These Charts Show The Affordability Crisis Is Real

 

The charts above are from the Century Foundation / GQR Poll -- done between October 14th and 24th of a nationwide sample of 1,426 registered voters, with a 3.06 point margin of error.

Trump Plays Politics With The Border Crisis

Republican and Democratic senators are very close to agreeing on a bill that could fix the border crisis, or at least give President Biden some tools to control the border -- and the President has said he would use those tools.

As a Liberal Democrat, I think what we really need is a full immigration bill. But I recognize that the border is currently a mess, and something must be done to restore order there. The negotiated compromise would probably do that.

The compromise gave Republicans most of what they wanted, and one would think it should easily pass with huge Republican support. But after whining about the border situation for months now, a lot of Republicans (especially in the House) are saying they will not support the Senate's compromise bill.

Why would they do that? Don't they want a stable and safe situation at the border? It turns out that for them politics is more important than the border crisis. 

Donald Trump has come out against the border deal. He told the congressional GOP that they should oppose the deal because it is not "perfect". Few bills passing Congress are perfect, but most actually improve what they are meant to improve. And that is the problem for Trump.

Trump's main campaign issue has been the border crisis, and he's afraid the compromise solution will actually fix the mess at the border. He would no longer be able to claim (untruthfully) Biden's is doing nothing to fix it. And he thinks his campaign would suffer.

It tells us a lot about Trump. He thinks his own shaky situation is more important than solving the nation's problems. 

I think he's making a big political mistake this time. If the problem at the border continues because this bill is not passed, then he must take the blame for that. It's no longer a winning issue for him.

U.S. Is Approaching A Child Care Crisis & GOP Doesn't Care

The following post is by Zeesham Aleem at MSNBC.com:

We’re hurtling toward what experts call a “child care cliff.” It could wreak havoc on families, the economy, not to mention President Joe Biden’s approval ratings.

A $24 billion federal emergency relief fund for child care, passed under the American Rescue Plan Act in 2021, is set to expire at the end of September. That means in a few weeks day care centers and preschools across the country will lose a vital source of funding that helped keep them afloat as the economy recovered from the pandemic. Without continued federal aid, a huge swath of the child care industry is likely to collapse — and send shockwaves through the economy as families scramble to adapt to a reduction in child care options.

The numbers are grim. According to a report by the Century Foundation, a progressive think tank, more than 70,000 child care programs “will likely close,” and "3.2 million children could lose their child care spots." As child care providers are forced to push up their tuition prices to compensate for the absence of aid or shutter altogether, parents will be forced to find alternative arrangements for child care. For many that will mean cutting back work hours or quitting jobs entirely. The cascading effect will be a blow to the economy. The Century Foundation estimates that states will lose $10.6 billion per year in economic revenue, and families will miss out on $9 billion a year in earnings.

This is all a shame, because the emergency funding for child care was working well. It allowed day care centers in some cases to not just stay afloat but to reduce tuition, raise pay for staff, invest in professional development and improve the quality of their services with better equipment. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, the funding helped over 80% of child care centers across the U.S. cover overhead costs and retain employees.

Part of the issue is that the American child care industry was already struggling a great deal before the pandemic. The U.S. is an extreme outlier among affluent nations in how little funding the government provides to assist families with child care. In America, child care centers have long struggled to establish sustainable businesses between the high cost of property and the labor-intensive nature of child care work. And the high cost of tuition for child care was already out of reach for many households before the pandemic. While the emergency funding was a great stabilizing force, the industry is now back on the brink of a major bout of instability.

Democrats sought to address the anticipated end of the emergency funds by including a huge grant for child care in the Build Back Better Act. That plan was meant to guarantee every family in the United States a range of child care options to meet their needs. The bill made it through the House, but not through the Senate, and as the bill was dramatically narrowed in negotiations with conservative Democrats, child care funding didn’t make it into the Inflation Reduction Act that passed in August 2022.  

Unfortunately, despite the cliff it seems like Biden isn’t making child care a top priority in the upcoming government funding fights on Capitol Hill. According to Politico, the White House has signaled that “it wouldn’t prioritize the child care program.” And Democrats are unlikely to pass child care legislation with Republicans controlling the House.

This is a mistake: Letting funding for child care policy lapse isn’t just harmful policy, it’s also bad politics. While the inflation has cooled, families will feel the pinch of fewer and more expensive child care options in a very tangible way. It’s a particularly undesirable vulnerability for Biden as he enters an election year and continues to struggle to sell the economic achievements of his first term in office. 

The Biden administration made a great decision to pour a lot of funding into helping keep the child care industry alive at a time of crisis. But Democrats need to view child care as a social right rather than an option

GOP's Fake Crises Divert Attention From The Real Problem

 From former Labor Secretary Robert Reich:

Republican leaders have mastered the art of manufacturing crises to divert the public’s attention from the real crisis of our era — the siphoning off of income, wealth, and power by a small group at the top.

Consider the fake fears they’ve been whipping up:

1. “Woke.” Florida’s governor (and now Republican presidential candidate) Ron DeSantis has declared “war on woke.” Immediately after the mangled launch to his campaign on Wednesday, he claimed on Fox News that “the woke mind virus is basically a form of cultural Marxism.” But what is woke? Can anyone define it? It seems like an all-encompassing term for what we used to consider tolerance — an attribute that in a different age was considered positive.

2. “Trans people.” Former president Donald Trump says that one of his top priorities if he’s reelected in 2024 will be a “sweeping federal rollback of transgender rights.” But why have he and so many Republican lawmakers targeted transgender people as dangers to the public? There’s not a shred of evidence that trans people are threats to anyone. But they’re easy scapegoats. 

3. “Critical race theory.” Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin’s “day one” executive order banned the teaching of critical race theory. DeSantis and Texas Governor Greg Abbott have also banned it from the schools. Here again, though, there’s no evidence of a public threat. CRT simply teaches America’s history of racism, which students need to understand to be informed citizens. Banning it is a scare tactic to appeal to a largely white, culturally conservative voter base. 

4. “Couch potatoes.” Ronald Reagan railed against so-called “welfare queens” who allegedly collected benefits without working. Today’s Republicans rage about “couch potatoes.” Both characterizations are cruel pretexts — and racial dog whistles — for imposing additional work requirements on public assistance for those in need, when the needy often have difficulty finding work that pays enough to live on. 

5. “Out of control government spending.” Rubbish. In fact, discretionary spending has fallen more than 40 percent in the past 50 years as a percentage of the nation’s gross domestic product (from 11 percent to 6.3 percent). Lately, rising deficits have been driven by Social Security and Medicare (to be expected, as boomers retire), and by defense spending and George W. Bush’s and Donald Trump’s huge tax cuts that mostly benefited the wealthy and big corporations — and that will have added $8 trillion and $1.7 trillion, respectively, to the debt by the end of the 2023 fiscal year.

All five of these so-called crises have been manufactured by the GOP. They’re entirely made up.

Why? To deflect attention from the near record share of the nation’s income and wealth now going to the richest Americans.

As the super-wealthy and big corporations pour money into politics — especially into the GOP — they don’t want the rest of America to notice they’re rigging the economy for their own benefit, their unrestrained greed is worsening the climate crisis, and they’re also undermining democracy. 

So the game of the Republican Party and their major donors is to deflect and distract — to use scapegoating, racism, and outright lies to disguise what’s really going on. 

Friends, don’t let them get away with it.

The Debt Ceiling Crisis Is A Pathetic Political Pantomime

 The following post is by Dan Rather and Elliot Kirschner:

What is happening in Washington is bananas.

Of course we could use much more colorful, or dignified, language.

 

Many in the press are framing the dynamic between the White House and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy over the looming possibility of a United States debt default as a “negotiation.” That’s like “negotiating” with your teenager over their desire to take the family car for an inebriated joy ride with friends on a Friday night. 

Unfortunately, in this case the kids already have the keys and are at the demolition derby. They’re making it very clear that they’re more than happy to wreck everything unless you relinquish all your parental instincts.

 

This metaphor is already too stretched. But trying to make sense of what we’re witnessing requires defying most logic and language.

 

This is a hostage situation.

 

This is a reckless cabal that ran up the bill and now refuses to pay it. 

This is a sign of just how broken our politics are.

The world looks on with disbelief. 

Perhaps there would be a grim humor to the rampant absurdity if we weren’t dealing with a ticking time bomb that has the potential to blow up the American and global economies.

 

Apparently it is easy to ignore the chaos when you are immersed in alternative fantasies. Fox News talking points won’t pay the creditors. Unhinged conspiracy theories will provide no respite from the ultimate effects of that pesky concept called reality.

 

We all know that you make the best decisions when you’re plummeting toward an abyss, right? This shameless crowd weaponizes their blatant hypocrisy. 

It’s fine to explode the debt when a Republican is in the White House and then stick the Democrats with the burden of galloping to the cliff's edge. Responsibility is for suckers.

 

It is true that our system of government was built on debate, compromise, and deliberation. But that is not what this is; this is a shakedown. This is using an existential threat to wrest concessions that would never occur in a proper legislative process.

 

Perhaps a deal will emerge that is not horrible. Perhaps it will pave the way for smoother running for the remainder of this Congress. Perhaps we will avoid the potentially catastrophic outcomes.

 

We certainly can hope for that. But let’s be clear before we get to the end game: This never should have happened. And the process is rotten no matter what transpires.

 

This pathetic political pantomime is beneath us as a nation. It is as embarrassing as it is dangerous.

 

Hopefully we’ll get some last-hour resolution and pull back from the brink. If not, the price figures to be exceptionally heavy.

Either way, can we — will we — resolve never to let this happen again?

Texas Power Crisis Was Biggest Energy Story Of 2021

Morning Consult and Politico polls were conducted throughout 2021, surveying roughly 2,000 registered voters each, with 2-point margins of error.

Like Roosevelt, Biden Wants To Invest In American People

With the nomination of the pandemic, the recession, and the growing economic inequality in the United States, the Biden administration faces a crisis this nation has not seen since the Great Depression.

President Roosevelt brought this nation out of that previous crisis situation by spending big to invest in this country and especially its people. And he did it in spite of Republican opposition to his programs.

Now the Biden administration is taking that same course to guide this country to a recovery that is fair to all Americans -- and he will have to do it without any support from congressional Republicans. It will be harder this time, because Biden doesn't have the Democratic majority that Roosevelt had, but it must be done. Just returning to normal is not enough. He must make the country and its economy fairer to all its citizens.

Here is how New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof sees it:

The best argument for President Biden’s three-part proposal to invest heavily in America and its people is an echo of Franklin Roosevelt’s explanation for the New Deal.

“In 1932 there was an awfully sick patient called the United States of America,” Roosevelt said in 1943. “He was suffering from a grave internal disorder … and they sent for a doctor.”

Paging Dr. Joe Biden.

We should be cleareyed about both the enormous strengths of the United States — its technologies, its universities, its entrepreneurial spirit — and its central weakness: For half a century, compared with other countries, we have underinvested in our people.

In 1970, the United States was a world leader in high school and college attendance, enjoyed high life expectancy and had a solid middle class. This was achieved in part because of Roosevelt.

The New Deal was imperfect and left out too many African-Americans and Native Americans, but it was still transformative. . . .

In short, the New Deal invested in the potential and productivity of  much of the nation. The returns were extraordinary.

These kinds of investments in physical infrastructure (interstate highways) and human capital (state universities and community colleges) continued under Democratic and Republican presidents alike. They made America a stronger nation and a better one.

Yet beginning in the 1970s, America took a wrong turn. We slowed new investments in health and education and embraced a harsh narrative that people just need to lift themselves up by their bootstraps. We gutted labor unions, embraced inequality and shrugged as working-class America disintegrated. Average weekly wages for America’s production workers were actually lower in December 2020 ($860) than they had been, after adjusting for inflation, in December 1972 ($902 in today’s money). . . .

Biden proposes something more humane and effective — investing in children, families and infrastructure in ways that echo Roosevelt’s initiatives.

The most important thread of Biden’s program is his plan to use child allowances to cut America’s child poverty in half. Biden’s main misstep is that he would end the program in 2025 instead of making it permanent; Congress should fix that.

The highest return on investment in America today isn’t in private equity but in early childhood initiatives for disadvantaged kids of all races. That includes home visitations, lead reduction, pre-K and child care.

Roosevelt started a day care program during World War II to make it easier for parents to participate in the war economy. It was a huge success, looking after perhaps half a million children, but it was allowed to lapse after the war ended.

Biden’s proposal for day care would be a lifeline for young children who might be neglected. Aside from the wartime model, we have another in the U.S.: The military operates a high-quality on-base day care system, because that supports service members in performing their jobs.

Then there are Biden’s proposed investments in broadband; that’s today’s version of rural electrification. Likewise, free community college would enable young people to gain technical skills and earn more money, strengthening working-class families.

Some Americans worry about the cost of Biden’s program. That’s a fair concern. Yet this is not an expense but an investment: Our ability to compete with China will depend less on our military budget, our spy satellites or our intellectual property protections than on our high school and college graduation rates. A country cannot succeed when so many of its people are failing.

As many Americans have criminal records as college degrees. A baby born in Washington, D.C., has a shorter life expectancy (78 years) than a baby born in Beijing (82 years). Newborns in 10 counties in Mississippi have a shorter life expectancy than newborns in Bangladesh. Rather than continue with Herbert Hoover-style complacency, let’s acknowledge our “grave internal disorder” and summon a doctor.

The question today, as in the 1930s, is not whether we can afford to make ambitious investments in our people. It’s whether we can afford not to.

These Are Children - And The U.S. Should Help Them

The Republicans want you to believe that the crisis at the border is an invading horde of criminals trying to bring death and destruction to the United States. That's a lie! There is a crisis at the border, but it's a few thousand desperate children who just want a chance to live a decent life. We should be trying to help them -- not using them as political footballs to score political points. America is the land of immigrants, and helping a few more is not going to wreck the nation. It would just show the world that we really do believe in equality and human rights -- and we are no longer the nation that cages children as a policy.

Keith Olbermann probably says it better than I could. Here, from Crooks and Liars, is his great rant on this border "crisis":

The Republicans don't give a sh*t about these kids, Their solution is to hell with them. 

This is the God damned United States of America and those are children in trouble and their numbers spiked not last week but last year up 690% in the last nine months under Trump. They are asking us for asylum. They are asking us to keep them from getting killed. They are asking us to be what this country has always been: mother of exiles. My great-great-grandfather came here because there was nowhere else for him to go. Joe Biden's great-great grandfather came here because there was nowhere else for him to go. Donald Trump's grandfather came here because there was nowhere else for him to go.

That border destabilized by Trump's xenophobia must be fixed, The well-intentioned but now malfunctioning care for these kids must be fixed.

But most importantly these children must be welcomed here.

This is the goddamned United States of America.

We are great because of people who came here, because there was nowhere else for them to go. "Give me your tired, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore, send these the homeless tempest-tossed to me."

This question is the crisis:

Are we still Americans here or are we a nation of goddamned stinking Trumps?

AOC Raised $1 Million To Help Texas As Cruz Flies To Cancun

The politician that Texas Republicans love to hate in New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. They blame her for everything that's gone wrong in the country.

But when the crisis hit Texas this past week, she stepped up to help. The Texas GOP's favorite senator, Ted Cruz, did just the opposite -- flying to Cancun with his family (and only returning after being roasted in the media for it).

From Newsweek:

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has revealed that she plans to visit Texas at the weekend, as Senator Ted Cruz is embroiled in a scandal for flying to Cancun while locals battle power outages and a winter freeze.

Posting on social media, Ocasio-Cortez said she would make a trip to Houston with Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX) to highlight the problems faced by thousands of Texans who have no power to heat their homes in sub-zero temperatures.

The New York Democrat unveiled the plan after her team raised $1 million in donations for five Texan non-profits. The funds will go to food aid, homelessness assistance, elder care and other direct relief. . . .

"Totally blown away. $1m raised in direct relief for Texans in less than a day," AOC tweeted. "As a thank you to everyone who contributed & amplified, I'll be going to Texas this weekend to visit w/ [Rep. Garcia] in Houston & highlight what's happening on the ground."

Hospitals Are At A Breaking Point & It's Going To Get Worse

The image above is from Taegan Goddard's Political Wire, and it should scare the hell out of Americans. Hospitals across the nation are in trouble. They are overwhelmed in trying to deal with this pandemic. And it's not going to get any better soon.

The nation is currently in the worst phase of the pandemic since it started, and some health officials are predicting we will have 350,000 deaths by the end of this year. We haven't started to feel the effects of the spreading caused by the travel and gatherings of the Thanksgiving holiday (which is expected to cause a huge spike in cases and deaths). And by the time the nation's starts to feel that holiday effect, people will begin to travel again for the Christmas and New Year's holidays.

You may be thinking that this is not important because of the news about vaccines being close to approved. That's a false hope in the short term. Only heal care workers will get the vaccine this year, if it's approved. And unless you live in a nursing home, you will probably not be able to get the vaccine until nearly Spring. 

It's going to be a long and deadly winter, and it's likely that the nation will be flirting with 500,000 deaths by the time the vaccine is widely available.

And while this crisis is happening, Donald Trump is doing NOTHING. He's too busy whining and lying about losing the election and playing golf. His lack of action shows he has surrendered in the war against COVID-19. He no longer cares.

Irish Citizens Repay A 173 Year-Old Debt

The Irish have a long memory for those who help them. The following is part of an article by Alyssa Newcomb at NBC News.

It was a gesture born of suffering and kindness carried over generations.

In 1847, the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma sent $170 to Ireland during the Great Famine — a time of mass starvation on the island. More than 170 years later, Ireland has returned the favor, helping to raise more than $2 million for the Navajo and Hopi nations, which have been hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic.

Donors said they felt like it was a chance to pay the good deed forward.

“I saw that Irish people were starting to donate and share the story of Choctaw Nation and the historical symmetry really affected me," said Paul Hayes, a native of Tipperary, Ireland, who runs Beachhut, a technology public relations firm said in an email. "Sending the actual amount of $170 personally after 170 or so years felt like the right tribute across the ages."

The Navajo Nation reported more than 2,700 coronavirus cases and 70 deaths as of Monday, a rate of infection that makes it one of the worst outbreaks in the United States. . . .

The sentiment runs deep in Ireland where the memory of the Great Potato Famine — which claimed more than one million lives by the time it ended in 1852 — endures to this day. And that’s why strangers were inspired to make a symbolic gesture of goodwill toward people living across an ocean, 5,000 miles away. The donations sent on GoFundMe include messages of hope and gratitude from people in Ireland.

"The care shown generations ago was not and will not be forgotten," said Jonathan Legge, CEO of &Open, a bespoke gift-giving company based in Dublin.

“An overdue debt repaid on behalf of our ancestors to your ancestors. Stay strong,” read a note attached to one $30 donation.

“I am currently unemployed so I'm sorry that my donation is not more, but I hope that this little contribution will make some positive difference in the same way those donations 173 years ago were sent with the same hope for ancestors of mine,” another donor who gave $10 said on the website. “I stand in solidarity with my Native American brothers and sisters during this time of crisis and send this message with love, respect and hope for the future.”

When the Choctaw Nation paid it forward all those years ago, it was empathizing with Ireland’s plight based on its own experience. During the 1830s, 60,000 Native Americans had been forced by the federal government to relocate from their ancestral lands and move west on what is now known as the Trail of Tears. Thousands of people died during the devastating trek.

In 2017, Ireland honored the Choctaw Nation with a sculpture of nine stainless steel eagle feathers stretching 23 feet high. The next year, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar visited the Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma.

Chief Gary Batton of the Choctaw Nation said adversity can “bring out the best in people” and said he’s happy to see his ancestors’ generosity inspiring donations to other Native American tribes.

“We are gratified, and perhaps not at all surprised, to learn of the assistance our special friends, the Irish, are giving to the Navajo and Hopi nations. Our word for their selfless act is ‘iyyikowa’ — it means serving those in need,” Batton said in an email. “We have become kindred spirits with the Irish in the years since the Irish Potato Famine. We hope the Irish, Navajo and Hopi peoples develop lasting friendships, as we have. Sharing our cultures makes the world grow smaller.”

The donations are being used to buy critical supplies, including food and personal protective equipment.