grin
The Berkshire Eagle,
Pittsfield, Massachusetts, April 28, 1945
By Michele Gilman
The Conversation
Republicans continue to use long-debunked myths about the poor as they defend lower taxes for the rich and deep cuts to the social safety netto pay for them. In so doing, they are essentially expressing scorn for working class and low-income Americans.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, for example, recently justified reducing the number of wealthy families exposed to the estate tax as a way to recognize “the people that are investing, as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies.”
Similarly, Sen. Orrin Hatch raised concerns about funding certain entitlement programs. “I have a rough time wanting to spend billions and billions and trillions of dollars to help people who won’t help themselves, won’t lift a finger and expect the federal government to do everything,” he said.
These statements, the likes of which I expect we’ll all hear more of in coming months, reinforce three harmful narratives about low-income Americans: People who receive benefits don’t work, they don’t deserve help and the money spent on the social safety net is a waste of money.
Based on my research and 20 years of experience as a clinical law professor representing low-income clients, I know that these statements are false and only serve to reinforce misconceptions about working class and poor Americans.
Food participants get an average of $125 a month, hardly enough to feed a family without earning money as well. AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty
The first myth, that people who receive public benefits are “takers” rather than “makers,” is flatly untrue for the vast majority of working-age recipients.
Consider Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, formerly known as food stamps, which currently serve about 42 million Americans. At least one adult in more than half of SNAP-recipient households are working. And the average SNAP subsidy is $125 per month, or $1.40 per meal – hardly enough to justify quitting a job.
As for Medicaid, nearly 80 percent of adults receiving Medicaid live in families where someone works, and more than half are working themselves.
In early December, House Speaker Paul Ryan said, “We have a welfare system that’s trapping people in poverty and effectively paying people not to work.”
Not true. Welfare – officially called Temporary Assistance to Needy Families – has required work as a condition of eligibility since then-President Bill Clinton signed welfare reform into law in 1996. And the earned income tax credit, a tax credit for low- and moderate-income workers, by definition, supports only people who work.
Workers apply for public benefits because they need assistance to make ends meet. American workers are among the most productive in the world, but over the last 40 years the bottom half of income earners have seen no income growth. As a result, since 1973, worker productivity has grown almost six times faster than wages.
In addition to wage stagnation, most Americans are spending more than one-third of their income on housing, which is increasingly unaffordable. There are 11 million renter households paying more than half their income on housing. And there is no county in America where a minimum wage worker can afford a two-bedroom home. Still, only 1 in 4eligible households receive any form of government housing assistance.
To be sure, there are recipients of public benefits who do not work. They are primarily children, the disabled and the elderly – in other words, people who cannot or should not work. These groups constitute the majority of public benefits recipients.
Society should support these people out of basic decency, but there are self-interested reasons as well. To begin with, all working adults have been children, will someday be old and, at any time, might face calamities that take them out of the workforce. The safety net exists to rescue people during these vulnerable periods. Indeed, most people who receive public benefits leave the programs within three years.
Moreover, many public benefits pay for themselves over time, as healthier and financially secure people are more productive and contribute to the overall economy. For example, every dollar in SNAP spending is estimated to generate more than $1.70 in economic activity.
Similarly, Medicaid benefits are associated with enhancing work opportunities. The earned income tax credit contributes to work rates, improves the health of recipient families and has long-term educational and earnings benefits for children.
The current federal minimum wage is hardly enough to feed a family. AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato
The second myth is that low-income Americans do not deserve a helping hand.
This idea derives from our belief that the U.S. is a meritocracy where the most deserving rise to the top. Yet where a person ends up on the income ladder is tied to where they started out.
Indeed, America is not nearly as socially mobile as we like to think. Forty percent of Americans born into the bottom-income quintile – the poorest 20 percent – will stay there. And the same “stickiness” exists in the top quintile.
As for people born into the middle class, only 20 percent will ascend to the top quintile in their lifetimes.
The third myth is that government assistance is a waste of money and doesn’t accomplish its goals.
In fact, poverty rates would double without the safety net, to say nothing of human suffering. Last year, the safety net lifted 38 million people, including 8 million children, out of poverty.
In trotting out these myths, Republican lawmakers are also tapping into long-standing racist stereotypes about who receives support. For instance, the “welfare queen” – a code word for an African-American woman with too many children who refuses to work – is a fiction.
The facts of welfare are that most recipients are white, families that receive aid are smaller on average than other families and the program requires recipients to work and is tiny in relation to the overall federal budget – about half a percent. Yet, the welfare queen is an archetype invoked to generate public antagonism against the safety net. Expect her to make frequent appearances in the months to come.
Americans should demand fact-based justifications for tax and entitlement reforms. It is time to retire the welfare queen and related tropes that paint needy Americans as undeserving.
Featured Photo Credit: Politico
Michele Gilman is Venable Professor of Law at the University of Baltimore.
This article was originally published on The Conversation.
I am not sure how to put my feelings towards what is happening in Palestine and in Jerusalem in order. It seems all too frustrating. A state of injustice continues to overrule. However, that country of killing is becoming more visible to be seen. Four five, six are the victims of today. The martyrs that were killed in cold blood by the Israeli war soldiers. More than three hundred are wounded. And God knows how many are being arrested.
In Jerusalem the brutality takes a different form of oppression. Horses, beating, hitting violently, lynching and harassing passerbys. We can no longer sit on the stairs of the Damascus gate. These people are just scared to hell from our presence. Or I would say they are full of hatred and rage for our existence.
Practicing the simple acts of life is becoming the most impossible. Worse, is that increasing scene of having oppressing soldiers who are Arabs. It is so conflicting. I really cannot imagine what the heart or mind that exist in those people is. how do they expect it, and how can they really stand with a weapon facing their own people. Yes… maybe they are not our people. Zionism is no longer about Jewish people. Those Arabs have been in the loop of Zionism since many decades, it is only time that they pop up in forms of soldiers.
israel continue to prove that occupation can never have a human side. a state of occupation can only be state of terror. Terror is not only wearing explosive belts and a beard killing innocents. Terror is wearing a military uniform brutally abusing, breaching, killing unarmend people.
We in Jerusalem need to be protected from the brutality of this terror state of oppression.
Al igual que miles de inmigrantes indocumentados conocidos como “Dreamers”, cuyo futuro permanece en suspenso, Dulce García, abogada local de inmigración y defensa criminal, lucha para compartir sus historias y encontrar una solución permanente para estos jóvenes inmigrantes.
García está entre los demandantes nombrados en la demanda contra el Presidente Donald Trump y su administración por terminar el programa de Acción Diferida para los Llegados en la Infancia (DACA, por su sigla en inglés) que proporcionó permisos de trabajo y protección a jóvenes indocumentados que llegaron a los Estados Unidos como menores de ser deportados.
Este es un tema que apasiona a García porque ella es una de las aproximadamente 800 mil jóvenes conocidas como “Dreamers”.
“He aprendido a no darme por vencida a la primera cuando me cierran una puerta en mi cara, a ser resistente, y me ha hecho más fuerte y me ha convertido en quien ahora soy”, dijo García.
García tiene su despacho jurídico en Barrio Logan y recientemente abrió otro en Chula Vista. Ella está involucrada con varias organizaciones como San Diego Border Dreamers y participa en eventos enfocados en informar a los miembros indocumentados en las comunidades de San Diego sobre sus derechos.
“Sabía que quería ser una abogada de defensa criminal”, dijo García. “Nunca se me ocurrió que estaría practicando la ley de inmigración”.
Pero eso cambió cuando su hermano menor fue detenido por un policía y se le acusó de conducir con una licencia suspendida, a pesar de que no tenía una licencia, y luego fue entregado a ICE, dijo García.
Su hermano fue detenido en El Centro, y aunque aún era estudiante en la universidad, García y su hermano mayor decidieron arriesgarse a ser detenidos en un retén de control para visitar a su hermano detenido.
“Cuando lo vi detenido no era él mismo, le rompieron su espíritu”, dijo. “No pude reconocerlo y entonces supe que tenía que aprender la ley de inmigración”.
García dijo que en ese punto, la ley de inmigración se volvió una necesidad para que ella la entendiera en profundidad.
“He visto tantas personas muy fuertes en mi trabajo”, dijo García. “Mis clientes, he escuchado sus historias y algunos de ellos han pasado por cosas increíbles y hacen que mi historia parezca una buena historia en comparación con algunas de las cosas difíciles por las que ellos han pasado”.
García y su familia se mudaron a Barrio Logan en 1987, pero ella dijo que, al igual que hoy, había una retórica de odio en contra de los latinos, por lo que recuerda haber vivido en una vida protegida porque sus padres no querían que sus hijos estuvieran afuera.
Debido a su estado migratorio, García dijo que su familia temía tener alguna interacción con la policía e incluso con hospitales. Y su temor de que los deportaran fue tan grande que su padre, un soldador, una vez se lastimó el brazo de tal manera que, debido a evitar atención médica inmediata, estuvo cerca de que le amputaran el brazo, dijo García.
García no entendía qué significaba ser indocumentado y relacionó sus limitaciones como familia con su situación financiera, dijo.
Pero su situación legal y sus obstáculos salieron a la luz cuando estaba en el proceso de aplicar a universidades como muchos de sus amigos de la escuela secundaria.
“No me di cuenta de que había una diferencia entre mis compañeros de clase y yo”, dijo García. “No sabía que ser indocumentado iba a afectar el resto de mi vida”.
Después de ser aceptada en varios colegios y universidades, García dijo que decidió buscar el consejo de un consejero escolar muy respetado, pero en cambio le dijo que no podría asistir a la universidad porque ella era una “extranjera ilegal”.
“Estaba destrozada, pensé que mi consejero iba a ser un héroe para mí”, dijo con la voz quebrada. “Y en su lugar dijo ‘eres una extranjera ilegal, ni siquiera vas a ir a un colegio comunitario’”.
García recuerda que salio de la oficina del consejero, y, a pesar de sus comentarios, ella le respondió “mírame hacer esto”.
Ese verano, García asistió a clases nocturnas en un colegio comunitario mientras trabajaba de tiempo completo para un abogado. García luego se transfirió a UC San Diego y se graduó con una licenciatura en ciencias políticas.
En el momento en que García asistía a la universidad, el California Dream Act, que permitía a Dreamers solicitar ayuda financiera para la escuela, no estaba, así que trabajó hasta que ahorró para asistir a la escuela de leyes.
Ella atribuye su necedad para seguir adelante a su madre, a quien describe como una mujer muy fuerte, pero admite que su camino no ha sido fácil, especialmente con la administración presidencial actual.
“A veces me siento tan deprimida y sin esperanza”, dijo García.
Pero luego recuerda a los miembros de su familia y eso le da fuerzas, dijo.
Ella habló más abiertamente sobre su situación legal y su historia cuando la nueva administración amenazaba a DACA, pero ella dijo que simplemente estaba siguiendo los pasos de los activistas de DACA que han estado luchando durante más de 20 años.
“Lo menos que puedo hacer es replicar algunas de las cosas que valientemente han hecho durante 20 años y eso es contar mi historia”, dijo García.
García dijo que entiende que aunque DACA proporcionó alivio para ella y para los demás, muchas personas indocumentadas como su propio hermano mayor no calificaron para el programa.
“El es otra razón por la que sigo peleando porque se quedó fuera de este programa”, dijo García. “Es otra persona que tengo en mente cada vez que hablo en las oficinas del Congreso, cada vez que salgo a la calle a protestar, mis padres y él son los que tengo principalmente en mente”.
García dijo que siente que es su deber a los activistas originales de DACA de hablar tanto como pueda y usar su voz como una herramienta para seguir luchando.
“Hasta que tengamos una solución permanente a esta crisis de DACA, hasta que personas como mis padres estén a salvo, hasta que se reconozca a gente como mi hermano y le devolvamos un poco de dignidad y respeto, seguiremos luchando”, dijo.
Foreign sales of military arms and equipment across the world totalled $374.8 billion in 2016, the first year of growth (by 1.9 per cent), after five years of decline. American companies had a $217.2 billion lion’s share of foreign arms sales. Seven out of ten of the world’s top arms companies were American, earning $152.1 billion, with Lockheed Martin leading with $40.8 billion.
More than a third of the weapons used by “Islamic State” in Iraq and Syria came from European Union states — including Germany, a new report has found. The data shows that deadly arms can often up in the wrong hands.
Foreign sales of military arms and equipment across the world totalled $374.8 billion in 2016, the first year of growth (by 1.9 per cent), after five years of decline. American companies had a $217.2 billion lion’s share of foreign arms sales. Seven out of ten of the world’s top arms companies were American, earning $152.1 billion, with Lockheed Martin leading with $40.8 billion.
US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley has accused Iran of violating international law by supplying missiles to Houthi rebels in Yemen. Tehran has rubbished the claims as “unfounded” and “fabricated.”
They are 2 years old, but developmentally they are 6 months old. The children most severely affected by Zika face a lifetime of care, new research shows.
Mexican agriculture has begun to feel the impacts of climate change, affecting the productivity of some staple foods in the local diet. The photo shows a vegetable street market, with products that go directly from the producers to consumers, in the west of Mexico City. Credit: Emilio Godoy / IPS
By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Dec 14 2017 (IPS)
Azael Meléndez recalls the tornado that in May 2015 struck his hometown of San Gregorio Atlapulco, in Xochimilco, on the outskirts of Mexico City.
“I had never seen anything like it, and I asked my parents, and they said the same thing,” the farmer told IPS.
The tornado lifted fences protecting gardens in the area, whose name means “place in the middle of the water” in the Nahuatl language, and which is located on the south side of greater Mexico City, which is home to 22 million people.
For Meléndez, who has a horticultural project with two other farmers, this is one of the manifestations of climate change, “which has devastated the area along with urbanisation.” The group uses the ancestral method of “chinampas” to grow lettuce, broccoli, radish, beets and aromatic herbs.
They grow crops on an area of about 1,800 square metres, harvesting about 500 kilograms of products per week, which they sell to 10 restaurants, in the wholesale market in the capital and tianguis (street markets).”Agriculture is highly dependent on local weather conditions and is expected to be very sensitive to climate change in the coming years. In particular, a warmer and drier environment could reduce agricultural production.” — Eduardo Benítez
Water shortages, an unstable climate, proliferation of pests, infrequent but more intense rainfall, hail and the effects of human activities are affecting an area that is crucial for the supply of food and for climate regulation in the Mexican capital, says a study by the international environmental organisation Earthwatch Institute.
The system of chinampas, a Nahuatl word that means “the place of the fertile land of flowers”, was practiced by the native peoples long before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors in the 15th century.
The Aztec technique is based on the construction of small, rectangular areas of arable soil to grow crops in the microregion’s wetlands, with fences made of stakes of ahuejote (willow), a water-tolerant tree typical of this ecosystem.
The chinampa method is used on a total of 750 hectares, where about 5,000 farmers work.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) classifies it as one of the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS), for preserving agrobiodiversity, helping farmers adapt to climate change, guaranteeing food security and fighting poverty.
But not only this microregion is affected by climate change. Indeed, it is difficult to find a place in Mexico that is not exposed to it.
The May report “Estimates of potential yields with climate change scenarios for different agricultural crops in Mexico”, by the Ministry of Agriculture and the National Institute of Ecology and Climate Change, projected a decline in rainfall in the country.
The report, focused especially on crops of corn, beans, wheat, soybeans, sorghum and barley, found that water productivity is decreasing for most crops, which means water requirements will increase in the medium term. It also found yield loss for the seven crops, especially marked in the case of corn, beans and wheat.
In the southern state of Chiapas, farmers are already facing water shortages, sudden and heavy rains, floods and rising temperatures.
“The areas need water, we need water for the land, renewed soil, because that is the baseline. And it’s not exclusive to Chiapas, it is happening throughout Mexico,” Consuelo González, a farmer in Chiapas who grows corn on 40 hectares of land, told IPS.
González, a representative of a producers committee for her state, said there are also problems of deforestation and bad agricultural practices.
Chiapas, the second-poorest state in the country, has a sown area of 1.42 million hectares and 62 crops. Among its main products are corn, pastures, coffee, sugar cane, bananas, mangoes, beans and oil palm, which account for nearly 90 percent of the state’s total production.
The 12 most important crops produce 10.11 million tons. In the case of corn, the yield reaches 1.5 tons per hectare, half of the national yield of 3.2 tons, due to the size of the plots and low level of mechanisation.
In 2010, the region passed the Law for Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation in the State of Chiapas, and one year later it implemented the Climate Change Action Plan.
In its nationally determined contribution (NDC), incorporated two years ago in the Paris Agreement on climate change, Mexico included strengthening the diversification of sustainable agriculture among the measures to be adopted by 2030.
Among the instruments to achieve this goal, it establishes the conservation of germplasm and native species of corn and the development of agroecosystems through the incorporation of climatic criteria in agricultural programmes.
In its NDCs, the country pledged to reduce its polluting emissions by 22 percent by 2030, compared with 2013 levels.
That year, Mexican agricultural activity released 80.17 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. By 2020, emissions of this potent greenhouse gas are expected to reach 111 million.
By 2030, the goal is to curb agricultural and livestock emissions to 86 million tons.
“Agriculture is highly dependent on local weather conditions and is expected to be very sensitive to climate change in the coming years. In particular, a warmer and drier environment could reduce agricultural production,” said Eduardo Benítez, assistant representative of Programmes at the FAO Partnership and Liaison Office in Mexico.
Among other consequences of climate change, he mentioned to IPS a higher prevalence of fungi and pests, soil transformation, less availability of land and water for agriculture and alterations in agrobiodiversity.
“They give something, but it’s not enough,” Meléndez said about the government’s support for helping the “chinamperos” – farmers who grow crops using the chinampa method – adapt to climate change.
“It has cost us a lot of work. We carry out prevention work, such as using biological filters, to raise water in the channels to a certain level for irrigation. We try to regulate the temperature with meshes of different sizes that provide shade for the crops,” he explained.
One of the problems lies in the lack of coordination among Mexican institutions, as shown by the assessment of the Government’s 2014-2018 Special Programme on Climate Change (PECC), implemented by the government to address the phenomenon.
This analysis shows that the Information System of the Cross-cutting Agenda that operated between 2009 and 2012 is not working since the programme came into force in 2014, which prevents a “close follow up” of the progress of its 199 lines of action.
In addition, it found that the National Climate Change System has not addressed the question of connecting programmes, actions and investments at the federal, state and municipal levels, with the PECC.
González, based on her experience as a farmer, recommended silvopastoral (combining forestry and grazing) systems to maintain the plots. “There are areas that can be well preserved. We focus on soil conservation. Another solution is agroecology,” to restore soils and preserve resources, she said.
FAO and the government Agency for Marketing Services and Development of Agricultural Markets (ASERCA) are working on a project of early warnings for agriculture based on agrometeorological information to monitor the climate impacts on food production and availability.
The aim is for this data to be available to “policy-makers, financial and risk management institutions and mainly to producers. Thus, public policy can be oriented in actions such as the promotion and use of crop insurance or the activation of contingency funds,” said Benítez.
The post Climate Change Threatens Mexican Agriculture appeared first on Inter Press Service.
How is it that God needs the protection of politicians? Seems that politicians around the globe pretend to protect God in an attempt to protect themselves and divert attention away from their not so secret denial of God. [HRW] Mauritanian deputies should reject a new draft law that would make the death penalty mandatory for the crime of “insulting” or “mocking” God, the Quran, or the Prophet Muhammad, Human Rights Watch said today.
"Luce di parole, ombra di sogni."
Living on the Edge of the Sagebrush Ocean
Spiritual Insights & Personal Empowerment
Love life
Artist & Art Blogger
Furnicraft, woodwork, and art
reveries and rants
Bem Vindos a este espaço onde compartilhamos um pouco da realidade do Japão à todos aqueles que desejam visitar ou morar no Japão. Aqui neste espaço, mostramos a realidade do Japão e dos imigrantes. O nosso compromisso é com a realidade. Fique por dentro do noticiário dos principais jornais japoneses, tutoriais de Faça você mesmo no Japão e acompanhe a Série Histórias de Imigrantes no Japão. Esperamos que goste de nossos conteúdos, deixe seu like, seu comentário, compartilhe e nos ajudar você e à outras pessoas. Grande abraço, gratidão e volte sempre!
Willkommen auf Elke´s Glücks-Blog
- Specializing in the great outdoors, capturing nature at its finest!
A site to discuss education and democracy
Seu Guia de Inspirações e Reflexões Diárias
my-health-and-beauty.com/
Benim Gezegenime Hoş geldiniz !!!
Blog de viajes y lugares
The official blog of Ed Mooney Photography. Dad of 3, Photographer, Blogger, Powerlifter. Exploring the historical sites of Ireland.
It has new aidias,news, about education , motivation, social, historical, culture, marketing creation new aidias education of language science culture and history
L'unico modo sensato di vivere è senza regole
by Anuran (A) & Sayoni (S)
Fun for the Brain
An exemplary learning community.
Loves, lamentation, and life through prose, stories, passions, and essays.
public tantrums by a non-two-year-old
Public, street and urban art worldwide
all the rules of free form
<script async src="https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-2937106805202763" crossorigin="anonymous"></script>
Lapsed Painter, Occasional Photographer, Compulsive Writer
Health Blogs
Exploring the hidden architectural heritage of Budapest
Yaşamdan
The third incarnation...
More than a thought less than a question
"بوصلة الحياة: مدونة متعددة المجالات، من السياسة إلى الرومانسية، ومن تطوير الذات إلى الأدب وأكثر!" بقلم مشاعر بنت عبدالرحمن
The view from here ... Or here!
Bringer and seeker of joy
The One Where She Stumbled Through Her 40's and Faced Her Demons
Baw wit da baw. Just sayin'.
Website storys
Welcome to the Anglo Swiss World
Querbeet und ohne Gewähr
KINDNESS IS FREE, sprinkle it all over the world, and 😁 smile
Nuestra ética de todos los días...
Fiction Writer in Poet's Clothing
You must be logged in to post a comment.