The Wire

Montana Senate Demands Baucus Reject “Fast Track” & “Free” Trade

David Sirota's post on the Huffington Post outlines the who, what and when of the Montana Senate's action.  Sirota notes that it will be interesting to see Baucus's reaction to this move, especially since Senator Tester has already voiced his opposition to free trade and fast-track authority, as reported here on the WFU PAC blog.

 

Posted by Web Team on Tuesday, February 27 | 1865 comments | Permalink

Dueling Op-Eds on EFCA

Today's Washington Post includes dueling op-eds on the Employee Free Choice Act by conservative columnist George Will and Lance Compo of Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations.  EFCA is expected to pass in the House later this week.

Posted by Web Team on Tuesday, February 27 | 0 comments | Permalink

Bush won’t talk child health care (S-CHIP) with Governors

This doesn't bode well.  The nation's governors want additional help from the federal government to cover health care for uninsured children.  Top administration officials discussed the concern.  But, when Bush talked health care with the Governors today, he avoided talk about one of the most pressing health care issues for the Governors:

President Bush encouraged governors Monday to support his call for changing the tax code to help more people buy private health care insurance, but did not address their pleas to increase funding for a health care program that insures millions of children of the working poor.

Still, governors said they heard words of at least partial compromise from the administration on a budget dispute that dominated private discussions among governors Sunday.

At stake is coverage for 6 million people, overwhelmingly children, as well as the hopes of many governors in tackling the larger challenge of the uninsured. All governors rely on the State Children's Health Insurance Program, intended to aid uninsured working families.

We all know that health care is an escalating crisis for American families.  As we noted last week, health care costs will account for 20% of all spending within ten years.  Working for US PAC is committed to making sure that affordable health is accessible to American families.  Not even discussing S-CHIP doesn't help.

Posted by Staff on Monday, February 26 | 524 comments | Permalink

Within 10 years, Health care expenses will account for 20% of all spending

One of the tenets of Working for Us PAC is that we expect our members of Congress to work for access to affordable health care.  The issue is going to become much more pressing as health care costs continue to rise.  Just this week, a new government report found that within a decade, health care costs will account for 20% of all U.S. spending.  That's going to put an enormous squeeze on America's middle class:

Health care is expected to account for $1 of every $5 spent in the United States in another decade.

That means a rise in out-of-pocket expenses, such as the copays for medicine, from about $850 this year to about $1,400 in 2016, a 5.3 percent annual increase.

The cost of health insurance is projected to rise even more quickly during that same time - 6.4 percent annually.

Over the coming decade, spending on health care will continue to outpace the overall economy. By the year 2016, it will total nearly $4 trillion, economists at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said in a report being released Wednesday.

Today, the number is closer to $1 out of every $6, or $2 trillion.

These increases are going to put pressure on members of Congress to act.  

Posted by Staff on Friday, February 23 | 532 comments | Permalink

Bankruptcy and the Average American Family

We missed this when it was originally aired, but it's worth looking up online.  PBS's Maria Hinojosa recently did an interview with Elizabeth Warren on debt, the middle class, predatory practices of credit card companies and the health insurance holes that can leave familes high and dry.  (go here for the transcript).  The interview covers a lot of ground, but from our perspective one of the most interesting points was this: 

"bankruptcy judges who are faithfully trying to implement this law [the 2005 bankrupty legislation] are just finding chaos. They're being forced by law to hurt good people and they're being forced by law to let charlatans get away with some really pretty awful things."

She also points out a quote from the Dow Jones News Wire that suggests that one of the lawmakers who led the charge to pass the bankruptcy bill wanted the Chief Justice to consider muzzling bankrupty judges who were voicing their concerns about the law.  That's pretty crazy.

Warren is pretty clear about the role of personal responsibility in debt and bankruptcy, but it's entirely clear that the bankruptcy law has made a bad situation worse, particularly when families are looking at bankruptcy after a medical situation or in the wake of bad, and possibly predatory, credit card lending. 

More than 70 Democrats in the House and 18 Democrats in the Senate voted in support of the 2005 bankrupty bill - we'd like to see what they're doing in 2007 to correct some of the obvious problems worstened and created by the legislation.

Posted by Web Team on Thursday, February 22 | 4284 comments | Permalink

Senator Tester (D-MT) opposes fast-track

Jon Tester, the newly elected Democratic Senator from Montana, doesn't pull any punches.  He ran a campaign that was unabashedly based on economic fairness -- and he's staying true to that position:

Tester said he's opposed to free trade because it's often not fair trade.

He's against fast-track authority. Fast track is the traditional trade negotiating authority granted by Congress that allows the president to negotiate international trade agreements. Under fast track procedures, the president submits the legislation to Congress for approval or rejection. No amendments are allowed.

"I don't care if the president is a Democrat or a Republican, I think legislators need to scrutinize these things," Tester said.

Posted by Staff on Wednesday, February 21 | 379 comments | Permalink

No blank check for Bush on “fast track” says the Madison, Wisconsin Capitol Times

"Fast track" re-authorization took a hit this week when it was revealed that the U.S. trade deficit with China increased by $61.2 billion.  George Bush wants unimpeded authority to negotiate trade deals -- without protections for American workers.  That can't happen.  An editorial in today's Capitol Times calls on the Wisconsin delegation to support "smarter trade policies":

Like Clinton, President Bush is a militant believer in the corporations-first model for trade policy, an approach that says that worries about workers, the environment, communities and the long-term fiscal stability of the United States must take a back seat to the demands of Wall Street campaign contributors for rules that help them achieve record returns on foreign investments.

So, while a recession is one way to address the trade deficit, establishing smarter trade policies is another way. It is the better way already embraced by U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis.; U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Madison; and the more enlightened members of the state's congressional delegation. We hope, in the face of this deficit, it will be the way the whole delegation follows as trade issues again arise in the U.S. Capitol.

As Lori Wallach, the Wisconsin native who directs Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, notes, before the mid-1990s, when the Clinton and Bush White Houses began to accept deals such as the North American Free Trade Agreement, the United States actually ran a $100 billion trade deficit in today's dollars.

"Following implementation of NAFTA, U.S. bilateral deficits with Mexico and Canada skyrocketed, while our nation's overall trade deficit has grown nearly 800 percent and now accounts for a record high of nearly 6 percent of our national income," explains Wallach. "In addition to posing a danger to U.S. and global economic stability, these macroeconomic trends have a disastrous human impact. The average worker's hourly wage has risen only a nickel since 1973."

And as the trade deficit has skyrocketed, many U.S. manufacturing workers have lost their jobs.

Bush is asking Congress for new "fast track" authority to negotiate trade agreements that Congress would not be allowed to change to include protections for workers or communities in the United States. The latest dramatic increase in the trade deficit ought to convince Congress that giving the president the go-ahead to cut more deals like NAFTA is a ridiculous response to what Alan Tonelson, a research fellow with the U.S. Business and Industry Council, sees as an exceptionally serious problem. "If President Bush deserves blank check trade negotiating authority from Congress with this record," muses Tonelson, "then Paris Hilton deserves to be Girl Scout of the Year."

Posted by Staff on Friday, February 16 | 395 comments | Permalink

Bush will veto EFCA, Cheney announces

Via Think Progress, we get confirmation that Bush will veto the Employee Free Choice Act.  Vice President Cheney made the announcement -- as he twisted the meaning of the legislation.  EFCA insures the rights of workers.  The Bush Administration and their allies who are spending millions to defeat EFCA have been short-circuiting American workers for years:

Beyond that, if workers do decide to form a union, they and their employers should be able to negotiate without having terms forced on them. Our Administration rejects any attempt to short-circuit the rights of workers. We will defend their right to vote yes or no by secret ballot and their right to fair bargaining. H.R. 800 violates these principles, and if it is sent to the President, he will veto the bill.

Posted by Staff on Wednesday, February 14 | 2 comments | Permalink