Winning Progressive

(Winning Progressive is happy to introduce everyone to our newest contributor, Josh Marks.  Josh is a Washington, D.C.-based environmental journalist and clean energy blogger. He was most recently a senior writer and editor at Green American Magazine and writes about the sustainable economy at his Green Forward website.)

(By Josh Marks)

“I think you’d have to go back to the 1850s to find a period of congressional dysfunction like the one we’re in today.” – Daniel Feller, U.S. History professor at the University of Tennessee

WASHINGTON – Tuesday, January 17th marks the return of the least popular (9% approval rating) and one of the least productive (62 signed laws) sessions of Congress in American history. And when the second session of the 112th Congress arrives on Capitol Hill they will hear all about it.

Lawmakers will be greeted by thousands of demonstrators from the most recent evolution of Occupy Wall Street – Occupy Congress.

Occupy Congress’ day of action, dubbed #J17 by organizers, will feature of a full slate of activities including citizens from across the country arranging meetings with their legislators, teach-ins, a rally, party and D.C. Voting Rights Vigil.

But what does Occupy Congress want? There are many issues to address and many failures to point out. Failure to take action on jobs. Failure to take action on clean energy and climate change. Failure to take action on infrastructure. Failure to take action on the housing crisis. Failure to take action on income inequality and the middle class. These are but a few of the many urgent items Congress has failed to even vote on. But the number one overriding issue preventing any real change is big money undermining the political process.

Lawmakers are used to being lobbied by big corporations with deep pockets. On Tuesday they will finally hear from the largest lobbying group in this country – the 300 million citizens of the United States of America.

I plan on reporting from the evening protest and rally so stay tuned to Winning Progressive for full coverage of the event.

How can you get involved?

The Occupy Congress website provides an events schedule, transportation logistics for those planning to come to Washington, D.C. from another state, a guide to scheduling a direct meeting with your congressperson, a list of solidarity events taking place around the world, how to donate food and more.

For this weekend’s reading list, we have articles on how far off-base the GOP is, how militarization of the police has been going on for years in African American neighborhoods, an overview of the fundamental US economic changes that need to be addressed, and a thorough identification of all of the hurdles that the poor face in getting ahead.

If you have any feedback on these articles, or would like to recommend an article for next weekend’s reading list, please let us know at Winning Progressive’s Facebook page.

The GOP’s Crackpot Agenda – An accounting of how pro-wealthy elite, anti-environmental, anti-worker, and anti-government the GOP candidates running for President are.

From War on Drugs to War on Occupy – A report documenting how the increasingly militarized police forces who evicted Occupy Wall Street are nothing new, as such militarized force has been used in African American communities for decades.

The Book of Jobs – an essay explaining how structural changes in our economy from industrial to service-based have weakened our economy by shrinking the availability of secure middle class jobs.

If I Were a Poor Black Kid -an essay detailing the numerous hurdles to success that poor children of any race in the US face.  This post was in response to the absolutely ridiculous essay of the same name that was published in Forbes magazine earlier.

Showing how out of touch they are with everyday Americans, conservatives have latched onto the news that the share of national income taken in by the top 1% fell from 23% in 2007 to “only” 17% in 2009 to contend that the focus of Occupy Wall Street and others on economic inequality is somehow misguided.  For example, in a post titled “The 1% Ain’t What It Used To Be,” conservative blogger Megan McCardle responded that “we don’t want to spend years focused on income inequality, only to learn that the financial crisis fixed it for us.”  Conservative economics professor Steven Kaplan of the University of Chicago business school echoed such doubts and actually offered a defense of inequality, stating in the New York Times that:

“It’s very interesting that [inequality] has become such a big topic now when the numbers are back to where they were in the 1990s,” said Steven Kaplan, an economist at the University of Chicago’s business school. “People didn’t seem to be complaining about it then.”

Pointing to the recent declines at the top, Mr. Kaplan argues the Occupy protesters have accused the wrong villain by focusing on inequality, which he called an inevitable byproduct of growth. “If you want to reduce inequality, all you need to do is put the economy in a recession,” he said. “If you want the economy to do well, as all of us do, then you’ll get more inequality.”

Kaplan’s effort to link growth and economic inequality as inherently related is historically incorrect.  For example, from 1950 to 1980, the share of income taken by the top 1% remained below 12% in all but one year, and was below 10% in 13 of those years.  During that same time period, the US economy experience virtually uninterrupted growth.  When the economy dipped in the early 1980s, the share of income taken by the top 1% increased.  While it is true that most recessions lead to a decline in the share of income for the top 1%, the historical record does not support the contention that economic inequality is the inevitable byproduct of growth.  In addition, while some level of inequality may be necessary for economic growth, elevated levels of inequality – such as those in the US today - actually stunt economic growth.

The claim that we shouldn’t be focused on economic inequality because of the decline in the top 1%’s share of national income in 2009 is similarly offbase for a few reasons.   First, there is little reason to believe that the 2009 decline is anything but a brief aberration. A significant portion of the reduced income share for the top 1% in 2009 was due to declines in the stock market and capital gains from investments.  But the stock market has largely recovered and other economic factors that reflect significant wealth generation for the top 1% have fully rebounded since 2009.  Corporate CEO salaries skyrocketed in 2010 and a number of hedge fund managers each took in more than $1 billion in 2010.  As the chart below shows, corporate profits rapidly recovered from the recession low point, even as unemployment has stayed far too high and average incomes have stagnated.  In other words, the top 1% have fully rebounded, while the rest of the country continues to suffer from the economic havoc wreaked by the Bush Recession.

In addition, economic inequality is a significantly more salient issue now than it was in the 1990s because growing income inequality is increasingly accompanied by attacks on the social safety net and a decline in middle class economic security.  While conservatives have always criticized government programs that benefit anyone except the wealthy, for the most part there were not serious efforts in the 1990s to dismantle Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and states in the 1990s were largely able to keep operating programs that directly benefited the poor.  Similarly, in the 1990s there were higher levels of unionization, more employers provided health insurance, and public universities were far more accessible to working class and poor people looking to better their economic lot in life.  Today, all that has changed, and conservatives have launched all-out onslaughts against Social Security, Medicare, and other programs that benefit average Americans.  Depending on the results of the 2012 elections, the success of such attacks is a frighteningly real possibility.  So, to answer Mr. Kaplan’s question, part of why economic inequality matters more now than it did in the 1990s is that the governmental and societal supports that helped minimize economic inequality are substantially weaker or are under full out attack from the conservatives who do the bidding of the top 1%.

Third, conservatives ignore the fact that Occupy Wall Street and other movements against economic inequality are about more than just what share of income goes to each income level.  Instead, such groups are worried about how a rapidly growing concentration of wealth among the top 1% has created a situation where our political and economic systems are increasingly unable to respond to any interests outside of those of the top 1%.  As we’ve explained previously, the goal of Occupy Wall Street is to try to break that stranglehold so that our political and economic system can get back to governing in the best interests of we the people.  Nothing about a temporary decline in the top 1%’s share of national income changes the critical importance of achieving that goal.

With economic inequality an increasingly salient political issue for everyday Americans, conservatives are desperate to try to change the subject.  But the issue of inequality will go away only after we achieve fundamental reform of our political and economic systems, not simply because of a minor and temporary dip in the economic standing of the wealthy elite.

In this weekend’s reading list, we have stories on a lobbying firm targeting Occupy Wall Street, the tens of millions of Americans who struggle to get by economically, greenwashing at Wal-Mart, the Supreme Court and the New Deal, the impact of the economy on President elections, and why food stamp fraud versus Wall Street fraud.

If you have any feedback on these articles, or would like to recommend an article for next weekend’s reading list, please let us know at Winning Progressive’s Facebook page.

Lobbying Firm’s Memo Spells Out Plan to Undermine Occupy Wall Street - an exclusive report from Up w/Chris Hayes regarding a memo that the lobbying firm of Clark Lytle Geduldig & Cranford sent to the American Banking Association regarding the threat to Wall Street posed by OWS and how the banksters should respond.  You can read the memo here.

Older, Suburban, and Struggling, ‘Near Poor’ Startle the Census - the latest census data shows that nearly 100 million Americans either live in poverty or are “near poor” in that they live paycheck to paycheck and have incomes less than 50% above the poverty line.  

Walmart’s Greenwash: Why the Retail Giant is Still Unsustainable - an investigative series into greenwashing at the nation’s largest retail chain. 

How the Justices Get What They Want - a review of two new books about the U.S. Supreme Court and its handling of New Deal legislation

Which Economic Indicators Best Predict Presidential Elections? - a thorough analysis by Nate Silver of the correlation between 43 different economic indicators and the results of Presidential elections since World War II.  

Woman Gets Jail for Food-Stamp Fraud; Wall Street Fraudsters Get Bailouts - a comparison of the treatment of a poor woman convicted of food stamp fraud with that of the Wall Street banksters, which well-illustrates the real Golden Rule – he who has the gold makes the rules.

(By Joanne Boyer, cross posted at Wisdom Voices) 

In the mid 1990s, I worked with an individual in Minnesota who fought hard to enact legislation for universal health care. His passion and desire to see health care reform that included coverage for all was as heartfelt as any I’ve ever seen. In what seemed (at the time) like a never ending legislative battle to change a health care system failing its people, I heard him say that he was going to round-up every three-ring binder report that had been done on the need for health care reform in the last year and just dump them all on the legislators’ desks and claim, “We don’t need another report. We need health care for everyone.” For the first time since I heard that, I feel we may be reaching the point of no more reports and binders. Thanks to Occupy Wall Street, I believe real action for single payer may be within our grasp.

Recently, attention has been focused – and rightly so – on the Occupy Wall Street movement as it continues to shine light on the simple reminder that it was Wall Street who caused the 2008 financial collapse. But lurking not far behind is the natural extension in the discussion for “We are the 99 percent.” The cry heard today from the Wall Street patriots in the streets can easily turn from “people, not profits” to “patients, not profits.” There’s little doubt that the continuing debate on health care will take center stage AGAIN during the 2012 presidential campaign. The Affordable Health Care for America Act will be under assault by many for various reasons. Only this time, the Occupy Wall Street Movement may finally empower people to no longer settle for corporate controlled heath insurance solutions.

Perhaps no one draws the parallels between Occupy Wall Street and the need for an Occupy Health Insurers better than Wendell Potter. The former CIGNA executive-turned-whistleblower remains one of the most vigilant and articulate spokespersons to call the health insurance companies what they are: corporations who value profits over the health of the people of our nation. In a recent column Potter points out but one of the horrific practices of the health insurance companies: the selling of “junk” insurance coverage to millions of Americans in 2014. He concludes that article by saying:

As I write this, the insurance industry and its corporate allies are lobbying the Obama administration to grant limited-benefit plans permanent waivers from that provision. If the White House caves in to their demands, millions of low-wage earners will be forced to buy junk coverage on January 1, 2014. That’s the date all of us will have to buy coverage from a private insurer if we’re not eligible for a public plan like Medicare or Medicaid. If you don’t want to be forced to buy junk, send the White House a message. Now.

As Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) always reminds us, the United States remains the only industrialized nation in the world with a for-profit health care system. The need to push the Affordable Health Care Act to do more should remain a primary goal for all of us in 2012. No more three-ring binders…no more studies…no more lobbyists. We need to move to single payer. The Occupy Wall Street movement has unleashed the simple reminder for all of us: We the People have a tremendous amount of power to bring positive change to our financial and social institutions. With Super Committees looking to put Medicare and Medicaid on the cutting block, we simply cannot take our eyes off the real prize: single payer in the United States. To help maintain a focus on this issue, we offer samplings of recent articles or blogs that continue to keep the issue of single payer in the spotlight.

Dave Zweifel, editor emeritus of The Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin, wrote that the solution to health care is simple: single payer. It’s such an obvious answer staring us all in the face that we have missed the forest through the trees.

This summer, Rochester, Minnesota, physician Mark Liebow, wrote a column for Physicians For A National Health Program urging Minnesota to follow Vermont’s lead and become the second state to pass single payer legislation. With DFL Governor Mark Dayton’s hands tied with a Republican-controlled state house and senate, the task remains a big one. But with the momentum gained from Occupy Wall Street, the old rules may no longer apply.

Health Care-Now is an excellent blog that provides information and resources on what you can do and where activities that promote single payer are planned. Bookmark this wonderful site and keep it handy when you need information on the “who, what, where, when, why and how” of health care reform.

No more reports, no more binders, no more studies. As Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners Magazine said so eloquently back in 2009:

So let us have the moral dialogue and debate. Let’s take the best of who we are, the greatest parts of our tradition and use that to lead the way. The misinformation, falsehoods and outright lies that many are now circulating obscure the moral and religious core of this debate: that millions of people are suffering in an inequitable and inefficient health care system, and that too many powerful people are profiting from that broken system in defiance of the common good.

Occupy the health care for profit industry now in existence? Impossible you say?  After what we’ve witnessed the last few weeks, I’m no longer so sure.

While the Occupy Wall Street movement continues to grow, the right wing media is stepping up its efforts to discredit the movement and the media continues to pretend like it cannot figure out what is motivating OWS.  In an effort to make sure the American people get an accurate portrayal of OWS and its efforts to make our political and economic systems work for the benefit of all of us, director David Sauvage has put together three commercials and started a LoudSauce webpage to raise funds to get the commercials on television. 

The commercial above, featuring OWS protesters saying why they are involved in the movement, is our favorite here at Winning Progressive.  If you also like the commercial, please click here to donate to the effort and also forward this commercial to your family, friends, and colleagues.