Maintaining Unemployment Benefits: one More Dead Issue in the House


House Speaker, John Boehner, has on a number of occasions said that he would only allow a vote in the House to extend unemployment benefits if they could be paid for by cuts in non-defense, domestic spending (food stamps, WIC, School Lunch, EITC, Medicare, roads improvement, etc.).


However, a new poll indicates that his opinion is probably not shared by a majority of Democrats, Republicans or Independents. The poll, released in early December by Public Policy Polling, surveyed voters in four congressional districts, including Speaker Boehner’s and found a solid majority in all of them supporting a bill with a clean increase in benefits, not connected to cuts in others to get there. For Democrats, the average was in the mid-seventies, for Republicans it was in the mid-fifties, and for independents, the low sixties. The numbers for Speaker Boehner’s district was 85 percent for Democrats, 52 percent for Republicans, and 61% percent for independents. Closer with Republicans, but in all three groups in his home district, his position was in the minority.

The average for all voters in all of the polled districts was in the high sixties. That’s a very an extremely high percentage support for an issue that the Speaker says does not have public support.

The poll also asked if the respondent would be more or less likely to vote for the Congressperson next year and the response in every district, again, including the Speaker’s, was up for less likely and down for more likely. In a “normal” America, that would cause some office holders to be concerned, but today with gerrymandering having locked in all four of the seats surveyed as Republican-only seats, they are not concerned. While the percentage of voters saying that they would be likely to vote for the incumbent has gone up, most of those are Democrats and Independents, whose votes don’t count.



Bipartisan Bills passed by the Senate that have bipartisan support in the House

  • Comprehensive Immigration Bill
  • Farm Bill (which includes Food Stamps) 
  • Bill to allow states to collect sales taxes from online retailers 
  • Employment Non-Discrimination Act (to protect LGBT people from workplace discrimination)
  • Pentagon Policy Bill (which also addresses military sexual assault, Guantánamo Bay, etc.).

Number of these bills House Majority Leader John Boehner says he will allow to be voted on: 0

Last year that Congress passed this small a number of Bills: 1788. 

First year that Congress was ever in session: 1789.

December 12, 2013

ECONOMIC TIDBIT FOR THE MONTH:


  • All of Mark Zuckerberg’s Shares In Facebook--$13.7 billion
  • The entire net worth of Michael Bloomberg--$22 billion
  • Cost of Big Dig, most expensive highway project in US history--$24.3 billion.
  • Cost of US shutdown (ongoing, but as of 10/17/13)--$24.4 billion


October 17, 2013




HEALTH CARE TIDBIT:

CNN/ORC International Poll on Affordable Care Act: Sept 29, 2013:
  • Percent of Americans who oppose the ACA: 46%
  • Percent who support it or oppose it because think it should be even more progressive: 49%
House Speaker John Boehner, Oct. 7, 2013, “Americans hate Obamacare; we all know that. The polls all show that.”


October 1, 2013



ECONOMIC TIDBITS FOR THE MONTH:

  • Four out of five companies in the S&P 500 reported a continued 1.7% growth in earnings for the second quarter of 2013, and the S&P index hit a record high last Friday of 1,709.67.
  • Hourly earnings for average Americans slipped by 2 cents to $23.98, in the jobs and wages report of July. Over the past year, hourly earnings have risen only 1.9 percent, which is considered flat or declining when adjusted for inflation.

What’s wrong with this picture?



August 5, 2013

Here are a few thoughts on the present state (and cause) of our budget crisis. It’s fair to say that today big budget deficits are and have been driving our national debt into dangerous territory. They are projected to be $744 billion for Fiscal Year 2014, raising the total national debt to nearly 415 trillion.

That’s an amazing amount of money. Since we were running a surplus as recently as the Clinton administration, what happened? Where did all that red ink come from?


Between 1980 and 2009, the national debt grew from $700 billion to nearly $8 trillion. Of the past five presidential administrations, the only one during which there was no net increase in the national debt was Bill Clinton’s.
Where did it go? The two greatest increases in the debt were during the 1980s and the 2000s.
  • During the Reagan administration we cut taxes while engaged in a military spending race with Russia and raised the national debt by $2 trillion:
  • During the Bush administration we did these things:
      1. We increased spending on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (without a plan to fund them);
      2. Increased spending on Medicare prescription programs (without a plan to fund them)                  
             Taken together these two items added $4 trillion to the debt.
    1. Plus we made dramatic cuts in taxes, which, while not directly adding to the deficit, decreased our income and ability to pay on it.
The highest our national debt has been in relation to the Gross Domestic Product was after the Great Depression and World War II, when it reached nearly 109 percent.

During the present administration, the national debt, in relation to the GDP, increased from 54 percent to around 80 percent, largely due to automatic increases in things like food stamps, welfare, and unemployment insurance, that kicked in after the Great Recession, plus the continued costs of the unfunded prescription drug programs and lingering unfunded wars which it inherited.

So, here's the present problem. The task of reducing the current $14,000 trillion debt (nearly $45,000 for every breathing human in America) is truly daunting. It can only be done with a combination of budget cuts and tax increases. Cuts alone will not haul the water.

The largest expenses are Social Security, Medicare, Welfare ($745 billion in 2011) and the military, which total $2 trillion of the $3.6 trillion annual budget.

All of the expenses (veterans’ services, interest on the national debt, public health, education, transportation, government operation, etc.) add another trillion dollars. That leaves only $600 billion for everything else.
There's surely some fat left in those numbers, but starting with Al Gore's "Reinvention of Government" program in the Clinton Administration, a lot of excess "Waist, Fraud and Abuse" (the catchphrase used by budget cutters) has disappeared. Today to make any meaningful reduction would require cutting down past muscle and bone and into the realm of self-mutilation and amputation. In other words, without raising new money, a budget surplus cannot be achieved without hurting old people (Social Security) sick people (Medicare), poor people (Welfare), and the military. Democrats have a historic (though languishing) aversion to cutting entitlement programs and Republicans have an odd, near-sociopathic hatred of anything that lowers military spending. So, changes will be difficult.

The only real option for closing the deficit gap is raising taxes, which also usually elicits howls of protest, especially from the very wealthy and from the lower middle class who have been led to believe that if taxes are cut on the wealthy, they will (eventually) benefit from it.

Two factors have conspired to shrink the government’s tax income.
  1. There is less and less money coming in from the more affluent. Over the last twenty-five years, they have very successfully lobbied Congress to lower and keep low the tax rates on all upper brackets. The top maximum tax rate is now 39.6 percent (up from a low of 35 percent) down from around 70 percent in 1980 ­— a period of economic prosperity for all.
  2. There is less and less money coming in from the middle class. For roughly the last twenty-five years their numbers have been decreasing and the median income has been going down, resulting in declining tax revenue from that source.
And, again, when the upper income brackets pay less in taxes and the lower income brackets have less income, one result is a weakening of the ability of the Federal Government to pay the bills, driving us to borrow more and more money.

Today there are probably only three broad proposals that will balance the federal budget and pay down the national debt:
  1. Apply means testing to cut Social Security and Medicare costs by reducing benefits to those who don’t need the full amount, and critically scrutinize and trim military spending.
  2. Increase tax rates on the upper income brackets.
  3. Encourage more equitable sharing of the profits produced from growing productivity with the middle class, which will boost the economy and create more income tax revenue.
Also, counter-intuitively, channeling money back into the hands of the poor and middle classes is cost effective and will actually do a little to lower the deficit. If the poor and middle income brackets have more money in their pockets, they will pay more in income and sales taxes and will pay more to the local merchants who will hire more staff and buy more products, which will in turn raise the amount their recipients will pay in income and sales taxes. It’s called the “multiplier effect.” People who live on the edge don’t hoard their incomes stimulus money, they spend it and that helps the economy. Wealthy people tend to hoard or invest their windfalls, which is not awful, but it doesn’t give as much bang for the buck in terms of helping the over all economy. Economic stimulus actually helps the economy grow and because it multiplies and raises the incomes of others and increases tax revenues, it actually does little harm to the deficit. That idea is of course considered satanic and evil and blasphemous to the Rush Limbaugh-Tea Party-Fox-Republican front, but it is nonetheless true and has been born out by a number of studies.


The crux of this discussion is what should be the role of government. Shouldn’t it be to do the most good for the greatest number instead of serving the interests of just a few? Just a thought.

The Budget Crisis

Here are a few thoughts on the present state (and cause) of our budget crisis. it’s fair to say that today big budget deficits are and have been driving our national debt into dangerous territory. They are projected to be $744 billion for Fiscal Year 2014, raising the total national debt to nearly 415 trillion.

That’s an amazing amount of money. Since we were running a surplus as recently as the Clinton administration, what happened? where did all that red ink come from?

Between 1980 and 2009, the national debt grew from $700 billion to nearly $8 trillion. Of the past five presidential administrations, the only one during which there was no net increase in the national debt was Bill Clinton’s.

Where did it go? The two greatest rises in the debt were during the 1980s and the 2000s.

  • During the Reagan administration we cut taxes while engaged in a military spending race with Russia and raised the national debt by $2 trillion:
  • During the Bush administration we did these things:
      1. We increased spending on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (without a plan to fund them);
      2. Increased spending on Medicare prescription programs (without a plan to fund them)                  

             Taken together these two items added $4 trillion to the debt.

      1. Plus we made dramatic cuts in taxes, which, while not directly adding to the deficit, decreased our income and ability to pay on it.

The highest our national debt has been in relation to the Gross Domestic Product was after the Great Depression and World War II, when it reached nearly 109 percent.

During the present administration, the national debt, in relation to the GDP, increased from 54 percent to around 80 percent, largely due to automatic increases in things like food stamps, welfare, and unemployment insurance, that kicked in after the Great Recession, plus the continued costs of the unfunded prescription drug programs and lingering unfunded wars which it inherited.

So, here's the present problem. The task of reducing the current $14,000 trillion debt (nearly $45,000 for every breathing human in America) is truly daunting. It can only be done with a combination of budget cuts and tax increases. Cuts alone will not haul the water.

The largest expenses are Social Security, Medicare, Welfare ($745 billion in 2011) and the military, which total $2 trillion of the $3.6 trillion annual budget.

All of the expenses (veterans’ services, interest on the national debt, public health, education, transportation, government operation, etc.) add another trillion dollars. That leaves only $600 billion for everything else.

There's surely some fat left in those numbers, but starting with Al Gore's "Reinvention of Government" program in the Clinton Administration, a lot of excess "Waist, Fraud and Abuse" (the catchphrase used by budget cutters) has disappeared. Today to make any meaningful reduction would require cutting down past muscle and bone and into the realm of self-mutilation and amputation. In other words, without raising new money, a budget surplus cannot be achieved without hurting old people (Social Security) sick people (Medicare), poor people (Welfare), and the military. Democrats have a historic (though languishing) aversion to cutting entitlement programs and Republicans have an odd, near-sociopathic hatred of anything that lowers military spending. So, changes will be difficult.

The only real option for closing the deficit gap is raising taxes, which also usually elicits howls of protest, especially from the very wealthy and from the lower middle class who have been led to believe that if taxes are cut on the wealthy, they will (eventually) benefit from it.

Two factors have conspired to shrink the government’s tax income.

  1. There is less and less money coming in from the more affluent. Over the last twenty-five years, they have very successfully lobbied Congress to lower and keep low the tax rates on all upper brackets. The top maximum tax rate is now 39.6 percent (up from a low of 35 percent) down from around 70 percent in 1980 ­— a period of economic prosperity for all.
  2. There is less and less money coming in from the middle class. Their numbers have been been decreasing and the median income has been going down, resulting in declining tax revenue from that source.

Today there are probably only three broad proposals that will balance the federal budget and pay down the national debt:

  1. Apply means testing to cut Social Security and Medicare costs by reducing benefits to those who don’t need the full amount, and critically scrutinize and trim military spending.
  2. Increase tax rates on the upper income brackets.
  3. Encourage more equitable sharing of the profits produced from growing productivity with the middle class, which will boost the economy and create more income tax revenue.

Also, counter-intuitively, channeling money back into the hands of the poor and middle classes is cost effective and will actually do a little to lower the deficit. If the poor and middle income brackets have more money in their pockets, they will pay more in income and sales taxes and will pay more to the local merchants who will hire more staff and buy more products, which will in turn raise the amount their recipients will pay in income and sales taxes. It’s called the “multiplier effect.” People who live on the edge don’t hoard their incomes stimulus money, they spend it and that helps the economy. Wealthy people tend to hoard or invest their windfalls, which is not awful, but it doesn’t give as much bang for the buck in terms of helping the over all economy. Economic stimulus actually helps the economy grow and because it multiplies and raises the incomes of others and increases tax revenues, it actually does little harm to the deficit. That idea is of course considered satanic and evil and blasphemous to the Rush Limbaugh-Tea Party-Fox-Republican front, but it is nonetheless true and has been born out by a number of studies.

The crux of this discussion is what should be the role of government. Shouldn’t it be to do the most good for the greatest number instead of serving the interests of just a few? Just a thought.

Join Us for a Witness for Peace Delegation to Mexico





Looking for the Roots of Migration
Oaxaca, Mexico
September 16 – 25, 2013

This is an opportunity to explore first-hand the economic and political roots of the migration of
millions Latin Americans into the United States. What causes people to uproot themselves from their histories and homelands and take a long, painful, costly, and dangerous journey into a foreign land where they seldom know the language and are often greeted with hostility?


We will explore this question by visiting and experiencing the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, where many of the forces for migration are stark and clear. The good news is that Oaxaca is a beautiful state of 2 million people and you will fall in love with the people, the land, and their history. The bad news is that nearly half of the Oaxacan population has left the state going north, seeking food for their families. Why is it that each year many people—both men and women—leave Oaxaca and travel to the United States?

What to Expect:
  • See the real reasons for migration to the U.S.
  • Stay in the homes of families directly impacted by their relatives’ migration North.
  • Gain knowledge of ways US policy affects migration patterns
  • Meet people resisting destructive byproducts of NAFTA and other “free” trade policies.
  • Visit a local shelter for migrants moving to or from the US
  • Meet with returned migrants who have experienced life in the US justice system
  • Visit a local women’s cooperative that provides alternatives to migration
  • Discuss ways to act in solidarity with people from Oaxaca and immigrants here in the US
Cost:

$950 + airfare (arranged on your own).
This covers all of your expenses “on the ground” in Oaxaca, including transportation, food, and lodging. Scholarships and fundraising opportunities are available.

For more information or to apply please contact:
Stan Duncan
standuncan@post.harvard.edu
781-504-6875
Click here to download a printer ready version of this flyer

Cosponsors of “Roots of Migration” Delegation:
The Justice & Witness Commission of the Massachusetts Conference of the United Church of Christ, the Mission and Justice Committee of the South East Area of the MACUCC, and Jubilee Massachusetts

Proper 06 – Year C

1 Kings 21:1-10 (11-14) 15-21a


Naboth’s Vineyard
This is another confrontation between Elijah and the royal family of Ahab and Jezebel. As you may recall (from last week’s reading), Ahab had already angered Yahweh when he married Jezebel, who was a foreigner from Sidon, and for giving Sidon’s state religion of Baal worship legitimacy in Israel (1 Kings 16: 31-33). The previous conflicts reflect this apostasy, but here the issue is injustice as well as theology: the abuse of power in order to secure land. The two themes together make a larger point that is worth noting, which is that idolatry produces injustice. The worship of other gods inevitably results in abuse of others. When one worships Yahweh, one respects the covenant of creation.

At the beginning of this story, Ahab is vacationing in his northern palace, up in Jezreel, near the Phoenician border. The official capital of Israel in those days was down in Samaria, but after they were married, Ahab and Jezebel built a second palace up in the northern region of the country, probably to be close to Jezebel’s family and to the business opportunities that proximity would afford him. While there, one day he happens to look out of his window and he sees a farm owned by a peasant named Naboth.

He goes and talks to Naboth and tells him that he would like that land for what he calls a vegetable garden, though as we will see, it’s more likely he wanted it for export crops, not summer tomatoes to sell at the local farmers' market. He makes Naboth what appears to be a generous—or at least fair—offer. He even offers him silver, which sounds nice, but actually may have been useless to an agrarian peasant.[1] In any case payment of any kind didn't interest Naboth and he refuses. According to Israelite cosmology, Naboth is the land and the land is Naboth. It's false to make a distinction between them. So, both legally and theologically he can't let go of it. As he puts it in his brief response to the offer, the land is his “ancestral inheritance” (some translations have “heritage”), and the Lord would “forbid” his giving it away for any purpose.

This passage from Numbers 27:4-11 makes it clear that land must remain in the family. Note the frequent use of the word “inheritance” (emphasis added), which refers to land, not the family's bank account.
5 Moses brought their case before the Lord. 6 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 7 The daughters of Zelophehad are right in what they are saying; you shall indeed let them possess an inheritance among their father's brothers and pass the inheritance of their father on to them. 8 You shall also say to the Israelites, “If a man dies, and has no son, then you shall pass his inheritance on to his daughter. 9 If he has no daughter, then you shall give his inheritance to his brothers. 10 If he has no brothers, then you shall give his inheritance to his father's brothers. 11 And if his father has no brothers, then you shall give his inheritance to the nearest kinsman of his clan, and he shall possess it. It shall be for the Israelites a statute and ordinance, as the Lord commanded Moses.”

When thinking about the role of Jezebel in all of this, it's important to note that she was not some nice girl he met on college break at one of the tourist beaches outside of Sidon. She was the daughter of Eth-baal (whose name, interestingly, means “with Baal”), who was a ruler of Tyre and the head of one of the ancient world's largest import-export institutions.

So, when Naboth turns Ahab down, he goes back home again (probably back to Samaria) and evidently just pouts. One might dispute that term being used of a King of Israel, but the text says “He lay down on his bed, turned away his face, and would not eat.” It's hard to read that and not say he goes home and pouts. It's possible he was also murmuring “Mommy” under his breath, but that can't be verified for certain. Jezebel, on the other hand, chides him sarcastically for his spinelessness. “Do you now govern Israel?” she asks, meaning something like, “Hey, aren't you the boss here, or did they vote you off the island for being a wuss?” She then sets out a plan to have Naboth murdered and his land taken from him.

The background of this story is that North Israel (where this story takes place) was rapidly coming under the economic influence of aristocratic mercantilists with trading ties to the powerful Phoenicians of Tyre and Sidon (remember that Jezebel was an heiress of a major multinational import/export family from Tyre). Archeological findings in the region have found that wealthy merchant families in Tyre and Sidon (and their Israelite wealthy wannabes) had been dispossessing north Israel peasants from their land for at least a generation leading up to the time of the marriage of Princess Jezebel to King Ahab.[2] The text in 1 Kings says simply that Ahab wanted the land for a vegetable garden. Behind that innocent statement is probably the darker reality that he (and his wife) wanted it for its potential for wine exports, most likely to Carthage.[3]

Naboth, citing the theological logic of the Jubilee, says that he simply cannot sell it. He can't because technically he doesn't own it. It is tribal property, an “ancestral inheritance,”[4] owned by the entire family and by God, and God would “forbid” his selling it (1 Kings 21:1-3).[5]

Naboth and other Hebrew peasants understood their land to be a gift of God and they were only stewards of it, their job was to “redeem” it, while the Phoenicians, reflecting a more urban, city-state individualist view of humanity, believed that land was just a commodity and could be bought, sold and stolen by anybody. Leviticus 25:23-24 puts the theology succinctly: “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants. Throughout the land that you hold, you shall provide for the redemption of the land.”

It was an early conflict between theology and economics. [6] According to Brueggemann, “the vineyard could not be without Naboth belonging to it. Naboth could not be without this land. That close and inalienable land linkage is likely reflected in the Jubilee practice (Leviticus 25), a social, institutional guarantee that this connection of land and family is indispensable for the functioning of society.”[7] One side in this dispute believed in a family-based monotheism which by necessity produced a kind of primitive trade protectionism along with capital controls, while the other side believed in a competition-based henotheism which produced winners, losers, and economic dislocation. Historically, it is very likely that this small story was preserved in the biblical tradition because it was later seen as a paradigm of protest on behalf of Yahweh ownership of land and on behalf of a whole class of dispossessed, oppressed people.

Israel leading up to this time had been a radically communal society. When persons lacked land, and the sense of self worth that came with it, they also lacked personhood. It was an egalitarian world based on land, community (tribe), and allegiance to Yahweh. Tyre and Sidon, on the other hand, were individualist societies, and saw land as something which could be separated from its owner by wealthy merchants, powerful land barons, or kings. By the logic of the community, you can’t steal from someone in the family, because the family is you. An ancient midrash on this passage says,
A man has no right to sell his ancestral field so that he can get ready capital wherewith to buy cattle, or mobillia, or slaves, or to raise sheep or goats, or even to conduct business therewith. The only circumstances in which it is permitted is if he has become penniless.”[8]

So, Ahab pouts and refuses to eat, in part because of course he is a pansy, but in part because he understands Yahwistic faith: one cannot conceive of stealing land from someone else because we are all a part of the same family and created by the same God. On the other hand, Jezebel cannot conceive of not stealing it, because we are not the same.

She first calls for a fast. Fasts were proclaimed in order to announce that something important was about to happen. It was religious, but it was also political. Fasts were usually called when there was about to be a battle, or a coronation, or a trial, etc. Following that, Naboth is brought into the Assembly (either open air or in the largest public building of the village), and set at the head of the room alongside two “scoundrels” she has chosen to bring false charges against him. At this point there is no evidence that he has heard anything about the charges, and may not even have understood the purpose for the gathering. In fact, the exact nature of the charges is left unclear, but they at least include blasphemy against God and king, which was a capital offense because it is tantamount to treason. There was more than one document filed in Samaria and brought to Jezreel, so she may also have been charging him with something like breach of contract. She may have either claimed that he had sold it to Ahab or that he promised the sale and now denies it. There was at least some evidence that they had discussed the sale of the property and that Naboth had invoked God's name in the conversation (which is often used in legally sealing transactions), and that could have been used against him.

In any case the people gathered in the assembly side with the two paid witnesses and they pronounce him guilty, and then, following the law, they take him to the edge of town and stone him to death. The land reverts to the king, as the representative of the people as a whole, and all should be well. And as for Ahab, “As soon as Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, Ahab set out to go down to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, to take possession of it” (v. 16).

Note that Jezebel is not more evil than Ahab, she is just less troubled by the social impropriety of violating Israel's humane social contract. Note too, that Ahab fasts when he doesn't get his way, and Jezebel calls for a nation-wide fast to eliminate Naboth and get her way. In both instances a religious ritual which was created for spiritual cleansing is being used for evil purposes.

But before he can take possession of the land, Elijah appears and proclaims: “Thus says the Lord: You have killed, and also taken possession!” (Dennis McCann, says that in spite of the translation in the NRSV, what Elijah says is a declaration, not a question.)[9] Elijah doesn't say more about the crime, because Ahab understands his sin. He quotes God's impending punishment, but what is important is that “you have sold yourself to do what is evil in the sight of the Lord” (v. 20 emphasis added). Ahab may think that Elijah is his enemy, but in the end, Ahab’s worst enemy was himself.




[1] The text is usually translated “money,” but the word is keseph, or Silver. For many among the currency classes (though maybe not peasants) money and silver were synonymous.
[2] Clinton McCann, Texts for Preaching (Philadelphia: Fortress Press), 1994, p.362
[3] See “Search for Phoenician Shipwrecks,” Biblical Archaeology Review Vol. 12, No. 5 (Sept./Oct 1999), p 16; and James D. Newsome’s Hebrew Scripture essay for Proper 6, Ordinary time 11, in Texts for Preaching: A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV-Year C (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press: 1994) pp. 282-284.
[4] The Hebrew word is nahala and could also be translated “sacred patrimony” or “heirloom.”
[5] See Walter Brueggemann, “The Prophet as a Destabilizing Presence,” in A Social Reading of the Old Testament: Prophetic Approaches to Israel’s Communal Life, ed. Patrick D. Miller (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994) pp. 221-244.
[6] Brueggemann, A Social Reading of the Old Testament, p. 239-242..
[7] Brueggemann, Ibid., p. 239.
[8] Barrett, C.K., ed. The New Testament Background: Selected Documents, Rev. Ed. (NY: Harper and Row, 1989), pp. 7-8.
[9] Clinton McCann, Texts for Preaching (Philadelphia: Fortress Press), 1994, p.384.