February 5, 2010
Finishing the Job
We’ve got to finish the job on health care. We’ve got to finish the job on financial regulatory reform. We’ve got to finish the job, even though it’s hard.
– President Obama speaking to Senate Democrats at their annual issues retreat on Wednesday
There seems to be some momentum growing for taking the path forward where the House would pass the Senate bill and both chambers would pass a package of “fixes” which the Senate would process through budget reconciliation (requiring only 51 votes for passage). Several senators made public comments in support of the reconciliation option this week.
The House is not likely to immediately vote to pass the Senate bill. Progressive members would first like to see the Senate at least start to work on, and maybe pass, a reconciliation bill before the House passes the Senate reform bill. Also, there are still concerns that some changes can’t be accomplished through reconciliation. Read more in this Health Affairs blog post from Tim Jost.
Spring deadline?
Because the language which allows for budget reconciliation was passed with the FY2010 budget bills, once Congress starts passing FY2011 budget bills, as early as April, the budget reconciliation language would expire. It’s uncertain whether there would be the votes to put reconciliation language in the FY2011 bills. As such, there is now talk of spring as a deadline for finishing health care reform (the one major caveat being that budget bills are often passed late, if at all, in an election year).
Could the Public Option make a comeback?
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Posted by Tammy Alexander
February 1, 2010
Last week, President Obama announced a three year federal spending freeze for all “non-security discretionary” programs. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, expressed opposition to this decision. The MCC Washington Office, along with other organizations, endorsed a letter directed to Rep. Pelosi. Here is an excerpt:
We write to express our support and our appreciation for your opposition to a federal budget freeze that excludes even the consideration of defense spending. An initiative to rein in public expenditures without examining a bloated budget that takes up more than half of all federal discretionary spending is unwise and wrong.
We support cutting government spending that is wasteful, ineffective and duplicative wherever it may be found. However, a freeze in vital federal investment in our nation’s economy and people, particularly in the midst of a deep recession, is not in our national interest.
Budgets reflects values, priorities, and principles. It’s time for our nation’s budget to prioritize human needs and conserving creation rather than protecting and expanding an already bloated defense budget.
1 Comment | Militarism, Sign-on Letters | Tagged: budget freeze, federal budget, military spending | Permalink
Posted by Mary Stata
January 29, 2010
1/29 Virtual Vigil – Call your members of Congress today!
On Monday, 56 national and state faith organizations, including the Mennonite Central Committee Washington Office, sent a letter to Congress, urging members to move forward with comprehensive health insurance reform.
As people of faith, we envision a society where every person is afforded health, wholeness and human dignity. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose birthday we just commemorated, famously wrote in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.” Less well known is his admonition that “of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.”
Read the entire letter.
On Wednesday, President Barack Obama delivered his State of the Union address, renewing his call for Congress to pass comprehensive health care reform:
By the time I’m finished speaking tonight, more Americans will have lost their health insurance. Millions will lose it this year. Our deficit will grow. Premiums will go up. Patients will be denied the care they need. Small business owners will continue to drop coverage altogether. I will not walk away from these Americans, and neither should the people in this chamber.
Thus far, there have been no positive signs from either the House or the Senate that legislation will be moving soon. Leaders in both houses are pledging to act but giving few specifics (read more).
Join the push for real health care reform. Call your members of Congress today!
For additional resources on health care reform, visit the Abundant Life health care page.
Leave a Comment » | Abundant Life, Action Alerts, Capital Quotes, Health Care, Legislative Updates, News Stories, Sign-on Letters | Permalink
Posted by Tammy Alexander
January 29, 2010
US Army
A year after President Barack Obama’s inauguration, the administration has failed to change course from disastrous U.S. policies that privilege expanding military ties rather than promoting economic development and democracy in Africa. A recent article by Daniel Volman notes that the Obama administration’s FY 10 budget request
“proposed significant increases in US arms sales and military training programs for African countries, as well as for regional programs on the continent.”
The budget of Africom (the US military command for Africa) far exceeds that of the State Department and the US Agency for International Development (USAID). The United States must reverse this trend by revitalizing the capacity and resources of these critical agencies, rather than prioritizing military assistance and training programs. In addition to over militarizing underdeveloped African nations with limited infrastructure, investing in military programs diverts scarce resources from efforts to consolidate democracy, uphold human rights, and spur economic growth on the continent.
Leave a Comment » | Africa, Militarism, News Stories | Tagged: AFRICOM, democracy, economic development, human rights, Obama administration | Permalink
Posted by Mary Stata
January 28, 2010
Dr. Jane Aronson, founder of the Worldwide Orphans Foundation, speaks about the dilemma of how best to help Haitian orphans in the New York Times:
“This is not a time for adopting orphan children in droves,” she says. Instead, the answer is “to care for the children where they are, and allow them to find their aunts, their uncles, their grandparents, their cousins.”
She proposes “conscripting an army of grannies” — Haitian women who can be given stipends to foster one or two children at a time. It would be a worthy use of the money pouring into the country from around the world, she says, and her organization is in the process of recruiting American social workers to head to Haiti to build such a project quickly.
Read more.
Also, see this helpful fact sheet from the International Reference Centre for the Rights of Children Deprived of their Family (ISS/IRC).
Leave a Comment » | Immigration, Latin America/Caribbean, News Stories | Permalink
Posted by Tammy Alexander
January 26, 2010
Theo Sitther writes about Haiti in Third Way Cafe:
Ben Depp/MCC
More than two hundred years ago Haiti shed the brutal bonds of French slavery and created the first free black nation and the second republic in the Western Hemisphere. Haiti’s abolition of slavery happened at a time when the United States and other western governments continued to profit from the slave trade. Haiti has been paying the price for its freedom ever since.
After Haiti’s independence in 1804, France, with support from the U.S. government, imposed a massive debt of 150 million francs on Haiti ($21 billion in today’s dollars). Haiti struggled to pay off this debt while suffering under several military interventions, dictatorships and economic policies imposed by the IMF and the World Bank. These have destroyed Haiti’s ability to take care of itself and its people.
Click here to read the rest of the article.
Leave a Comment » | Articles, Latin America/Caribbean | Tagged: haiti, Theo Sitther, Third Way Cafe | Permalink
Posted by Mary Stata
January 25, 2010
"I feel like we live in an occupied zone now." -Eloisa Tamez (Photo by Eugenio del Bosque)
Read how Brownsville’s battle against the federal government’s border fence ended in defeat and disillusionment:
The rust-colored, steel-and-cement wall has become a surreal fixture on Brownsville’s skyline. It cleaves downtown Hope Park, built as a symbol of unity between the United States and Mexico. It stops and starts, without rhyme or reason, along the Rio Grande River’s levees, leaving miles of gaps. It highlights the city’s economic divide: It’s the first thing folks in the poorer barrios see when they look out their windows, while richer folks enjoy unaltered views of palm trees and manicured fairways when they tee off on private golf courses. It zigs and zags through residents’ backyards, through citrus orchards—an ugly red scar on a green, subtropical landscape.
– Texas Observer, Jan. 22, 2010, Melissa del Bosque
Leave a Comment » | Environment, Immigration, News Stories | Permalink
Posted by Tammy Alexander
January 22, 2010
ACTION ALERT: Pass the Senate Health Care Bill
Where to begin… On Tuesday, the special election to fill Senator Ted Kennedy’s seat in Massachusetts resulted in a victory for Republican Scott Brown. This means that the Democrats will no longer have a 60-seat filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Which means that the path health care reform was taking – House-Senate negotiations on a “merged” bill and subsequent votes in the House and the Senate – has been, quite frankly, derailed. A few options remain:
(1) The House could pass the Senate bill as is and send that bill to the President. Pros: many major reforms would be enacted; 31 million uninsured would get health insurance. Cons: many of the provisions in the Senate bill are weaker, most notably the Medicaid expansion and subsidies to low-income individuals (there is a possibility these could be fixed in a budget “reconciliation” process).
Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Tammy Alexander
January 22, 2010
Yesterday in a business meeting, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed the National Criminal Justice Commission Act. The Act, introduced in March 2009 by Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA), would form a 14-member, bipartisan commission tasked with reviewing the entire criminal justice system. After the review, the commission would form unanimous recommendations to be passed to Congress, the President and the Judiciary branch as suggestions for change throughout the system.
The criminal justice system in the United States has grown tremendously in recent history, with incarceration increasing by 500% in the last 30 years. At 5% of the world’s population, the United States now houses 25% of the world’s inmates. That’s 7.3 million men, women and children and 5 times higher than the international average incarceration rate.
Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | Crime and Justice, Issues, Legislative Updates | Tagged: crime and justice, incarceration, judiciary, NCJCA, prison, racial disparity, reentry, restorative justice, retributive justice, Webb | Permalink
Posted by Christina Warner
January 21, 2010
The latest update from the ground in Haiti indicates that U.S. military personnel are carrying out their operations by showing respect to Haitians. The following is an an email excerpt from MCC Haiti Representative, Kurt Hildebrand:
We drove by a couple of humvees with US military personnel today. We were pleased to see that while they were clearly armed, they did not have their guns out or pointed at anything or anyone. After three years of seeing UN troops driving around with their guns mounted and fingers on triggers, this is a much welcome change.
We welcome and appreciate this fact. However, we are still concerned about the implications of military presence and the long term role of the U.S. military in Haiti.
Click here to read a previous blog post on the deployment of U.S. troops to Haiti.
Leave a Comment » | Latin America/Caribbean | Tagged: haiti, haiti earthquake | Permalink
Posted by Theo Sitther
