical benefits from employers.

Medicaid and the related Children's Health Insurance Program cover about 70 million people. Half this number are poor children. ...

Medicaid has some real problems, not least the fact that many physicians won't treat people covered by the program because they say the government's reimbursement rate is too low. Medicaid is also straining to keep up with rising demand that has resulted from the prolonged economic downturn.

But the program also is a bulwark against society cruelly turning a blind eye to those most in need. Medicaid is a declaration that healthcare in the United States is not limited solely to those fortunate enough to have well-compensating jobs or fat bank accounts.

Medicaid isn't just another budget item, such as the nearly $80 billion the Air Force has spent so far developing a new fighter jet, or the almost $600 billion that the Navy will spend on warships over the next 30 years.

Medicaid is people. It's a fair chance.

I guess it's all a matter of priorities with the folks in the Republican Party. Poor people are not high on their list. In fact, poor people are probably not even on their list.

I'm getting too old for this.

Another Subject We Dare Not Discuss

The Los Angeles Times is currently running a five-part series titled "Beyond 7 Billion" and has to do with the current world population and predictions for future growth and the calamities we may very well face as a result. The first part was published Monday, July 23, 2012. That part serves as a general introduction to the subject and to the upcoming sections. It also contains the links to those sections.

We're at 7 billion now, but there's a very good chance that figure will rapidly increase because so many in the world's population are young and still fertile. Many live in cultures where large families are expected, even demanded, so the growth rate might increase dramatically over the next 15 to 20 years.

According to United Nations projections, the number will rise to 9.3 billion by 2050 — the equivalent of adding another India and China to the world.

That's an optimistic scenario, one that assumes the worldwide average birthrate, now 2.5 children per woman, will decline to 2.1.

If birthrates stay where they are, the population is expected to reach 11 billion by midcentury — akin to adding three Chinas.

Under either forecast, scientists say, living conditions are likely to be bleak for much of humanity. Water, food and arable land will be more scarce, cities more crowded and hunger more widespread.

On a planet with 11 billion people, however, all those problems will be worse.

The outcome hinges on the cumulative decisions of hundreds of millions of young people around the globe. ...

Momentum isn't the only factor in population growth. In some of the poorest parts of the world, fertility rates remain high, driven by tradition, religion, the inferior status of women and limited access to contraception.

Population will rise most rapidly in places least able to handle it: developing nations where hunger, political instability and environmental degradation are already pervasive. [Emphasis added]

And the problem is even more complicated than that: with climate change beginning to take hold, providing food will be nearly impossible in much of the world.

Now nearly 1 billion people are chronically hungry, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, and at least 8 million die every year of hunger-related illnesses.

By midcentury, there will be at least 2 billion more mouths to feed, and no one can say where the food will come from.

It's not just that the population will be larger. It's that hundreds of millions of newly affluent people, mostly in Asia, will want to add dairy products and grain-fed beef and pork to their diets.

To meet the projected demand, the world's farmers will have to double their crop production, according to calculations by a team of scientists led by David Tilman, a University of Minnesota expert on global agriculture. ...

Most of Earth's best farmland has already come under hoof or plow, and farmers are losing ground to expanding cities and deserts. Soil erosion, chemical contamination and salt buildup from irrigation are despoiling prime acreage.

Climate change will make all of these challenges more daunting. Higher temperatures and violent weather will stunt or destroy crops. Increased flooding will imperil millions living in low-lying regions. More severe droughts could displace masses of people, leading to conflict.

Starvation, hopelessness leading to political instability: these are huge problems and yet I haven't seen any real attention paid to the subject since Paul Ehrlich's book "The Population Bomb" in the late 1960s. Instead, other than shrugs and the maddening intrusion of the Religious Reich on birth control issues, life continues in First and Third World countries as if nothing was wrong.

I know there won't be any easy answers. Mandating "one-child-only families" did cut the birth rate in China, but at a cost which no one seems willing to bear at this time.

I've read the first three installments in this series and intend to read the rest. They each have been well-written with helpful charts and graphs. They each also include the kind of individual stories which show what kind of climb we are facing. I recommend this highly as important reading.

I also commend the Times for publishing the series. I don't often get the chance to say this about my local newspaper, but I sincerely hope it wins a prize for the effort. It would be well-deserved.

Two Snapshots

I came across two articles yesterday which disheartened me. Both deal with the Midwest, that great area known as "The Heartland," and both provide vivid pictures of the state of our union.

The first has to do Minnesota and a new kind of homelessness problem.

Homelessness is rising in Twin Cities suburbs, officials say. It's more pervasive in Anoka County than in Hennepin County, but harder to detect. Suburban panhandlers are rare. And some suburban homeless adults have steady jobs, but couldn't avoid foreclosures. ...

Homelessness has quadrupled over four years in Washington County -- from 93 in 2008 to 381 in January. In Dakota County, where the homeless population exceeds 1,000 for the first time, it's grown 20 percent the past year -- from 841 in 2011 to 1,013 this year.

Unemployment, rising costs and mental illness all are factors. ...

Anoka County found 1,463 homeless individuals on Jan. 25, when the county's Continuum of Care group, which works to end homelessness, conducted an annual count of the homeless.

The same night, agencies in other counties, including Hennepin, Dakota, Washington, Carver and Scott, did the same. Hennepin County counted 3,690 homeless people.

These counts are considered unscientific and conservative by those who conduct them, but show one other alarming trait -- an increase in the number of homeless adolescents. [Emphasis added]

Two things shocked me. The first is the presence of homelessness in suburbia. I think most of us have been lulled into believing that the condition is endemic only to the city and only to the poorest of the poor. Clearly both are wrong. People who ten years ago had a house and a job and a future have been undercut by the foul economy and the housing bubble so that now they are sleeping in their cars (if they are fortunate to still have them), on friends' couches, or in the streets.

The second is the enormous number of young people suddenly without homes. Even assuming access to a shelter which would meet some of their needs, the stability of a home is gone, which complicates any kind of education program those kids should be engaged in.

Again, this is happening in the suburbs, in the heartland.

The second snapshot is from Kansas and has to do with health care and its overall effect.

Pundits and politicians like to say the United States has the best health care in the world. If so, it’s not showing up in how long we live, a new study suggests.

While life expectancies in some parts of the U.S. match those of the healthiest nations on earth, in vast swaths of this country preschoolers can expect to live no longer than their peers in some of the poorest and most strife-ridden parts of the world.

That holds true in the Kansas City area, where life expectancies in Johnson County match those of Switzerland and Sweden, while those in Wyandotte County are more like what’s found in Libya or Sri Lanka. Jackson County life expectancies compare to those in Mexico and Uruguay, and Clay County’s to those in Cuba. ...

Infant mortality rates in Kansas City’s poorest ZIP codes were five times higher than in its wealthiest, according to the Health Department’s data.

High unemployment, low rates of homeownership and low educational attainment all contribute to poor health, Kansas City Health Department director Rex Archer said.

“It’s neighborhood conditions,” Archer said. “These dynamics make a difference. All these combined stressors increase infectious diseases, chronic diseases, intentional and unintentional injuries.” [Emphasis added]

I'm sure there are a few other factors not mentioned in the cited portion which play into it, like environmental conditions and lack of access to affordable healthcare, especially preventative healthcare. But the important point is that the system just doesn't work for those without a whole boatload of money, and that shows up in the long run.

That there are places in this country with declining life expectancies based solely on money and location is shameful. And that some of those places are located in areas outside the megalopolis coasts is eye-opening.

May Day! May Day! May Day!

Not Just The Poorest Of The Poor Neighborhoods

Newt Gingrich raised howls of protest for his comments on putting kids from poor neighborhoods to work cleaning their schools (see my post here). I wonder what he'll have to say with about the news contained in this article coming from the Midwest.

More Minnesota students are signing on for free or reduced-price meals, as middle-class families coping with cutbacks and foreclosures are becoming first-time users of the subsidized National School Lunch Program.

Reflecting a surge seen nationally, nearly 33,000 Minnesota kids have joined the program in the past two years. Nationwide, student poverty rose from 59.3 percent in 2007 to 65.3 percent in 2010.

"Middle-class families who never thought they'd be dealing with this kind of hardship and poverty are now having to face it," said University of Minnesota economics Prof. Ben Senauer, who's researched several metro-area school districts' school lunch data. "This is the new face of poverty." [Emphasis added]

It isn't just the "poorest of the poor" urban areas that need help. Job losses have affected the suburbs and even the fancy exurbs. People who never dreamed they'd have trouble feeding their families are now signing up for the lunch program so that their children get at least one meal a day during the week. Some schools, on their own initiative, also provide backpacks to the kids on Fridays so that they get some nutrition over the weekend.

"This is the new face of poverty."

Indeed.

Are There No Work Houses?

So, it's Newt Gingrich's turn to challenge Mitt Romney for the 2012 GOP nomination. I had a hunch this was going to happen almost as soon as he announced he would be a candidate. I knew that he would run an unconventional campaign, but I figured he would be just the one to at least make things fun, although I certainly didn't think he would pull ahead at a crucial time. After all, serious candidates don't take a luxury vacation cruise around Greece in the middle of a race, thereby angering his senior staff enough to walk out on him. But he's pulled it off.

Newt hasn't changed much over the years (beyond putting more weight on). He still makes statements that make Republicans cringe. For example, at a recent debate he suggested that a more humane approach to immigration was in order and that the defense budget could be cut to eliminate some of the waste (see my post here). Most of the post debate coverage focused on those statements, which couldn't have made party regulars very happy.

More recently, he used child labor laws as an example of federal regulations running amok. Yes, child labor laws. He suggested little kids could replace expensive school janitors by mopping the floors and cleaning the rest rooms and being paid a little money, thereby gaining valuable work and life experience. Pretty radical stuff, that.

Yesterday he went even further in clarifying those remarks, and even I suffered a little whiplash at his audacity.

"Really poor children in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and nobody around them who works," Gingrich replied. "So they literally have no habit of showing up on Monday. They have no habit of staying all day. They have no habit of 'I do this and you give me cash,' unless it's illegal."

As I thought about it a little, however, it occurred to me that such a statement was audacious only because Newt said out loud what a lot of Republicans, especially the 1% and those who worship them, believe. The poor are poor because they are lazy and won't work. They get their money through crime. They do not provide good role models for their children and so the poverty and the life of crime are perpetuated.

The fact that those premises are simply not true and are unwarranted doesn't matter. What matters is lowering taxes by throwing adults out of work and paying their children pennies for doing the same job. What matters is that those at the bottom of the ladder stay there even though more and more Americans are beginning to join them.

Merry Christmas, Mr. Scrooge.

USA! USA! USA!

I'll bet you never figured you'd see an article on US poverty in a Mexican newspaper. I know I sure didn't, yet that was exactly what I found during my weekend visit to Watching America. The rest of the world, including those with whom we associate massive amounts of poverty, has noticed (with some schadenfreude) that the richest country in the world has its own very real problem with rising poverty.

From Mexico's La Cronica de Hoy:

In a survey conducted by The Washington Post and the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 52 percent of those surveyed considered it a mistake to think that the United States is a country of unequally distributed wealth, divided between the haves and the have-nots. ...

Hence it is a surprise that only 45 percent of the population believes that there is income inequality. Official figures and reports on other nations leave no doubt that, here, the gap between the haves and the have-nots has not grown daily.

This country, which is referred to as “the richest country in the world” on an international scale, is very low with regard to the distribution of wealth and income, almost at the bottom of the list. In fact, according to the Gini coefficient, an income inequality indicator named after the Italian economist who created it, the U.S. is ranked near Argentina, Iran and Madagascar and very far from countries such as Germany and Canada.

According to census figures to be released this week, there are 49 million poor people in the United States – nearly 3 million more than in September. That is to say, 16 percent of the population is poor, and that poverty can be seen particularly among Asians and Hispanics. These groups have passed African Americans in poverty rates for the first time with 28.2 percent and 25.4, respectively. This is because immigrant groups participate far less in social programs, education and housing subsidies.

These new figures are the highest that have been registered since such poverty statistics were first recorded 50 years ago and show notable decline in the middle class. They also show that the elderly are the most affected. It is estimated that one out of six people older than 65 are poor due principally to medical costs encountered in a country without socialized medicine. [Emphasis added]

The article is referring to actual poverty as defined by the Census Bureau, not the "near poverty" that I posted on yesterday. Even so, the figures are startling, especially to countries we consider "third world."

And the article does not provide a complete list of causes for the increase in US poverty, but does hit a few of the more obvious ones, most notably the lack of access to affordable health care even for the elders who have access to Medicare.

What is most impressive, however, is that the article notes the disconnect between the actuality and the perception by Americans at this point with respect to the income inequality and the effect this is having on the country. That less than half of Americans recognize the disparity is stunning. That said, however, I think it likely that perceptions are slowly beginning to change because of the Occupy movement.

I certainly hope so, because until more people recognize that we're all in danger of slipping into poverty as a result of the unfair distribution of wealth the problem can't be properly addressed.

Not Poor, But Close

File this one under "Well, duh!"

The New York Times asked the Census Bureau to take another look at findings with respect to the financial status of working Americans and the results are a little different than what the Census people expected. Many Americans who consider themselves middle class are just one unexpected bill away from catastrophe. These people may own a house (which they probably couldn't sell if they had to) and a car (but not a new one), and may be working full time, but they are still living paycheck to paycheck and just barely scraping by.

When the Census Bureau this month released a new measure of poverty, meant to better count disposable income, it began altering the portrait of national need. Perhaps the most startling differences between the old measure and the new involves data the government has not yet published, showing 51 million people with incomes less than 50 percent above the poverty line. That number of Americans is 76 percent higher than the official account, published in September. All told, that places 100 million people — one in three Americans — either in poverty or in the fretful zone just above it.

After a lost decade of flat wages and the worst downturn since the Great Depression, the findings can be thought of as putting numbers to the bleak national mood — quantifying the expressions of unease erupting in protests and political swings. They convey levels of economic stress sharply felt but until now hard to measure. ...

Demographically, they look more like “The Brady Bunch” than “The Wire.” Half live in households headed by a married couple; 49 percent live in the suburbs. Nearly half are non-Hispanic white, 18 percent are black and 26 percent are Latino.

Perhaps the most surprising finding is that 28 percent work full-time, year round. ... [Emphasis added]

While the conservatives at AEI find the term "near poor" offensive and hardly scientific, the term certainly does convey how many people who bought into the American dream are feeling. Parents have had unemployed or underemployed adult children move back in with them. Many cannot afford even minimal health insurance for themselves or their families. Most haven't seen a raise significant enough to cover price hikes at the grocery store in years. A broken leg or the need for a new roof will do them in.

Is it any wonder that the Occupy movement has struck a chord with so many of these "middle class" Americans? Or that they have become cynical about politicians who routinely get pay raises, yet can't find a way to right the dismal economic picture for their constituents?

I'm not sure just what the tipping point will be, but I do think some kind of implosion is near. I just hope I live long enough to see it.

Land Of The Free, Home of the Poor

While this report is really not all that surprising, its implications are still staggering.

The ranks of America's poorest poor have climbed to a record high — 1 in 15 people — spread widely across metropolitan areas as the housing bust pushed many inner-city poor into suburbs and other outlying places and shriveled jobs and income.

New census data paint a stark portrait of the nation's haves and have-nots at a time when unemployment remains persistently high. It comes a week before the government releases first-ever economic data that will show more Hispanics, elderly and working-age poor have fallen into poverty. ...

About 20.5 million Americans, or 6.7 percent of the U.S. population, make up the poorest poor, defined as those at 50 percent or less of the official poverty level. Those living in deep poverty represent nearly half of the 46.2 million people scraping by below the poverty line. In 2010, the poorest poor meant an income of $5,570 or less for an individual and $11,157 for a family of four.

And who are these "poorest of the poor"? The answer is shocking, or at least should be because it defies conventional wisdom:

Elizabeth Kneebone, a senior research associate at Brookings, described a demographic shift in people living in high-poverty neighborhoods, which have less access to good schools, hospitals and government services. As concentrated poverty spreads to new areas, including suburbs, the residents are now more likely to be white, native-born and high school or college graduates — not the conventional image of high-school dropouts or single mothers in inner-city ghettos. ...

...Poverty for Americans 65 and older is on track to nearly double after factoring in rising out-of-pocket medical expenses, from 9 percent to over 15 percent. Poverty increases are also anticipated for the working-age population because of commuting and child-care costs, while child poverty will dip partly due to the positive effect of food stamps. [Emphasis added]

That's not a pretty picture, and it's one that will get uglier in the coming years as unemployment continues in the 8-9% range, as predicted this week by the Fed. Putting people back to work might roll back these numbers, but it's an election year and congressional Republicans are more interested in pinning the economy on the incumbent than in trying to fix the problem by approving job creation programs that would work for all, rather than the 1%.

And people wonder why Occupying Wall Street continues to strike a responsive chord with so many disparate parts of the population.

Blessed Are The Poor ...

... for they shall go hungry.

Watching America had plenty of interesting stuff up this weekend, but the article which grabbed me did so because it alerted me to something we haven't heard much about here in the US. It has to do with another instance of the Republican's destruction of the social safety net.

From the U.K.'s Guardian:

With the latest set of proposals, "belt tightening" will have a very literal meaning for millions of Americans as Republicans in Congress have now proposed cutting and radically restructuring the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programme (Snap) – the programme more commonly known as food stamps – despite record numbers of people presently on the rolls. Without question, these cuts and changes would prove devastating for many of those to whom food stamps represent a last line of defence against hunger. ...

In March 2011, a record 44.5 million Americans received food stamps, which was an 11.1% increase over the year before. Even more illustrative of the profound impact the economic recession has had on poor and working-class Americans is the fact that this represents a 64% increase over the number of recipients in March 2008. [Emphasis added]

Yes, House Republicans have gone after another program intended to help the poor and are doing so at a time when it is desperately needed. We heard plenty about Paul Ryan's plan to dismantle Medicare, but our press has been curiously silent about this attack on an important program, one that was intended by FDR, first, and LBJ, later, to assist people to even make it to old age.

Meanwhile, Wisconsin Republican and House budget committee chairman Paul Ryan's "Path to Prosperity" budget proposes deep cuts to Snap, and even more fundamental changes to how it is administered:

"[P]rogrammes that subsidise food and housing for low-income Americans remain dysfunctional, and their explosive growth is threatening the overall strength of the safety net."

His plan would turn Snap into a block grant programme in 2015 (along with Medicare, starting 2013), meaning the funds would be delivered to the individual states with only loose stipulations about how they are to be used. The belief is that this improves flexibility and promotes innovation and creativity in the delivery of federal funds. But coupled with Republicans' intention to slash Snap by 20% over the next ten years – or $127bn, as the Centre on Budget and Policy Priorities calculates – Ryan's plan could leave millions in danger of going hungry. [Emphasis added]

Pass me my pitchfork.

Meanwhile ...

As noted by many of my friends, the news of the assassination of Osama bin Laden has had all sorts of salutary effects, not the least of which are the bumping off the national radar screen the incessant reporting on Donald Trump's latest whinges and the millionth rehash of the styles on display at the royal wedding. But, those shiny keys also has bumped off news that actually have some import in the real world, among them this story from the Sacramento Bee.

Because of budgetary problems, the Sacramento county has had to cut funding for the First 5 Program, one that serves children up to age five with programs to enhance their health and education. The program itself is funded by cigarette taxes, but the money has been diverted from this program by the state to meet budget shortfalls.

The First 5 Sacramento Commission on Monday slashed $48.5 million from programs serving young children in the county.

The cuts were necessary because the state recently took $1 billion in reserve funds from First 5 commissions across California to help balance the state budget.

First 5 Sacramento responded mostly by reducing appropriations by a quarter to one-half for a range of programs over the next five years. [Emphasis added]

Here are some of the cuts to the program:

A program to add fluoridation to waters in the county to stave off tooth decay;

A breast-feeding program run under the auspices of the federal Women, Infants, and Children agency;

A school-readiness program to prepare youngsters for education, comparable to the pre-schools many of the families could not afford.

And, of course, with the cuts in these programs, the county First 5 program won't need as many staffers, so employees are being laid off now.

This sort of scenario is being played out not only at the local level, but also across the state and the nation, all because tax hikes are off the table, especially when it comes to the privileged, and because deficit spending has become the boogieman du jour.

But the health and welfare of poorer children aren't nearly as interesting as Donald Trump's hair piece or of Kate Middleton Windsor's wedding gown, much less the death of an international nemesis. So we won't be hearing much about it.

Tidings of Great Joy

I had fully intended to take today off from blogging. It is, after all, Christmas and as a practicing Christian (OK, so I haven't gotten it right yet) I treasure this holy day. I meant to just slap up a Christmas Tree graphic with a few well-wishes and to leave it at that. But I came across this article in the New York Times and couldn't resist.

It's about the use of off-the-grid electricity generated by renewable energy sources such as solar panels, biomass, and mini-hydroelectric dams by poor people in the third world located far from traditional power sources. The lead example is the torturous path a woman had to take to recharge her cell phone (the only access many have for financial transactions in rural areas in this part of the world). Finally, she scraped together enough money to put a single solar panel on the roof of her home. That provided enough electricity to not only recharge her phone, but also to run some LED lights so that her children could study at night. She's saving money now that she doesn't have to pay for a wild three hour ride to the closest charging station and she doesn't have to pay for kerosene for the only light source her kids had.

The article notes that such devices are gaining in popularity, and are providing an alternative to waiting for the governments of poor countries to find the money to extend power far from the capitals. And these devices are not adversely affecting the environment the way traditional energy sources and the grid to deliver that energy would.

As small-scale renewable energy becomes cheaper, more reliable and more efficient, it is providing the first drops of modern power to people who live far from slow-growing electricity grids and fuel pipelines in developing countries. Although dwarfed by the big renewable energy projects that many industrialized countries are embracing to rein in greenhouse gas emissions, these tiny systems are playing an epic, transformative role.

It's healthy trend, but it's limited at the present for a number of reasons, not the least of which is economy of scale, as noted by John Maina, executive coordinator of Sustainable Community Development Services based in Kenya.

“Finally, these products exist, people are asking for them and are willing to pay,” he said. “But we can’t get supply.” He said small African organizations like his do not have the purchasing power or connections to place bulk orders themselves from distant manufacturers, forcing them to scramble for items each time a shipment happens to come into the country.

Part of the problem is that the new systems buck the traditional mold, in which power is generated by a very small number of huge government-owned companies that gradually extend the grid into rural areas. Investors are reluctant to pour money into products that serve a dispersed market of poor rural consumers because they see the risk as too high.

Developed countries are more interested in the grandiose: the huge windmill farms, the major hydroelectric projects. Simple devices which would serve the millions of poor rural dwellers are just not sexy enough for the much smaller investment which would be needed to proved such a major difference in the lives of so many people.

The United Nations is beginning to "get" the benefits of the smaller but wiser projects involving single solar panels and individual biomass tanks filled with the manure of the family cows. Now it's a matter of educating the rest of the world, and, quite frankly, this article does a fine job along those lines.

Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me

I suspect that this article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune was intended to showcase the good works of the local churches with respect to the problems of increased homelessness among families. And there is nothing wrong with such a showcase: providing shelter and transportation to those who've lost their jobs and their homes is indeed a laudable effort, especially with winter approaching. That local religious groups have put together such programs fairly quickly is a testament to the principle of caritas. Still, given the expense involved, one wonders how long the groups can continue to provide this temporary safety net.

Churches are responding to the rise of homelessness in the Twin Cities by aligning with groups such as Families Moving Forward and sheltering families for three to four weeks over the course of a year.

It's a practical approach that takes advantage of churches' cheap, open space and abundant volunteers. But it also has critics, because organizers move families daily between churches and day centers and rotate them to new church shelters every week or two.

Minneapolis-based Families Moving Forward's network of 41 churches and one synagogue includes sites in Eagan, Shoreview and Wayzata. Transportation consumes one-tenth of its budget.

Shelter leaders acknowledged the logistical challenges, but said the model works because families have the day centers as their home bases.

The church networks also remain cheaper than most overnight shelters -- despite the transportation expenses - and foster meaningful interactions between the homeless families and their church hosts.

Ordinarily, these families would look to the municipal and state social services departments for assistance, but no state has been untouched by the economic meltdown. When joblessness rises, tax receipts fall, and governmental budgets start gushing red ink. The states and local governments simply cannot keep up. They can no longer promote the general welfare of their citizens.

The church projects are at best a temporary measure, and one that isn't always the most efficient way to do things, especially when it comes to the costs involved.

Among those concerned with the roving church model of shelter is Monica Nilsson, street outreach director for St. Stephen's Human Services in Minneapolis. She figures it costs up to $1,000 per month to shelter a family with the church model and up to $3,000 per month to place a family in a traditional shelter. Both cost more than vouchers families could use to afford housing.

"What they need is a two-bedroom apartment at $800 a month, which is cheaper than both options," she said.

Ms. Nilsson is, of course, correct. But where do those vouchers come from and who will fund them? As I said earlier, the local governments are stretched beyond their capacity as it is. Sooner or later, the churches will have run through whatever money their members can come up with to help the less fortunate. It's time for the federal government to step up and do the right thing.

First of all, unemployment is the key issue. A new, actually bold program of stimulus spending which will benefit workers rather than bankers needs to be put into place immediately. Our crumbling infrastructure would be a good place to start.

Next, an expansion of federal funding for affordable housing needs to be implemented on an emergency basis. Section 8 eligibility should be tinkered with so that more of the newly homeless can qualify immediately and be placed in those two bedroom apartments.

Finally, the federal share of state social service costs needs to be dramatically increased for the next four years so that state and local social service agencies can do the job they were designed to do.

And where does the federal government get the money for these programs? It borrows it while interest rates are so low as to be nonexistent. As people return to work and began paying taxes, some of those expenditures will be offset. Programs which benefit Wall Street and banks can be slashed, as can the corporate welfare inherent in all the subsidies they've garnered over the years.

It's our turn.

Some Unsurprising News

For a couple of months now we have been assured that the economy is back on track and that things are improving here in the US. It certainly doesn't feel that way to most Americans, especially those who are unemployed, but it turns out that for some Americans, that rosy forecast is true.

Unemployment remains at near-record levels, and most Americans are struggling to rebuild their battered finances. But the country's wealthy are once again doing just fine, thank you.

No group was immune to the downturn. In 2008, as the financial crisis raged, the stock market hit bottom and the Great Recession ate into the economy, the number of millionaires in the United States plunged.

But last year the number of millionaires bounced up sharply, new data show.

And after that decline and rebound, the millionaire class held a larger percentage of the country's wealth than it did in 2007. [Emphasis added]

So, how did this happen? Well, it's actually quite simple, so simple that even an economic dunderhead like I am can understand it. It all has to do with what different groups of people do with what money they have:

The rebound largely reflects the stock market's powerful surge from 12-year lows reached in March 2008. Even though the long bear market that began in late 2007 continued into early last year, the Dow Jones industrials gained 19% over the course of 2009.

As a result, the expansion of the portfolios of the rich resembled the quick recovery of the profits of Wall Street investment banks and the bonuses of their executives, both of which depend on the health of the stock market.

The boom didn't reach all parts of the population. For the middle class, home values account for a larger slice of a family's wealth than they do for the rich. And unlike stocks, home values remain at or near the lows they reached after a painful crash.

In fact, real estate and other hard assets, such as $200,000 cars, aren't reflected in Boston Consulting Group's report. Had they been, the financial condition of ordinary Americans would have appeared even worse. [Emphasis added]

A person who is unemployed or underemployed is not going to be investing in the stock market. He or she is going to spend money on food and rent, perhaps even house payments. There isn't any margin for anything beyond trying to catch up on overdue bills. Asset growth is not an option for the lower and middle classes, at least not at this point in the recovery. At some point, this is going to be the kind of problem even the wealthy are going to have to face, especially if unemployment figures continue at or near double digits.

"The recession is going to end up accentuating the inequalities of income and wealth we've seen for 30 years," said Larry Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute in Washington. "This requires attention if we're going to see robust wealth growth going forward."

Our owners just might want to watch their backs.

Old, Sick, And Poor

California's budget woes continue, which is, of course, no surprise. When raising taxes or fees is off the table and unemployment is still in double digits, balancing the budget gets tricky. Governor Schwarzenegger's solution for raising some money is to cut out home health care for the elderly and disabled. He tried cutting the program last year, but got slapped down by a judge for doing so. This time, rather than nibble at the edges of state run program, the Governator has decided to just end the program completely and to forgo the federal money that came with it.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to present a revised budget plan Friday that would dismantle some of California's landmark healthcare programs after efforts to scale them back have been reversed by federal courts.

The rulings, issued mostly over the last two years, have already forced the state to unwind roughly $2.4 billion in cuts approved by the governor and Legislature and have alarmed other financially strapped states seeking ways to balance their budgets.

Schwarzenegger has lashed out at the federal judges, saying they've been "going absolutely crazy" and accusing them of interfering with the state's ability to get its finances in order. ...

Administration officials declined to reveal which specific programs the governor would eliminate. But officials involved in the budget process, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly, said they would probably include home healthcare for the elderly and disabled, a nearly $2-billion program that serves 440,000 Californians. Cuts that lawmakers and the governor made to the program in an effort to balance the budget have been blocked by legal rulings over the last year.

The court decisions restrict their ability to make cuts in the programs, officials said, but they don't preclude dismantling them. Abolishing home healthcare services would mean forfeiting the federal Medicaid money that helps fund them. But the money comes with requirements that the courts said California did not meet. The state would not have to follow the requirements if it did away with the program, and thus would no longer risk having its financial plans upended in court.

The fact that the program beneficiaries will now have to be placed in nursing homes at a much higher cost to the state than this program had been doesn't seem to bother the governor much, but then he's about to be termed out. He's perfectly happy to let Meg Whitman deal with it.

And it's not just in California that such cuts are considered acceptable. Minnesota's Governor Tim Pawlenty has taken the same hacksaw to that state's budget woes:

Gov. Tim Pawlenty vetoed a major health and human services spending bill Thursday, just hours after it cleared the House and Senate in a late-night session, but then hinted to reporters that he might be open to negotiations. ...

DFL legislators had expected the veto because, although the bill cuts $114 million from current spending in state programs, it also provides health insurance for about 82,000 poor childless adults through the state-federal Medicaid program -- a shift the governor has opposed. ...

House Speaker Margaret Kelliher, DFL-Minneapolis, was quick to call the veto an error: "With more than 240,000 Minnesotans out of work and the state facing a multi-billion dollar deficit, Gov. Pawlenty vetoed 21,000 [health care] jobs and pulled the plug on $1.4 billion in badly needed federal funding," said Kelliher, who is the DFL-endorsed candidate for governor.

There's never a good time to be poor in this country, but right now it's downright deadly.