Details have emerged on the upcoming protest against the seemingly endless wars. The protests, organized by the United National Antiwar Committee UNAC. You can download the protest flyers.

NYC · SF

Here are the demands from the flyers:

WE DEMAND Bring U.S. Troops, Mercenaries and War Contractors Home Now: Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan! End the sanctions and stop the threats of war against the people of Iran, North Korea and Yemen. No to war and plunder of the people of Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa! End U.S. Aid to Israel! End U.S. Support to the Israeli Occupation of Palestine and the Siege of Gaza! End support of dictators in North Africa!

WE DEMAND an end to FBI raids on antiwar, social justice, and international solidarity activists, an end to the racist persecution and prosecutions that ravage Muslim communities, an end to police terror
in Black and Latino communities, full rights and legality for immigrants and an end to all efforts to repress and punish Wikileaks and its contributors and founders.

WE DEMAND the immediate end to torture, rendition, secret trials, drone bombings and death squads.

WE DEMAND trillions for jobs, education, social services, an end to all foreclosures, quality single-payer healthcare for all, a
massive conversion to sustainable and planet-saving energy systems and public transportation and reparations to the victims of U.S. terror at home and abroad.

I especially am fond of the mention of public transportation, since it prevents Global Warming. Also, our dependency on automobiles puts us in Big Oil's pockets, which results in a lot of wars and military bases.

Here are the whens and wheres.

NYC:
Saturday, April 9th Noon
March & Rally
Union Square
14 St & Broadway

...

SF:
SUNDAY, APRIL 10TH
ASSEMBLE AT DOLORES PARK AT 11AM · NOON RALLY · MARCH AT 1:30PM

I hope a lot of people in those areas can turn out. These wars are horrific by themselves, but then you have to add the budgetary pressure they create, which is used as an excuse to cut desperately needed government programs and desperately needed government jobs.

 

Instead of doing sensible and productive things to reduce deficits like ending the Iraq and Afghanistan wars or making their wealthy donors pay their fair share in taxes, House Republicans are proposing slashing federal spending that benefits the middle class and the poor.

Desperate to prove just how much they are bought and paid for by Big Oil, the Goppers want to eliminate $1.565 billion in annual Amtrak subsidies. The Goppers, hoping that people are ill informed, I'm sure will claim that Amtrak should be able to survive on its own.

But, they have no interest in making automobile transit pay its way. In addition to direct subsidies to that form of transit, most of our military spending goes to securing oil for the car culture and the Big Oil vultures that benefit financially from it. Those subsidies are in the hundreds of billions of dollars, which make the tiny Amtrak subsidy a mere pittance. None of the military budget subsidy of oil is on the chopping block.

And, Amtrak reduces our CO2 emissions, while Big Oil and the cars they love increase them. The Republicans are mostly Global Warming denialists, but that is hardly surprising. Big campaign checks from Big Oil and Big Coal make sure of that.

The attack on Amtrak is part of the bigger pay for play culture in DC. We need change to public financing of political campaigns. A big first step for that to happen is to have a judiciary honest enough to acknowledge the obvious fact that big money campaign contributions are not "speech."

They are bribes.

 

I've decided to start my first weekly feature here in the land of the Godless Liberal Homo: Action Against Oil Spills Tuesdays. This will be running at least for the next few weeks in order to turn anger into action against more catastrophes like the British Petroleum oil volcano in the Gulf. If we continue offshore drilling, more incidents like this are inevitable.

The first action will be to work to reduce the dependency on automobiles which creates the market for much of the filthy muck in the Gulf. The American Public Transportation Association has an Action Alert for people to contact the folks who are supposed to be representing us in DC asking them to push for more money for public transportation during the next appropriations process. Here is the sample text: (You should replace all or most of it with your own words.)

Public transportation benefits all Americans. Please support further investment in public transportation because public transportation:

-CREATES JOBS AND STIMULATES THE ECONOMY
For every $1 invested in public transit, $6 is generated in economic returns. And every $1 billion invested in public transportation supports 30,000 jobs in urban and rural areas.

-REDUCES OUR DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN OIL
Public transportation allows us to save 900,000 automobile fill-ups each day. That's 4.2 billion gallons of gasoline annually that we're not buying overseas.

-PROTECTS OUR ENVIRONMENT
Public transportation saves 37 million metric tons of CO2 annually. That's the equivalent of the electricity used by nearly 5 million homes.

-ENHANCES OUR QUALITY OF LIFE
Each year, public transit saves auto drivers and truckers more than $10.2 billion in congestion costs, which in turn, reduces stress. What's more, public transportation connects us to work, school and health services.

Only a small percentage of the population in this country uses public transit, and that much CO2 is being kept out of the atmosphere. Think how much more CO2 would be kept out if we massively expanded public transit.

Please Take Action to Prevent More Oil Spills!

 

British Petroleum, through its unconscionable negligence, has committed an environmental atrocity whose impact cannot even be measured yet because the spill keeps on going. The idea that their assets should be seized to pay for what they have done is quite reasonable, but it is getting little play in corporate media that are against corporate accountability.

Where as the contingency planning? It's not like the disaster is even slightly surprising. It is precisely what every environmentally aware person expected to happen all along. Offshore drilling itself is an incredibly reckless and irresponsible activity which needs to be stopped. The politicians need to represent the people instead of the corporations and ban all offshore drilling while they seize BP's corporate assets to compensate people for what BP has caused.

It's no secret that Big Oil's lobbyists in DC have worked tirelessly to underfund public transportation for decades. If we had a massively expanded system of subways and commuter trains, we would have no use for all the oil that is extracted through the unconscionable practice of offshore drilling.

 

 

Expanding public rail transport is a great way to address a lot of problems facing our society. Some of those problems include:

- Global Warming

- Automobile Accident Deaths

- High Unemployment

- Trade Deficits

- The Obesity Epidemic

So far, Congress and the Obama administration have been giving rail transportation and public transit in general a far lower priority than building more and more roads, which makes all the problems mentioned above worse, except high unemployment. We need budgets and stimulus plans that make trains a higher priority than cars.

One way to promote rail transport is now available on Change.org. They are now doing voting on Ideas for Change, proposals to bring real, positive changes to our government and our society. One of those ideas is to Rebuild America's Rail System. Voting for it is one way to promote rail transit. Blogging about it is another.

Here's the code you can use to put the widget for it on your blog or blog posting.
<div style="text-align:center; width: 211px;"><embed src="http://www.change.org/widget_flash/ideas.swf?xmlFile=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.change.org%2Fwidgets%2Fcontent%2Fchange_idea%2F110" quality="high" wmode="transparent" width="211" height="283" name="IdeaForChange" align="middle" allowScriptAccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" /></embed></div>

 

Photo: saaby

Media coverage of climate change and most climate change legislation tends to neglect public transportation. This is odd, given the fact that public transportation is much more energy efficient than the automobile, even an electric one. Rail and bus transportation are integral aspects of any serious effort to slow the warming of the planet.

Global Warming has become a major focus of most environmental groups, as it should. However, I haven't seen as much from the environmental movement as I would expect on public transport as a critical aspect of reducing CO2 emissions. In order to determine whether this perception is reasonable or not, I decided to check the websites of major environmental organizations, focusing on ones that include Global Warming as part of their agenda. The results were surprisingly disappointing. (Note: I'm only linking to the ones doing a good job.)

Great Organization That Makes Public Transportation a Integral Part of Fighting Global Warming:
Friends of the Earth

Good Organization That Makes a Significant Effort on Public Transportation:
Environmental Working Group

Makes Public Transit a Higher Priority, But It Gets Diffused by Corporate Interests:
Environmental Defense Fund

Notes:
- suckered by Bloomberg into supporting congestion tax whose funds never were intended for use on public transportation
- their emphasis is on "partnerships with corporations" which reduces ability to advocate in favor of the environment

Some Mentions of Public Transportation, But Not a High Priority
Climate Institute
Greenpeace

Barely Mention Public Transportation:
Alliance for Climate Protection
Earth Day Network
National Resources Defense Council
Sierra Club
StopGlobalWarming.com
Union of Concerned Scientists
Wilderness Society
World Wildlife Fund

After looking at this, I really need to find out more about Friends of the Earth. I've heard of them before, I haven't done a very good job of following their work in the past. At least they get the fact that the supremacy of the automobile is a major hindrance to dealing with preventing Global Warming.

The Environmental Defense Fund's "partnerships with corporations" are an extreme example of a problem for many environmental groups. They often depend on financial support from the very same wealthy and corporate interests they need to be opposing. It's a dilemma with lots of liberal advocacy organizations, actually.

I should note that there is a lobbying group for public rail transit organizations. I don't usually like industry lobbies, but the work of this one happens to coincide with the public interest completely. The American Public Transportation Association has a site geared towards advocacy by the general public.

PublicTransportation.org

Fighting a war takes a lot of energy. The vehicles, planes, and ships use up a lot of fuel. High tech equipment used for combat also takes a lot of power. All of this generates CO2 emissions. When one evaluates a war policy, this enormous carbon footprint must be taken into account.

Also, wars take a lot of money to keep going. Some of that money could go to solar/wind/geothermal subsidies and desperately needed expansions of our public transportation systems. Our most important efforts to reduce climate change are being hampered by our steadily escalating war budgets.

The war in Iraq ads another layer to all of this. Fighting a war to increase the power and profits of Big Oil only reinforces our society's structural dependency on petroleum. When so much of our policy time and effort are devoted to a Big Oil foreign policy, there is less available for working together with other countries to reduce CO2 emissions.

Under these circumstances, there is no rational way to justify continuing the illegal war in Iraq. Over 1.3 million Iraqis have been killed, the vast majority by US troops. The war mongers keep pretending that we are helping or protecting the Iraqis by staying there and occupying their country. Yet, the occupation force is responsible for most of the violence. Every excuse for continuing the war evaporates under rational scrutiny.

It's time to tell Obama to take Global Warming seriously. A big part of that means ending the war against the Iraqi people and bringing all the troops and mercenaries home. From a logistical perspective, Obama easily could have finished this months ago. (Claims to the contrary are subtle slurs against the competency of our military.)

Tell President Obama to Withdrawal All Troops and Mercenaries from Iraq Now!

www.whitehouse.gov/contact

202-456-1111

 

There is a climate bill in Congress, one that is too weak. There is an online petition asking Senators to strength the bill. However, even if it were strong, other things would still need to be done to resist climate change. Some of these things follow.

1) Support More Funding for Public Transportation:
In the long term, expanding public transportation is the most important thing we can do do fight Global Warming. Improving mileage is good because it reduces CO2 production, but cars will never be able to compete on an emissions basis with public transport. The National Alliance of Public Transportation Advocates has an Action Alert on efforts in Congress to increase public transportation funding. You can tell that the Action Alert is written by a DC lobbying group, but the cause is just. Here's the most important part.

The STAA recommends a five-year investment of almost $100 billion for public transportation programs - a more than 90% increase over the levels provided in the last surface transportation authorization bill. These funds would help create and maintain thousands of jobs, help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, save energy and provide for new mobility choices for millions of Americans. In addition, the legislation would authorize $50 billion to help support President Obama's vision for the creation of a new high speed rail network in the United States.

Take Action!

2) Oppose Clear Cutting in Alaska:
Fighting Global Warming isn't just about reducing CO2 emissions, though that is incredibly important. It's also about opposing deforestation. Forests are important for storing carbon which otherwise would end up in the atmosphere as CO2. Unfortunately, the Obama Administration doesn't care. From Care2's petition:

In a stunning blow to the environment, the Obama Administration just approved a clearcut of 382 acres of timber in a roadless area of Alaska's Tongass National Forest.

The clearcut in the Tongass will involve building 6.9 miles of roads and rebuilding another 1.9 miles of old roads. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack put a temporary halt to timber sales in roadless areas of national forests -- but he approved this timber sale despite the concerns of people who care about this important temperate rainforest, home to numerous endangered species.

Vilsack argues it'll provide much-needed jobs for the region -- but even in troubled economic times, we cannot sacrifice the future of our planet! Urge President Obama to reverse this decision and ensure no more clearcutting and roadbuilding occurs in the Tongass.

This illustrates another problem. Forest management should not be in the Dept. of Agriculture. Agriculture involves using living things to make products. Forests have a lot of critical functions that fit completely outside this mindset.

Please Sign the Petition!

3) Don't Drill, Baby!
Defenders of Wildlife has a Care2 petition calling on the Secretary of Interior to reconsider shocking plans to allow drilling in Alaska. The focus of the alert is on the wildlife, but increased oil drilling anywhere contributes to Global Warming. We need more public transportation, not more oil drilling. Here is the text of their petition.

Just because Sarah Palin is stepping down as governor, doesn't mean Alaska's wildlife is safe. Bristol Bay -- home to sea otters, whales, sea lions and the world's largest run of sockeye salmon -- could soon be open to oil and gas drilling.

Bristol Bay is not only one of the most biologically productive places on the planet, providing vital habitat for hundreds of fish species and dozens of marine mammals, but it is also an economic powerhouse. Bristol Bay and the northern Bering Sea supply more than 40% of all U.S. fish catch and bring in more than $2 billion a year.

If action is not taken, Bristol Bay could soon be open to oil and gas drilling exponentially increasing the chances for a disastrous oil spill. Help stop the drilling and urge U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to reconsider plans to allow drilling in one of the world's most sensitive places.

Please Sign the Petition!

A recent post on Preserve, Protect, and Defend does an excellent job of pointing out the frustrations Obama supporters have with his conservative critics in the corporate media and in Congress. I encourage you to read the whole post, part of which I'm excerpting here.

I'm so sick of all the talking-heads that spout only drivel, second-guessers, back-seat-drivers, know-nothings and do-nothings that I could vomit.

At the same time that they're telling Obama that he's not doing enough: that he should have solved the economic crisis by now— you know, the one that took at least all the years since Reagan took office to create —they're managing to tell him that he's doing too much. Somehow, they've managed to convince themselves he can do both simultaneously.
And they accuse us of calling him Superman.

What they're actually saying is that they don't want to save the environment and create sustainable energy sources. They don't want the rest of us to have affordable health care. They don't want to care for our veterans. They don't want to allow the children of us peons to receive an education. And they absolutely refuse to see how all these matters are related to each other and the economy.

It is understandable that people would be tired of the nihilism and opportunism of the right. However, we all have a responsibility to be "back seat drivers" and "second guessers." In a democracy , that is our responsiblity and inalienable right. We have to remember that politicians work for us, not the other way around.

There are critics on the left who are making legitimate points about the need for Obama to do more. He needs to do more, a lot more, in many areas. Here are some blatantly obvious examples.

- Budgeting a massive expansion of our nation's public transportation network

- Rapidly and completely withdrawing from a war on Iraq that is devastating our economy while destroying theirs

- Working for a moratorium on foreclosures

- Supporting HR 676, the single payer healthcare bill, rather than imperiously saying that single payer is "off the table"

- Restoring all the financial regulations that were included in the Glass-Steagall Act, which was slowly eviscerated by Republicans as well as Phonycrats like Bill Clinton

- Subjecting hedge funds to all the same transparency and regulations of regular mutual funds

- Repealing the Bush tax cuts for the rich ASAP, given the easily observed fact that tax cuts for the rich slow the economy and helped to cause the crises we face

- Budgeting money for the Gulf Coast Civil Works Project

- Working in a calm, cooperative manner with the international community to repeal NAFTA and other corporate controlled trade agreements, including dissolving the World Trade Organization

- Strongly enforcing our nation's antitrust laws so we won't have the economic disruptions caused by huge corporations going under

- Firing Larry Summers, chief Clinton administration architect of financial deregulation and corporate controlled trade deals

These are just areas where there are deficiencies in Obama's economic policies. There are a lot of policy deficiencies in other areas too.

We need to push Obama hard, not blindly support a center-right Democrat like him. We can't afford to go along with too much of the same when the same is devastating our country. Liberals and progressives cannot afford to make the same mistake we made before of giving Bill Clinton a chance. That was a disaster. We need to fight hard no matter which politician is in office.

 

In my comments on a post on Mock Paper Scissors, I suggested some positive ideas for helping to get us out of the mess we are in. I thought I would elaborate on them here. So many people are in panic mode, when what we need to be in is action mode. I encourage other liberal and progressive bloggers to make their own proposals on how to get us out of this mess.

1) Raise taxes on the rich and use the money for jobs programs, especially ones which would provide long term benefits for the economy. The Stimulus Plan had some public works spending, but nowhere near enough. Two examples include:

- A massive expansion of our nation's public transport systems: Even NYC is underserved by its subway system, and we have it better than most. Expanding mass transit nationwide, especially fuel efficient rail transit, would prevent future economic problems by reducing Global Warming, cutting back on trade deficits, and reducing obesity . (Public transit encourages more physical activity than car culture.)

- The Gulf Coast Civil Works Project: Due to corruption, racism, and incompetence, the Gulf Coast region still hasn't even come close to recovering from Katrina and Rita. The GCCW would fund the reconstruction of this region and employ displaced people to do it. This is the kind of common sense approach that is long overdue. Here's an Action Alert to support it.

2) Pass legislation to fire all the CEOs at the struggling banks and automakers. The legislation also should nullify the golden parachutes. A major reason why these companies are failing is bad management. The CEOs need to be removed in order to improve the idiotic directions they have taken their companies in. In the auto industry, the unions should be put in charge. They have pushed for fuel efficient vehicles for decades and they have more incentive to promote long term sustainability over short term profits.

3) Freeze interest rates on Adjustable Rate Mortgages. Given that interest rates have been low, there is no excuse for the interest rates of so many Adjustable Rate Mortgages (ARMs) to be jumping so astronomically. These predatory lending practices are making people homeless, destroying home equity, and bankrupting the banks led by the idiot banksters responsible for them.

4) Withdraw all troops from Iraq ASAP, ending a diversion of US resources to the destruction of another country’s economy.

5) Start busting the trusts: There needs to be far greater enforcement of our antitrust laws and legislation closing loopholes sleazy corporate lawyers and conservative judges have created. Legislation should also give consumer groups and unions standing in court to sue to block mergers. The number of lawyers involved in antitrust work at the Dept. of Justice should be expanded dramatically. Mergers inevitably lead to job losses, job losses our economy cannot afford. Also, when any company is "too big to fail," it is just plain too big and needs to be broken up.

This also applies to breaking up Microsoft. If not for the corruption of the Bush regime, the Redmond blue screen of death generators would have been broken up into several companies under our antitrust laws. This still needs to happen. Our economy is damaged by Microsoft's use of anticompetitive tactics to make its low quality products market dominant. Our economic productivity is too important to allow Microsoft to get away with this.

I'll be updating this post when I read about other good proposals or think up ones of my own.

 

People who thought that the GOP lost the last two elections handily must be surprised that President Obama is embracing one of the most dangerous and irresponsible GOP policies: tax cuts. It's as if McCain is in the White House.

Tax cuts have had a dismal place in our nation's economic history. The Reagan tax cuts led to the worst recession in our country since the Great Depression. Only an effort by Congress to raise taxes, led by Bob Dole of all people, got our economy moving again and helped to reelect Reagan.

Bush's tax cuts have been disastrous. The small checks for middle class and poor people did nothing to help our economy. They might have stimulated China's economy marginally, but China doesn't buy much anything from us.

Bush's enormous tax cuts for the rich have played a key role in our desperate economic situation. They contributed significantly to our government and foreign debt while doing nothing to create jobs here in the US. The wealthy used these unearned windfalls in an orgy of speculation, creating bubble after bubble (stocks, subprime mortgages, oil, gold, etc.) leading to crash after crash. Our treasury was looted to a huge extent to create money which mostly disappeared in 2008.

Now, Barack Obama actually wants more tax cuts?

A stimulus package should stimulate the economy, not slow it down. But, tax cuts will do just that. People aren't spending money because they are lusting after $500 checks. They are holding back on spending because they are afraid of losing their jobs. Only direct job creation will revive the economy.

The stimulus package also includes education, energy, and infrastructure spending with money thrown in to prevent layoffs of state and local government employees. There's even a bit for public transportation, a bit which should be much, much more. However, the beneficial effect of this spending will basically be wiped out be the damaging effects of the tax cuts.

Obama's stimulus package is a short term economic wash that vastly increases the federal debt. Oops!

Tell Obama that there should be no tax cuts in the stimulus package!

Contact President Obama Now!

 

One of the reasons why FDR's New Deal was such a good deal for the country was that it included public works projects that enhanced economic growth for decades. If we are going to spend hundreds of billions of dollars in a Stimulus Package as Obama would like us to do, that should include a major investment for public transportation, especially rail transit. This would accomplish the following for decades:

- Fight global warming

- Reduce stress for commuters

- Reduce our consumption of foreign oil, reducing trade deficits and foreign debt

- Fight the obesity epidemic, since car culture is more sedentary

- Put less money in the hands of fundamentalist regimes like the one in Saudi Arabia

The Transit Riders Alliance has a wonderful Action Alert on the subject. Here is the default text, which you should rewrite.

The right investment for our future is transit.

Make sure to include $48 billion for transit in the stimulus bill.. $48 billion would fund all transit projects that are ready to go over the next two years, according to the American Public Transportation Association.

A transit investment will reduce our business and energy costs in the long term, particularly for drivers who will enjoy less traffic congestion, by getting more riders onto public transportation.

And in the short term, these green construction jobs will get people working again.

Other infrastructure investments are not as economically powerful by reducing both transportation costs and energy costs.

Please note that the $5 billion for high-speed and intercity rail is on top of the $48 billion for transit. The times call for bold, innovative investments that will pay off in the long run.

Let me know if you will tell your leaders that you support $48 billion for transit in the stimulus.

Thank you.

Take Action to Support Public Transportation

Please also contact Change.gov to support funding for public transportation in the Stimulus Package.

Photos (top to bottom):
Brent and MariLynn
skew-t
andy in nyc

 

The subway, bus, and commuter train systems in NYC all fall under the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA). The very same MTA is projecting a 2009 budget shortfall of $1.2 billion. Unless other revenue sources are found, major service cuts and 50% fare increases are planned.

Our pathetic excuse for a mayor, Michael Bloomberg has offered nothing of any constructive value to deal with the crisis. If it doesn't involve massive government handouts to his extremely wealthy friends, Bloomberg isn't interested. New York City desperately needs leadership on a transportation crisis that will create greater economic inequality and increase CO2 emissions.

Comptroller William Thompson actually is offering a possible solution, showing leadership that hizdizzzoner won't. From AM NY 11/23/08:

To help fill the transit agency’s expected $1.2 billion deficit next year, Comptroller William Thompson proposed yesterday creating a new vehicle registration fee to generate about $365 million in new funds for the MTA.

...

“Instead of asking subway and bus riders who can least afford it to dig deeper into emptier pockets for less service, we need imaginative ideas that will ensure that those who benefit from a healthy transit system pay their fair share,” Thompson said at a news conference outside Grand Central Terminal.

Thompson, who is running for mayor, proposed adding a weight-based vehicle registration fee that would raise $100 per vehicle weighing 2,300 pounds or less plus nine cents for every extra pound.

...

The annual fee would also be an incentive for people to buy smaller, more fuel-efficient cars and could be coupled with a parking-zone regulation that only allows city-registered vehicles to park overnight, he said.

The comptroller’s office said a similar transit-funding registration fee exists in Seattle. Transit advocates commended the plan and urged the Ravitch Commission and lawmakers to approve it.

It turns out that NYC does less than the rest of the country to encourage people to fight Global Warming by taking public transportation.

“The share that riders pay of the transit’s systems cost is going to go up from 69 percent which is the highest by far in the nation already to 83 percent, putting a hard burden on the riding public,” said Straphangers Campaign staff attorney Gene Russianoff.

Another idea being proposed by New York City Council Members Eric Gioia and David Yassky is for the MTA to move out of its pricey offices in Manhattan to less expensive real estate. The MTA could then rent out their Manhattan building and make money to be used to pay for mass transit.

Bloomberg is showing the lack of leadership and interest in public affairs of a typical lame duck, even though he has faced massive public condemnation for strong arming the violation of voter passed term limits through the City Council. The Mayor's office has been an expensive toy for Michael Bloomberg, one he has been willing to pay tens of millions of dollars to purchase the past two "elections."

Those of us who live in NYC are paying the real price.

Photo: Annie Mole

 

Stimulus plans are the buzz of the news outlets, yet very little is discussed in specifics. The failure of the Bush/Reid/Pelosi stimulus plan earlier this year shows that future ones need to be designed more intelligently.

What Should Not Be Included in a Stimulus Plan?

Tax cuts for the rich: Rich people speculate wildly with money from tax cuts, as we have seen with the various investment bubbles and the Crash of 2008. Giving more money to the rich just hurts the economy. If anything, we should use tax increases to make them pay something closer to the fair share in taxes.

Tax cuts or rebates for the rest of us: We won't flush the money down the toilet like rich people usually do, but tax cuts for those of us who are middle class and for the poor won't stimulate the economy. Why? The main reason people are not spending is job insecurity. A small tax cut or a few hundred dollars in a rebate won't open up peoples' wallets when they are afraid of losing their jobs. Any serious effort to stimulate the economy must involve direct job creation. Tax cuts for the middle class and the poor might be part of an economic justice bill, but no one should pretend that they will get us out of our current mess.

What Should Be Included in a Stimulus Plan?

Ending the Iraq War: The Iraq War is a huge drain on our economy. Bringing people and their paychecks home would be a big help.

Lengthening the time people can receive unemployment insurance: Making job loss less frightening makes spending less frightening. Simple logic often gets lost in corporate media that are focused on making their rich owners and advertisers happy.

Public works focusing on long term needs: A sensible stimulus plan won't just be about fixing our short term troubles. It will provide long term economic assistance that will help to pay off the money being spent now. For instance, fixing our crumbling infrastructure will prevent economic disruptions caused by failed bridges, water mains, etc. Massive expansion of public transportation will reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources and fight global warming, both of which will help the economy in the long term. Even NYC is not adequately covered by its subway system, and the city has the best subway system in the country. America can and must do better than that.

Financial support for state and local governments: State and local governments aren't allowed to run deficits, and that means that jobs are being cut due to falling tax revenues. Our economy can not afford more lost jobs. The bailout should include financial help to states tied to preventing layoffs.

Expanded healthcare coverage: This will create jobs for doctors, nurses, and administrators in a time when we need more jobs. It also would make currently uninsured people more secure to spend money since they are less likely to be bankrupted by a medical emergency. Expanding the services of the Veterans Administration would be a just and politically easy place to start, but the general population needs help too.

Greening the federal government: A lot of people could be hired to install solar and wind power at government facilities. That would create future savings for the government while putting downward pressure on energy prices for the entire country. Pushing telecommuting for more federal, state, and local government employees would reduce our use of foreign oil, reducing our foreign borrowing.

Carefully bailing out the automakers: This is an area where American workers and the taxpayers could get screwed if Congress and Obama are not careful. A bailout for the automakers should be used exclusively to help pay the wages and salaries of American employees. The automakers should lose the portion of the bailout that goes to any employees that get laid off. Otherwise, we will just be paying a bunch of corporations to ship jobs oversees.

Freezing ARM interest rate increases and foreclosures: This wouldn't cost the government any money and would dramatically stimulate the economy. It also would protect banks whose own greed and foolishness keeps them from taking these financially prudent steps on their own.

Update - Increase funding for food stamps: A hunger activist on the WBAI news suggested that increased food stamp funding should be included in the stimulus package. This is an excellent idea. Food stamps, unlike tax cuts, have to be spent. Also, the last thing we need for rebuilding consumer confidence is to have peoples' relatives, friends, and former co-workers hungry or going to soup kitchens. An added benefit of this policy is to prevent layoffs at food markets.

 

The Bush regime, blinded by corruption and rightist ideology, is pushing a stimulus plan with two main components. The first is a one time tax rebate of $300-$600 for all taxpayers. That is largely a smokescreen for the main point of the plan, another tax cut for the rich, in this case, tax cuts for business.

This makes little sense from an economic prospective. Bush's past tax cuts, focused primarily on the wealthy, have been followed with in the weakest economic recovery in US history. Their main impact on the economy, increasing the disparity between the rich on the one hand, and the middle class and the poor on the other, is largely responsible for our current economic crisis.

Lower real incomes for most Americans have resulted in an increasing reliance on debt. That debt reliance has become an acute problem now that the housing bubble has burst and people no longer can rely on home equity to buy more crap. Declining incomes have made people reliant on Wal-Mart and other retailers who export jobs out of the US.

Lost jobs and lowered income are not going to be addressed by a modest check from the government. People worried about losing their jobs will be too afraid to spend it on anything but servicing their debts. The only solution to the nation's economic insecurity is to provide more jobs.

In sound economic practice, deficit spending, as would take place in a stimulus plan, would be used for long-term investments in our economic future. Here is a two part plan which would provide real economic stimulus and help our economy grow later on.

1) There should be a bridge-reinforcing plan with immediate funding. This would provide for decent-paying jobs and save the public sector money in the long term.

2) There should be a subway/mass transit building/expansion program with immediate funding. This again would provide good jobs, especially in the hurting construction sector. It also would diminish our dependency on foreign oil and reduce our trade deficits, the latter which are contributing to our country's debt crisis. The reductions in Global Warming will be of future economic benefit as well.

The historical record has shown us that public works programs are the most effective economic stimulus programs. It's time the politicians in Washington learn from history.

There is a tendancy among some people to think that New York Republicans are somehow better than Republicans elsewhere, but that certainly isn’t the case when it comes to blatant political corruption.

The Metropolitan Transit Authority runs the New York Subway, the Metro North Railway, the Staten Island Railroad, and the Long Island Railroad. The board is appointed by the Governor and the Mayor, both Republicans.

The MTA is getting famous for corrupt bidding processes. When they recently offered property in Manhattan for sale, they chose the bid of the New York Jets, even though there were two higher bidders.

Now, it has been announced that the MTA has chosen to sell its Brooklyn railyard property to Brooklyn arch-enemy Bruce Ratner at less than half of the appraised market value, and the appraisal was done by the MTA. The land will be part of a massive arena/real estate project that will destroy much of the Prospect Heights neighborhood and will get an additional taxpayer subsidy thanks to Mayor Bloomberg, who never met a corporate welfare project he didn’t like.

It gets worse. An arbitrator ruled that the MTA must stop with its extremely dangerous conductorless trains on the L line because the dangerous trains violate the MTA’s contract with the transit union. What does the MTA do? They are simply ingoring the ruling. The MTA is desperate to cut jobs so they can give away more money to GOP corporate cronies. Safety just doesn’t matter to them.

The corruption at the MTA, whose board is appointed entirely by a Republican governor and a Republican mayor is typical of the corruption that permeates the GOP. Whether it is Dick Cheney and Halliburton, Tom DeLay’s campaign dealings, Duke Cunnhingham’s ethics problems, or the Diebold ballot “discrepancies,” the GOP’s lack of ethics is utterly amazing. For a party that moralizes at queers, women, and non-Christians with glee, the Republican Party needs to learn some real moral values.