United States military veterans in the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia and Palau received increased attention during the Biden Administration after years of neglect by the US Veterans Administration.

That progress came to a halt with the incoming Trump Administration in Washington in January, when the new Veterans Administration put many programmes on hold.

Marshall Islands Foreign Minister and US military veteran Kalani Kaneko said he is hopeful of resuming the momentum for veterans living in the freely associated states.

• READ MORE: Other US veterans reports

Two key actions during the Biden administration helped to elevate interest in veterans living in the freely associated states:

• The administration’s appointment of a Compact of Free Association (COFA) Committee that included the ambassadors to Washington from the three nations, including Marshall Islands Ambassador Charles Paul, and US Cabinet-level officials.
• The US Congress passed legislation establishing an advisory committee for the Veterans Administration for Compact veterans.
• Kalani Kaneko was appointed as chairman to a three-year term, which expires in September.

Kaneko said he submitted a report to the Veterans Administration recently on its activities and needs.

The Foreign Minister said it is now up to the current administration of the Veterans Administration to take next steps to reappoint members of the advisory committee or to name a new group.

Virtually non-existent
Kaneko pointed out that in contrast to its virtually non-existent programme in the Marshall Islands, FSM and Palau, the VA’s programme for veterans is “robust” in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.

Citizens of the three compact nations enlist in the US military at higher rates per capita than Americans.

But when they leave the service and return home to their islands, they have historically received none of the benefits accorded to US veterans living in the United States.

Kaneko and island leaders have been trying to change this by getting the Veterans Administration to provide on-island services and to pay for medical referrals of veterans when locally available medical services are not available.

Kaneko said the 134-page report submitted in June contained five major recommendations for improved services for veterans from the US-affiliated islands:

• Establish a VA clinic in Majuro with an accredited doctor and nurse.
• Authorise use of the Marshall Islands zip code for US pharmacies to mail medicines to veterans here (a practice that is currently prohibited).
• If the level of healthcare in Marshall Islands cannot provide a service needed by a veteran, they should be able to be referred to hospitals in other countries.
• Due to the delays in obtaining appointments at VA hospitals in the US, the report recommends allowing veterans to use the Marshall Islands referral system to the Philippines to access the US Veterans Administration clinic in Manila.
• Support and prioritise the access of veterans to US Department of Agriculture Rural Development housing loans and grants.

Kaneko said he is hopeful of engagement by high-level Veterans Administration officials at an upcoming meeting to review the report and other reports related to services for Compact nation veterans.

But, he cautioned, because there was nothing about compact veterans in President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” passed recently by the US Congress, it means fiscal year 2027 — starting October 1, 2026 — would be the earliest to see any developments for veterans in the islands.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Cameroon is consistently among Africa’s worst jailers of journalists, with five journalists—Amadou Vamoulke, Manch Bibixy, Thomas Awah Junior, Tsi Conrad, and Kingsley Fomunyuy Njoka—currently behind bars in violation of international law, according to CPJ’s annual prison census. 

To meet AGOA eligibility requirements, reviewed by the Office of the United States Trade Representative, sub-Saharan countries must meet statutorily defined criteria, several of which relate to human rights. Given the ongoing detention of the journalists and the country’s poor press freedom record, CPJ and Freedom House said that Cameroon does not fully meet these criteria.

Read a copy of the comment in English here.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

On June 6, thousands of veterans, union members, VA hospital nurses, elected officials, and more gathered on the National Mall in Washington D.C. at the “Unite for Veterans, Unite for America rally” to protest the Trump administration’s attacks on veteran jobs, benefits, and healthcare. In this on-the-ground edition of Working People, we report from Friday’s rally and speak with veterans and VA nurses about how Trump’s policies are affecting them now and how to fix the longstanding issues with the VA.

Speakers:

• Peter Pocock, Vietnam War veteran (Navy) and retired union organizer
• Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees
• Terri Henry, Air Force veteran
• Ellen Barfield, Army veteran and national vice president of Veterans for Peace
• Lindsay Church, executive director and co-founder of Minority Veterans of America
• Lelaina Brandt, veteran (National Guard), 2SLGBTQIA+ advocate, and part-time illustrator and graphic designer.
• Eric Farmer, Navy submarine veteran
• Irma Westmoreland,  registered VA nurse in Augusta, GA, secretary-treasurer of National Nurses United, chair of National Nurses United Organizing Committee/NNU-VA
• Andrea Johnson, registered VA nurse in San Diego, CA, medical surgical unit and the NNOC/NNU director of VA Medical Center- San Diego
• Justin Wooden, registered VA nurse in the intensive care unit (ICU) at James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital in Tampa, FL
• Cecil E. Roberts, Vietnam War veteran (Army) and president of the United Mine Workers of America

Additional links/info:

• Tim Balk & Helene Cooper, The New York Times, “Military parade in Capital on Trump’s birthday could cost $45 million, officials say”
• Lolita C. Baldor, Associated Press, “Transgender troops face a deadline and a difficult decision: Stay or go?”
• Eric Umansky & Vernal Coleman, ProPublica, “Internal VA emails reveal how Trump cuts jeopardize veterans’ care, including to ‘life-saving cancer trials’”
• Maximillian Alvarez, Working People / The Real News Network, “Trump cuts leave VA hospital nurses and veteran patients in a crisis”

Featured Music:

• Jules Taylor, “Working People” Theme Song

Credits:

• Audio Post-Production: Jules Taylor

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Alright. Welcome everyone to another on-the-ground edition of Working People, a podcast about the lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles of the working class Today. Working People is a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network and is brought to you in partnership within these Times Magazine and the Real News Network. The show is produced by Jules Taylor and made possible by the support of listeners like you. My name is Maximillian Alvarez and I am here on the National Mall in Washington, DC at the Unite for Veterans Unite for America rally, where thousands of veterans from all military branches and age groups, union members, VA hospital nurses, elected officials, and more have gathered to send a message to the Trump administration. This is a critical follow-up episode to our recent interview with VA nurses and national nurses, United Union reps, where we talked about the devastating impact that President Trump’s cuts to federal agencies and attacks on federal workers are causing for VA healthcare workers and the veteran patients that they serve as national nurses.

United describes in their press release about today’s rally on Friday, June 6th, the anniversary of D-Day, dozens of registered nurses from National Nurses Organizing Committee slash National Nurses United will join Senator Tammy Duckworth, veterans federal workers, military families and allies in Washington DC for the Unite for Veterans, unite for America rally organized by the Unite for Veterans Coalition. This rally is modeled after the 1932 Bonus Armies march on Washington DC and will spotlight attacks on veteran benefits, call out attempts to privatize the VA and rally the veteran community to defend the institutions that serve them. So I am here on the ground talking to folks about why they’re here, why it’s important, and what message they want to send to the administration and to their fellow workers around the country.

Peter Pocock:

I’m Peter Pocock. I’m out on the mall here in DC with a whole bunch of other veterans. I’m an old timer. I’m pushing 80. I’ll be 80 this year. I was in the Vietnam era and happily for me and intentionally for me, I was in the Navy because you were more likely to avoid bullets in the Navy. Yeah, we’re out here on the mall today because the Veterans Administration, which takes care of a lot of us, myself included, I’m 90% disabled and we can go into that later, but we’re here because certain parties who are in the government are really trying to cut the hell out of what we have supposedly earned by our service over the years. Yeah, Gary from the podium, we’re here to fight back. First of all, there’s a whole lot of vets that actually are losing their jobs, particularly government jobs.

We got a preference. That was one of our benefits of being in the service. We got a little bit of a preference for jobs coming out and especi people who have been working for the government for 10, 20, 30 years who are being basically told, we don’t need you anymore. Thank you very much. Actually, no, thank you very much. Let’s just go away. Not happy about that. I tend to do only family friendly language and interviews, but there’s a whole lot of words I could use to describe what the Trump administration is trying to do to labor. That’s something that the right wing has been after for what decades, maybe more, and I’ve been fighting. I was in the labor movement my whole working life after the Navy and been fighting it that whole time. Even in retirement. Keep on showing up is the way that you win every time.

We’re not going to storm the capitol. We’re not going to surround the White House and take prisoners and things like that. What we’re going to do is keep on showing up everywhere in the country, every opportunity we have, every chance to have a conversation with somebody about it, talk to ’em about what’s going on, talk to ’em about the fact that people’s livelihoods are being taken away. Things that people have worked for their whole lives are being taken away. That’s not just veterans, that people with jobs. You got a job, you want somebody to take it away from you for no good reason except to send a little more money to some folks that have no need of more money. Thank you very much. I came back in 1970 to an environment that was not particularly friendly to veterans

And I kept showing up. I kept telling people I never held it against somebody that they thought that I was at fault for this war. I was against the war myself. Well, another thing that has got me out here is I’m 90% disabled according to the Veteran’s Administration, and it’s because I’ve got Parkinson’s disease. See, there’s what I got is Parkinson’s Disease, and it’s generally attributed to the fact that I was exposed through Agent Orange during my service. My bet is that basically any of the folks that were in Southeast Asia in the late sixties and the early seventies all have been exposed to Agent Orange and many of them will if they haven’t already be displaying all kinds of symptoms because of it. In my case, Parkinson’s.

I’m lucky that it didn’t show up until late so that I’m still, I’m going to make it to 80. Anyhow, a lot of my people have, the VA takes care of people like me. The VA takes care of people who are in wheelchairs because of their service for laying flat on their backs in a hospital bed because of their service, and that’s where they’re going to be. The VA’s taking care of them. That’s not waste, that’s not fraud, that’s not abuse. That’s what they have earned is that care and that’s what everybody in this whole country earns just by being citizens is care. How come we are not taking care of our people? We had all kinds of very interesting things going on in the Navy, in the army. I got friends that were doing some really good anti-war stuff that endangered them. So when I came back, that’s what I started doing and I mean doing it ever since. I wasn’t in a labor movement at the beginning. I was in left wing politics, anti-war politics, and from there being in the labor movement was just a natural. As soon as I got the kind of a job that actually had that kind of stuff going on in it, we don’t need to go into it too much, but I was a real hippie organizer in Politico. I was not in a position to be in anything but the IWW. So yeah, but I spent 30 years in the labor movement and I’m still with it.

Everett Kelley:

My name is Everett Kelley. I’m a proud Army veteran and I have the pleasure as the National President of the American Federation of Government Employees A FGE. First and foremost, I want to thank the Union Veteran Council for inviting me to speak and for putting on this necessary undue event. Now I want to welcome all of you who came here today from out of town. Your commitment is aspiring and I want to thank you for being here today. We’re here to unite on behalf of all veterans and to bring awareness and attention to this unprecedented and un-American attack on veterans jobs, benefits, healthcare and union rights. What do you say? Well, it doesn’t matter what branch you serve in, right? We’ve all made a huge sacrifice for our country and all of you are my family. Now though we all come from different backgrounds and different races have different religious beliefs and political views.

We all have similar stories as veterans. My story starts in good water, Alabama, where at 18 years old I joined the United States Army and went on to serve in the Army Reserve for another eight years. After my three year tour, like many of you, after I my military services, I wanted to continue to serve my country. So I became a federal employee working at Anderson Army Depot with my fellow veterans while we continued supporting the mission. You see, just because the job change doesn’t mean your service is complete. Our mission has not changed. Our mission is protect and to serve, to support and defend, and that has not changed. But now what has changed, however, is the government’s promise to be there for us when we get home that changed the promise to care for our families, our caregivers, and our survivors. For years, politicians on both sides of the aisle have campaigned on their support of veterans, but once they get in the office, they cut our benefits on the fund, our services and take every opportunity to privatize our healthcare.

What do you say about that? No, and guess what? Brothers and sisters, we are tired of it. Veterans are tired of being celebrated on Veterans Day remembered on Memorial Day and forgotten about after election day. What do you say about that? Are you tired? We’re tired of being thankful. Our service in the public and stabbed in our back in the private. We are tired now. This S ring no true than today. In January, the VA presented employees, what a fuck in the road. Wow. They encouraged members to end federal services in February, VA recklessly terminated more than 1500 probationary employees resulted in chaos and confusion within the department. In March, the VA announced plan to cut 83,000 jobs for no rhyme or reason whatsoever under disguise of efficiency. I say it’s not efficiency, it’s fraud and a FG been fighting sensely because we know what the big ass will do, don’t we?

Right? And if you don’t know what the big enough plan for Americans veterans is, let me share it with you. The big enough plans for Americans, veterans, it’s a privatized veteran healthcare. In order to make themselves wealthier, they want to make a quick buck offer the sacrifices of the pain and the scars of all those of us who have served this country. They want to take away our VA medical centers claiming that private healthcare is better. However, study after study showed that vegetable prayer to get their care to be VA because it was created for us. Now, the VA is a place my brothers and sisters to go too far camaraderie and for exchanging stories where we are treated with respect and honor because nearly 30% of the employees are veterans too, and they understand who we are. They understand the sacrifices that we’ve made.

They understand the specialties that’s needed. They understand a person that has PTSD. They know it’s not a sham. They know it’s for real. The VA plays for veterans by veterans and for veterans. However, these master reorganization plans that stand before us today is the targeted attack on veterans job, on healthcare, on benefits and union rights. The layoff plans aren’t just figments of our imagination. They are here. We’ve already seen thousands of employees being fired, but brothers and sisters, lemme tell you this, I got to leave you, but before I go, I want you to know that you have doctors, nurses, housekeepers, es, chiropractors, pharmacists, social worker, benefit specialists, police officers, janitors, engineers, painters, electricians, psychiatrists, cooks, greeters at the front door at the va.

Terri Henry:

I’m Terri Henry. I live in Alexandria, Virginia. I’m here in Washington DC today to protest the Trump administration’s treatment of veterans. I am a veteran. I’m married to a Vietnam veteran. My father is a veteran. My brother is a veteran. I believe in veterans. My husband and I had nowhere to go after high school graduation. We weren’t born with a silver spoon like Donald Trump. So we joined the military and his two brothers joined as well, and we got our educations through the va. So we are all college educated people who were able to improve our lives by virtue of our military service. That would not have been a path open to me. Only marriage and children would’ve been open to me. I had no education and no way to earn a living. The military taught me skills and I used those skills and I believe in America.

The other thing that happened is my husband got agent orange cancer for his Vietnam service. So we rely on the VA for his cancer treatment. If it had not been for the va, I tell you, I would’ve had just a complete breakdown. But they were wonderful. They took him in, they gave him chemo. We never had to worry about a bill. Every American that gets cancer in America has to worry about how they’re going to pay for their treatments in the military. We never worried about that. We went to the doctor when we needed to go to the doctor and they gave us what we needed and they promised us that that care would continue after we left the military. And in my husband’s case it has. But now in the Trump administration that care is threatened, these veterans are threatened. We’ve got new veterans, young veterans, Afghanistan, veterans, Iraqi veterans, Vietnam veterans still alive.

We need that care. You promised that care. Donald Trump is a draft dodger 1968. He refused to take the cough. In fact, he got his father to pay for a bone spurs excuse. That’s not courage. That’s not courage. And that man is insisting that we the veterans or the active duty military march in front of him like puppets and he is a draft dodger and a felon. The irony, the insult, it is such an insult to the American military to make them parade for him. This is not Hollywood. This is real life. And those federal workers that you’re un employing, they actually take a military member out of a combat seat. Why? Because the federal workers do the things behind the scenes that allow the military to deploy forward. Every federal worker you fire, you’re taking someone out of combat and you should know that you’re harming the mission and they don’t have time to do your petty tasks.

Like this parade on the, what is it, 14th of June, which by the way, that parade is not a birthday parade for Donald Trump. It’s not a birthday parade for the army. What it is is a show of force, a show of force as was conducted in 1939 at another birthday parade in another nation where that dictator showed the world, his military and what they had to be afraid of. That’s what this parade is about. He’s using the US army to threaten the rest of the world with our military might. We’re very proud of our military. We have a great military, but they are already overt, tasked and now he’s cutting them as is Pete Heg said. Now Trump’s priority is real estate. What he wants to do is put Gaza puts the French Riviera in Gaza. He wants to own Greenland. All he sees when he sees other nations is real estate opportunities, opportunities to make money.

That is not what the government does. The government is here for. We the people, they only exist to serve. We the people just as a church passes a collection plate. The government passes the tax plate, we put the money in with the intent that’ll be spent on our needs, not on his. And there’s quite the difference between the two. So I say to you, don’t believe Donald Trump, he is lying every day. He has a network that does that Cox News. He’s cutting down on journalism like N-P-R-P-B-S so that you will never hear the truth. And now voice of America as well. So this is a very dangerous time in our nation and it is time for us to stand up and say, no, no, Donald Trump, we see you. We’ve seen this before, but it’s not going to happen here in America.

Ellen Barfield:

My name’s Ellen Barfield. I’m a nearly 30-year-old Baltimore aunt originally from, did a lot of my life in Texas and I did four years in the Army, 77, 81. I’m the co-founder of the Baltimore Chapter of Veterans for Peace, and I’m back on the national board.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Well, it’s so great to chat you and yeah, Baltimore out here representing, we are literally sitting on the National Mall right now at the Unite for Veterans Unite for America rally. I wanted to just ask if you could say a little more about yourself, about why you’re out here and what the message today really is.

Ellen Barfield:

Well, the main messages stop trashing veterans and stop taking away our benefits and firing. So many of us disproportionately veterans are employed in the federal government. They do get a little bit of a point for being veterans and they come from that kind of mindset. So they want to keep serving, if you will. So the threats to our VA healthcare and the firings of so many veterans, those have got to be stopped and reversed. And that’s why we’re here now. A lot of the folks here are a good bit more politically conservative than veterans for peaces, but that’s okay. We have to get together to defend the promises this country made to its veterans to take care of us in exchange for our possibly being sacrificed. I personally think war is the enemy and humanity better unlearn war. It’s going to finish us. So I don’t glorify wars, but it is something nations have done for a long time. It’s had militaries. And part of the deal is you potentially risk your life in exchange for benefits afterward. That’s the promise. And they’re taking that away and we got to hang together here. Even if we don’t politically agree to say hell no, we’re not going to let you do that.

Maximillian Alvarez:

And can I just ask, as a veteran yourself as an organizer with Veterans for Peace, have we been fulfilling that promise to our veterans? And I guess that’s a two part question. How have we been treating our veterans in the aggregate before 2025 and what are these new attacks from the Trump administration doing to our veterans on top of that?

Ellen Barfield:

Yeah, thank you. Because that’s exactly right. The VA has essentially never been fully funded. It was already down about 60 or 70,000 staff around the country before Trump even got back into office. And now there’s threats of about 85 or 90,000 more cuts and they’re talking about, oh, we’ll keep the essentials doctors and nurses, excuse me, if the floor is a wash and trash and the toilet won’t flush and all of the staff is important, it’s not just the professionals. So give me a damn break.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Brian and I literally just interviewed multiple VA nurses to say like, look, when you cut our support staff, who do you think has to pick up the work us? Which we can’t tend to

Ellen Barfield:

Our patients take care of the patients, exactly. We got to have medical tests and we got to have clean bathrooms and all of that. I wear this shirt the same, our VA shirt when I go to the VA and talk to some of the staff. And some of them are very grateful to see it and some of them are kind of puzzled amazingly, this one guy who’s been doing the check-in for me, the blood pressure and whatnot before I see my endocrinologist have a thyroid condition. And this was before Trump got back in, but that’s exactly what I was talking to him about. The staff is way, way down across the nation. I’m sure y’all are tight here. And he said, yeah, as a matter of fact, you’re right, we are. So it was interesting that I was helping him understand, and you’re absolutely right, it was far from perfect for a long, long time, but it was a lot better than we’re looking at and being fearing right now. So yeah, it’s chipping away at something that was already far from the strength that needed to be.

Maximillian Alvarez:

And I guess, I know there’s a broad question, but we got a lot of folks who listen to the show who are not veterans, right? They’re workers union and non-union. I’m sure they’re curious if you had to give a general sort of overview, how is this country treating its veterans?

Ellen Barfield:

Well, how is this country treating anybody who isn’t a massively wealthy person? And I have said for a long time that VA healthcare, if fully funded and staffed is the way everybody’s healthcare should be. Single payer, everybody in, nobody out. And sadly, the VA has never been everybody in. They don’t cover everybody and they really should. It depends on timing, depends on a lot of things as to whether they will take you or not. But a large chunk at least of veterans, but it is a single system where your records are all together, your care is all in one place. They understand the specifics of you being a veteran. And there are lots of other categories of people that need particular attention paid. Everybody should have single payer get rid of the 30% insurance premium that the civilian world pays for their healthcare.

Then we could afford to make sure everybody had primary care, everybody had preventive care. It wouldn’t be showing up at the emergency room at the last minute when you’re catastrophically sick and if they’re going to save you, they’re going to have to spend a lot of time and money, preventive, preliminary, that’s what everybody needs. The VA at least theoretically and to a large extent in fact is damn good. It’s a unified system where it’s all together and they take care of it all. It’s so much easier than having to ferry records across town because you have to go to a specialist who’s never seen you before. Everybody should have it. So yeah, the nation’s not being kind to veterans, but it’s not being kind to anybody that isn’t filthy rich.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Listen, truer words never spoken. And you mentioned something at the beginning of our interview here where you said there are a lot of conservative folks out here. There are folks more on the left, but this moment of crisis is bringing those folks together here as one crowd on the National Mall. Things are getting so bad that it is forcing a lot of folks to come together in common struggle. And I wanted to kind of end on that note from the veteran side of things. What possibilities, possi, do you think this moment presents and what do people need to do to seize on that moment and fight for our rights, fight for our future before they’re all gone?

Ellen Barfield:

Well, I have really avoided the thought that things have to bottom out to energize people, but it’s obviously happening sadly. People are terrified as they have reason to be here. And are we going to lose our Medicaid? Are we going to lose our healthcare? Are we going to lose our social security? And then what the hell are we going to do? Yeah, there is reason to be terrified and we have to unify across our differences and across our skin color and our religion and all those things that they are using. It is what imperialists fascists always do is to divide and conquer, to teach you that somebody who’s on the same level as you is threatening you. When that’s bullshit. Immigrants don’t threaten us. Black folks or white folks or brown folks don’t threaten each other. Pretty much all of us in the same boat now, there was a middle class, it’s pretty much gone.

So we don’t have any damn choice and it is pulling people together. I’m glad of that, but I’m horrified that it had to get so bad. But here we are, veterans for Peace is 40 years old this year. We’re fixing to have our first face-to-face conference in a while because of COVID and other things. We are small. We’re only about 3000. We got up about 10,000 in the earlier Iraq years, but we’re small, but we speak out about challenging all war and there’s got to be a better way that the imperialists of Europe and the US have got to figure out they need to be just part of the world like the rest of it. We got to, there’s struggle in the United Nations and other international forum to recognize that the climate is going to kill us if we don’t stop pumping crap into it. And we have to work together to solve that. And the ridge world owes the global south a huge amount of funds to help them take care of it. And we got to do it here too. And that’s totally the direction we’re not going right now. We can’t possibly, as human beings expect it continue if we don’t come together. And sadly, when it gets this bad, it kind of knocks people upside the head and they understand it a little better.

Lindsay Church:

Good afternoon. My name is Lindsay Church. I’m a Navy veteran, the executive director of Minority Veterans of America, and someone who still holds tightly to a belief that this nation is worth fighting for, not with weapons or wars, but with truth, with compassion, and with conviction that we all deserve to belong. We stand here today not just in protests but in protection one another of our shared future of the Soul of public service itself. Because what we are witnessing is not theoretical, it is not slow moving. It is here, it is deliberate, and it is already doing harm. Today marks the beginning of what history will remember as a purge of transgender service members, an unconscionable order from Secretary of Defense, Pete Hexes that puts thousands of service members across the country and around the world in the crosshairs of their own government. Troops who serve with integrity and distinction are being told that their presence is a problem, that their identities are incompatible with patriotism, that they must choose, walk away from the careers that they’ve built or stand and stay to be persecuted. This week I walked to the halls of Congress beside some of them. Brave, steady, remarkable people who are carrying the weight of betrayal was grace that shouldn’t be required of them. I watched as they told their stories calmly, powerfully, beautifully. And I watched members of Congress and their staff move from polite interest to a deeper knowing. Those weren’t statistics in front of them, they were patriots. And no matter what, some want to believe they belong.

But Secretary Hex says is not the only one making these decisions. At the Department of Veterans Affairs secretary Doug Collins has announced his goal to eliminate 83,000 jobs. Jobs failed by the very people who care for us. When the wars are over, people who process disability claims answer crisis lines, help veterans find housing and walk alongside us through recovery. Many of them veterans themselves, many of them survivors of the very systems now being dismantled. This isn’t reform, it’s abandonment, and it’s not isolated to VA today. The cuts, the job cuts are there, but they’re already spreading the workforces. Its social security, FEMA education, those pillars of community stability are already being slashed. Public servants across the country are being demoralized, discarded, and erased. Not because they failed in their duties, but because they dared to serve the people that those in power find inconvenient. This is not about cost saving, this is about consolidation of power, of control, of the very definition of who gets to be counted as an American. This week, the Navy quietly announced that it will rename the USS Harvey Milk.

A name meant to honor courage, authenticity, and sacrifice stripped from our national memory. Without ceremony, without justification and without shame, the Harvey Milk story is not one they can erase. And neither are the stories of Harriet Tubman or Medgar Evers or Ruth Bader Ginsburg or John Lewis. All namesakes of navy ships, these aren’t just names, they’re the scaffolding of American progress. They remind us who we’ve been and they point to us towards who we could become. When we erase them, we do not become stronger, we become smaller. And while these symbolic erasers continue, the real world harm accelerates. Just weeks ago, the VA rescinded protections that in turn, the transgender non-binary veterans like me could access medically necessary care. Care that is affirming care, that is evidence-based and care that saves lives. This isn’t about budget, it’s not about medicine, it’s about cruelty, cloaked in bureaucracy.

And while the spotlight is aimed at transgender people benefits for others, women, people of color, disabled veterans are being quietly dismantled in the shadows. Let me be clear, we are the canary in the coal mine. What they do to us in the headlines they will do to you in silence. I’ve stood besides veterans as we slept on the steps of the capitol to pass the Pact Act because our sick and dying friends deserved better. I’ve traveled to Ukraine with fellow veterans to stand with our allies in their fight for freedom. I’ve stood my life in the military and far beyond it answering the call to serve. Because to me, service isn’t defined by the uniform. It is defined by what we choose to protect, by who we choose to stand up for. Whether we leave behind a world that is more just more compassionate and more free. So I say this to secretaries, he Collins, and to every person who believes that they can quietly erase us from this country’s fabric. We are not going anywhere. We are your neighbors, your coworkers, your classmates, your family. We’re veterans, we’re public servants, we’re Americans, and we’re still here. We will not be erased. We’ll not be silenced, and we’ll not stop fighting, not just for ourselves, but for the America we know is still possible. Thank you.

Leilana Brandt:

So my name is Leilana Brandt. I am a veteran of the Army, national Guard, served from 1996 to 2002 in the 36 50th maintenance company in Colorado.

Eric Farmer:

My name is Eric Farmer. I served from 1999 to 2020 in the Navy. Did most of my time on submarines, also did a tour to Iraq and I come from Texas.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Well, thank you both so much for chatting with me. We are standing here on the National Mall to unite for veterans, unite for America rally. I was wondering if we could just hear a bit more about you all your time in the service and what the hell’s going on right now that is bringing so many folks out here to the mall?

Leilana Brandt:

Well, I am a transgender person and I also was in the military during Don’t ask, don’t tell last time. So I was completely closeted for my own safety, not just in the military, but in my life in general. And it took me a very long time to have the courage to do what some of the service members now are doing, which is being themselves while being in the military. And each and every one of us have taken an oath to the constitution just like every other service member and veteran. And I feel that them being stripped away from the military right now, not only losing their livelihoods but also their homes, their friends, they’re just being stripped from their lives completely just because of how they were born. And I think it is appalling and insulting to all of us.

Maximillian Alvarez:

And can I just ask on that note, could you remind folks who maybe forgotten what the hell it was like in the Don’t ask Don’t Tell era? It felt like we made quite a bit of progress in a short amount of time and now we’re just yanking it right back.

Leilana Brandt:

While for anyone in the two s LGBTQI plus community, they were expected to not speak of it, to not have any hints of who they were. And so they basically had to hide themselves in order to serve. And there were many that were separated through no fault of their own, but because they were outed by other people. And then there were just folks that used that as an opportunity to shirk deployments and stuff like that by falsely claiming it. So it’s not anything that makes sense as far as readiness goes. And also Hertz enlistment because there are many folks in the queer community that want to serve or that need to serve because that is the best way for them to make a livelihood for themselves in a country that discriminates against them already. And the military has long been a place that started to be more diverse before the public sector was. And so I believe that that’s something, or sorry, before the private sector was. So I believe that that’s something that should continue, that it should be at the front of the pack as far as allowing everyone who wants to serve to do so.

Eric Farmer:

My time in the Navy, like I said, was mostly on submarines. When I first started out, it was strictly men, it was strictly men. When I first started out in the submarine community, it wasn’t until about 2006 that they started allowing females to serve on submarines and that was started out as officers. My last submarine that I was on that I did a deployment on was integrated with enlisted females as well. And they stepped up. They stepped up and did the job that all the other men said that they wouldn’t be able to do. And so I have a feeling that what’s about to happen is that they’re going to try to do away with females in the submarine community and it’s not going to make us ready. The jobs are being filled by females right now, and if you take all those females out, we’re not going to be capable of deploying our submarines.

Now what’s bringing out the veterans here is the fact that they are trying to take away the jobs of the veterans. They’re saying that that’s going to help the veteran community with the va. And I’m telling you that we’re about to find out that you can’t do more with less. I have had three to four phone calls where I’m trying to get community care on the phone so that way they can send something to the VA so I can get my work done. And they’re, they’re not picking up the phone. I’ve been on three or four phone calls where it’s been 30 plus minutes and no one’s picking up and it just cuts off and I have to call back. And so I’m waiting. I’m already waiting. And the cuts have just begun.

Maximillian Alvarez:

One, it really gives a grim meaning to that phrase, right? We are doing more with less, but it’s not what people think. You have more plane crashes around the country when you have fewer air traffic controllers. You have more wait times for veterans like yourselves when you have less healthcare staff at the va, right? That’s the kind of more we’re getting for less, which is nuts. But I wanted to ask you if you could both touch on that a bit more. Since your time in the service, what has your experience been like as veterans? How have we been doing as a country in caring for our veterans before the new Trump administration? And then we’ll talk about what the hell’s going on right now.

Leilana Brandt:

Well, I think that what I have seen, I never used the VA because I was never overseas, but my father was Lifetime and had multiple deployments and he has been someone who used the VA and he has always had complaints. He has always had complaints, and it is mostly about the understaffing. It’s not that there is waste happening as far as personnel goes, and that’s the place where they’re trying to make cuts is personnel. That’s the thing they need more of, not less. So if they need to find ways to make it more efficient, that’s great, but personnel is not the place to start with that.

Eric Farmer:

So when I first got out in 2020, I was scared about to go into the VA because I’ve heard all the horror stories. And for me, when I first got out, it was actually pretty good. Not very long wait time to get ahold of somebody. No wait time to get in. It wasn’t until recently that the wait times have become longer and longer and I’m not getting the care that I feel like I need. In fact, I go Wednesday to have a surgery on my shoulder from an injury from the Navy that I re-injured, but I’m not going through the va. I’m having to use my personal insurance. I’m going through TRICARE because the VA wants you to go through physical therapies before they do anything, and I have a tear in my labrum that needs to be fixed.

Maximillian Alvarez:

There’s been so much going on in the past three months alone, it’s hard to even know where to start. But like you said, the cuts to federal agencies across the board, including Veterans Affairs, and I just interviewed some of the nurses at VA hospitals, so they’re feeling it. Folks here in DC are feeling it on the administrative side. It’s going to take a while for us to really wrap our hands around the impact of all this. But I think one silver lining of the terrible moment we’re in is that it’s bringing so many folks out of complacency to gatherings like this. Even people who don’t normally agree on stuff, people who maybe aren’t down with L-G-B-T-Q rights, but who are saying, fuck it, we’re all getting destroyed right now. If we don’t start learning how to work together, we’re all going to fall like dominoes. So I wanted to kind of end on that note because things are obviously pretty grim right now, but what do you think it signifies that so many folks have come out to the mall, that there’s so many diverse groups of veterans, there’s union folks, non-union folks, older folks, younger folks. What message does that send and what do you think it’s going to take for us to really stand together as working people to fight this?

Leilana Brandt:

Well, I think that the military needs to continue to lead that way in diversity as it always has. Every person I ever served with, regardless of what their personal political views, religious views, anything like that, they didn’t give a shit what their buddy in the foxhole believed or where they came from or anything like that, as long as they had their six. And that’s something that we need to remember is that we need to have each other six. We need to be there for each other knowing that we all have a common goal and we have a common enemy, and that is anyone who is an enemy to the constitution that we took an oath to support and defend, and if any of us are under attack, then we all come together to fight that.

Eric Farmer:

I think the silver lining of having the diverse group to show up today is sending a message. It’s going to send a message that the oath that we took does not end, that it’s going to continue until we eradicate the fascism that is trying to implement our country. My grandfather fought in World War II against this, and never in my mind did I think that we would have to fight this, but taking it to the front lines today, to the front steps, to the front door of the capitol, as long as someone, even if they support a certain person, just listens to some facts from today, that might change their mind and go, you know what? I have that oath. I need to defend the constitution because I’ve asked people, well, what are you going to do whenever the constitution starts getting taken away? And they told me that they would fight, but they’re not here. They’re not protesting

Leilana Brandt:

Because they’d be here today if they

Eric Farmer:

Actually recognized it was already happening. They don’t go to any protests. They sit idly by and we can’t do that as veterans with the support of non-veterans. This is what it’s going to take. Non-veterans supporting the veterans, the veterans coming up and being the bonus army that this is about bonus Army of 2025.

Irma Westmoreland:

Well, good afternoon you guys. My name is Irma Westmoreland and I’m a registered nurse in Augusta, Georgia for the va. I’m also secretary treasurer for National Nurses United and chair of our VA division. While I’ve worked for the VA for 34 years as a nurse, some of my earliest memories are going to the VA in Augusta, Georgia to work with the veterans on bingo nights or dance parties. When I got older with my mother who spent 50 years as a VA volunteer, I know. Pretty cool, huh? Also, my husband is a retired SFC Army veteran of 21 years of service who has disabilities from its service. So the VA is deeply personal to me. Our servicemen and women were told, if you need us, we’ll be there for you. It’s a promise. Now, secretary Collins and the administration want to take that promise away and we’re not going to allow it. That’s why it deeply pains me to see these attacks on the va. When we have a contract for the VA care, the nurses and the doctors are going to be caring for these patients. When the administration says they won’t cuts, we say, no, we need to live up to what we told and promised our veterans. We told them that we would be there for them and we need to do that. They stood for you and me and I ask you now to stand for them. No cuts to the va.

Maybe some of you know someone or love someone ill from burn pit smoke or from Agent Orange or lost a limb from an IED exposure or died or suffered from PTSD, military sexual trauma or other chronic illnesses. We know the VA is the best place to get care for these ailments and more. The VA is the only healthcare system centered around the special needs of service members. 30% of our employees are veterans themselves, but it’s more than that. It’s also the only healthcare system in the country that’s fully integrated will help with veterans in poverty, with homelessness, offers, clothing, allowances, and much, much more. I’ve seen magic happen at the VA friendships form fast and it’s not unusual to see veterans helping veterans, whether it’s pushing a wheelchair or walking them down the hall to an office. These veterans share a deep sense of camaraderie and a sense of belonging. That goes a long way in making a person feel better and stronger. Now, if you ask, is the VA perfect? No, it’s not. I can’t tell you that it is, but let me tell you, we’re light years better than the private sector.

That’s why I will not stop fighting to see the VA improved and not destroyed. As you all know, secretary Collins is now looking to cut tens of thousands up to 80,000 jobs from the va eight. Yeah. These decisions are being made at the atmospheric level. The staff that do the work know best where things can be improved and streamlined. And I say ask them. He says, no mission critical positions will be cut. But let me tell you that all positions in the VA are mission critical. It’s important for every person to keep their job from the engineering staff to the housekeeper, to the dietary staff, secretarial staff, and many, many more. When cuts are made, who will be there to have to pick up the work that needs to be done? The nursing staff and the medical staff that are left when supply folks are cut. I heard that operations were being postponed so nurses could run, get clinical surprise. Let me explain that for you. In one place, a nurse had to go and to the warehouse in the VA to get supplies for surgery needed in the OR for a patient who was waiting. That’s not right. That’s right. But that veteran finally got their surgery. It was delayed, but it was done. But it was because the nurses stood for that veteran.

When housekeeping was cut, I heard delays in veterans getting into beds because there was no one to clean the rooms. This causes delays for our patients getting needed treatments started, and in some cases it may need to lead for a more elevated critical need of treatment. It’s common sense cutting 80,000 jobs will cause delays in veteran care. So we say absolutely no cuts. That’s right. We know. We know we are. What we’re witnessing is an effort to push the VA past its breaking point. The ultimate goal is to privatize the VA and pour billions of taxpayer dollars into giant healthcare corporations and the pockets of billionaires instead of the veterans who served our country.

Don’t sell us out because what they do, they know the VA and the federal government. It’s going to pay them on time every time. That’s why they want our care, but they don’t know our care. They don’t know how to provide our care. They don’t know that the VA does it better than anybody. The nurses and the doctors are specifically trained to do it. We’ve been training for years since the VA was incepted and while right now we are not going to go away for sale, we are not for sale. That’s exactly right. It is the nurses and the government workers who are standing up to block this privatization effort. It is because of our unwillingness to back down that nurses and other unions are filling the retribution that came down on March 27th with an executive order designed to strip us of our union rights. It is union busting and intimidation, plain and simple, but we’re fighting back national nurses united along with other federal workers, labor unions, and other veterans groups. We sued the administration over this outreach of executive power. This is not about us, it’s about our patients. We must have collective bargaining protections that allow us to advocate for our veterans and to speak up about issues in our facilities that cause us concerns for our patient safety. One example is we’ve had shortages of IV normal saline to mix medications. How stupid is that?

With that being said, you all understand the VA is not a contract. The union’s not a contract. The unions are nurses. We represent, the union says, and I say no cuts. Keep the VA strong so that we can care for every veteran. NNU knows that an injury to one is an injury to all. So we say when we fight, we win. When we fight, we win and we will prevail. The VA will stand strong for our veterans. Thank you.

Andrea Johnson:

My name is Andrea Johnson and I’m a registered nurse. I work with veterans in San Diego.

Justin Wooden:

And I’m Justin Wooden. I am a registered nurse in the ICU and I work in Tampa, Florida.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Well, Andrea, Justin, thank you both so much for chatting with me today. We are of course standing out here on the National Mall at the Unite for Veterans, unite for America rally. You all with National Nurses United have shown up in full force because of course, these cuts that the administration is doing to the federal agencies across the board are impacting workers, including workers at the VA and across the board across the country. So I wanted to ask if you could just say a little more about who you guys are, the work that you do, and what it’s like to work where you work under the conditions we’re under right now.

Andrea Johnson:

So we’re a special breed, and I say that because we care for patients that are not typical patients. Veterans went overseas, they fought wars. They’ve done many things that affect them morally and mentally. And because of those actions and the things that they had to choose to do in wars, they come back broken. And that’s what is unique about the VA system and VA nurses and healthcare providers in general, is that we have that knowledge and experience to care for the veteran in their entirety, right? Outside public hospital systems don’t have that knowledge or experience working with veterans and the special, unique needs that they come back after serving their country with. So as BA nurses we’re there, we’re taking care of that whole veteran. We’re taking care of their medications, we’re taking care of their home life. We’re coordinating with social workers to make sure that they have all the resources that they need. It’s not just passing medications. We’re caring for that whole veteran. And I think that’s what’s special about being nurses

Justin Wooden:

And our veteran population that we care for is also different than the fact that I’ve worked private sector before and I’ve worked the va, the veterans, they’re not like the average person when it comes to their care. They want it straight, don’t beat around the bush. They want to know what’s going on, cut to the chase, just tell me what is going on. They don’t want sugarcoated. They want direct answers and we offer that.

Andrea Johnson:

That’s right. And I think the other thing that makes veterans unique is that they come from a system where they’ve been told what they can wear, how they can act, what they can say, what they can do. And soner, VA nurses and healthcare providers in general struggle sort of with this authority in a way where we educate and try to teach our veterans better ways to care for themselves.

But we have that sort of roadblock because they put up a wall, it feels like we’re telling them what to do, and that’s never what we are trying to do. So we always have to find unique ways with each veteran. Each veteran is unique in how they receive and retain information. So I think that’s what makes us unique too than outside hospitals, is that veterans are a very special population and taking away the care that the VA provides them is despicable. And like I said, no outside hospital system could take on the number of patients that the VA system cares for or the special needs that the veterans have.

Justin Wooden:

And veterans, they have a little camaraderie. If you’re in the army, you’re army strong. If you’re in the Marines, you’re strong. So every branch kind of has a little internal battle with each other, but when it comes to it, they’re all a brotherhood. They will stand behind each other. A lot of our veterans in Tampa where I go, they come to the VA hospital just to be around veterans. So it’s a community to them. It’s not just a place to get healthcare, but they go there because they feel the camaraderie, they feel the brotherhood. So while they have appointments, they come early just to talk with other veterans that they know from places or they just feel more secure. And a lot of military veterans don’t like to talk about their time and their service, but at the va, we encourage it, it therapeutic, it’s cathartic, and they feel free to tell stories there that they haven’t told their families.

I mean, we have patients who are towards the end of their life and they have all these things that they haven’t said that they finally want to say, and they feel comfortable with the nursing staff, with the doctors at the VA to have those conversations and tell the things that they were so afraid to talk about before. So I love working for the va. I think it’s a phenomenal thing and a wonderful place to work. But the current administration is causing a lot of rifts and making it a lot more difficult in a lot of ways.

Andrea Johnson:

These actions by the government are creating anxiety and fear for healthcare workers coming to the va. That’s not stopping us from coming to the va. We’re dedicated to our mission and we show up day in and day out to deliver that care despite what’s happening. But that’s why we’re here today, right? We’re fighting for what we know the vets earned and what they deserve.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Could you guys say a little more about what has been going on inside the VA over the past three months? I mean, how have these policies from the Trump administration affected you all in your day-to-day work? Right. I mean, there’s the current attack on the collective bargaining rights of federal employees, over a million federal employees, including nurses at National Nurses United work for the va, right? There’s like the voluntary resignations, staff cuts that are impacting agencies across the board in different ways. Could you just give listeners a little on the ground view of how has this been affecting you all and the work you do over the past few months?

Andrea Johnson:

Well, like I mentioned earlier, nurses, at least the nurses I’ve been speaking to in San Diego, and I’m hearing from my colleagues across other VA facilities as well, is that there’s a decrease in morale. People are feeling fearful and anxious coming to work because we don’t know what’s next. We don’t know if tomorrow when I go into work, I’m going to lose my job. So we’re dealing with those fears, but we’re still coming in, right? It’s not stopping us from coming in. It’s not making me want to quit my job and go find a job somewhere else. I know what I do at the VA is important, and I know that the veterans appreciate the care that they receive there. And I think the government and the people making these decisions need to actually come and spend some time with these people to better understand where they’re coming from, making these decisions without any of their, in my opinion, without any of the veterans in mind, any of the federal workers really, or the American people for that matter. But specifically for today, they’re making these decisions, not considering what the veterans want.

Justin Wooden:

So I work in the ICU at the bedside, and it affects me in ways because sometimes they send us to areas because they’re short staffed, that we are going to areas and covering areas that we’re not familiar with or used to working in these areas. And a lot of people are like, oh, well, you’re a nurse, you can work anywhere. Well, and I like to is like, would you go to a podiatrist to get your teeth done? They’re both doctors, but it’s similar. We have different specialties. And also as a leader in the union at my facility, I round the hospital and talk with all the nurses and all the units to see what their concerns are. And a lot of ’em come to me. They’re like, well, we’re told there’s no union. There is a union,

Andrea Johnson:

Andrea, Andrea. It’s really confusion.

Justin Wooden:

There’s a lot of animosity every day. You don’t know what’s going on. It’s just very tense. I guess that’s a good way to put it. But going around the hospital, a lot of the nurses that I work with are saying they feel that there’s more focus being put on numbers and metrics as opposed to the care of veterans or the staff. They’re putting numbers over the patients. And ever since I’ve been at the va, which is, I’ve always had a wonderful time, but recently it’s becoming very, like you said, very anxious. It becomes very nerve wracking like you’re walking on eggshells just because you don’t know what’s next.

Andrea Johnson:

Yeah. We just don’t have any clue. But I think, and Justin made a good point, that a lot of our nurses are concerned about the union because of these executive orders and attacks on union unions and the federal government in general. But as union leaders, we remind them that the contract our CBA, our contract is not the Union National Nurses United. Yes, we are the union. I’m not the union. It’s every single one of our nurses that are on the floor, right, collectively, so they can try to take us down, but they’re only going to succeed if we let them. And so I’m using that as sort of a motivator to keep my nurses motivated and encouraged to continue to fight the good.

Justin Wooden:

Because right now the current administration is, they’re doing union busting tactics. So being a federal government agency, they took away union dues being done through a direct deposit through your paycheck. So essentially we lost every member we had, and now we have to start from the ground up getting everyone to reset up. So essentially it’s like a grassroots project starting from the ground

Andrea Johnson:

Up. It’s very grassroots right now. Yeah.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Can I just ask a blunt question? What does eliminating collective bargaining rights and changing the structure of how union dues are paid, how does that serve the American people? How is that? Are you creating efficiency or cutting waste?

Andrea Johnson:

It has absolutely nothing to do with government efficiency and cutting waste. If anything, especially federal agency unions provide protections to the employees that they represent to speak out about fraud, waste, and abuse. We provide that layer of protection for VA nurses to speak out about patient safety issues when there’s not enough staff or if we have broken equipment, our collective bargaining agreement provides, in a way, it’s a bubble. It sort of insulates us from retaliation from being targeted by management. So I think that’s the importance of our collective bargaining agreement.

Justin Wooden:

And I worked in private sector, so I can see. So in the private sector, say you’re an employee and you’ve done something. So I call you into the office, say, Hey Max, you did this. Can’t be doing that. Here’s a writeup, right? If you are opposed to that or don’t agree with it, that’s your opinion and you have no say in a union, you have a union backing, you have union rights. You can have a representative there to say, Hey, I don’t think this is right. And we can investigate it and say, Hey, I don’t think this is just what you’re doing. So we stand up for our members.

That’s just one scenario. We also ensure, like Andrea said, safe working additions. We make sure the veterans are safe, making sure that if they change any policies that, or any changes in working conditions that it’s safe for the staff or things like that. So there’s a lot of things the agency does to help protect workers, not just, it’s not saving money. I mean, yes, the union does fight for, we look at locality pay and we look at all the area hospitals, how much are they making? Why is our pay not equal or similar to the surrounding areas? We do those things as well. We also help our employees who have problems with hr. A lot of our time at my facility is spent because HR payroll hasn’t done what they’re supposed to do or bonuses weren’t given or a lot of unjust things are being done by HR because this is the federal government. It’s not just we don’t have our own HR department. We have to go through multiple steps to get things done. So we have a lot of resources that we use to get to the people so we can help our employees.

Andrea Johnson:

Yeah, yeah. Just to kind of last little thoughts on that, like I said, the collective bargaining agreement, and I hate to describe it this way, but it’s sort of an insurance policy for some people because like I said, there’s sometimes fear to speak out about safety issues and when something is being done incorrectly because of that fear of retaliation or being singled out and like I said, that collective bargaining agreement provides that protective layer. It makes people feel safe and comfortable to be able to speak out. And that’s why those are important. It holds management accountable. They can’t just decide to do whatever they want because if it’s written in a contract, they have to follow that

Justin Wooden:

Essentially having union is having a democracy. There’s due process and checks and balances in the private sector, it’s more authoritarian. This is what I say, do it

Maximillian Alvarez:

Well. And that’s always been my retort when I hear folks say they want government to be run a business. And I was like, well, as someone who interviews workers at businesses across the country, I can tell you you’re saying you want our government to be run like a dictatorship. How most businesses are run. I could talk to you guys for hours, but I know I got to let you go here, but I wanted to just pick up on something that you were saying both of y’all. But we’ve interviewed a lot of healthcare workers on this show over the years

And through those interviews from folks who work at private Catholic hospitals to public hospitals, university hospitals, certain common like horrifying trends have become apparent in terms of what’s going on in healthcare. The crisis that we have been facing with more work being piled onto fewer workers, patient care, the quality of patient care going down as patients are increasingly treated like commodities to come in, get their care and get kicked out. This whole sort of McDonald’s model of healthcare is something that I’ve heard described from different healthcare workers around the country. I wanted to ask how much the VA has sort of been going the same way or how things are different within the va. I guess maybe to end on that note, what do you all in the VA deal with on a day-to-day basis that is indicative not only of problems that need to be fixed at the va, but problems that we’re facing in our healthcare industry across the board right now?

Justin Wooden:

I can speak to that first.

Andrea Johnson:

I’m going to let you go ahead

Justin Wooden:

Because working in private sector

Before coming to the va, I’ve seen both sides. So I know everything is about billing. In private sector, it’s about getting money. Because they’re for profit, they need to make money. So every procedure that’s done has to be documented so they can bill for it to get money. At the va, it’s not like that at the va. So you were describing healthcare as like a fast food restaurant. So drive through, get what you need, and then at the VA we care about the veteran whole. So when they come in, we’re worried about discharge planning when they come in. So are there anything you need at home? Do you need shower bars? So we’re working on the discharge to make sure when they do leave, when it’s time for them to go, they have the appropriate things. Do they have problems with any meals? We’re going to get every resource.

Mental health, we schedule their appointments before they leave. Where in private sector, they don’t do that. So before you’re discharged from the va, any follow up appointments, we we make sure they’re scheduled before you walk out the door and we print out a calendar of here’s all your upcoming appointments so you know what you have to have done and all your medications are listed, all these things are there. We don’t want to set up for failure. We want them to know their health course, know what they need to do and follow up with those treatments. We have social workers who call after they leave to make sure, hey, it’s been a week since you’ve been home, is everything okay? So those are the things that I see the biggest difference. I think that’s the biggest strength the VA has. So for them to do cuts and try and eliminate that system, I think is the worst thing we can do.

Andrea Johnson:

And to sort of piggyback off of what Justin was saying is, I mean you made a good point, max. Our people are talking across the country about our healthcare system and how broken it is. And so taking 9 million veterans who receive care in a system, that one has significantly higher standards than any hospital outside of a federal agency. Were held to a higher standard when we screw up. That’s in the news. When local hospitals make a mistake that’s not in the news because they’re smaller, it’s more central. But the VA is a federal agency where across the entire country. So if the VA does make a mistake, it’s known. But what we do very well isn’t necessarily spoken about in the public as much, but the VA does a lot of things very well for our veterans

Justin Wooden:

And veterans choose to come to the VA

Andrea Johnson:

That outside hospital systems cannot, cannot do. And if we eliminate the va, if we try to continue to push veterans into the community with a system who already or that already cannot serve the citizens that they’re set out to serve and we add 9 million more people to that system, what’s going to happen? We’re going to have a very sick America that is unhealthy, that can’t happen

Justin Wooden:

Paying through the nose

Andrea Johnson:

And paying through the nose. And

Justin Wooden:

The PAC Act added 400,000 more veterans that can get care and then they want to cut 80,000 plus jobs. So who’s going to care for those veterans, those newly signed veterans? You’re offering more services for veterans, but now you have less people to provide those services.

Andrea Johnson:

Right. And we know studies show our experience and our knowledge knows that the more staff you have on hand to care for people, the better healthcare outcomes there are. And that’s just, you can’t make that up. It’s documented, very well documented. And we should be looking at not dismantling one healthcare system that serves 9 million people, but looking at the healthcare system as a whole on how we can make it better. Not taking one away and throwing it into this other one that’s already a disaster. We need to be looking at trying to make our outside hospital systems more like the VA as far as standards and things like that go. I think we’d be better off in America if more outside hospital systems followed in the va, which is why we need to keep the VA in place.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Well, and just a final question on that note to everyone who’s out there listening right now, whether they’re in a union or not, whether they’re veterans or not, why should they care about this and what can they do to help? How can they stand in solidarity with you all at National Nurses United and what can they do to join this fight to save the va?

Andrea Johnson:

Okay. I think this fight, whether you’re Democrat or Republican, you are union or non-union. I think that this is an important issue because we’re dealing with our veterans. These are people who risk their lives, gave up time from their families, were injured, witnessed some atrocious things. And if we’re not supporting them and receiving healthcare, then there’s something wrong. And I think that we need to be focusing on making sure that the veterans continue to receive the care that they have earned and that they receive. And because this is just me, but what they’re doing to the veterans, this is just one step. They could easily turn that to people who are not in the union, to people who are not veterans, to just regular old Americans. And then what are we going to do when our already broken healthcare system is even worse? So I think that healthcare in general should be a human issue no matter what side of the aisle you fall on.

Justin Wooden:

And my point I always like to say is every one of us has family member. If your family member is sick and in the hospital and they hit their call bill because they need help, you want somebody to be there to respond with the way the current healthcare system is going. We’re being put spread more places, so it’s taking us longer to respond to those calls. We as humans, as you said, our job as nurses, we want to care for our patients. We don’t want do any harm to our patients. We want to be there. So we are just fighting and want people to know that we’re here fighting for your family members, for your loved ones and for our veterans because that’s our job. That’s our oath that we’ve taken as nurses. So we just want to be able to have the supplies, the tools and the resources we need to give the best care we can to our veterans and patients.

Cecil E. Roberts:

My name is not just Cecil Roberts, president of United Mine Workers of America. I used to be Sergeant Cecil e Roberts in Vietnam in 1 96, like infantry brigade.

When I first got to Vietnam, I want you to listen to this. Some people tell me I was never scared when I went over there. You’re looking at a guy that was scared to death.

I tell the truth, that’s the truth. I was scared when I first got here. It appeared that nobody liked me. These people with 15 months, 10 months, eight months counting the days, they looked at us new guys as like, that guy’s going to get me killed when they hurt my accent. Oh no. Another hill belly from West Virginia. That’s what they thought. They looked at me, these veterans, they said, how you going to act? I didn’t understand the question. How you going to act? I want you to remember that because I’m going to ask you how are we going to act moving forward from this place? That’s right.

And then bullets go right by your nose. They look at me and say, don’t mean nothing, man. I’m thinking bullshit and say something to me and I want you to think about that. You get immune to this and I saw so many wonderful people with kids at home, mom and dad’s at home, wives at home, and all kinds of friends at home. Not make it. When I first got there, somebody with 30 days got killed, had a daughter he never met. Somewhere in this United States of America, there’s a 57-year-old woman, had never met her father. Now, how many veterans we have here? By show of hands, you’re going to get a test right now. How many of you met a million there in Vietnam or where you are stationed? How many of you met a millionaire? There’s a good reason millionaires don’t defend a country. They take advantage of the country, and if there’s people listening to this live broadcast, you could be mad. Your feelings could be hurt and I don’t care.

The other thing I want to ask you, when you got back home, how many people patted you on the back, particularly if you was a Vietnam veteran? Didn’t happen. Didn’t happen. But I want to thank everybody, every veteran because we’ve been embraced for the last 20 years and that means so much to me. Thank God for you. It isn’t, isn’t enough to come here and rally. This is a great first step. Abraham Lincoln said, this is a country of the people by the people and for the people it has turned in to a country for the rich people who don’t care about the rest of us, I’m going to tell you what we should be planning on doing. We should demand that every person who worked for the federal government and lost their union rights be restored. Right now, I was in the army and I’m glad people recognized the service of people who were in the army, but we shouldn’t be having a parade.

We shouldn’t be having to parade until every veteran has the healthcare they deserve and we shouldn’t be having a tax plan send to the rich who don’t need money. Here’s another tax cut for you. Until every American who has a job, doesn’t have a job, has a job until every homeless person has a home, we should make, I’m going to close with something. First of all, I’m calling on Congress. I’m calling on everybody that’s elected. I’m calling on every American, how are you going to act? Because this is terrible what’s happening to this country, and that’s why we’re here today.

You do know, this is my last quote, okay? On map next to last, Dr. King was assassinated. One month before I left Vietnam and I watched these African-American soldiers so desperate, so frustrated, so hurt, pick up their rifles, pick up their M sixties, and went out into those rice patties and defended the United States. When the United States didn’t defend them, that was wrong. This one will really challenge you. Dr. King in the middle of the civil rights movement said this to those who were being bitten by dogs. He said, listen to this. If you don’t have something, not somebody, not your wife, not your daughter, got your mom, not your dad, something that you would die for, you don’t have a life worth living. Think about that.

This is the last one. It’s strange that I jumped from Dr. King to Mother Jones. My great grandmother and Mother Jones were friends, two great radicals, and I’m so proud of our heritage. You may not know this history, but when you leave here today, read it. How many of you heard La Lulo at Ludlow? The gun thugs came off the hill after taking the machine gun and firing into the tent calling all day long. Sometime in the middle of the day, they cut a 12-year-old boy In two later in the day, they murdered the leader of that tent colony, and then they set those tents on fire and burned 13 women and children alive. That happened. That’s part of our history. Mother Jones did not quit. She called for a rally in Trinidad about 15 miles from the Ludlow site. She looked out on a crowd probably twice this size, and she looked at them, take this W when you go home. She said, sure, you lost. Sure you lost. But they had bayonets and all you had was the Constitution of the United States of America. And then she posed. Lemme assure you, any confrontation between a bayonet and a constitution, the bayonet will win every time. But you must fight. You must Fight and win. You must fight and lose, but you must fight. What must you do? You must fight. You must fight. You must fight.

Maximillian Alvarez:

All right, gang, that’s going to wrap things up for us this week, and I want to thank you for listening and I want to thank you for caring. We’ll see you all back here next week for another episode of Working People. And if you can’t wait that long, then go explore all the great work we’re doing at the Real News Network where we do grassroots journalism that lifts up the voices and stories from the front lines of struggle. And we need to hear those voices now more than ever. Sign up for the Real News Newsletter so you never miss a story. And help us do more work like this by going to the real news.com/donate and becoming a supporter today. I promise you it really makes a difference. I’m Maximilian Alvarez. Take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. Solidarity forever.

This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Maximillian Alvarez.

ANALYSIS: By Susan St John

With the coalition government’s second Budget being unveiled, we should question where New Zealand is heading.

The 2024 Budget laid out the strategy. Tax cuts and landlord subsidies were prioritised with a focus on cuts to social and infrastructure spending. Most of the tax package went to the well-off, while many low-income households got nothing, or very little.

Even the tiny bit of the tax package directed to low-income people fell flat. Family Boost has significantly helped only a handful of families, while the increase of $25 per week (In Work Tax Credit) was denied all families on benefits, affecting about 200,000 of the very poorest children.

• READ MORE: Budget 2025 at a glance: The big changes, winners and losers
• Budget 2025: Pasifika community braces for impact

In the recession, families that lost paid work also lost access to full Working for Families, an income cut for their children of about $100 per week.

No one worked out how the many spending cuts would be distributed, but they have hurt the poor the most. These changes are too numerous to itemise but include increased transport costs; the reintroduction of prescription charges; a disastrous school lunch system; rising rents, rates and insurance; fewer budget advisory services; cuts to foodbank funding and hardship grants; stripping away support programmes for the disabled; inadequately adjusted benefits and minimum wage; and reduced support for pay equity and the living wage.

The objective is to save money while ignoring the human cost. For example, a scathing report of the Auditor General confirms that Oranga Tamariki took a bulldozer to obeying the call for a 6.5 percent cut in existing social services with no regard to the extreme hurt caused to children and struggling parents.

Budget 2025 has already indicated that Working for Families will continue to go backwards with not even inflation adjustments. The 2025 child and youth strategy report shows that over the year to June 2024 the number of children in material poverty continued to increase, there were more avoidable hospitalisations, immunisation rates for babies declined, and there was more food insecurity.

Human costs all around us
We can see the human costs all around us in homelessness, food insecurity, and ill health. Already we know we rank at the bottom among developed countries for child wellbeing and suicide rates.

Abject distress existing alongside where homes sell for $20 million-$40 million is no longer uncommon, and neither are $6 million helicopters of the very rich.

At the start of the year, Helen Robinson, CEO of the Auckland City Mission, had a clear warning: “I am pleading with government for more support, otherwise what we and other food relief agencies in Auckland can provide, will dramatically decrease.

“This leaves more of Auckland hungry and those already there become more desperate. It is the total antithesis of a thriving city.”

The theory held by this government is that by reducing the role of government and taxes, the private sector will flourish, and secure well-paid jobs will be created. Instead, as basic economic theory would predict, we have been handed a long and protracted recession with few signs of growth and prosperity.

Budget 2025 signals more of the same.

It would be a mistake to wait for simplistic official inequality statistics before we act. Our current destination is a sharply divided country of extreme wealth and extreme poverty with an insecure middle class.

Underfunded social agencies
Underfunded and swamped social agencies cannot remove the relentless stress on the people who are invisible in the ‘fiscally responsible’ economic narrative. The fabricated bogeyman of outsized net government debt is at the core, as the government pursues balanced budgets and small government-size targets.

A stage one economics student would know the deficit increases automatically in a recession to cushion the decline and stop the economy spiralling into something that looks more like a depression. But our safety nets of social welfare are performing very badly.

Rising unemployment has exposed the inadequacy of social protections. Working for Families, for instance, provides a very poor cushion for children. Many “working” families do not have enough hours of work and face crippling poverty traps.

Future security is undermined as more KiwiSavers cash in for hardship reasons. A record number of the talented young we need to drive the recovery and repair the frayed social fabric have already fled the country.

The government is fond of comparing its Budget to that of a household. But what prudent household would deliberately undermine the earning capacity of family members?

The primary task for the Budget should be to look after people first, to allow them to meet their food, dental and health needs, education, housing and travel costs, to have a buffer of savings to cushion unexpected shocks and to prepare for old age.

A sore thumb standing
In the social security part of the Budget, NZ Super for all at 65, no matter how rich or whether still in full-time well-paid work, dominates (gross $25 billion). It’s a sore thumb standing out alongside much less generous, highly targeted benefits and working for families, paid parental leave, family boost, hardship provisions, accommodation supplement, winter energy and other payments and subsidies.

Given the political will, research shows we can easily redirect at least $3 billion from very wealthy superannuitants to fixing other payments to greatly improve the wellbeing of the young. This will not be enough but it could be a first step to the wide rebalancing needed.

New Zealand has become a country of two halves whose paths rarely cross: a social time bomb with unimaginable consequences. It is a country beguiled by an egalitarian past that is no more.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka and Fiji’s coalition government are “detached from the values that Fijians hold dear”, says the NGO Coalition on Human Rights in Fiji (NGOCHR).

The rights coalition has expressed deep concern over Rabuka’s ongoing engagements with Indonesia.

“History will judge how we respond as Fijians to this moment. We must not stay silent when Pacific people are being occupied and killed,” said NGOCHR chair Shamima Ali.

• READ MORE: Indonesia’s Pacific manoeuvres – money, military and silencing West Papua
• AWPA calls on Albanese to raise West Papuan human rights with Prabowo
• Other West Papua reports

She said Rabuka was extended a grant of $12 million by Indonesia recently and received proposals for joint military training.

“Is Fiji’s continuing silence on West Papua yet another example of being muzzled by purse strings?”

“As members of the Melanesian and Pacific family, bound by shared ancestry and identity, the acceptance of financial and any other benefit from Indonesia—while remaining silent on the plight of West Papua—is a betrayal of our family member and of regional solidarity.”

“True leadership must be rooted in solidarity, justice, and accountability,” Ali said.

“It is imperative that Pacific leaders not only advocate for peace and cooperation in the region but also continue to hold Indonesia to account on ongoing human rights violations in West Papua.”

Republished from The Fiji Times with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Minority Staff Report, United States Senate, SUBCOMMITTEE ON SOCIAL SECURITY, PENSIONS, AND FAMILY POLICY, Bernie Sanders, Ranking Member, March 26, 2025

Social Security is the most successful government program in our nation’s history. For more than 86 years, through good times and bad, Social Security has paid out every benefit owed to every eligible American on time and without delay. Social Security lifts roughly 27 million Americans out of poverty each and every year.i And yet, despite this success, we can do better. We must do better. At a time of massive wealth inequality, our job must be to expand and strengthen Social Security.

Americans across both parties agree with this sentiment. Roughly 87 percent agree that Social Security should remain a top priority for Congress—no matter the state of budget deficits.ii This is unsurprising since Americans view Social Security as a lifeline. In this country, half of older Americans have no retirement savings and have no idea how they will ever be able to retire with any shred of dignity or respect.iii One in three seniors, or roughly 17 million people, are economically insecure.iv Roughly 22 percent of seniors are trying to survive on an income of less than $15,000 a year and nearly half of seniors are trying to survive on an income of less than $30,000 a year.v

These numbers are even more startling for people with disabilities. Nearly 27 percent of people with disabilities live in poverty.vi Living with a disability involves extra costs, requiring families to spend an estimated 28 percent more income to maintain the same standard of living as non- disabled people, or roughly an additional $17,690 annually.vii For a person with a disability on Supplemental Security Income (SSI), the maximum support they receive is just $11,604 annually for individuals and $17,400 for couples.viii And for people on Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), the average annual benefit is $18,972.ix Millions of people with disabilities are living paycheck to paycheck and certainly do not have the necessary resources to cover additional costs of living with a disability.

Nor do they have the time to wait for their disability benefits. Yet, the number of Social Security Administration (SSA) staff completing disability determinations began declining even before the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). In 2023, there were 5,252 full time employees making disability determinations at SSA, which has steadily decreased from previous years.x The average wait time for a decision grew from 111 days in 2017 to 217 days in 2023. Even before this Administration started making cuts to SSA, the number of people who died waiting for a benefit decision grew from 10,000 to 30,000 from 2017 to 2023.xi In February 2025, there was an average 236 day wait time for a determination.xii

Yet, instead of focusing on delivering benefits to seniors and people with disabilities, President Trump and unelected billionaire Elon Musk are systematically dismantling SSA. Roughly 3,000 employees have already been terminated or accepted voluntary separations from SSA.xiii They have made unsubstantiated claims that there is massive fraud in the program and are proposing reckless cuts to SSA’s workforce—upwards of 7,000 workers.xiv In March 2025, former Commissioner of Social Security Martin O’Malley stated that due to the efforts of Elon Musk and DOGE, Americans could “see the system collapse and an interruption of benefits” in “the next 30 to 90 days.”xv

In order to show the devastating nature of these proposed cuts, the Ranking Member examined the impact SSA workforce reductions will have on wait times and deaths of Americans waiting for a disability determination. The analysis reveals that average wait times for Social Security disability benefits will double, and—more startlingly—the number of people who will die waiting for benefits will double to roughly 67,000 Americans.

Key Findings

+ If SSA cuts 50 percent of employees making disability determinations, this will result in nearly 67,000 people dying waiting for an initial decision on SSI or SSDI in 2025.

+ Every day of wait time means an estimated additional 188.7 people will die waiting for benefits.

+ If SSA cuts 50 percent of employees making disability determinations, this will result in a 412 day wait for an initial decision on SSI or SSDI in 2025.

2017 2023 Projected 2025 with DOGE Cuts Methodology:

Using SSA data, the relationship between wait times and deaths with workforce reductions was examined, correlating the number of relevant employeesxvi, the average wait time for a decisionxvii, and the number of people who died waiting for a decision from 2017-2023 data reported by SSAxviii xix

Stories from Across America: Stress, Fear, and Anxiety a Common Refrain

The stress of waitlists and backlogs is immense for seniors and people with disabilities as they agonizingly wait for answers and a determination that they will receive the benefits needed to be able to put food on the table or make rent. Ranking Member Sanders asked working people directly, via a social media survey, how stress impacts their lives and received over 1,000 responses from people across the country.

The stories they shared paint a picture of daily hardship: the stress of affording health care, food, and gas; the anxiety of living paycheck to paycheck; and the feeling of hopelessness that comes from constant financial strain, including from seniors and people with disabilities who rely on Social Security.

People across the country vividly described the struggle of applying for disability benefits, even before DOGE cuts:

+ One example came from Kelly in New York, who shared that she is “in the process of applying for SSDI. It has been a year, and is scheduled to take another 10 months… how is a single person supposed to keep her home and car with no person to have her back while she applies?? It’s insane and making me sicker going through this.”

+ Sheryl from California told us, “Right now I’m waiting for approval from SSDI and getting feedback from my private long-term disability insurance company that they want to try to send me back to work, while I have 13 doctors overseeing my care. If I succeed in convincing these heartless vultures that I’m disabled enough to rest, I will continue to worry that my fixed income will go less and less toward being able to live. If I don’t, I will be put in a position to ignore my health and go back to work long enough to kill myself and leave my kids with no one. Welcome to America!

One thing that would relieve a lot of stress is getting an approval…so that I know what my income will be and not have to worry that I’ll end up in an economic landslide into the abyss.”

They also shared their worries that SSDI was not enough to cover their bills:

+ A former special education teacher from Georgia told us she, “had to take disability from the stress and demands of the job. I live on SSDI, which is barely $1600/month, and does not include Medicare premiums. I can’t qualify for Medicaid or SNAP. I have chronic anxiety due to the financial stress, and it has adversely affected my physical health.”

+ The stress is overwhelming, according to Monique from Florida: “I’m unemployed and trying to get on disability. My life is all pain and stress. I’m down to my last few hundred dollars. I desperately need to see several specialists for my ongoing care, but I’m freaking out that I will no longer be able to pay my costs of living. I take multiple prescriptions and they’re costly.

+ Heather from Vermont said her biggest stresses are, “[f]inding available affordable housing, making rent, my disability & continued funding of SSDI by current administration, cost of groceries/living on fixed income.”

We also heard palpable fear from respondents that they would lose their disability benefits:

+ Wendy from Texas told us, “I worry [m]y social security disability benefits might be taken away … SSDI does not cover the cost of living for a person. I would never be able to live on my own on my SSDI income, even if I lived in a rented room with no car.”

“Stress exacerbates my medical condition. It causes me to be more fatigued and eventually lowers my baseline wellness. There have been weeks at a time I have had to completely disconnect from the news, my bills, friends, and family to allow my body to recover enough to function in my household enough to care for myself only.”

Wendy wishes she could, “eliminate the stress surrounding my SSDI. The amount being increased to a “living wage” would allow me to budget more freely for additional medical treatments, as well as not constantly watch to see if I have to choose which bills to pay.”

A Path Forward

The bottom line is this: Social Security belongs to the people who worked hard all their lives to earn their benefit. This is a program based on a promise—if you pay in, then you earn the right to guaranteed benefits. We cannot allow this promise to be broken. This means:

+ Immediately ceasing the cuts from DOGE at SSA and across the government.

+ Passing the Social Security Expansion Act to enhance Social Security benefits by $2,400 annually, ensure the program’s solvency for the next 75 years by applying a payroll tax on higher-income workers, and increase the benefit to help low-income workers stay out of poverty.

+ Passing the Social Security Administration Fairness Act, which would prevent office closures and increase the budget for SSA rather than institute draconian DOGE cuts.

+ Passing the Stop the Wait Act to eliminate the Medicare waiting period for SSDI beneficiaries.

+ Passing the SSI Savings Penalty Act to update SSI’s asset limits to allow people to save without risking their essential benefits.

+ Raising the minimum wage to at least $17 an hour to ensure that full-time workers can afford a healthy, stable life and phasing out subminimum wages for workers with disabilities.

+ Ensure that all Americans have access to a pension.

Notes.

i Shrider, E. (2024). Poverty in the united states: 2023. Census.

iiKenneally, K., & Bond, T. (2024). Americans’ views of social security. National Institution of Retirement Security.

iii De Vise, D. (05/08/23). Nearly half of baby boomers have no retirement savings. The Hill

iv NCOA. (2024). Get the facts on economic security for seniors.

v U.S Census Bureau (2023). Current Population Survey (CPS).

vi Drake, P., & Burns, A. (2024). Working-age adults with disabilities living in the community. KFF.

vii Goodman, N., Morris, Z., Morris, M., & McGarity, S. (2020). The extra costs of living with a disability in the U.S. — resetting the policy table.

viii SSA. (2025). SSI federal payment amounts for 2025

ix SSA. (2025). Benefits paid by type of beneficiary.

x Smalligan, J., & Vance, A. (2025). Downsizing staff will make it harder to receive social security payments. Urban Institute

xi O’Malley, M. (2024). Testimony by Martin O’Malley commissioner, social security administration, before the house committee on appropriations, subcommittee on labor, health and human services, education, and related agencies. SSA. SSA. (2025). Social security administration (SSA) monthly data for combined title II disability and title XVI blind and disabled average processing time (excludes technical denials).

xii SSA. (2025). Social security administration (SSA) monthly data for combined title II disability and title XVI blind and disabled average processing time (excludes technical denials).

xiii SSA. (2025). Workforce Update | News | SSA

xiv Dayen, D. (2025, Mar 6). How social security administration cuts affect you. The American Prospect Blogs.

xv Konish. (2025). Social security has never missed a payment. DOGE actions threaten ‘interruption of benefits,’ ex-agency head says. CNBC.

xvi SSA. (2024). Social Security Disability Claims Pending Determination: Past and Projected.

xvii SSA. (2025). Social security administration (SSA) monthly data for combined title II disability and title XVI blind and disabled average processing time (excludes technical denials).

xviii Committee on Budget, U.S. Senate. (2024). Statement for the Record, Martin O’Malley.

xix Washington Post. (2017). 597 days. And still waiting.

The post Musk’s Social Security Administration Cuts: Longer Wait Times, More People Will Die Waiting for Disability Benefits appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Bernie Sanders.

Image by Ken Bouley at Point Reyes National Seashore.

The January 2025 Point Reyes National Seashore settlement agreement ended decades of conflict over management of cattle ranching and wildlife on public lands. The departure of most of the commercial ranches from our National Park along with the Revised Record of Decision and new management approach by the National Park Service will provide significant public interest and ecological benefits.

Public Access Over Private Profits

Point Reyes will now be managed primarily for the benefit and enjoyment of the 2.5 million annual park visitors, as habitat for the 684 different vertebrate wildlife species that inhabit the peninsula, and to promote and restore native vegetation and natural ecosystems, rather than for 13 ranching families.

The public will have access to 17,000 additional acres of public land that were formerly inaccessible behind barbed wire fences. Fences will come down, and ‘no trespassing’ signs will be removed. The Park Service plans to develop new hiking, biking and equestrian trails, as well as campsites and day-use areas within the former ranch lands. The Park will adaptively reuse ranch buildings for conservation, employee housing, and to enhance interpretation and education programs for the public.

A More Beautiful Park

The aesthetic improvements alone will be significant, with the removal of landscape-blighting industrialized dairy facilities, harsh nighttime lighting that interferes with dark-sky viewing of the stars, abandoned ranch vehicles and trailer homes, and considerable trash. The miles of barbed wire cattle fencing throughout the park had created a hostile and unwelcoming experience for many visitors and prevented public access to much of the Park lands. There will also be a significant reduction in the olfactory assault on Park visitors from cattle manure, in piles and sewage ponds, and no more broadcast spreading of liquid manure onto Park grasslands.

Reduced Taxpayer Subsidies

The new era marks a reduction in taxpayer subsidies for private ranching businesses to operate on these public lands. The Point Reyes ranching families were paid an independently determined fair market value by the public in the 1960s and 1970s (the equivalent of approximately $400 million adjusted to today’s dollars) to purchase the lands that are now Point Reyes National Seashore. Most ranches signed 20-year lease-back agreements for continuing to graze on the now public lands but immediately hired lobbyists to try to remain indefinitely.

Since the park’s inception, the ranches have benefited from grazing leases well below market rates and low-cost housing. The public paid for repairs and improvements to infrastructure and facilities used and damaged by ranches, including roads, fencing, septic systems, and ranch buildings. Taxpayers spent nearly $1 million each year to mitigate and manage the environmental impacts of the ranches (for range management, water development, control of weeds spread by livestock, addressing water pollution caused by livestock, environmental compliance, project coordination, and monitoring).

Economic Benefits from Tourism

There are massive benefits to the local economy from Point Reyes National Seashore visitors and wildlife viewing. People come from around the world to view the tule elk, native wildlife, and nearly 500 species of birds, and to visit Park beaches, trails, and campgrounds. The former income from ranching in the Park was a small fraction of the income from the tourism and recreation economy, according to a 2006 Economic Impacts Study by the Park Service. In 2022, tourism to Point Reyes National Seashore contributed $117 million to the local economy and visitor spending supported 1,120 jobs in nearby communities. In contrast, direct agricultural income from ranching at both Point Reyes National Seashore and the GGNRA was less than $7 million in 2005. With lands formerly locked behind barbed-wire now fully open to the public, Point Reyes ecotourism will only increase with better trails, less barbed wire and manure, and increased habitat and more abundant wildlife.

Transparency in How the Park is Managed

The public gets improved transparency, with the Park Service committing, for the first time in the park’s history, to publish all Ranch Operating Agreements and water quality and grazing management plans for each remaining ranch on the NPS website. The public can now track ranching operations to ensure they comply with the management plan, Endangered Species Act, and Regional Water Board water quality requirements moving forward. Any proposed new ranching activities not covered in the revised management plan will require a public environmental review process.

Healthy and Free-Roaming Elk Herds

Point Reyes National Seashore is the only National Park where tule elk occur. The 1978 elk reintroduction to Point Reyes initially confined elk to Tomales Point, where they were prevented by a fence from moving to find reliable water sources and thus suffered huge die-offs during drought due to starvation, dehydration, and reproductive failure. The Park Service finalized a Tomales Point Management Plan in 2024 that removes the controversial elk-killing fence, and will no longer manage Tomales Point as an elk zoo.

In 1998 the Park Service translocated elk to the Limantour area, initiating free-roaming herds in the Park. Ranch leaseholders began demanding removal or killing of free-roaming elk once their numbers expanded and elk began eating grass they believed should be reserved solely for their cattle. The former 2021 park plan had prioritized private cattle ranching at the expense of elk expansion and authorized annual killing and hazing of tule elk within the park to reduce competition with grazing cattle.

Under the revised management plan, elk will now be allowed to roam free and expand throughout the park, with no fencing, hazing or shooting of elk. Grazing elk will have priority over cattle in former ranch lease areas. Point Reyes has the potential to support large, free-roaming elk herds, which is particularly significant for a species that nearly went extinct, was down to only a few reproducing elk by the late 1800s and suffers from a genetic bottleneck. Large elk herds at Point Reyes can help restore coastal prairie native plant communities, could be used to help diversify the genetic portfolio of the other 21 tule elk herds around the state, and their increasing numbers could attract predators such as mountain lions and bears back to the peninsula.

Cleaner Water

Ranching has degraded water quality, wetlands, and stream habitats throughout Point Reyes, contributing to violations of state water quality standards and consuming large amounts of surface water and groundwater that native wildlife relies upon. The Park Service’s 2013 Coastal Watershed Assessment for Point Reyes documented extensive water pollution from cattle ranching in the park and identified bacterial and nutrient pollution from dairies and ranches as the principal threat to water quality. The Park Service had allowed dairy ranches to spread liquid cattle manure on grasslands throughout the park, a practice now prohibited under the new management plan. The Park Service abruptly ended its water testing program after the 2013 assessment, making it easier to dodge controversy, enforcement, and remediation by collecting no evidence.

Cattle waste actually landed Point Reyes on the ‘Crappiest Places in America’ list in 2017 due to pervasive water contamination by cattle feces. Conservation groups began their own water quality testing at Point Reyes, hiring an environmental engineer to conduct monitoring, and in 2021 and 2022 released the most rigorous independent water quality reports ever for Point Reyes. It found significant water pollution from cattle ranching and revealed elevated bacteria levels in five waterways dangerous to public health and the environment. Concentrations of fecal coliform from cattle posed an unacceptable health risk to park visitors for wading, swimming, kayaking or other forms of water recreation in Kehoe Lagoon and Drakes Estero, and for shellfish harvesting in Drakes Estero. This degree of water pollution, which threatens aquatic wildlife habitat and public health, shouldn’t be happening anywhere and definitely not in a national park.

An End to Overgrazing

There have been numerous studies and ecological surveys showing cattle grazing degradation and impacts to air, water, soil, vegetation, and wildlife in Point Reyes, most notably the Park Service’s own Environmental Impact Statement in 2019.

The revised plan will end overgrazing of cattle across most of Point Reyes National Seashore, resulting in significant reductions in erosion and soil loss, water pollution, degradation of wetland and stream habitats, and spread of invasive plants. It will allow formerly suppressed wildlife populations to recover and thrive. Invasive plants in the Scenic Landscape Zone will no longer be spread or maintained by cattle grazing, silage production, and importation of hay.

Under the new plan, the two remaining beef ranches at Point Reyes will have more robust measures to reduce cattle impacts, improve endangered species habitat, protect riparian buffers, improve water quality, and reduce erosion.

Commercial livestock grazing will no longer be allowed on the 17,000 former ranchland acres that will be rezoned as “scenic landscape.” The Park Service will lease these lands to The Nature Conservancy (TNC) as restoration leases, for the purposes of providing conservation and public benefits. TNC management will include some seasonal, targeted cattle grazing to support desired environmental and ecological conditions and will likely also include natural disturbance using beneficial fire and tule elk grazing. Elk grazing is prioritized in the scenic landscape zone over cattle grazing. Targeted grazing on TNC conservation leases will need to be managed for ecological management objectives, including improving native plants, restoring coastal native grasslands, reducing non-native vegetation, improving water quality, riparian and watershed function, reducing soil erosion, improving wildlife habitat, managing fire risk, maintaining Historic Districts and cultural resources, and providing public access and enjoyment.

The era of overgrazing of cattle will come to an end across thousands of acres of the National Seashore, with TNC leases only allowing seasonal, rotational cattle grazing at much lower intensities and duration. Grazing pressure will average around or under 600 Animal Units (AU) throughout the scenic landscape, with a maximum cap of 1,200 AU (which represents at least a 70% reduction in cattle on these lands), and grazing pressure will fluctuate with resource conditions and drought, with the needs of tule elk taking precedence. Barbed wire fencing will be removed and any new fencing would be wildlife-friendly; some may be replaced with temporary electric and virtual fencing. The Park Service may enter into future non-commercial conservation-oriented leases and restoration and management activities, including traditional Indigenous burning as an alternative to livestock, with the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, non-profit entities, and conservation groups.

Protection of Endangered Species

Federal wildlife management agencies had documented extensive harm and damage to habitat for endangered and threatened species at Point Reyes from cattle grazing and livestock operations. Biological Opinions in 2002 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and 2004 by the National Marine Fisheries Service found that ranching operations were likely to adversely affect endangered animals such as coho salmon, Chinook salmon, steelhead trout, California red-legged frog, western snowy plover, and Myrtle’s silverspot butterfly, and overgrazing by cattle was damaging endangered plants including Beach layia, Sonoma alopecurus, Sonoma spineflower, Tiburon paintbrush, and Tidestrom’s lupine.

Cattle in Point Reyes and the GGNRA had previously caused significant damage to stream and riparian habitat for salmon and steelhead, even as the Park was slowly working to fence cattle out of stream and riparian areas critical for fish. The operations of the dairies and ranches artificially elevated raven populations, leading to increased raven predation on snowy plover eggs and chicks, and trespass cattle had also trampled into off-limits plover nesting areas. Overgrazing by cattle was documented to negatively impact other rare plants at Point Reyes, such as Marin dwarf flax and beach layia. Livestock overgrazing was eliminating the required host plants and trampling butterfly larvae for the endangered Myrtle’s silverspot butterfly. Runoff from Point Reyes ranches containing fecal coliform pollution from cattle waste and nitrogen laden manure was even sickening and killing pregnant elephant seals in the park. Former ranch activities including mowing, harvesting silage, or occasional tillage during the nesting season was also documented destroying nesting birds and eggs, killing bird fledglings, and causing adult grassland nesting birds to abandon their nests.

Some of the endangered plants at Point Reyes can benefit from disturbance, which reduces competition from non-native invasive plants. This beneficial disturbance can be controlled burning, browsing by elk, or carefully managed, seasonal, rotational grazing using cattle, as is planned for the TNC leases. The revised management plan will continue maintenance and restoration of former livestock ponds for the benefit of California red-legged frogs.

Reduce Livestock-borne Diseases

Johne’s disease is a ruminant wasting disease amplified by ungulate confinement and which affects two-thirds of the nation’s dairy cow herds. This pathogen is known to cause Krohn’s disease and other forms of intestinal disorders when passed to humans. Point Reyes cattle introduced this disease to native wildlife in the park, and the Park Service documented in its 1998 elk management plan that Point Reyes cattle spread the disease to Point Reyes elk. The pathogens that cattle shed into the soil will die within a year unless the soil is reinfected, so the removal of cattle could make the land safer for elk, deer, rabbits, and people in a short time.

Ending Chronic Lease Violations

A 2015 Freedom of Information Act request to the Park Service released documents showing chronic violations of grazing leases by ranches, such as overstocking cattle, allowing cows to trespass into off-limits and sensitive areas, harassing and chasing elk with off-road vehicles and dogs, illegal dumping of debris (including barbed wire strands that risk elk entanglement), and improper disposal of dead cows. Unfortunately, that was not the end of continuing lease violations and natural resource damage by ranches. In 2022, research by conservation groups, reports from the public, and inspections by other agencies uncovered a massive toxic waste dump, illegal bulldozing of a creek and riparian area, and leaking raw sewage.

Unprecedented Restoration Opportunities

The new management plan allows for unprecedented natural ecosystem restoration opportunities at Point Reyes. There is potential for a renaissance of the formerly extensive coastal prairie on the peninsula to the west of Inverness Ridge, to eliminate invasive annual grasses and forbs that were spread and maintained by cattle grazing and return the native grasses and wildflowers with which Point Reyes animals and insects evolved. The 17,000 acres being rezoned to scenic landscape can be managed to improve native plants, restore coastal native grasslands, reduce non-native vegetation, and improve riparian and watershed function. The TNC management plans for these lease lands, including targeted grazing plans, scenic landscape goals, annual reports, monitoring results, and each year’s plans will be publicly available and subject to environmental review. Local conservation, restoration, and nature education organizations are ready to provide volunteers and funding to help restore these lands to natural ecosystems.

The Park Service has an extensive history of natural restoration projects at Point Reyes. The Giacomini Wetland Restoration Project removed former ranch levees constructed at the southern end of Tomales Bay for roads and dairy farms that had hydrologically disconnected Lagunitas Creek and its tributaries from their floodplains. The 2008 breaching of the levees reintroduced tidal flooding to the restored Giacomini Wetlands. The Park Service has conducted coastal dune habitat restoration and coho and steelhead restoration projects in Pine Gulch, Redwood, Olema, and Lagunitas creeks and their watersheds, including fencing cattle out of salmon streams and riparian areas.

In 2012, the Secretary of Interior decided not to renew a commercial lease for the Drakes Bay oyster farm owned by one of the Point Reyes beef ranchers, citing the 1976 law passed by Congress sunsetting the lease and designating Drakes Estero to be managed as a wilderness area at the end of 2012. The Drakes Estero Restoration Project cleaned up this amazing estuary at the heart of the National Seashore, stopping the oyster farm’s spreading of invasive species that were killing the estuary’s important eelgrass bed habitat. The Park Service removed massive amounts of oyster farm trash and debris, including five miles of pressure-treated wooden oyster racks weighing nearly 500 tons, several acres of underwater plastic, metal, and shell debris weighing nearly 1,300 tons, and removing plastic, metal, and cement trash from sandbars where one-fifth of California’s harbor seal pups are born and raised. The removal of the oyster farm and cleanup of Drakes Estero is a restoration success story, with dramatic resurgence of eelgrass habitat (a critical nursery for fish, crabs and other shellfish, leopard sharks, and bat rays) and even the return of an incredibly rare southern sea otter in 2021.

A Truly Climate Friendly Park

In 2008, Point Reyes National Seashore was designated as a Climate Friendly Park and developed a Climate Action Plan to attempt to reduce the park’s carbon footprint. The extensive ranching and dairying activities in the park subverted these goals. Cattle have been the overwhelming source of greenhouse gases at Point Reyes, far more than emissions from visitor cars. A 2019 draft Environmental Impact Statement (pages 188-194) quantified that ranching activities and livestock emissions were responsible for 87% of the park’s CO² equivalent emissions (24,611 of 28,345 metric tons per year). Methane produced by cattle is a greenhouse gas 25-100 times worse than carbon dioxide. Globally, livestock emissions account for 13.5% of greenhouse gas emissions.

The conversion of native coastal grasslands with their deep-rooted perennial bunchgrasses to shallow-rooted annual plants that die every year, giving up their carbon to the atmosphere, has for decades minimized the amount of soil carbon stored in the pastoral zone. Restoration of native plan communities and elimination of invasive weeds will increase the soil’s ability to store carbon on Point Reyes.

The departure of all of the dairy operations and most of the beef cattle ranches from Point Reyes National Seashore will help the park to attain climate reduction goals. The anticipated development under the new plan of park shuttles to reduce car trips will further these climate goals.

Honoring Indigenous History

Trampling cattle and other ranching activities at Point Reyes caused damage to Indigenous archaeological sites, which extensively documented through research by Sonoma State, and led to a 2008 proposal for an Indigenous Archaeological District in the park. Yet the Park Service in 2015 terminated a National Historic Register proposal which would have protected and preserved more than 150 Miwok Indian archaeological sites in the park dating back thousands of years, and instead fast-tracked approval of an “Historic Dairy Ranching District” designation to attempt to justify continuing ranching operations known to harm the environment and archaeological sites. The Coast Miwok Tribal Council, lineal descendants of the original inhabitants of Point Reyes, formally objected to the park’s 2021 Point Reyes ranching and elk-killing plan.

In a significant change of emphasis, the Park Service has now signed a co-management agreement for Point Reyes with the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria (the federally recognized tribe in the area) and will consult with the tribe on elk management, beneficial use of fire, ecosystem management, and protection of culturally significant sites.

Park Service Focus on Mission

The new management plan will allow the Park Service to switch emphasis from managing private commercial businesses within a national park to fulfilling its mission to preserve the natural and cultural resources of Point Reyes for the enjoyment of the public. Point Reyes National Seashore was established for the purposes of “public recreation, benefit, and inspiration.” The Point Reyes Act did not designate ranching as a purpose of these public lands and did not encourage or require the Park Service to continue to allow private ranch leases in perpetuity. It does require the Park Service to ensure the “maximum protection, restoration and preservation of the natural environment” of the seashore, thereby prioritizing this duty above all other uses of these public lands, including ranching.

The new management plan will prioritize management of the national seashore that is much more aligned with how the public wants Point Reyes to function. The Park Service’s unpopular and controversial 2019 update its General Management Plan, which led to the 2022 litigation by conservation groups, was vociferously opposed by the general public. More than 7,600 comments were received, an analysis of which showed that 91 percent opposed the plan to continue ranching and 94 percent of those with any preference favored the plan alternative that would have eliminated ranching altogether.

No Further Privatization of the Park

The Park Service’s 2014 Ranch Comprehensive Management Plan and 2021 Record of Decision for a plan amendment both would have adopted a private ranching wish list to enshrine private commercial businesses and further privatize the Park by expanded the lands open to ranching, quadrupling the length of ranching leases, allowed ranches to expand their operations with new commercial activities, required killing native tule elk to protect ranch profits, and allowed ranching to continue in perpetuity through an unreasonably permissive succession plan. The new 2025 management plan realigns the 17,000 acres of former ranchlands to prioritize public access and benefits.

But now private agricultural interests such as Straus Family Creamery, Niman Ranch, and Andrew Giacomini are filing lawsuits trying to overturn the settlement and spreading misinformation about the revised management plan, in an attempt to insert private commercial operations back into the park. Commercial agriculture and anti-public lands interests are asking Trump administration to intervene and overturn the Point Reyes settlement. Unknown parties have orchestrated a coordinated disinformation campaign to discredit the deal, with “influencers” across social media spreading identical, false soundbites.

Potential Future Zoning Adjustments for Resource Benefits

The revised plan allows future buyouts of additional ranch leases and lease relinquishment both in Point Reyes National Seashore and the northern district of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The Park Service can re-zone a ranch property into the scenic landscape zone if a ranch family retires, or if a lease is revoked and the Park Service determines that commercial ranching is no longer appropriate on that allotment. Those lands would then be managed for public access and enjoyment and natural resource protection and restoration.

This piece first appeared on The Wildlife News.

The post Point Reyes Settlement Offers Massive Public and Ecological Benefits appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Ken Bouley.

The Social Security benefits of millions of people in the United States are at risk as the Trump administration institutes drastic changes billed as “anti-fraud” measures, but which critics say are aimed at weakening the popular program and potentially laying the groundwork to privatize it. The Social Security Administration has already shuttered dozens of offices across the country and is laying off thousands of workers. At the same time, the agency is demanding people make more in-office visits for routine business. The changes are part of government-wide efforts led by billionaire Elon Musk and DOGE, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.

“They are destabilizing the program,” says Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works and chair of the Strengthen Social Security Coalition. “It’s really hard to imagine what they have in mind, what their endgame is, other than destroying our Social Security system.”

We also speak with Jacobin staff writer Branko Marcetic, who says Trump’s nominee to head the Social Security Administration, financial services executive Frank Bisignano, has a reputation for slashing costs and pushing out staff. “All of that is a pretty grim portent” of his plans for the Social Security Administration, if Bisignano is confirmed, says Marcetic. “The people that are going to be hurt by it are the actual Social Security beneficiaries.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

How is Elon Musk personally benefiting from his role as head of the Department of Government Efficiency? The agency, known as DOGE, is tasked with slashing “trillions” of dollars in federal spending and has set its sights on regulatory agencies, including ones that have opened investigations into Musk’s business practices. “At a minimum, it’s an appearance of conflict of interest,” says journalist Eric Lipton, who is investigating Musk and DOGE for The New York Times. Musk’s business empire is a major beneficiary of government contracts, says Lipton, and “all of the disruption that is happening across the federal government has benefited his operations.” Lipton also discusses Trump and his allies’ cryptocurrency schemes and the Trump family’s investments in the Middle East.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

One of the hallmarks of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign was a promise of sweeping tax cuts, for the rich, for working people and for companies alike.

Now congressional Republicans have the job of figuring out which of those cuts to propose into law. In order to pay for the cuts, they have started to eye some targets to raise money. Among them: cutting benefits for single mothers and poor people who rely on government health care.

The proposals are included in a menu of tax and spending cut options circulated this month by House Republicans. Whether or not Republicans enact any of the ideas remains to be seen. Some of the potential targets are popular tax breaks and cuts could be politically treacherous. And cutting taxes for the wealthy could risk damaging the populist image that Trump has cultivated.

For the ultrawealthy, the document floats eliminating the federal estate tax, at an estimated cost of $370 billion in revenue for the government over a decade. The tax, which charges a percentage of the value of a person’s fortune after they die, kicks in only for estates worth more than around $14 million.

Among those very few Americans who do get hit with the tax, nearly 30% of the tax is paid by the top 0.1% by income, according to estimates by the Tax Policy Center think tank. (Many ultra-wealthy people already largely avoid the tax. Over the years, lawyers and accountants have devised ways to pass fortunes to heirs tax free, often by using complex trust structures, as ProPublica has previously reported.)

Another proposal aims to slash the top tax rate paid by corporations by almost a third.

Trump promised such a cut during the campaign. But Vice President JD Vance came out against it before Trump picked him as his running mate. “We’re sort of in line with the OECD right now,” he said in an interview last year, referring to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a group of 38 wealthy developed nations. “I don’t think we need to be cutting the corporate tax rate further.”

In Trump’s first term, he brought the top corporate rate down from 35% to 21%, where it’s at now, taking the U.S. from a high rate compared to other OECD nations to about average. The proposed cut to 15% would make the United States’ rate among the lowest of such countries.

To pay for new tax cuts, the House Republicans’ proposal floats a series of potential overhauls of government programs. One major focus is possible cuts to Medicaid, the health care program for people with low incomes that is administered by the states. Medicaid expansion was a key tenet of the Affordable Care Act, passed under President Barack Obama. Many Republican governors initially chose not to take advantage of the new federal subsidies to expand the program. In the intervening years, several states reversed course, and the program has expanded the number of people enrolled in Medicaid by more than 20 million, as of last year.

The deep cuts to the program floated in the document include slashing reimbursements to the states. States would need to “raise new revenues or reduce Medicaid spending by eliminating coverage for some people, covering fewer services, and (or) cutting rates paid to physicians, hospitals, and nursing homes,” according to an analysis by KFF, a health policy organization.

Trump has been inconsistent in his position on Medicaid over the years. He sought to slash the program in his first term. But he has also made statements about protecting it over the years.

As recently as a 2023 campaign event, Trump promised that “we’re not going to play around with Medicare, Medicaid.” But it’s not clear whether the comment was a throwaway: While preserving Medicare, the program that covers health care for the elderly, has been a focus for Trump, maintaining Medicaid has not. The official GOP platform rolled out by Trump last year, for example, promised not to cut “one penny” from Medicare but was silent on Medicaid. In separate remarks during the campaign last year, Trump appeared to endorse cuts to "entitlements," after an interviewer asked about Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

Other proposals would eliminate tax breaks for families with children.

Currently, parents can get a tax credit of up to $2,100 for child care expenses. The House Republican plan floats the elimination of that break. The cut is estimated to save $55 billion over a decade.

Vance, in particular, had promised economic policies that would lessen the load on parents. “It is the task of our government to make it easier for young moms and dads to afford to have kids,” he said last week. (He campaigned on a proposal to more than double the child tax credit.)

Another proposal in the list of options takes aim squarely at parents raising children on their own. The provision would eliminate the “head of household” filing status to collect almost $200 billion more in taxes over a decade from single parents and other adults caring for dependents on their own.

The “head of household” status was created in the 1950s under the rationale that single parents should have a lighter tax burden. Eliminating it would affect millions of Americans, largely women. (The after-tax pay of people with incomes between the 20th and 80th percentiles, those making between about $14,000 and $100,000, would fall by the highest percentage, according to an analysis by the Tax Foundation.)

Democrats have criticized the proposals as a gift to the wealthy at the expense of the working class. “Republicans are gearing up for a class war against everyday families in America,” Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said in a statement.

A White House spokesperson did not respond to questions about the specifics in the House GOP document but said in an email that “This is an active negotiation and process one that the President and his team are working productively with congress. His visit to the House Retreat [Monday] was a sign that he wants to prioritize unity and a good deal for American that achieves his campaign promises.”

A spokesperson for the House Budget Committee declined to answer specific questions but said “this is a menu of policy options for authorizing committees to consider as members navigate the reconciliation process.”

Some of the proposals would fulfill Trump’s campaign promises geared toward the working class.

The document includes a plan to eliminate income taxes (but maintain payroll taxes) on tips, at a cost of $106 billion over a decade. The proposal is one Trump touted while campaigning in Las Vegas to win support from the city’s huge contingent of service workers. Trump’s Democratic opponent, former Vice President Kamala Harris, later pledged to do the same. Economists have criticized the idea as one that unfairly benefits one group of working-class employees over others who get paid the same but work in other industries that don’t deal in tips.

Another Trump campaign promise included in the document is ending taxes on overtime pay, at a price of $750 billion over a decade. That proposal has also been criticized by tax experts as an inefficient way to provide relief for lower-paid workers who are eligible for overtime because they’re paid hourly and perform repetitive tasks. The provision, critics say, would invite gaming and further complicate tax reporting by creating new reporting requirements about the hours a taxpayer worked.

One of the biggest-ticket proposals to raise new revenue in the House Republicans’ document would hit a tax break cherished by upper-income Americans: eliminating the mortgage interest deduction. The document estimates $1 trillion in savings over 10 years by eliminating the break. Because of a complex interplay of different features of the tax code, an estimated 60% of the value of this deduction flows to Americans making over $200,000 per year, according to the Tax Foundation.

Eliminating the mortgage interest deduction would have an uneven geographic impact: analyses have found the tax break is more valuable to Americans in Democratic-dominated states such as California, Massachusetts and New Jersey.

Pratheek Rebala contributed research.

Do you have any information about the tax proposals that we should know? Robert Faturechi can be reached by email at robert.faturechi@propublica.org and by Signal or WhatsApp at 213-271-7217. Justin Elliott can be reached by email at justin@propublica.org or by Signal or WhatsApp at 774-826-6240.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Robert Faturechi and Justin Elliott.

The controversial policy, which essentially makes it more expensive to drive into the busiest part of Manhattan, has been floated as a way to reduce traffic and raise money for the city’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the city’s subways and buses, since the 1970s. But it wasn’t until 2017 that it seemed like it might finally catch on. 

Still, getting it implemented has been an uphill battle. Last summer, New York Governor Kathy Hochul abruptly paused a carefully crafted plan that would have implemented $15 tolls on drivers heading into Manhattan below 60th Street, a mere 25 days before the plan would have gone into effect. Months later, in November, she said she would unpause the plan with lower tolls: $9 for passenger vehicles during peak hours and $2.25 during off-peak. After all the hubbub, New York City made history just after midnight on Sunday, January 5, when the cameras used to enforce the tolls turned on. 

With this move, New York City becomes the first U.S. city to experiment with congestion pricing tolls, and joins a small cohort of other major cities — London, Stockholm, and Singapore — trying to disincentivize driving in order to unlock safer streets and a host of other environmental benefits.

Environmental and public transit advocates praise congestion pricing because it pushes drivers to reconsider whether getting behind the wheel is really the easiest way to get around the city. With fewer cars on the road, congestion pricing promises shorter commute times for those who do drive — and better public transit options, since the money raised by congestion pricing will fund capital improvements by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, or MTA. 

But the policy has not been without its naysayers. One New York City councilmember — Republican Vickie Paladino — appeared to encourage her followers on X (formerly Twitter) to damage the tolling cameras with lasers. Congestion pricing detractors say that tolls are burdensome. Of course, in some way, this is the point: to make driving slightly less appealing and incentivize alternative modes of transportation. 

Proponents say these are worthwhile costs to fund meaningful improvements to New Yorkers’ lives — like safer streets and cleaner air. 

“At this point, across much of the country, cars are so ingrained into American culture that we don’t always think of them as environmental hazards, but of course they are,” said Alexa Sledge, director of communications for Transportation Alternatives, an advocacy group focused on street safety in New York City. “So a major goal of our climate policy has to be getting people out of cars and on public transit, onto buses, onto bikes, onto trips on foot.” These less carbon-intensive modes of transit, she says, are “always going to be substantially more environmentally friendly.”

One of the main selling points of congestion pricing, besides reducing traffic, is improving air quality. Fewer cars on the road means fewer cars emitting exhaust in the nation’s most densely populated city — and less traffic also means that less time spent idling. 

An environmental assessment of congestion pricing published in 2023 estimated the impact tolls would have on a number of air pollutants, including carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, particulate matter, and benzene. These chemicals have been linked to health problems including heart disease, respiratory issues, cognitive impairment, and increased risk of cancer. The assessment also looked at the impact tolls would have on greenhouse gases. It analyzed these impacts at a regional level, looking at 12 different counties across New York and New Jersey, and projected how big or small the change in pollutants would be by 2045. 

The report found that, with congestion pricing, Manhattan would see a 4.36 percent reduction in daily vehicle-miles traveled by 2045. This would lead to sizable reductions in air pollutants in Manhattan, especially in the central business district (the area drivers must pay a toll to enter). For example, per the environmental assessment’s modeling, the central business district would see a 10.72 percent drop in carbon dioxide equivalents by 2045, as well as a similar drop in fine particular matter, and slightly lower drops in nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide (5.89 percent and 6.55 percent, respectively). 

When you zoom out, the benefits become sparser, but are still meaningful: The assessment found that, across the 12 New York and New Jersey counties included in its analysis, carbon dioxide equivalents would fall by 0.8 percent by 2045. Those 12 counties have a collective population of roughly 14 million.

It’s worth noting that real-life impacts will likely differ from these estimates — and it will take robust data collection to see exactly how. The environmental assessment based these projections off a congestion pricing scenario that’s actually slightly more ambitious than the one in place today, with peak tolls for passenger vehicles priced at $9 and off-peak tolls at $7. But the tolls for drivers that Hochul signed off on will ramp up over time. By 2028, peak tolls will be $12, and by 2031, they’ll reach $15.

“The most important thing is to start,” said Andy Darrell, regional director of New York at the Environmental Defense Fund, who was optimistic that real-life benefits may surpass these projections over time. “And it’s important to monitor the effects going forward and then be able to adjust the program as we go. And I think that’s exactly what’s happening now.”

Eric Goldstein, the New York City environmental director at the National Resources Defense Council, was similarly confident about congestion pricing’s benefits. Over email, he said, “Even if the reduction in traditional air pollutants and global warming emissions are modest from implementation of congestion pricing, the indirect air quality benefits will be substantial over the long term,” adding that congestion pricing will “provide a jolt of adrenaline to the region’s subway, bus, and commuter rail system that moves the overwhelming majority of people into and out of Manhattan.”

The environmental assessment also found that, as a result of congestion pricing, traffic may increase in other parts of the city, like the Bronx, where neighborhoods like the South Bronx already suffer from disproportionately high rates of asthma. To offset this, the MTA has promised to fund several mitigation efforts, such as replacing diesel-fueled trucks around Hunts Point, a bustling food distribution facility, with cleaner models. It will also install air filtration systems at schools located near highways, plant more trees near roads, and establish a Bronx asthma center. 

These efforts, however, have done little to reassure local community members. In November, South Bronx Unite, a coalition centered on social and environmental justice, called New York City’s revived congestion pricing plan a “death blow” for the South Bronx and said the mitigation efforts do not go far enough to address the root causes of pollution in the area. “We welcome all pollution mitigation measures for the South Bronx and for any pollution-burdened community, but they should not be dangled in front of us as a bargaining chip for adding more pollution to the area,” Arif Ullah, the group’s executive director, told reporters.    

Beyond cleaner air for most of the region, congestion pricing is likely to have other environmental and climate benefits. For example, the money raised by congestion pricing tolls will allow the MTA to access $15 billion in financing for capital improvements, such as making subway stations more accessible. These sorts of upgrades, while not technically designed with climate change in mind, make the subway safer and more efficient to use — and that matters when extreme weather strikes. Sledge, from Transportation Alternatives, said: “People really do rely on our subway system to get them where they need to go, and if there is a mass weather event, then that’s really scary and really difficult.”

In September 2023, rainstorms caused flash flooding in New York City, overwhelming the subway system in many places. After Hochul declared a state of emergency due to the extreme rainfall, the MTA warned of disruptions “across our network” and advised people to stay home if they could. Climate change makes extreme rainfall more likely because rising ocean temperatures lead to more water evaporating into the air. As Sledge notes, these weather events are “obviously only getting more and more common” as global temperatures keep rising. “So anything we can do to mitigate this is going to be extremely important as we move forward.”

Technically speaking, the funds raised by congestion pricing will only be spent on capital improvements included in the MTA’s 2020-2024 capital plan; the agency will likely need to raise another $6 billion to fund its climate resilience roadmap, which includes things like elevating subway vents to prevent storm surges from flooding subway stations. 

But experts agreed that improving the public transit system is critical to achieving New York City’s climate goals. “For a very densely populated region like the New York metropolitan region, that investment in transit is fundamental to achieving our climate goals and our air quality goals,” said Darrell from the Environmental Defense Fund. 

The National Resources Defense Council’s Goldstein agreed: “Ultimately, if we can’t adequately fund this public transit system so that it provides safe, reliable and efficient service, the region’s environment, as well as its economy, is certain to decline.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The climate benefits of NYC’s hard-won congestion pricing plan on Jan 10, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Frida Garza.

“Millions of Americans should brace for massive cuts to benefits and services they rely on for their survival under plans to target government spending and operations.

“On Tuesday, President-elect Trump announced he had appointed business executives Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead a private commission tasked with recommending drastic changes to the federal government’s programs and operations, which Musk has said could cut federal spending by $2 trillion.

“Budget cuts of this magnitude, coupled with the massive tax reductions Trump has said he will implement, will affect vital programs that tens of millions of Americans currently rely on for their financial security and their health and safety. This includes Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, food assistance for low-income families, veterans’ benefits and health care, and so much more.

“By their very nature, cuts of this size also would require slashing spending on our military, homeland security, federal law enforcement, and virtually every aspect of our government operations. This kind of financial pressure would lead to painful, widespread reductions in services that will affect Americans from every walk of life.

“To really attack government waste, the administration should target private contractors who are price gouging American taxpayers to deliver poorer service at higher cost while their corporate profits and executive pay skyrocket.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

I was always writing, even when I was a kid, aged nine, ten. As a teenager, I wrote a lot of poems, as that’s really what I read. I read poetry and plays, because I was a very slow reader. It felt like a very intimate interaction. There’s all this blank space around the work, and it seemed to invite a direct conversation between the author and the reader. An activity, rather than something that you receive passively.

I went to the North of Ireland to study at Queen’s University Belfast, partly because I didn’t have the grades to go to college in the Republic. And also, a lot of the poets I was reading were from the North, so it felt fated to go there.

When did you start to write prose?

I didn’t start writing prose until I moved to New Zealand and was having a block with poetry, partly to do with culture shock, the landscape being so different. I was missing the density of the dark back room, where people were smoking and talking about Louis MacNeice or the latest Ciaran Carson or Sinéad Morrissey or all the poets who were living and working there. There was such an active reading culture around poetry. And then I went to this completely different country, with these vast open spaces, where people were shyer and less loquacious, and it was such a different atmosphere that I couldn’t write poetry. Within a couple of years, I had the sense that I would have to write into a new form and, by then, I was reading novels properly. I’d come to appreciate them as a form and as something that I could have a conversation with.

Did completing your PhD in literature affect your writing process?

It did in that it allowed me to quit my job. I went to New Zealand to run a marathon. Once I realized that I might stay for six months or so, I ended up getting a job at Google, and I got sucked into a very different life for a few years. I was writing the odd poem, but really, I knew by then how much you had to write and how seriously you had to go about it to become in any way good.

The PhD was a way to extract myself from that life and to take writing seriously again. And it came with a huge pay cut. I was always trying to save money, that was always the project with the jobs that I had beforehand, to try and save money to have six months’ worth of time where I could mostly write. The problem is you just never take it, because it never feels like enough of a nest egg. And so even when I was doing the PhD, I was also teaching at the university, and I still had some consultancy work from a previous business. I was sharing a flat with seven people. I was doing everything to save money. And then, I did the PhD really quickly, in two and a half years, so that I had six months of spare funding.

I did write a novel during that period, and I had written another practice novel as well, which I never wanted to show anyone; it was never intended for that. I hadn’t taken any creative writing courses. I had only done one poetry workshop during my undergrad. I wanted to learn how to write prose just by writing it and by throwing away a couple of hundred thousand words.

Oof. But necessary, often. What sort of work did you do at Google?

At Google, my job title was something daft, like Creative Maximizer. The job description involved writing. Before that, I was working in clothes shops, I worked wrapping Christmas presents in the basement of a corporate building. My bank account was dwindling, and I think I was down to $30 in New Zealand dollars. And I was crying at a bus stop after having had my fourth of five interviews at Google, just thinking, “I messed this up. Why did I think that I could do this?” And so, when I did get it, I was grateful for that financial relief. I’ve always been financially nervous, I guess. I suppose I feel glad that I’ve managed not to let that take over and compromise what I’m writing. Or at least I like to think that I haven’t done that. You don’t write poetry or short stories or literary fiction in general for a sense of security!

How have you balanced day jobs with creative work?

I’m not, unfortunately, very good at balancing. I’m a monotasker. Right now, I’m promoting a book, and it means I’m not writing at all. Because I can’t multitask, because I’m such a monotasker, I do other work for periods and then I write for periods. It goes in waves. I am aware that it’s a privilege to be able to do that and that not everyone can, and you do what you have to do. For me, thankfully, I’ve thus far been able to alternate between doing other forms of work and writing.

What has been the most surprising realization?

I think it’s always a shock if you finish a novel. Even when you’re three quarters of the way through, it just seems like the unlikeliest thing in the world. So a positive shock has been finishing novels! A negative shock is that, when you finish the novel, it teaches you nothing about how to write the next one.

Your first book was a collection of poems, after which you began to publish short stories and novels, most recently The Alternatives. Does your background in poetry affect your approach to writing fiction?

It definitely does. Because I’m a slow reader, I’m writing for a slow reader. I’m assuming that the reader is hearing every word. I’m always trying to hold onto that, trusting the reader and writing for your very best reader. I think poets do that. There’s no pandering. That training in the generosity of the reader and trusting in that generosity really formed my writing process as a prose writer.

What is your drafting process like? Can you take us through a day in your life when you’re immersed in writing a novel?

I write in one draft. I begin at the beginning, without any plan, without any notes. The only notes I might have are character names, that kind of thing, and usually, what that is, in a notebook, is me spending time with the character in my mind and giving intuition the reins. I’m very, very slow at the beginning, as I circle around and feel something out. The choices made are made by intuition, rather than anything intellectual or artistic. Usually, the first lines that I write in the blank Word document end up being the first lines that are in the published book. I write completely into the dark. The process for me is one of discovery on every single page in every single paragraph. It’s why I write, that reward of arriving at some place that you could never have set out to arrive at, that your imagination wouldn’t have been able to concoct. And hopefully, being, at the end of a book, a bigger person than you were at the beginning, thanks to spending time with other characters who have other ways of thinking.

It always sounds so insane, because of course you’re coming up with these characters yourself. But that’s not what it feels like. I was walking down the street the other day with a new acquaintance. I had formed an impression of her, I’d learned several things about her. We’d been talking for a good while before, and we were walking to an event together. And then, she said: Oh, my oldest daughter is studying such and such. I hadn’t imagined her as someone with two daughters. And that’s what it feels like when you’re writing a character, that you find something out about them, rather than deciding what’s true of them.

The risk of my writing process is: if it doesn’t work out, it can’t be saved. I can be two years into a novel project before discovering that it just isn’t a novel. But the upside is that, when you get to the last line, it’s the last line of the book. And the book is usually ready then to send off, at least initially, to my agent, before maybe a round of edits and then, out. So it’s very euphoric getting to the end.

So revision for you is really a process of line editing?

Exactly, yeah. Line editing and maybe there’ll be something not quite right, just some little detail… It could just be a line of dialogue that doesn’t sound true to where a character is at mentally in that particular moment.

You know something about the characters when you begin a novel. Do you know anything about the plot?

No. No. It’s different for each book, but with The Alternatives, I knew that the character I was starting with was an earth scientist of sorts. She’s a geologist. And so, I knew that this was going to be me, in some way, facing up to where we are and how I feel about that and what it is to love someone who works in environmental science. There was a certain psychic space that I knew I’d be entering, but is that plot? I don’t know. There is an inevitability. I don’t know if I even believe in plots. I think nothing is really in a state of stasis. There’s always some sort of inertia and usually change and friction in every aspect of our lives. If you’re thinking in terms of plot, you take that somewhere and you escalate that. But reality does its own escalation.

Your fierce intellect is always on display in your work. At the same time, your fiction is quite funny.

I’m someone who really loves reading funny work. I find it hard to recommend a book that didn’t make me laugh. As an Irish writer, I grew up reading James Joyce and Beckett and Anne Enright, really just such funny writers. There is a tradition of the tragi-comic that I’m writing into. And so, what trained me was not only what I enjoy as a reader, but also, what’s sanctioned by the culture as legitimate, serious literature.

How do you balance the work around being a writer—promoting books, applying for fellowships, writing reviews, interviewing other writers, judging prizes—with creating original work of your own?

Well, I don’t feel overburdened right now, because I’ve had the Cullman Center fellowship this year. It comes with a stipend; I highly recommend it. But this year is an anomaly; it generally is kind of a piecemeal, patchwork type of life.

I see all of that as being part of the job. Even if you are in the very, very, very lucky position to be able to write full time, which almost nobody is, even in that scenario, probably 50 percent of your time is not actually writing. So thinking about those other things as being part of the job, because in another way, writing isn’t something that you can do 100 percent of the time. I don’t believe you can. I think that we don’t have enough wisdom within us. We need to process what we’re witnessing, our experiences and encounters. And if you try to write one thing immediately after the last thing, it’s going to end up being a zombie limb of the previous project, philosophically, emotionally, in terms of wisdom.

What do you do when you’re creatively stuck?

If I’m stuck, it’s usually because I’m either trying to write something that doesn’t want to be written—there’s something theoretically interesting in it, but I’m missing one of the points on the constellation as a human being in order to write that story—or it’s because something’s wrong. That’s a really excruciating, nauseating feeling, because it’s very hard to name what’s wrong. For me, it’s never something like, “Oh, the pace of this scene is slack.” It’s something that I can’t pinpoint, I have to unravel the prose line by line or paragraph by paragraph and get back to the point of dishonesty, where you’ve done something that’s convenient for a scene or written a line of dialogue that sounds funny in a character’s mouth, but just isn’t what they’d say; something that has derailed the truth of the thing or where the thing wants to actually go.

How do you think about pace?

I think that, early on, I benefited from writing on my own. I benefited from the lack of any sense of a deadline or urgency or a competitive mindset—the awareness of other people producing work. That gave me so much license to learn slowly and to do things slowly. And I really philosophically believe in slow work. I do think that, if you can get yourself to practice that through your life, you will serve the work so much better.

How do you avoid burnout?

I waste an awful lot of time. I think the costliest thing about my life is how much time I spend wasting, whether it’s procrastinating about things or opening and closing tabs, which is one of my key pursuits. The thing is, I have to not beat myself up for wasting time, because it always, in retrospect, seems necessary. I do believe in a gestation period. I believe in downtime. That’s really crucial. And I think that it staves off burnout. Maybe that’s a really obvious thing to say, not doing anything! But it isn’t not doing anything… You’re doing something, but you know that it’s not the thing that you should be doing or the hyper-productive, rational, reasoned thing to do. And the key thing is to try and not beat yourself up.

On the other hand, I will say that, usually, when I start writing, it’s because I’ve reached peak self-loathing. So that is usually the engine that gets me going in the end.

What is something you wish someone had told you when you began to make art?

Write loads. I wish I had known earlier on how much I would improve by writing, I don’t mean by trying to publish, but just by writing. I think I would’ve gotten better sooner, had I known how much I needed to spend time sitting in front of a computer.

This content originally appeared on The Creative Independent and was authored by Cara Blue Adams.

Verified X user Amitabh Chaudhary (@MithilaWaala) posted this news on June 8, drawing attention to how the woman lost her life because of false promises peddled by Congress, besides urging the Election Commission of India to take cognizance of the matter. 

Tragic news coming from #Amethi

Reportedly a woman standing in queue for submitting her form for Rahul Gandhi’s “Khata Khat” scheme has died due to heatwave in front of the Congress office.

This isn’t a mere death by murder by Congress party by luring people into…

— Amitabh Chaudhary (@MithilaWaala) June 8, 2024

The user, Amitabh Chaudhary (@MithilaWaala), has been found amplifying misinformation several times in the past.

Another verified X user, (@RealBababanaras), tweeted the ‘piece of news’ with the same claim, blaming Congress for the alleged death. At the time of the writing of this article, the post has racked up almost 2.4 lakh views and has been re-shared more than 5,000 times.

BREAKING : Reportedly a woman standing in queue for submitting her form for Congress’s “Khata Khat” scheme died due to heatwave in Amethi in front of the Congress office.

First death in greed of Khatakhat ₹8500

— Baba Banaras (@RealBababanaras) June 8, 2024

This user, @RealBababanaras, too, shares communal misinformation on a regular basis.

The claim is also viral on Facebook, with several users indicating that Congress was to be blamed for the reported loss of life.

Fact Check

We ran a relevant keyword search on Google and found an IANS report where some women said that they had assembled near the Congress because they were supposed to receive Rs 8,500. However, we could not find any verified media report about any loss of life related to this.

Moreover, we came across a clarification from the official handle of Amethi Police where they explicitly stated that their investigation into the rumoured death of a woman near the Congress Party office had revealed that the entire matter was misleading.

संदर्भित प्रकरण की जांच से कांग्रेस कार्यालय के पास किसी भी महिला की मृत्यु की बात प्रकाश में नहीं आई है । कृपया भ्रामक खबर प्रसारित न करें ।

— AMETHI POLICE (@amethipolice) June 8, 2024

The English translation of this statement reads: “Investigation into the matter in question has not revealed the death of any woman near the Congress office. Please do not spread misleading news.”

Hence, it is clear that the viral claims on social media about the death of a woman due to the excessive heat while she was waiting in a queue near the Congress office to collect Rs. 8,500 is false.

Prantik Ali is an intern at Alt News.

The post Police debunk false claims of Amethi woman’s death in queue to avail ‘Mahalakshmi’ benefits appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Prantik Ali.

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

Nine witnesses in the criminal cases against former President Donald Trump have received significant financial benefits, including large raises from his campaign, severance packages, new jobs, and a grant of shares and cash from Trump’s media company.

The benefits have flowed from Trump’s businesses and campaign committees, according to a ProPublica analysis of public disclosures, court records and securities filings. One campaign aide had his average monthly pay double, from $26,000 to $53,500. Another employee got a $2 million severance package barring him from voluntarily cooperating with law enforcement. And one of the campaign’s top officials had her daughter hired onto the campaign staff, where she is now the fourth-highest-paid employee.

These pay increases and other benefits often came at delicate moments in the legal proceedings against Trump. One aide who was given a plum position on the board of Trump’s social media company, for example, got the seat after he was subpoenaed but before he testified.

Significant changes to a staffer’s work situation, such as bonuses, pay raises, firings or promotions, can be evidence of a crime if they come outside the normal course of business. To prove witness tampering, prosecutors would need to show that perks or punishments were intended to influence testimony.

White-collar defense lawyers say the situation Trump finds himself in — in the dual role of defendant and boss of many of the people who are the primary witnesses to his alleged crimes — is not uncommon. Their standard advice is not to provide any unusual benefits or penalties to such employees. Ideally, decisions about employees slated to give evidence should be made by an independent body such as a board, not the boss who is under investigation.

Do you have any information about Trump’s campaign or his businesses that we should know? Robert Faturechi can be reached by email at robert.faturechi@propublica.org and by Signal or WhatsApp at 213-271-7217. Justin Elliott can be reached by email at justin@propublica.org or by Signal or WhatsApp at 774-826-6240.

Even if the perks were not intended to influence witnesses, they could prove troublesome for Trump in any future trials. Prosecutors could point to the benefits to undermine the credibility of those aides on the witness stand.

“It feels very shady, especially as you detect a pattern. … I would worry about it having a corrupt influence,” Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, said after hearing from ProPublica about benefits provided to potential Trump witnesses.

But McQuade said these cases are difficult to prove, even if the intent were actually to influence testimony, because savvy defendants don’t explicitly attach strings to the benefits and would more likely be “all wink and a nod, ‘You’re a great, loyal employee, here’s a raise.’”

In response to questions from ProPublica, a Trump campaign official said that any raises or other benefits provided to witnesses were the result of their taking on more work due to the campaign or his legal cases heating up, or because they took on new duties.

The official added that Trump himself isn’t involved in determining how much campaign staffers are paid, and that compensation is entirely delegated to the campaign’s top leaders. “The president is not involved in the decision-making process,” the official said. “I would argue Trump doesn’t know what we’re paid.”

Campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement that “the 2024 Trump campaign is the most well-run and professional operation in political history. Any false assertion that we’re engaging in any type of behavior that may be regarded as tampering is absurd and completely fake.”

Trump’s attorney, David Warrington, sent ProPublica a cease-and-desist letter demanding this article not be published. The letter warned that if the outlet and its reporters “continue their reckless campaign of defamation, President Trump will evaluate all legal remedies.”

It’s possible the benefits are more widespread. Payments from Trump campaign committees are disclosed publicly, but the finances of his businesses are mostly private, so raises, bonuses and other payments from those entities are not typically disclosed.

ProPublica did not find evidence that Trump personally approved the pay increases or other benefits. But Trump famously keeps close watch over his operations and prides himself on penny-pinching. One former aide compared working for the Trump Organization, his large company, to “a small family business” where every employee “in some sense reports to Mr. Trump.” Former aides have said Trump demands unwavering loyalty from subordinates, even when their duties require independence. After his Attorney General Jeff Sessions decided to recuse himself against then-President Trump’s wishes, paving the way for a special counsel to investigate his campaign’s ties to Russia, Trump fumed about being crossed. “Where’s my Roy Cohn?” Trump asked, referring to the notorious former aide to Sen. Joseph McCarthy who later served as Trump’s faithful fixer long before Trump became president.

Trump campaign adviser Benefit: Pay more than doubled

Head of Trump campaign Benefit: Payments to firm spiked, campaign hired her daughter

Trump aide Benefit: Received a roughly 20% raise

Trump aide Benefit: Appointed to board of Trump Media

Trump attorney Benefit: Payments to her law firm dramatically increased

Trump lawyer Benefit: Payments to his law firm dramatically increased

Trump Organization executive Benefit: Lucrative severance package

In addition to the New York case in which Trump was convicted last week, stemming from hidden payments to a porn star, Trump is facing separate charges federally and in Georgia for election interference and in another federal case for mishandling classified documents.

Attempts to exert undue influence on witnesses have been a repeated theme of Trump-related investigations and criminal cases over the years.

Trump’s former campaign manager and former campaign adviser were convicted on federal witness tampering charges in 2018 and 2019. The campaign adviser had told a witness to “do a ‘Frank Pentangeli,’” referencing a character in “The Godfather Part II” who lies to a Senate committee investigating organized crime. Trump later pardoned both men in the waning days of his presidency. (He did not pardon a co-defendant of the campaign manager who had cooperated with the government.)

During the congressional investigation into the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, a former White House staffer testified that she got a call from a colleague the night before an interview with investigators. The colleague told her Trump’s chief of staff “wants me to let you know that he knows you’re loyal and he knows you’ll do the right thing tomorrow and that you’re going to protect him and the boss.” (A spokesperson for the chief of staff denied that he tried to influence testimony.)

Last year, Trump himself publicly discouraged a witness from testifying in the Georgia case. Trump posted on social media that he had read about a Georgia politician who “will be testifying before the Fulton County Grand Jury. He shouldn’t.”

One witness has said publicly that, when he quit working for Trump in the midst of the classified documents criminal investigation, he was offered golf tournament tickets, a lawyer paid for by Trump and a new job that would have come with a raise. The witness, a valet and manager at Mar-a-Lago, had direct knowledge of the handling of the government documents at the club, the focus of one of the criminal cases against the former president. “I’m sure the boss would love to see you,” the employee, Brian Butler, recalled Trump’s property manager telling him. (The episode was first reported by CNN.)

In an interview with ProPublica, Butler, who declined the offers, said he looked at them “innocently for a while.” But when he added up the benefits plus the timing, he thought “it could be them trying to get me back in the circle.”

One Trump aide who plays a key role in multiple cases is a lawyer named Boris Epshteyn, who became an important figure in Trump’s effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

A college classmate of one of Trump’s sons who worked on the 2016 campaign and briefly in the White House, Epshteyn was involved in assembling sets of false electors around the country after Trump lost the 2020 election, and Epshteyn’s emails and texts have come up repeatedly in investigations.

In 2022, he testified before the Georgia grand jury that later indicted Trump on charges related to attempts to overturn the election. The FBI seized his phone, and in April 2023 he was interviewed by the federal special counsel.

In early August 2023, the special counsel charged Trump with conspiracy to defraud the United States and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding as part of an effort to overturn the 2020 election. A couple weeks later, the Georgia grand jury handed down an indictment accusing Trump of racketeering as part of a plot to overturn the election results in the state. From November 2022 to August 2023, the Trump campaign had paid Epshteyn’s company an average of $26,000 per month. The month after the indictments, his pay hit a new high, $50,000, and climbed in October to $53,500 per month, where it has remained ever since.

Epshteyn is a contractor with the campaign and the payments go to his company, Georgetown Advisory, which is based at a residential home in New Jersey. The company does not appear to have an office or other employees. Campaign filings say the payments are for “communications & legal consulting.”

Kenneth Notter, an attorney at MoloLamken who specializes in white-collar defense, said that a defendant should have a good explanation for a major increase in pay like Epshteyn’s. “Any change in treatment of a witness is something that gets my heart rate up as a lawyer.”

Already in early 2023, months before the pay bump, a Trump campaign spokesperson described Epshteyn to The New York Times as “a deeply valued member of the team” who had “done a terrific job shepherding the legal efforts fighting” the investigations of Trump. The Times reported then that Epshteyn spoke to Trump multiple times per day.

Timothy Parlatore, an attorney who left Trump’s defense team last year citing infighting, found Epshteyn’s large raise baffling. He questioned Epshteyn’s fitness to handle high-stakes criminal defense given his scant experience in the area. “He tries to coordinate all the legal efforts, which is a role he’s uniquely unqualified for,” Parlatore said.

The Trump campaign official told ProPublica that Epshteyn got a pay raise because Trump’s legal cases intensified and, as a result, Epshteyn had more legal work to coordinate. The official declined to say if he started working more hours: “All of us are working 24/7, ... every second of the day.” Epshteyn declined to comment on the record.

Even after the major pay increase, Epshteyn has not devoted all of his working time to the Trump campaign. He has continued to consult for other campaigns in recent months, disclosure filings show. And in November, he got a new role as managing director of a financial services firm in New York called Kenmar Securities, regulatory filings show.

Other employees in Trump’s political orbit have followed a similar pattern — including his top aide.

Trump campaign head Susie Wiles, a Florida political consultant, was present when Trump allegedly went beyond improperly holding onto classified documents and showed them to people lacking proper security clearances.

When Trump was indicted on June 8, 2023, over his handling of the documents, the indictment described Wiles as a “PAC representative.” It described Trump allegedly showing her a classified map related to a military operation, acknowledging “that he should not be showing it” and warning her to “not get too close.”

That June, Right Coast Strategies, the political consulting firm Wiles founded, received its highest-ever monthly payment from the Trump campaign: $75,000, an amount the firm has equaled only once since.

Wiles had been a grand jury witness before the indictment. News reports indicated Wiles had told others that she continued to be loyal to Trump and only testified because she was forced to. (And, according to Wiles, Trump was told she was a witness sometime before the indictment’s June release.)

The Trump campaign official told ProPublica that the spike in payments was largely because Wiles was billing for previous months.

She also got a 20% raise that May, from $25,000 to $30,000 per month. “She went back and redid her contract,” the official said, adding that her role as a witness was not a factor in that raise.

A few months later, the Wiles family got more good news. Wiles’ daughter Caroline, who had done some work for Trump’s first campaign and in the White House, where she reportedly left one job because she didn’t pass a background check, was hired by his campaign. Her salary: $222,000, making her currently the fourth-highest-paid staffer. (The Trump campaign official said her salary included a monthly housing stipend.)

Susie Wiles said she and another campaign official were responsible for hiring her daughter, who she said has an expertise in logistics and was brought on to handle arrangements for surrogates taking Trump’s place at events he couldn’t attend. Wiles said Trump wasn’t involved in the hire.

Caroline Wiles told ProPublica her mother’s position in the campaign played no role in her getting a job, but she declined to describe the circumstances around the job offer. “How did I get the job? Because I have earned it,” she said. “I don’t think it has anything to do with Susie.”

The indictment suggests Susie Wiles herself has been aware of efforts to keep potential witnesses in the fold. Soon after the FBI found classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, a Trump employee was asked in a group text chat that included Wiles to confirm that the club’s property manager “was loyal.”

Wiles told ProPublica she couldn’t talk about the details of the case, but she called the text message exchange “a nothing.”

More generally, she said she was unaware of the need to ensure employees who are witnesses do not appear to be receiving special treatment. “It’s the first time I’ve heard that’s best practice,” she said. “I don’t mind telling you I conduct myself in such a way that I don’t worry about any of that.” Trump, she said, had never talked to her about her role as a witness.

Less powerful aides who are witnesses have also enjoyed career advances.

Margo Martin, a Trump aide who, like Wiles, allegedly witnessed Trump showing off what he described as a secret military document, got a significant raise not long after the classified documents case heated up with the search at Mar-a-Lago.

According to the indictment, Trump told Martin and others the military plan was “secret” and “highly confidential.” “As president I could have declassified it,” he allegedly told the group. “Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret.”

A few months before her grand jury appearance, she moved from the payroll of a Trump political committee to a job with the campaign as it was launching. Martin was given a roughly 20% pay raise, from $155,000 to $185,000 per year, according to the Trump campaign. Campaign finance filings show a much larger pay increase for Martin, but the Trump campaign said the filings are misleading because of a difference in how payroll taxes and withholdings are reported by the two committees.

Because of that quirk, it’s impossible to know who else got raises and how big they were. The campaign official said that at least one other witness also got a pay raise but did not provide details about how much and when.

Dan Scavino is a longtime communications aide who Trump once called the “most powerful man in politics” because he could post for Trump on the president’s social media accounts. Scavino was among the small group of staff who had an up-close view of Trump during the final weeks of his presidency — a focus of the congressional inquiry into the Jan. 6 insurrection and the criminal probe into election interference.

In August 2021, a month after the congressional investigation began, securities filings show that the parent company behind Truth Social, Trump’s social media company, gave Scavino a consulting deal that ultimately paid out $240,000 a year.

The next month, lawmakers issued a subpoena to Scavino to ask him what the White House knew about the potential for violence before the attacks and what actions Trump took to try to overturn the election results. The panel gave Scavino a half-dozen extensions while negotiating with him, but he ultimately refused to testify or turn over documents and was held in contempt.

In September 2022, Scavino received a subpoena to testify before the criminal grand jury in the federal election interference probe. This time, he wasn’t able to get out of it and was seen leaving the Washington, D.C., courthouse in May 2023.

Bits of Scavino’s testimony were reported by ABC News, citing unnamed sources. Though his recollections of Trump from Jan. 6 painted the former president unfavorably, his reported testimony didn’t include significant new information. He testified Trump was “very angry” that day, and, despite pleas from aides to calm the Capitol rioters, Trump for hours “was just not interested” in taking action to stop it. When the testimony was reported, Trump’s spokesperson said Scavino is one of the former president’s “most loyal allies, and his actual testimony shows just how strong President Trump is positioned in this case.”

Between getting the subpoena and testifying, Scavino was given a seat on the board of the Trump social media company.

Scavino was also granted a $600,000 retention bonus and a $4 million “executive promissory note” paid in shares, according to SEC filings. The company’s public filings do not make clear when these deals were put in place.

As one of the few aides who Trump was with on Jan. 6, Scavino is likely to be called if Trump’s election interference cases go to trial.

Reached by ProPublica, Scavino declined to answer questions about how he got the board seat and other benefits from the Trump media company. “It has nothing to do,” he said, “with any investigation.”

A Trump Media spokesperson declined to answer questions about who made the decision to give Scavino the benefits and why, but said, “It appears this article will comprise utterly false insinuations.”

When Atlanta attorney Jennifer Little was hired to represent Trump in his Georgia election interference case, it marked the high point of her career.

A former local prosecutor who started her own practice, she had previously taken on far more modest cases. Highlights on her website include a biker who fell because of a pothole, a child investigated for insensitive social media comments and drunk drivers with “DUI’s as high as .19.” Little had made headlines for some higher profile cases, like a candidate for lieutenant governor accused of sexual harassment, but everything on her resume paled in comparison to representing a former president accused of plotting to reverse the outcome of an election.

Then in May 2022, her job got even more complicated when Trump pulled her into his brewing showdown with the Justice Department over classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. Despite multiple requests, Trump had not returned all of the documents he had brought with him from the White House to his Florida club. The Justice Department had just elevated the matter by subpoenaing Trump for the records, and Trump wanted her advice.

Little told him, according to news reports, that unlike the government’s prior requests, a subpoena meant he could face criminal charges if he didn’t comply.

When Trump ultimately did not turn over the records and the criminal investigation intensified, Little’s involvement in that pivotal meeting got her called before a grand jury by federal prosecutors.

Some of her testimony before that grand jury, which determines whether someone will be indicted, may have been favorable for Trump. In one reported instance, Little’s recollections undermined contemporaneous documentary evidence that was damaging to Trump. Investigators had obtained notes from another lawyer at the May 2022 meeting indicating Trump suggested they not “play ball” with federal authorities: “Wouldn’t it be better if we just told them we don’t have anything here?”

Little told the grand jury she remembered the question more benignly, according to an ABC News story that cited anonymous sources, and said she couldn’t recall Trump recommending they not “play ball.”

Trump has since been indicted over his handling of the classified documents. If the case goes to trial, Little’s testimony could prove crucial as the two sides try to make their case about Trump's consciousness of guilt and whether he purposely withheld documents. (Trump has pleaded not guilty in that case and has said he did nothing wrong.)

Just after Little was forced to testify before the grand jury in March 2023, a Trump political action committee paid her $218,000, by far the largest payment she’d received while working for Trump. In the year after she became a witness, she has made at least $1.3 million from the Trump political committee, more than twice as much as she had during the year prior.

Little told ProPublica the large payment she received soon after she was compelled to testify was due to a lengthy motion she filed around then to block the release of the Georgia grand jury’s findings and prevent Trump from being indicted. Her hourly rate did not change, she said, the workload increased. The elevated payments in the year after she became a witness did coincide with the Georgia case heating up and Trump getting indicted.

The Trump campaign official said the spike in payments to Little after she became a witness was the result of her billing for multiple time periods at once.

A similar pattern played out for the other Trump lawyer present at the Mar-a-Lago meeting about the subpoena.

Evan Corcoran, a former federal prosecutor who specializes in white-collar criminal defense, was new to the team at the time. And it was his notes, obtained by investigators, that memorialized Trump suggesting they not “play ball.” His notes also included a description of Trump seeming to instruct him to withhold some sensitive documents from authorities when the former president made a “plucking motion.”

“He made a funny motion as though — well okay why don’t you take them with you to your hotel room and if there’s anything really bad in there, like, you know, pluck it out,” Corcoran’s notes read, according to the indictment.

Like Little, Corcoran tried to fight being forced to testify before a grand jury, asserting that as Trump’s lawyer, their communications were protected. But prosecutors were able to convince a judge that the protection didn’t apply because their legal advice was used to commit crimes.

Corcoran’s notes from his conversations with Trump formed the backbone of the eventual indictment, and his descriptions of those meetings are expected to be a critical component at trial. The lawyer made an initial appearance before the grand jury in January 2023 and appeared again in another session in March.

Around the time he was forced to be a witness, Corcoran recused himself from the classified documents case, but he continued to represent Trump on other matters. Nevertheless his firm’s compensation shot up for a few months.

Just days after his March grand jury testimony, the Trump campaign sent two payments to his firm totaling $786,000, the largest amount paid in a single day in his almost two years working for Trump. The firm brought in a total of $1.4 million in that four-week span, more than double its payments from any other comparable period during Corcoran’s time working for Trump.

Corcoran did not respond to questions from ProPublica. The Trump campaign official said the spike in payments came because the firm was billing for more hours of work as Trump’s cases ramped up. The official added that the number of lawyers from the firm working on the case may have increased but could not provide specifics.

The issue of witnesses who have received financial rewards from Trump has already come up at both of the former president’s New York trials.

In the civil fraud case last year, prosecutors questioned the Trump Organization’s former controller about the $500,000 in severance he had been promised after retiring earlier in the year. During his testimony, the former controller broke down in tears as he complained about allegations against an employer he loved and defended the valuations at the center of the case as “justified.” At the time of the testimony, he was still receiving his severance in installments.

Former chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg got a $2 million severance agreement in January 2023, four months after the New York attorney general sued Trump for financial fraud in his real estate business. The agreement contains a nondisparagement clause and language barring Weisselberg from voluntarily cooperating with investigators.

It came up in Trump’s hush money trial last month when prosecutors told the judge that the severance agreement was one of the reasons they would not call Weisselberg . He was still due several payments.

“The agreement seems to preclude us from talking to him or him talking to us at the risk of losing $750,000 of outstanding severance pay,” one prosecutor said.

In last year’s fraud trial, the judge wrote of the severance agreement, “The Trump Organization keeps Weisselberg on a short leash, and it shows.”

A Trump Organization spokesperson said in a statement that after Weisselberg and the controller announced their retirement plans, “the company agreed to pay them severance based on the number of years they worked at the company. President Trump played no role in that decision.” Weisselberg’s severance agreement was signed by Trump’s son Eric.

Another witness from the civil trial last year, longtime Trump friend and real estate executive Steve Witkoff, was called as an expert witness by Trump’s defense team, and he defended the Trump Organization real estate valuations at the heart of the case.

Two months after Witkoff’s testimony, Trump’s campaign for the first time started paying his company, the Witkoff Group, for air travel. The payments continued over several weeks, ultimately totalling more than $370,000.

The Trump campaign official confirmed the campaign used Witkoff’s private jet for multiple trips, including Trump’s visit to a stretch of the Texas border in February, saying it “appropriately reimbursed” him for the flights. The official said it sometimes used commercial charter jet services but opted for Witkoff’s plane because of “availability, space, and convenience.”

Witkoff and The Witkoff Group did not respond to requests for comment.

Do you have any information about Trump’s campaign or his businesses that we should know? Robert Faturechi can be reached by email at robert.faturechi@propublica.org and by Signal or WhatsApp at 213-271-7217. Justin Elliott can be reached by email at justin@propublica.org or by Signal or WhatsApp at 774-826-6240.

Headshot photos of Allen Weisselberg by Curtis Means/Daily Mail/Bloomberg/Getty Images; Evan Corcoran by Nathan Howard/Bloomberg/Getty Images; Dan Scavino by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images; Susie Wiles by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post/Getty Images; Jennifer Little by Dennis Byron-Pool/Getty Images; Boris Epshteyn by Mandek Ngan/AFP/Getty Images; and Margo Martin by Curtis Means-Pool/Getty Images.

Agnel Philip contributed data analysis.

Graphics by Lena Groeger.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Robert Faturechi, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski.

The site will be home to one of the nation’s first ports dedicated to supporting the growing offshore wind industry. It is the culmination of years of work by an unlikely alliance including community advocates, unions, oil companies, and politicians, which hope the operations can help New York meet its climate goals while creating thousands of high-quality jobs and helping improve conditions in Sunset Park, a polluted neighborhood that is 40 percent Hispanic.

With construction finally underway, it seems that some of those hopes are coming true. Last month, Equinor, the Norwegian oil company that is building the port, signed an agreement with New York labor unions covering wages and conditions for what should be more than 1,000 construction jobs.

The Biden administration has been promoting offshore wind development as a key piece of its climate agenda, with a goal of reaching 30,000 megawatts of capacity by 2030, enough to power more than 10 million homes, according to the White House. New York has positioned itself as a leader, setting its own goal of 9,000 megawatts installed by 2035.

Officials at the state and federal levels have seized on the industry as a chance to create a new industrial supply chain and thousands of blue-collar, high-paying jobs. In 2021, New York lawmakers required all large renewable energy projects to pay workers prevailing wages and to meet other labor standards. The Biden administration has included similar requirements in some leases for offshore wind in federal waters to encourage developers to hire union labor.

While the last year has brought a series of setbacks to the offshore wind industry, including the cancellation of several projects off New Jersey and New York that faced rising interest rates and supply chain problems, many of the pieces for offshore wind are falling into place. New York’s first utility-scale project began delivering power in March, while two much larger efforts, including one that Equinor will build out of the new port, are moving toward construction. Together, they will bring the state about 20 percent of the way to its 2035 target.

Community leaders in Sunset Park have cheered these wins, but they say it remains unclear how many of these jobs will actually go to residents of the neighborhood, a working-class community where the port is being built. It was the promise of green industrial jobs that brought community activists together with Equinor and political leaders to rally behind a proposal to redevelop the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal.

Now, as work proceeds, the effort helps highlight how difficult and complicated it can be to pair the transition to green energy and job creation with environmental justice concerns, even when all the players pledge support to that goal.

“It’s a thing that often falls off the table,” said Alexa Avilés, who represents Sunset Park on the New York City Council, about the priorities of communities. She worries that efforts to hire locally might bring workers from other parts of New York City or state, “and then we, the local community, never see any direct benefit. We see all the workers coming in and our folks are unemployed.”

‘We want good pay’

On a gray day in March, about 100 union members and government and corporate officials gathered in a glass-walled meeting room overlooking Queens, in a training center run by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. They were there to celebrate the signing of a project labor agreement between Equinor and local unions, versions of which will be required for similar projects up and down the East Coast.

Senator Charles Schumer, the New York Democrat and majority leader, said it was the culmination of years of work, including the hard-fought passage of an infrastructure law and then the Inflation Reduction Act, which ushered in renewable energy tax credits and financing, much of which is pegged to labor standards.

“New York can be the center of offshore wind in the whole country,” Schumer said. “But I said, ‘I’m not doing this unless labor is included and labor is protected.’ We don’t want to see low-wage jobs with no pensions and no health benefits build this stuff. We want good pay. We want good benefits. We want good health care.”

The transition away from fossil fuels has brought uncertainty to workers in the energy sector. While the number of jobs in the renewable energy industry has been growing, wind and solar generation have lower unionization rates than coal or natural gas, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Many people have expressed fears that building electric vehicles will require fewer workers than conventional cars, though there may be little data to support that concern. 

For labor leaders and many Democrats, offshore wind has been the counter to these fears. A report by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimated that a domestic offshore wind industry in line with the Biden administration’s goals could create as many as 49,000 jobs, and New York and other states have been enacting legislation aimed at encouraging the industry to create as many jobs as possible with high labor standards.

More than 400 miles up the coast, Kimberly Tobias successfully lobbied the state legislature in Maine, where she is completing an apprenticeship with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, to require some of the same standards that New York had adopted in 2021. Tobias grew up about 15 miles from the town of Searsport, which Governor Janet Mills recently selected as the site for Maine’s first offshore wind port. Tobias said the development will provide steady work that has been elusive in the renewable energy sector. 

“This is my 21st solar field in three years,” Tobias said, speaking via Zoom from a solar development where she was taking a break from installing panels. “The promise of being able to go to the same place for a project that’s projected to be five years, that’s a huge deal.”

Tobias said she hopes the offshore wind industry can help replace the jobs that Maine has lost from the decline of other industries like paper mills. 

Read Next

A year in, New York’s pioneering public power law makes uneven progress

Akielly Hu

In the opposite direction, workers have already leveled the ground for a large wind port in Salem County, New Jersey, that will have room not only for staging assembly of turbines but also for manufacturing their parts.

At the signing in Queens, Schumer said, “We always thought there ought to be three legs to the stool: environment, labor, and helping poor communities that didn’t have much of a chance. And South Brooklyn Marine Terminal really met all three of the legs of the stool.”

But a more nuanced picture emerged the following week at a community board meeting in Sunset Park. There, several dozen people packed into a less glamorous room on the ground floor of a public library to hear a presentation by Equinor and its contractors about the project. Placards lining the walls advertised the benefits the project will provide the neighborhood and the state, and speakers pledged to create more than 1,000 jobs and to keep open communications with the community.

They would minimize truck traffic, they said, by coordinating deliveries and bringing in supplies by rail or barge when possible. A major elevated highway bisects Sunset Park, and two polluting “peaker” power plants line the waterfront, firing up on hot summer days when power demand soars.

They spoke about a learning center the company would build and about $5 million in grants that Equinor had given to city organizations, including funding workforce training and programming at a rooftop vegetable farm in Sunset Park.

But when it came time for questions, several community leaders echoed different versions of the same query: How many jobs will go to local residents? A confounding answer emerged.

A spokesperson for Skanska, the construction firm that was hired to build the port, said they were encouraging neighborhood residents to apply but that they need to hire through the unions. He said some small portion of jobs could be nonunion, particularly those that would come as part of a commitment to hire businesses owned by minorities and women.

The union requirements, then, might actually get in the way of hiring residents of Sunset Park.

A couple of days before the community meeting, Elizabeth Yeampierre voiced these same concerns in an interview in her Sunset Park office, where she is executive director of UPROSE, an environmental justice advocacy group that supported bringing the wind port to the neighborhood.

“There’s entire categories of people that we’re concerned about,” Yeampierre said. “We’re concerned about people who don’t speak English, people who are undocumented, people who are coming out of the prison system, mothers, single mothers with children — how are we going to make sure that those people are brought in?”

Read Next

In Chicago, one neighborhood is fighting gentrification and climate change at the same time

Juanpablo Ramirez-Franco

Yeampierre remains supportive and excited about the wind port and what it can bring to the community. For years, UPROSE has fought to bring green industry to Sunset Park to help clean up the community and provide working class jobs that pay better than retail and other sectors.

UPROSE received one of the community grants from Equinor to fund a “just transition training center” that will help connect people in the neighborhood with training programs in different green industries. But Yeampierre said the city’s building trade unions also need to make an effort to expand their ranks.

“The truth is that if you want to hire people locally, and you want to make sure that historically marginalized communities get first dibs,” Yeampierre said, “then you need to create avenues for them to be able to go into these industries, and into this work. I don’t see that happening.”

Vincent Alvarez, president of the New York City Central Labor Council, a coalition of 300 unions, said his members were working with city agencies and officials to encourage local hiring in offshore wind. Many of those hires, he said, could be for administrative positions, security, and warehouse jobs at the Brooklyn port, positions that will be less specialized than in construction.

An Equinor spokesperson said the project labor agreement signed with the unions includes a “local hire requirement that gives priority to union members who live in Sunset Park,” but did not say how many people that might apply to. Representatives of Equinor and Skanska have said that in addition to direct jobs, additional money will flow to the neighborhood in the form of indirect jobs, feeding the new workers, for example, or providing other supplies.

Avilés, the city councilmember, said she and other community leaders continue to support the unions.

“We will always fight for a unionized workforce, because we know how important union work is for strong working class communities. But we also know we have people that are going to be outside of that, who also need dignified work.”

Now, Avilés said, she and other community leaders will continue to press Equinor, the unions and city agencies to make sure as many jobs go to Sunset Park as possible.

“It’s annoying that the work is here upon us, and we’re still kind of asking the same questions” about what benefits will flow to the community, “but I don’t think that closes the opportunity.”

Work on the port is expected to last three years. And if the offshore wind industry expands as state leaders hope, there will be years of construction of new projects beyond that.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline As New York’s offshore wind work begins, an environmental justice community awaits the benefits on May 25, 2024.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Nicholas Kusnetz, Inside Climate News.

Billions of dollars are flowing into projects to plant and protect trees so that governments and businesses can claim they’ve canceled out their emissions. Saving forests and planting trees are often portrayed as a “triple win” for the environment, economy, and people. According to a major report being presented on Friday at the United Nations Forum on Forests, however, that goal is proving more complicated than expected.

The conversation about how to manage forests “has been overtaken by the climate discussion,” said Daniela Kleinschmit, an author of the report and the vice president of the International Union of Forest Research Organizations, the network behind the research. The result? Indigenous peoples are getting pushed out of their lands because of carbon offset projects. Native grasslands are getting turned into forests, even though grasslands themselves are huge, overlooked reservoirs of carbon. And offset projects in forests, more often than not, fail to achieve all of the emissions benefits their backers had promised. 

The new report, the first comprehensive assessment of how the world is governing its forests in 14 years, offers some good news — global deforestation rates have slowed down slightly, from 32 million acres a year in 2010 to 25 million in 2020. But what the report calls the “climatization” of forests has led to the rise of carbon sequestration markets that prioritize short-term profits over long-term sustainability, it found. Experts say that it’s possible to pursue the global goal of sequestering carbon in forests while also keeping locals happy — it would just take a more thoughtful approach that considers the tradeoffs and involves the people most affected.

Daniel Miller, a professor of environmental policy at the University of Notre Dame, said that a narrow focus on forests’ environmental benefits misses “a huge part of the story.” Miller’s research has shown that forests can help fight poverty, since the edible goods found in them are often available during times of the year when people might go hungry. Having forests nearby can make land more productive, increasing crop yields by more than 50 percent in some cases. That’s because forests can enrich the soil, increase rainfall, and help with pollination. More than 3 billion people live within 1 kilometer (a little over half a mile) of forests and depend on them for jobs, like harvesting timber, and for food like nuts and mushrooms. 

Forests can also help people adapt to a warming world. They regulate floods and landslides and sustain livelihoods that are jeopardized by climate change, said Ida Djenontin, a professor of geography at Penn State.

Read Next

The world’s healthiest forests are on Indigenous land. Here’s why.

Joseph Lee

But what looks like a promising carbon sequestration effort can have unexpected consequences that undermine those benefits. For example, Finland’s ministry of agriculture is trying to fertilize its forests to make them grow faster, in the hope that they will suck up carbon quickly and help the country meet its goal of going carbon-neutral by 2035. But according to the new report, the government didn’t account for the energy-intensive process of producing and transporting fertilizer, a large source of carbon emissions. The report also points out that fertilizing forests can end up hurting reindeer herding, since it stifles the growth of lichen that reindeer eat; one study found that it could also reduce berry production in forests by 70 percent. “It seems that the ongoing climate crisis has, to some extent, legitimized excessive forest management techniques, such as fertilization,” the report concludes. 

Many forest offset projects don’t work as intended. An investigation last year found that only eight out of 29 rainforest offset projects approved by Verra, the world’s biggest certifier, had meaningfully reduced deforestation. The rest of the projects “had no climate benefit,” according to The Guardian, partially because the threat of those forests getting cut down had been vastly overstated.

The narrative that forests can save the world from climate change is a tempting one for businesses and politicians — they can seemingly take care of their climate pledges if they’re willing to fork over the money, without having to do the hard work of reducing emissions. It also allows people to skip the hard conversations about cutting down on consumption, Kleinschmit said. The market for voluntary carbon offsets — the ones companies choose to buy — is predicted to grow from around $2 billion in 2021 to $250 billion by 2030. 

Another problem is that “carbon cowboys” — a term for those seeking to profit off carbon offset schemes — can end up evicting Indigenous peoples from their homes. In 2015, Cambodian officials set aside more than 1,900 square miles of rainforest in the country’s Cardamom Mountains for a carbon offset project without consulting the Chong people that had lived there for centuries. Villagers were forced from their lands, and some were even arrested for collecting resin from trees, since carbon offset areas were monitored to stop locals from using the forest’s resources. In the United Arab Emirates, the company Blue Carbon has negotiated deals for millions of acres so it can launch offset projects aimed at protecting forests across Liberia, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Much of that land has been held by Indigenous peoples. Since 1990, an estimated quarter-million people around the world have been pushed out of their homes in the name of conservation. 

Global climate goals, of course, don’t have to come into conflict with local needs. Experts say it’s possible to balance the two effectively. Prakash Kashwan, an environmental studies professor at Brandeis University, said that locals can use resources from trees, at least on a smaller scale, without hurting a forest’s ability to sequester carbon, according to his research. Studies have demonstrated that involving Indigenous peoples and local residents in the process of decision-making is key to better social and environmental outcomes — including carbon sequestration. 

“Allowing communities a say in how forests are managed is absolutely vital to more effective, lasting, and just forest governance, and for tackling these big global challenges that we face,” Miller said.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The world is obsessed with forests’ climate benefits. Here’s the problem. on May 10, 2024.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Kate Yoder.

Delegates made important progress on the treaty, the final version of which is due by the end of the year. They pared down a lengthy draft of the text and agreed on a formal agenda for “intersessional” work ahead of the next — and final — meeting, in Busan, South Korea, scheduled for November 25. That work will involve critical issues around funding the treaty’s provisions and identifying plastic-related chemicals that should be restricted.

The agenda, however, doesn’t mention the elephant in the room: whether and how the treaty will limit plastic production.

“Nothing happened that was particularly surprising, but this outcome is still quite demoralizing,” said Chris Dixon, an ocean campaign leader for the nonprofit Environmental Investigation Agency who attended the talks. Other groups called the outcome “disappointing” and said the negotiations had been “undermined by deep-rooted industry influence.” 

Dixon and other environmental advocates have spent the past three meetings fighting for a treaty that addresses the “full life cycle” of plastics — meaning one that goes beyond waste management to limit the amount of plastic that’s made in the first place. 

The world already produces more than 400 million metric tons of plastic per year, and fossil fuel companies are planning to dramatically increase that number over the next few decades. Plastics have been described as the fossil fuel industry’s “plan B” as the world pivots away from using oil and gas in transportation and electricity generation. This could have dire implications not only for plastic pollution but for the climate; according to a recent study, greenhouse gas emissions from growing plastic production could eat up one-fifth of the world’s remaining carbon budget by 2050. 

Just because production limits aren’t on the agenda for ad hoc working groups, however, doesn’t mean they’re out of the treaty; it just means delegates may arrive in Busan less prepared to discuss technical concepts related to plastics manufacturing. Language about the “full life cycle” of plastics is still in the treaty’s mandate — which countries agreed on in 2022 — and throughout the draft text. Countries can also host unofficial discussions on the topic between now and November. 

There’s already widespread support for addressing plastic production in the treaty. Dozens of countries supported a statement presented by Rwanda and Peru last week saying that a global plastic reduction target should be “a North Star” for the treaty. The paper suggested reducing production by 40 percent below 2025 levels by 2040. Another declaration, published on Monday and signed by 28 countries, called for the treaty to “achieve sustainable levels of production of primary plastic polymers.”

Dixon said translating that support into binding treaty text is a matter of “political commitment.” On Monday, production was “the first topic to get dropped” as delegates scrambled to agree on an agenda for intersessional work, she said. They were trying to avoid a repeat of the previous conference, which ended with no agenda at all.

Santos Virgilio, a delegate representing Angola, said during a panel on Monday that it is “too early to say” how his country and others will coax oil-producing states into accepting treaty provisions on plastic production. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar are among the countries most vociferously opposed to addressing plastic production as part of the treaty. Plastics industry lobbying groups also turned out in full force at the negotiating session to oppose production caps.

Chris Jahn, council secretary of the International Council of Chemical Associations, said in a statement on Monday that the industry is “fully committed to a legally binding agreement all countries can join that ends plastic pollution without eliminating the massive societal benefits plastics provide for a healthier and more sustainable world.” 

Industry groups used the convening as a public relations opportunity, touting the benefits of plastic in ads placed throughout Ottawa. In a hotel, one collection of ads said plastics “save lives,” “deliver water,” and “reduce food waste.”

The United States has also resisted plastic production limits as part of the treaty. A State Department official told the Financial Times on Tuesday that “overly prescriptive approaches” could alienate “major producers or consumers of plastics.” Instead of cutting the supply of plastics, the U.S. wants to focus on reducing demand and improving infrastructure for recycling and reuse.

Despite frustrations, several observers noted a promising shift in the tone at this week’s negotiating session, compared to the previous meeting. “There was a different energy, it was more collaborative,” said Erin Simon, the vice president and head of plastic waste and business for the environmental nonprofit WWF. Bjorn Beeler, the general manager and international coordinator for the nonprofit International Pollutants Elimination Network, said it was “very significant” that the delegates were able to move from a 70-page “zero draft” of the treaty — a laundry list of options meant to represent everybody’s viewpoints — to a more formal version that’s been vetted by negotiators. 

All of the most ambitious provisions of the treaty are still in the newly updated draft, Beeler said, meaning they’re still up for discussion. He also noted growing support for health-related aspects of the treaty, particularly a provision to limit potentially dangerous chemicals that are commonly added to plastics. Delegates agreed to create an expert group to focus on this topic during intersessional work. They tasked it with proposing a framework to identify the most problematic types of plastic and plastic-related chemicals, as well as product designs that increase plastic products’ recycling and reuse potential. 

Although countries disagree on whether certain substances should be banned or just restricted, and which criteria should be used to identify such substances, there is more convergence on regulating chemicals than on most other issues. Even Iraq, a major oil producer, submitted a statement supporting the creation of two lists of banned and restricted plastic chemicals. 

“Everyone knows there are hazardous chemicals in plastics,” Beeler said. Griffins Ochieng, the executive director of the Kenya-based Center for Environmental Justice and Development, said in a statement that a global plastics treaty that addresses chemicals in plastics “is an impetus toward eradicating plastic pollution.”

One other expert group will focus on finance — where to get funding to help developing countries transition away from single-use plastics and test plastics for hazardous chemicals, among other treaty objectives, and how to distribute that money. Some countries and many environmental groups support the creation of a dedicated fund to help poor countries implement the provisions of the plastics treaty. Others say it would be simpler to use an existing mechanism like the Global Environmental Facility, a multilateral fund that provides grants to support government projects.

With eight months remaining in 2024, delegates have a lot of work ahead of them if they want to wrap up a treaty by the end of the year, which is the goal countries agreed on when they decided to write a treaty in March 2022. Even if the treaty does not take its most ambitious form, it could still have a big impact. Policies to disincentivize the use of virgin plastic, for instance — like recycled content requirements — are relatively noncontroversial, and they could indirectly limit plastic production. Beeler said it’s also possible that new requirements on the measurement and disclosure of plastic production could eventually lead to production limits after the treaty is ratified. 

Simon, with WWF, said she feels cautiously hopeful following this week’s meeting. The conference was “not a failure, and definitely not a win.” she said. “But it is progress.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline UN plastics treaty inches closer to reality as lobbyists tout plastics’ ‘massive societal benefits’ on May 1, 2024.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Joseph Winters.

“You’re not really using money inside a camp, even though it’s helping get resources to function,” said Big Wind. “There’s so much possibility, because nobody had to worry about their basic necessities,” they said. 

Outside of the camps is where people like Big Wind have to worry. 

A member of the 30×30 White House Advisory Committee, and a long-time climate activist, Big Wind spoke in Dubai at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in December and, from a young age, has crowdfunded conservation initiatives on the Wind River Reservation. 

“I’m not getting paid to go to these things,” said Big Wind, “by these institutions, by the feds, or by the international community.” Big Wind’s day job with the Wyoming Outdoor Council helps pay for some of these trips, and they continue to rely on crowdfunding to support travel. 

The unpaid labor that Big Wind provides to fight climate change is at the heart of a new paper published in Cambridge University Press called “Wages for Earthwork” — “earthwork” being the term to describe labor that takes care of the planet and provides benefits to all. That work should be compensated, argues essay author David Temin, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Michigan.

“If we’re going to think about a just transition to a world without fossil fuels, we need to put a lot of this invisible labor at the center,” Temin said. “A lot of this is obvious to Indigenous communities. Everyone is implicitly benefiting from this.”

The argument may seem quite basic, but the exploitation of unpaid earthwork has far reaching economic dimensions. Take unpaid housework or childcare: labor that maintains society and allows for the economy to continue operating but that is invisible in everything from labor markets to gross domestic products. Because productivity in most economies is a matter of goods and services, unpaid labor — like eldercare or earthwork — lies outside the market.

“The parallel is absolutely apt,” said Erin Hatton, a professor at the University at Buffalo who specializes in gender and labor markets. “Because of our capitalist system, labor outside the home has a measure of respect.” 

Earthwork, Hatton says, broadens that definition of home by taking care of the Earth as one would tend to a household where everyone lives. “It’s a home more broadly constructed,” she said.

Whereas unpaid housework and childcare have historically fallen to women, unpaid earthwork typically falls to Indigenous peoples, who are expected to steward land and share traditional ecological knowledge for free, says Micheal Mikulewicz, a professor at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry. “The argument is they should be grateful that we are actually asking and trying to help, which doesn’t help them put food on the table,” Mikulewicz said. 

The federal government does provide applications to grants pointed at tribal nations and organizations. This year, the Biden administration awarded $120 million dollars to 146 Indigenous-led projects for everything from climate-adaptation planning to community-led relocation and habitat restoration. But that doesn’t account for all the labor that has been done without federal funding. Also, grant-funding tends to privilege organizations with the means to pay grant writers, which can leave smaller organizations at a disadvantage. 

“We don’t really talk about the amount of work and labor that will be necessary to adapt to climate change,” said Mikulewicz. “Actually making changes in our economy, in our society, in the way our economic system works, or even the way we grow food for that matter. The phases of adaptation are really, really diverse.”

Mikulewicz adds that there are no easy answers to solving these imbalances, but that compensating Indigenous climate labor is a step in the right direction and could open the possibility of broader, more fruitful alliances between environmentalists and labor. 

According to Temin, the paper’s author, solutions could range from hourly wages to pressuring non-Indigenous conservation organizations to pick up the tab, but he recognizes that answers are typically dependent on situations with no one-size-fits-all approach to compensation. The funds to help from large conservation organizations are not making it into the hands of local Indigenous communities. 

However, Temin said the best way for Indigenous peoples to start seeing real forms of compensation is for governments to strengthen tribal sovereignty and return traditional lands to Indigenous stewardship.

“The most important component is securing land tenure rights and supporting local communities’ efforts to protect themselves and their territories against environmentally damaging extractive development projects and conservation projects that kick them off their own land,” he said.

Big Wind, on the Wind River Reservation, agrees. “I don’t think money is going to solve it. But I also feel like we do have a responsibility to ensure that we are taking care of the people who are working for all of us.” 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Indigenous peoples’ climate labor benefits everyone. Should it be paid? on Apr 2, 2024.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Taylar Dawn Stagner.

“You’re not really using money inside a camp, even though it’s helping get resources to function,” said Big Wind. “There’s so much possibility, because nobody had to worry about their basic necessities,” they said. 

Outside of the camps is where people like Big Wind have to worry. 

A member of the 30×30 White House Advisory Committee, and a long-time climate activist, Big Wind spoke in Dubai at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in December and, from a young age, has crowdfunded conservation initiatives on the Wind River Reservation. 

“I’m not getting paid to go to these things,” said Big Wind, “by these institutions, by the feds, or by the international community.” Big Wind’s day job with the Wyoming Outdoor Council helps pay for some of these trips, and they continue to rely on crowdfunding to support travel. 

The unpaid labor that Big Wind provides to fight climate change is at the heart of a new paper published in Cambridge University Press called “Wages for Earthwork” — “earthwork” being the term to describe labor that takes care of the planet and provides benefits to all. That work should be compensated, argues essay author David Temin, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Michigan.

“If we’re going to think about a just transition to a world without fossil fuels, we need to put a lot of this invisible labor at the center,” Temin said. “A lot of this is obvious to Indigenous communities. Everyone is implicitly benefiting from this.”

The argument may seem quite basic, but the exploitation of unpaid earthwork has far reaching economic dimensions. Take unpaid housework or childcare: labor that maintains society and allows for the economy to continue operating but that is invisible in everything from labor markets to gross domestic products. Because productivity in most economies is a matter of goods and services, unpaid labor — like eldercare or earthwork — lies outside the market.

“The parallel is absolutely apt,” said Erin Hatton, a professor at the University at Buffalo who specializes in gender and labor markets. “Because of our capitalist system, labor outside the home has a measure of respect.” 

Earthwork, Hatton says, broadens that definition of home by taking care of the Earth as one would tend to a household where everyone lives. “It’s a home more broadly constructed,” she said.

Whereas unpaid housework and childcare have historically fallen to women, unpaid earthwork typically falls to Indigenous peoples, who are expected to steward land and share traditional ecological knowledge for free, says Micheal Mikulewicz, a professor at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry. “The argument is they should be grateful that we are actually asking and trying to help, which doesn’t help them put food on the table,” Mikulewicz said. 

The federal government does provide applications to grants pointed at tribal nations and organizations. This year, the Biden administration awarded $120 million dollars to 146 Indigenous-led projects for everything from climate-adaptation planning to community-led relocation and habitat restoration. But that doesn’t account for all the labor that has been done without federal funding. Also, grant-funding tends to privilege organizations with the means to pay grant writers, which can leave smaller organizations at a disadvantage. 

“We don’t really talk about the amount of work and labor that will be necessary to adapt to climate change,” said Mikulewicz. “Actually making changes in our economy, in our society, in the way our economic system works, or even the way we grow food for that matter. The phases of adaptation are really, really diverse.”

Mikulewicz adds that there are no easy answers to solving these imbalances, but that compensating Indigenous climate labor is a step in the right direction and could open the possibility of broader, more fruitful alliances between environmentalists and labor. 

According to Temin, the paper’s author, solutions could range from hourly wages to pressuring non-Indigenous conservation organizations to pick up the tab, but he recognizes that answers are typically dependent on situations with no one-size-fits-all approach to compensation. The funds to help from large conservation organizations are not making it into the hands of local Indigenous communities. 

However, Temin said the best way for Indigenous peoples to start seeing real forms of compensation is for governments to strengthen tribal sovereignty and return traditional lands to Indigenous stewardship.

“The most important component is securing land tenure rights and supporting local communities’ efforts to protect themselves and their territories against environmentally damaging extractive development projects and conservation projects that kick them off their own land,” he said.

Big Wind, on the Wind River Reservation, agrees. “I don’t think money is going to solve it. But I also feel like we do have a responsibility to ensure that we are taking care of the people who are working for all of us.” 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Indigenous peoples’ climate labor benefits everyone. Should it be paid? on Apr 2, 2024.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Taylar Dawn Stagner.

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Ken Klippenstein.

As part of its escalating siege and bombing campaign against Palestinians—in which more than 18,000 people have been killed and roughly 1.9 million displaced—Israel has repeatedly disabled internet and phone service throughout Gaza. Israel’s airstrikes and fuel blockades have devastated the region’s communications infrastructure, depriving more than 2 million Gazans of access to lifesaving information, emergency services and contact with those outside their immediate vicinity, while preventing journalists from reporting on the situation. Since the first blackouts occurred shortly after Hamas’s attacks on October 7, residents have suffered multiple outages.

In recent weeks, Israel-allied media have minimized Israel’s culpability, portraying the shutoffs more as an unforeseeable act of nature than a deliberate act of military aggression.

Israel as innocent bystander 

Washington Post (10/28/23) deploys the passive voice: Who plunged Palestinians into digital darkness?

News sources have rightfully informed readers of the telecommunications void in Gaza. A headline from the Washington Post (10/28/23) read, “No Text, No Talk: Palestinians Plunged Into Digital Darkness in Gaza.” The following month, an Associated Press (11/16/23) dispatch covering a separate shutoff announced that “Under a Communication Blackout, Gaza’s 2.3 Million People Are Cut Off From Each Other and the World.” But judging by these passive-voice alerts, one would have no idea Israel was involved.

Additionally, though the Post promptly alluded to the shutoffs as a “tool of war,” the paper waited 10 paragraphs to assign blame to Israel, noting that “Israel knocked out cell towers, cable lines and infrastructure…creating the near-blackout of connectivity.” AP also hedged and buried its mentions of Israel’s responsibility, explaining that a lack of fuel—caused by Israel’s obstruction of fuel deliveries to Gaza, which AP waited two dozen paragraphs to address—paralyzed the region’s internet and phone network.

To further obscure the cause-and-effect relationship of Israel’s violence and Gaza’s infrastructural ruin, media have presented the two as parallel occurrences. Wired (10/27/23) announced that cables, cell towers and other equipment “have been damaged or destroyed as Israel launched thousands of missiles in response to Hamas.” The New York Times (10/29/23) offered a similar construction: “As Israeli forces entered Gaza on Friday to fight Hamas, phone and internet service was severed.” NPR (10/30/23) contributed its own version, stating, “At the same time Israel intensified its assault on Gaza, internet and phone service suddenly dropped.”

‘Complete siege’

These framings are astonishingly charitable to Israel, given the available documentation of its actions. After promising a “complete siege” of Gaza in early October, Israeli officials ordered cuts to electricity, fuel supplies, food and water (Guardian, 10/11/23), amounting to a war crime. On October 10, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs confirmed that Israeli airstrikes “targeted several telecommunication installations” in Gaza. Days later, an Israeli Communications Ministry press release listed “an ongoing examination and preparation for the shutting down of cellular communications and internet services to Gaza” in a summary of its operations.

This aggression is enabled by Israel’s seizure and decades-long weakening of Palestinian communications infrastructure, which has rendered Palestinian networks highly vulnerable to damage. According to the Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media:

Since the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories in 1967, Israel took complete control of the [Information and Communication Technologies] infrastructure and sector in the West Bank and Gaza, impeding development and blocking the establishment of an independent network, instead making Palestinians entirely dependent on the Israeli occupation authorities.

It should come as no surprise, then, that Palestinian telecom companies have attributed the outages to “deliberate actions perpetrated by Israeli authorities.”

Enemies as sinister masterminds

The New York Times headline (11/17/19) held Iran responsible for shutting down the internet, which the story called “one of its most draconian attempts to cut off Iranians from each other and the rest of the world.”

In contrast to their Israel coverage, US and US-allied media waste no time identifying alleged culprits of internet shutdowns in non-allied countries.

Reporting on protests over rising fuel prices, the New York Times (11/17/19) ran the headline “Iran Blocks Nearly All Internet Access.” The active voice in the story’s lead clearly indicated responsibility: “Iran imposed an almost complete nationwide internet blackout on Sunday,” in order to “cut off Iranians” amid “widespread government unrest.” An adjective elsewhere in the lede—“draconian”—which, though it undoubtedly applies to Israel, is almost unimaginable in corporate media discussions of the 75-year US ally (FAIR.org, 10/20/23, 11/15/23, 11/17/23).

AP (7/12/21) adopted equally decisive language in a piece scolding Cuba for supposedly blocking social media sites during a protest. The agency insisted that “restricting internet access has become a tried-and-true method of stifling dissent by authoritarian regimes around the world,” a category under which China and North Korea, too, evidently fell.

And, months into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, media were swift to caution of the occupying force’s ambitions to wrest control of Ukrainian networks. According to Wired (6/15/22), Russia was “Taking Over Ukraine’s Internet” by rerouting Ukraine’s online traffic through “Vladimir Putin’s powerful online censorship machine.” The New York Times (8/9/22) echoed these charges, characterizing the action as “part of a Russian authoritarian playbook that is likely to be replicated further if they take more Ukrainian territory.”

Defying evidence (or lack thereof)

Although critics pointed to from network monitor Kentik as proof that Cuba was shutting down its internet, a Kentik analyst told Rest of the World (7/14/21) that “internet measurement data alone can’t tell the difference” between an intentional shutdown and an overload.

In many cases, US and Western media’s assertions of enemies’ digital repression lack or contradict evidence. The AP (7/12/21) report on Cuba, for example, called the disruption an instance of a “go-to tactic to suppress dissent.” The agency’s quantitative source was data from NetBlocks, a London-based internet monitoring organization commonly cited in Western reporting on global online access, including that in Gaza (Al Jazeera, 12/4/23).

But the referenced information didn’t support all of the AP’s claims. The tech-news site Rest of World (7/14/21)—hardly a Castroite publication—found no conclusive proof that the outage was planned. A source from network monitoring company Kentik told the site that the interruption “could either happen deliberately or due to a technical failure,” adding that “internet measurement data alone”—which NetBlocks and Kentik used to gauge online activity in Cuba—“can’t tell the difference.” (The AP also neglected to mention the US’s record of limiting Cuban internet access.)

In a particularly egregious example, Foreign Policy (2/21/23) accused China of muffling internet service for Taiwan’s Matsu Islands, in what “looks like targeted harassment by Beijing.” This assumption was based on reported incidents in which a Chinese fishing vessel and freighter cut undersea cables on separate occasions. No conspiracy was confirmed; Foreign Policy itself acknowledged that a Taiwanese official “told reporters that there was no indication the incidents were intentional.” Still, this didn’t deter the magazine from trumpeting, “China Is Practicing How to Sever Taiwan’s Internet.”

Meanwhile, Western media have access to ample evidence that Israel willfully throttles, disables and bombs the communications networks it has usurped—in part to mute those who might challenge its official narratives (Al Jazeera, 11/9/23; NBC News, 11/11/23)—and displaces and kills the people who depend on them.

And yet those same media contort and trivialize that evidence to obfuscate Israel’s offenses. Apparently, sabotage of essential lines of communication for a beleaguered population doesn’t constitute subjugation—as long as the saboteur is a friend of the right countries.

The post Causing Gaza Blackouts, Israel Benefits from Media Double Standards appeared first on FAIR.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Julianne Tveten.

According to a study released today by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), with concerted action to build on existing state and federal clean energy policies, the United States can feasibly reach its climate goals. Doing so would generate tremendous benefits, including a more than $100 billion reduction in consumer energy costs in 2030, $800 billion in public health benefits by 2050, and nearly $1.3 trillion in avoided climate damages by 2050.

The “Accelerating Clean Energy Ambition: How the US Can Meet its Climate Goals While Delivering Public Health and Economic Benefits” analysis found that to meet critical climate goals—including cutting economywide heat-trapping emissions in half by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions no later than 2050—decisionmakers must significantly boost policies and investments that decarbonize the power sector; replace fossil fuels with clean electricity in the transportation, building and industrial sectors; and increase energy efficiency. Meeting U.S. climate goals also requires phasing out coal by 2030 and limiting fossil gas and oil within the next decade and beyond.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)’s clean energy incentives provide important momentum for the United States to make major near-term emissions reductions, but those could be at risk if fossil fuel use is expanded simultaneously. Additionally, while the IRA roughly doubles the current pace of annual emissions reductions to about 3% per year through 2030, the country will need to further accelerate its reductions to roughly 5% per year to achieve its climate targets.

“The urgency of the climate crisis requires a sharp turn away from fossil fuels toward clean energy solutions, and our analysis shows the United States can reap tremendous climate, public health and net economic benefits from doing so,” said Rachel Cleetus, a report author, lead economist and the policy director for the Climate and Energy Program at UCS. “The window to act is narrowing and policymakers must step up quickly or risk crucial climate goals slipping from our grasp. Moreover, they must ensure the clean energy transition centers the needs of communities that have long been marginalized, economically disadvantaged, and overburdened with pollution.”

According to the new analysis, an ambitious suite of policies to decarbonize the U.S. economy and meet climate goals would:

• Drive nearly $1.8 trillion in total cumulative capital investments through 2035 and nearly $3.7 trillion through 2050. As part of that, the IRA, Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), and existing state policies stimulate $1.6 trillion of the investments in clean energy and related infrastructure through 2035.
• Reduce harmful air pollutants avoiding up to 44,800 premature deaths by 2035 and up to 73,000 by 2050 and saving more than $500 billion and $800 billion in public health expenditures by 2035 and 2050, respectively. The public health benefits come from decreasing particulate matter (PM2.5) emissions by 12% by 2050.
• Avoid an additional $575 billion in climate damages by 2035 and nearly $1.3 trillion by 2050, when factoring in the social cost of carbon estimate.
• Cause U.S. fossil fuel use to fall 82% between 2021 and 2050, with oil falling by 85%, gas by 72%, and coal being eliminated entirely.
• Grow the use of wind, solar, and other renewables, which would nearly triple from 22% of U.S. electricity generation in 2021 to 60% in 2030, and 92% in 2050.
• Increase U.S. electricity transmission capacity 36% by 2030, more than double by 2040, and quadruple by 2050.

“We’re not saying it’ll be easy, but we know that a cleaner and more just energy future is within our reach,” said Steve Clemmer, report author and the director of energy research and analysis at UCS. “The solutions are clear: Transitioning equitably to clean energy, increasing efficiency, and electrifying our cars and homes will not only save us money but will also improve our health and limit the worst impacts of climate change. Our analysis also shows that broader investments to lower overall energy demand provides another crucial pathway for meeting U.S. climate goals.”

When technological changes to the energy systems are combined with feasible changes to reduce demand in other sectors like transportation, buildings, and industry, the analysis found even more public health and economic benefits are possible. Additional reductions in energy demand help reduce the overall rate and scale of wind, solar, storage, transmission and other low-carbon technology infrastructure buildout. In turn it also limits the need for minerals, land, and new infrastructure and helps lessen siting, permitting, supply chain, and public acceptance challenges.

This report builds on the 2021 analysis, “A Transformative Climate Action Framework: Putting People at the Center of our Nation’s Clean Energy Transition,” by UCS and an expert advisory committee. The core principles in that report remain a guiding framework for this updated and more comprehensive analysis.

In the lead up to COP28 in Dubai later this month, the new analysis underscores the need for wealthy countries like the United States to step up the ambition of their emissions reduction policies to help meet international climate goals.

The 2023 report authors concluded by noting that “Policymakers have the responsibility to follow through, with actions that put the United States firmly on the path to a better future—a future in which we build a healthy, thriving world, running on clean energy, free of the fossil fuel pollution that drives the twin crises of climate and environmental injustice. As we fashion just, equitable solutions, we must think beyond carbon emissions, looking at all the ways in which our energy choices are woven into people’s lives and livelihoods. Anything less will leave a gravely diminished world. With the future well-being of people, ecosystems, and the planet at stake, our choice is clear.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

The post More at Stake for Auto Workers Than Wages and Benefits appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Eve Ottenberg.

• Biden Netanyahu meet on sidelines of UN General Assembly meeting.
• UAW strike continues, union warns strike may expand over pay and benefits.
• Federal interest rates remain unchanged at Federal Reserve quarterly meeting.
• White House announces new federal climate jobs initiative.
• UN chief Antonio Guterres holds climate crisis summit during UN General Assembly meeting.
• Jenin Gaza border crossing closes due to security concerns. 

The post The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – September 20, 2023 Biden Netanyahu meet on sidelines of UN General Assembly meeting. UAW strike continues, union warns strike may expand over pay and benefits. appeared first on KPFA.

This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.

We spend the hour with acclaimed journalist and author Naomi Klein, whose new book Doppelganger out this week explores what she calls “the mirror world,” a growing right-wing alternate universe of misinformation and conspiracies that, while identifying real problems, opportunistically exploits them to advance a hateful and divisive agenda. Klein explains her initial motivation for the book was her own alter-ego, the author Naomi Wolf, for whom she has often been mistaken. Both Naomis entered public consciousness in the 1990s with books critiquing corporate influence, but in recent years Wolf has become one of the most prominent vaccine deniers and purveyors of COVID-19 misinformation — making the ongoing confusion about their identities a source of frustration. “It’s very destabilizing,” says Klein, who still urges people to seriously engage with the dangerous ideas propagated in mirror worlds, rather than simply look away. “It’s so hard to look at the reality that we are in right now, with the overlay of endless wars and climate disasters and massive inequality. And so whether we’re making up fantastical conspiracy theories or getting lost in our own reflections, it’s all about not looking at that reality that is only bearable if we get outside our own heads and collectively organize.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

If I was going to go the memoiristic album and write about my life, I’d probably put it in an album. But I’ve always loved the form of the novel. I love what it can contain… characterization, the way time works. It’s a form that has so much possibility, beyond any other form of art I’ve ever seen or experienced. I knew I always wanted to write a novel, but I was never sure I had an idea that went past a Thursday song. I just wasn’t sure if I had something that could carry me beyond a super-compressed form.

So, when I experienced the drug ibogaine firsthand, for myself, I thought, “Nobody really knows what this does and it’s such an unpleasant experience that I don’t think a lot of people are trying to find out about it.” It sounds fictional. I could start making a fictional novel about a real thing that sounds fictional. How many times could I remove and play with the ideas of fiction and identity and reality and surreality? Even when I think about my own life now it sometimes takes on the surreal aspect of the novel I wrote. And it is a novel. It’s not a memoir.

You credit the writer Wendy Salinger with helping you see “the tissue paper separating memoir from fiction.” It seems that was a big moment for you. How did that advice change your writing process?

The book originally started with a hallucination section and I brought that into a writing workshop at the 92 Street Y, a memoir course with Wendy Salinger. Immediately I became her teacher’s pet. [laughs] She took an interest in what I was writing. She was like, “I don’t think you’re trying to write memoir.” And I said, “Well, I don’t read memoir or like memoir.” [laughs]

And she said, “Well, I don’t really either, but I had to sell my book as a memoir even though I was writing a novel and it was completely real.” So she started helping me understand that I really did want to write a novel. She said, “If you were writing this as a memoir you’d be able to sell it for a lot more money, does that bother you?” [laughs] And I said, “No.” And it’s not even because I wanted to make things up. The concerns of a memoir and the concerns of a novel are so different. I like character. I like subtext.

You’ve blurred the lines between memoir and fiction, but there’s a lot of the details of your actual life here. You’re using a lot of real events and real names. Were you hesitant to bring people from your real life into the book?

It’s so hard to make characters out of real people. Or, as I say in the acknowledgments, use real people’s names for characters. This is the biggest problem I had, especially with [my partner]. When you know someone and you love them deeply, it’s so hard to reduce them, to flatten someone out and make them stand in for a certain aspect of society. I’ve felt devastated at times that I would have to make someone comical or in some way not the complex, multifaceted person who’s already gone on their hero’s journey and has already developed character. With every person, I wanted to explore how amazing they are. Instead I’d go the opposite direction: I would make them a shadow of a person. Giving them limited characteristics felt so much worse than giving them no characteristics.

My amazing agent Monika said, “This is not a person. You’re making them into nothing.” So I had to pick some things. And it’s so strange. I left out an entire member of Thursday because there’s just too many white guys with similar names in the band. And each one of those guys is a beautiful person I love!

It’s such a strange thing to have to use real names for what are, basically, fictional characters, even if some of their words are the same as some of the things they’ve said. Some people have even said, “You made me remember a thing than happened, I guess I just didn’t remember it happening quite like that…” and I told them it definitely didn’t happen like that. But now that they’ve read it that way, that’s how they’re remembering it. And that’s such a strange thing about fiction: it does reshape the path behind you. Suddenly we all agree it happened that way because we’ve read it more times than it happened.

There’s literature all over the book. Geoff is constantly reading and it informs his ibogaine trip. Something that keeps coming up is Ginsberg’s Howl. What was it about the poem that drew you in and informed so much of the character’s experience?

I think Howl is maybe the best song I’ve ever heard. It’s got the best lyrics of any song I’ve ever heard. I know it’s a poem, but I think it’s more musical than so many songs. One of the first things I thought when I read it as a kid was, “This is what I want to do.” Even though I knew I wanted to be a musician, it was Howl that I was going for, it was the feeling that I wanted: making the world come alive through musical imagery. There’s something about that poem that music did when I discovered it, that heroin did when I discovered it.

I was talking to Norman—he’s in Thursday and Texas is the Reason and is one of the smarter people I know—and I said, “I really want to explore the positive side of drug use.” One of the things they say in a 12 step program is that addiction is instinct run wild. These things on their own aren’t bad. Sometimes you’re after love, you’re after things that are beautiful, things that are noble in a way. I didn’t want to start with “Look how bad drugs are.” I wanted to show this beautiful quest for meaning I think most people are on, in their own ways.

There’s a lot of music throughout the book, too. I was struck by the prolonged section about Ink & Dagger. What is it about the band that’s had such a lasting impact on you?

I grew up listening to industrial music and Brit pop. I liked really gothy, dark stuff. And then I saw the Bad Brains and overnight switched into hardcore and was just obsessed. I had a narrow view of what hardcore could be, but when I saw Ink & Dagger it brought it all full circle. Hardcore can be experimental, it can have electronic elements, it can turn off the lights and be threatening—not in a tough guy way, not in an “I’m gonna kick your ass” way. Instead, it was like: You don’t know where you are, you don’t who you are. The most vulnerable parts of you may not be safe right now. They touched upon something inside you that was real. That to me was a much more threatening proposition than “This guy’s gonna punch me again.” [laughs]

They really had a profound impact on me. I was a huge fan. It was also wild having them in our circle of extended friends. Sean [Patrick McCabe, the band’s lead singer], I think, sold our TV at a basement show. It wasn’t his, but he made a deal with someone. That was very Sean, very Ink & Dagger: kind of criminal behavior but also a prank to see what we would do. Losing him early, having him be our cautionary tale—that you could go from straight edge to being wild or doing drugs or whatever and then just be gone—I think he’s always occupied a place in mind.

When you performed with Ink & Dagger, you were a bit of a character. Watching you in make-up, embodying Sean, made me think about you as a frontman throughout the past few decades. You’re not usually playing a character, but you always seem to be interested in mirroring the audience and breaking down the barrier between performer and audience. Writing is inherently more solitary. How did you navigate that change from being someone in front of audience and with a band to someone who’s sitting alone at a desk?

The solitary nature of the book is something I found completely enthralling. I try not to be, but I am a bit of a control freak. With my bands, whom I love and respect, my greatest talent is that I surround myself with talented people and try to draw the best out of them. But that can go overboard sometimes and I tell them what they should be doing. And that’s really tough.

With the book, that was the good part. I could spend unlimited amounts of time working without worrying about bumming anyone out because I’m pushing them too hard. I could also go for maximum effect when I thought something needed to be a certain way, without having anybody to balance me out. Those were all the fun parts.

The not-fun parts were I knew nobody was balancing out my worst tendencies as a writer and as an imaginer. There was no one to temper that. So, part way through I got really nervous that I was way out on a limb and no one was walking me back. I really had to trust my agent, who said, “Look, I’ll be your band. I’ll be your band, okay? Trust me. I’m gonna tell you.” And she would. “The new 200 page part you wrote? None of it’s good. You gotta go a different way. You lost the plot.” And I’d be like, “Damn it.” [laughs]

It was tough. It was really different. I had to imagine a bunch of different levels of reader. I just wanted to see what they were seeing. I wanted to understand what they were seeing. I knew at some point, when I had a handle on what the book was, I knew there’d be a certain literary audience that wouldn’t get how exuberant the book was because it does read like a Ginsberg or a Frank O’Hara. It reads like somebody who’s incredibly sensual, not restrained. One of my friends at PEN America said, “This is out of fashion: you use so many descriptors. I know you read Rachel Cusk, so you know that shit’s out! People like restrained, tight prose these days.”

But I’m trying to write from the voice of this character who is both me and not-me. And I can’t do that from a restrained place. The character is already known as someone who likes a certain kind of imagery. In order to do the thing I’m trying to accomplish, I had to be aware of that voice and know when to employ it and when to restrain it. It’s really easy to miss that that is the voice of the character. And that it’s in the first-person present tense. And that he’s more exuberant when he’s super high. And that when he’s in withdrawal he drains the world of all its color. What you were saying about all those mirrors…that’s something I thought about a lot.

How did you learn to quiet the voices of all those potential readers and follow that path?

Just through drafts. At least 12 drafts after I got an agent. I rewrote the shit out of the book. I would decide every plot point was going to be the same but I was going to change the style. And I’d rewrite it. And I’d see what was wrong with that and what was right with it, then I’d start making deals with myself. What’s worth it for this section? Tightness? Rhythm?

Are you sitting down every day to work or is it only when inspiration strikes?

I believe inspiration strikes if you’re already working. That’s my work ethic. So I do five hours a day, at least five days a week. I do them as soon as I wake up. People think, “Five hours a day?” But, I’m done by 10, 10:30.

And you feel incredible the rest of the day.

Oh yeah. And it allows you to walk it around a little bit. If you hit a wall and you’re like, “I don’t think that thing works. I don’t know what to do, but I don’t think it works.” While you’re walking and you’re doing other stuff you suddenly think, “Oh, I know why it doesn’t work.”

Your subconscious is working through the problem.

100%

I know you talked about potential readers. One of them is someone who’s in recovery. Geoff’s therapist tells him towards the end of the book, “There are going to be a lot of people out there who can relate. They just need someone to say it out loud first.” So, you’ve said it out loud. What do you hope someone in recovery will take away from what you’ve said?

I hope some people can laugh about it and not feel alone. There’s something Chelsea Hodson, who owns Rose Books, told me. She showed me this great bookstore where she lives. And I said, “That’s so awesome, do they know they’ve got one of the more influential young writers in the country living here?” And she said, “They won’t stock my book. I brought them a copy and they said I wasn’t a good feminist, basically.”

So, I thought: there are going to be some people in recovery who read this book and say, “That’s not how you stay sober. He’s doing it wrong.” And that’s fair. This is a novel. It’s not a Leslie Jamison “this is how you recover” kind-of book. And I like Leslie Jamison, that’s not a critique of her. But I don’t want it to be confused with something that’s supposed to help people get sober.

When you “qualify it” in an A.A. meeting, people say you can’t do it wrong because you can either be an example of how to stay sober or a great cautionary tale about what happens if you’re doing it wrong. There’s no getting it wrong. You can’t say anything wrong. You’ll just be one of those two things.

This content originally appeared on The Creative Independent and was authored by Kevin M. Kearney.

We speak with civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump about two recent cases of anti-Black racism making headlines in the United States: Florida’s new curriculum standards that teach students the “benefits” of transatlantic slavery to enslaved people, and a set of lawsuits against Northwestern University accusing the school’s athletic teams of widespread and institutionalized hazing, including physical, racial and sexual abuse. Crump is representing former Northwestern football players in one of the lawsuits. Republican presidential contender and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has doubled down on the Florida Board of Education’s new rules that require educators to teach students that enslaved Black people “developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” Crump, who says he may sue the state over the changes, notes, “It has the potential to cause serious psychological trauma to African American students, and we will not stand for it.” Meanwhile, Crump has called the cases at Northwestern the beginning of the “me too” movement for college sports.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

The post What Happened at the NATO Summit in Vilnius and Who Benefits? appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Franklin Spinney.

“In order to fully recover, we must first recover the society that has made us sick.”

I can still hear those prophetic words, now a quarter-century old, echoing through the Church Center of the United Nations. At the podium was David, a leader with New Jerusalem Laura, a residential drug recovery program in North Philadelphia that was free and accessible to people, no matter their insurance and income status. It was June 1998 and hundreds of poor and low-income people had gathered for the culminating event of the “New Freedom Bus Tour: Freedom from Unemployment, Hunger, and Homelessness,” a month-long, cross-country organizing event led by welfare rights activists. Two years earlier, President Bill Clinton had signed welfare “reform” into law, gutting life-saving protections and delivering a punishing blow to millions of Americans who depended on them.

That line of David’s has stuck with me over all these years. He was acutely aware of how one’s own health — whether from illness, addiction, or the emotional wear and tear of life — is inextricably connected to larger issues of systemic injustice and inequality. After years on the frontlines of addiction prevention and treatment, he also understood that personal recovery can only happen en masse in a society willing to deal with the deeper malady of poverty and racism. This month, his words have been on my mind again as I’ve grieved over the death of Reverend Paul Chapman, a friend and mentor who was with me at that gathering in 1998. The issue of “recovery” has, in fact, been much on my mind as the Biden administration prepares to announce the official end of the public-health emergency that accompanied the first three years of the Covid-19 pandemic.

However briefly, the pandemic showed us that such an American world is not only possible, but right at our fingertips.

For our society, that decision is more than just a psychological turning of the page. Even though new daily cases continue to number in the thousands nationally, free testing will no longer be available for many, and other pandemic-era public-health measures — including broader access to medication for opioid addiction — will also soon come to an end. Worse yet, a host of temporary health and nutrition protections are now on the chopping block, too (and given the debate on the debt ceiling in Congress, the need for such programs is particularly dire).

When the pandemic first hit, the federal government temporarily banned any Medicaid or Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) cuts, mandating that states offer continuous coverage. As a result, enrollment in both swelled, as many people in need of health insurance found at least some coverage. But that ban just expired and tens of millions of adults and children are now at risk of losing access to those programs over the next year. Many of them also just lost access to critically important Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, as pandemic-era expansions of that program were cut last month.

Of course, the announced “end’ of the public-health emergency doesn’t mean the pandemic is really over. Thousands of people are still dying from it, while 20% of those who had it are experiencing some form of long Covid and many elderly and immunocompromised Americans continue to feel unsafe. Nor, by the way, does that announcement diminish a longer-term, slow-burning public health crisis in this country.

Early in the pandemic, Reverend William Barber II, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, warned that the virus was exploiting deeply entrenched fissures in our society. Before the pandemic, there had already been all too many preconditions for a future health calamity: in 2020, for instance, there were 140 million people too poor to afford a $400 emergency, nearly 10 million people homeless or on the brink of homelessness, and 87 million underinsured or uninsured.

Last year, the Poor People’s Campaign commissioned a study on the connections between Covid-19, poverty, and race. Sadly, researchers found the fact that all too many Americans refused to be vaccinated did not alone explain why this country had the highest pandemic death toll in the world. The lack of affordable and accessible health care contributed significantly to the mortality rate. The study concluded that, despite early claims that Covid-19 could be a “great equalizer,” it’s distinctly proven to be a “poor people’s pandemic” with two to fivetimes as many inhabitants of poor counties dying of it in 2020 and 2021 as in wealthy ones.

The pandemic not only exposed social fissures; it exacerbated them. While life expectancy continues to rise across much of the industrialized world, it stagnated in the United States over the last decade. Then, during the first three years of the pandemic, it dropped in a way that experts claim is unprecedented in modern global history.

In comparison, peer countries initially experienced just one-third as much of a decline in life expectancy and then, as they adopted effective Covid-19 responses, saw it increase. In our country, the stagnation in life expectancy before the pandemic and the seemingly unending plunge after it hit mark us as unique not just among wealthy countries, but even among some poorer ones. The Trump administration’s disastrous pandemic response was significantly to blame for the drop, but beyond that, our track record over the last decade speaks volumes about our inability to provide a healthy life for so many in this country. As always, the poor suffer first and worst in such a situation.

The Pandemic as a Portal

In the early weeks of those Covid-19 lockdowns, Indian writer Arundhati Roy reflected on the societal change often wrought by pandemics in history. And she suggested that this sudden crisis could be an opportunity to embrace necessary change:

“Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine the world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway, between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.”

There was hope in Roy’s words but also caution. As she suggested, what would emerge from that portal was hardly guaranteed to be better. Positive change is never a certainty (in actuality, anything but!). Still, a choice had to be made, action taken. While contending with the great challenges of our day — widespread poverty, unprecedented inequality, racial reckoning, rising authoritarianism, and climate disaster — it’s important to reflect soberly on just how we’ve chosen to walk through the portal of this pandemic. The sure-footed decisions, as well as the national missteps, have much to teach us about how to chart a better path forward as a society.

Consider the federal programs and policies temporarily created or expanded during the first years of the pandemic. While protecting Medicaid, CHIP, and SNAP, the government instituted eviction moratoriums, extended unemployment insurance, issued stimulus payments directly to tens of millions of households, and expanded the Child Tax Credit (CTC). Such proactive policy decisions did not by any means deal with the full extent of need nationwide. Still, for a time, they did mark a departure from the neoliberal consensus of the previous decades and were powerful proof that we could house, feed, and care for one another. The explosion of Covid cases and the lockdown shuttering of the economy may have initially triggered many of these policies, but once in place, millions of people did experience just how sensible and feasible they are.

The Child Tax Credit is a good example. In March 2021, the program was expanded through the American Rescue Plan, and by December the results were staggering. More than 61 million children had benefited and four million children were lifted above the official poverty line, a historic drop in the overall child poverty rate. A report found that the up to $300 monthly payments significantly improved the ability of families to catch up on rent, afford food more regularly, cover child-care expenses, and attend to other needs. Survey data also suggested that the CTC helped improve the parental depression, stress, and anxiety that often accompany poverty and the suffering of children.

How extraordinary, then, that, rather than being embraced for offering the glimmer of something new on the other side of that pandemic portal, the expanded CTC was abandoned as 2022 ended. The oppressive weight of our “dead ideas,” to use Roy’s term, crushed that hopeful possibility. Last year, led by a block of unified Republicans, Congress axed it, invoking the tired and time-worn myth of scarcity as a justification. When asked about the CTC, Congressman Kevin Brady (R-TX) claimed that “the country frankly doesn’t have the time or the money for the partisan, expensive provisions such as the Child Tax Credit.” Consider such a response especially disingenuous given that Brady and a majority of congressional Republicans and Democrats voted to increase the military budget to a record $858 billion that same year.

In so many other ways, our society has refused to relinquish old and odious thinking and is instead “dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred” through the portal of the pandemic.

There are continued attacks on the health of women and the autonomy of those who can get pregnant; on LGBTQ+ people, including a wave of anti-trans legislation; on homeless people who are criminalized for their poverty; and on poor communities as a whole, including disinvestment, racist police abuse, and deadly mass incarceration at sites like New York City’s Rikers Island and the Southern Regional Jail in the mountains of West Virginia. And while weathering a storm of Christian nationalist and white supremacist mass shootings, this country is a global outlier on the issue of public safety, fueled by endless stonewalling on sensible gun legislation.

To add insult to injury, economic inequality in the United States rose to unprecedented heights in the pandemic years (which proved a godsend for America’s billionaires), with millions hanging on by a thread and inflation continuing to balloon. And as pandemic-era protections for the poor are being cut, ongoing protections for the rich — including Donald Trump’s historic tax breaks — remain untouched.

Another World Is Possible

In the office of the Employment Project where I worked upon first moving to New York City in 2001, there was a poster whose slogan — “Another World Is Possible” — still stays with me. It hung above my head, while I labored alongside my friend and mentor Paul Chapman.

Paul died this April and we just held a memorial for him. He was an activist in welfare rights and workers’ rights, director of the Employment Project, and one of the founders of the Poverty Initiative, a predecessor to the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights, and Social Justice that I currently direct.

Paul did pioneering work to bring together Protestant and Catholic communities in Boston, organized delegations of northern clergy to support civil rights struggles in small towns in North Carolina, and sponsored significant fundraisers for the movement, alongside his friend, theologian Harvey Cox. He also spent time in Brazil connecting with liberation theologians and others who went on to found the World Social Forum (WSF), an annual gathering of social movements from across the globe whose founding mantra was “Another World Is Possible.” Over the course of his long life, Paul would do what Black Freedom Struggle leader Ella Baker called “the spadework,” the slow, often overlooked labor of building trust, caring for people, planting seeds, and tilling the ground so that transformative movements might someday blossom. His life was a constant reminder that every organizing moment, no matter how small, is a fundamentally important part of how we build toward collective liberation.

Paul explained many things, including that powerful movements for social change depend on the leadership of those most impacted by injustice. Right next to the WSF poster there was another that read: “Nothing about us, without us, is for us.” Paul spoke regularly about how poor and oppressed people had to be the moral-standard bearers for society. He was unyielding in his belief that it was the duty of clergy and faith communities to stand alongside the poor in their struggles for respect and dignity. As a young antipoverty organizer and seminarian, I was deeply inspired by the way he modeled a principled blending of political and pastoral work.

Perhaps the most important lesson I learned from him was about the idea of “kairos” time. Paul taught me that, in ancient Greece, there were two conceptions of time. Chronos was normal, chronological time, while kairos was a particular moment when normal time was disrupted and something new promised — or threatened — to emerge. In our hours of “theological reflection,” he would say that during kairos time, as the old ways of the world were dying and new ones were struggling to be born, there was no way you could remain neutral. You had to decide whether to dedicate your life to change or block its path. In some fashion, his description of kairos time perfectly matched Roy’s evocative metaphor of that pandemic portal and when I first read her essay I instantly thought of Paul.

In antiquity, Greek archers were trained to recognize the brief kairos moment, the opening when their arrow had the best chance of reaching its target. The image of the vigilant archer remains a powerful one for me, especially because kairos time represents both tremendous possibility and imminent danger. The moment can be seized and the arrow shot true or it can be missed with the archer just as quickly becoming the target. Paul lived his life as an archer for justice, ever vigilant, ever patient, ever hopeful that another better world was indeed possible.

Despite our bleak current moment, I retain the same hope. However briefly, the pandemic showed us that such an American world is not only possible, but right at our fingertips. As the public-health emergency draws to an “official” end, it’s hardly a surprise to me that so many of those in power have chosen to double down on policies that protect their interests. But like Paul, it’s not the leadership of the rich and powerful that I choose to follow. As our communities continue to fight for healthcare, housing, decent wages, and so much more, I believe that, given half a chance, the poor, the hurting, and the abandoned, already standing in the gap between our wounded old world and a possible new one, could help usher us into a far better future.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis.

"This text is the biggest Green New Deal win in U.S. history," said the group. "A better world is possible. And we are building it."

The BPRA will enable to New York Power Authority (NYPA), the state's publicly owned power provider, to assess each year whether New York is expected to meet its targets of achieving 70% renewable energy by 2030 and 100% by 2040. If not, the agency will step in to build enough renewable energy to fill in the gap.

The law is set to create tens of thousands of green jobs and "shut down some of the state's most polluting oil and gas plants—which are concentrated in working-class, Black, and brown communities—by 2030, replacing them with pollution-free renewable power," according to Public Power NY, a statewide grassroots movement.

Campaigners were outraged last year when the Democratic-led state Legislature refused to vote on the law before ending the legislative session early. Several New York Democrats in the U.S. House, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jamaal Bowman, wrote to Hochul in March to demand the passage of the law.

Public Power NY noted that proposed reforms to the governance of the NYPA, which would have made the authority more accountable to New Yorkers, were not included in the final deal. Justin Driscoll, a former Republican donor who has opposed the BPRA, is currently Hochul's hand-picked interim CEO of the agency, and the coalition said it will "mobilize the powerful movement that passed this bill to oppose his nomination."

"NYPA needs leadership that understands the potential of public power and will use NYPA's resources and capacity to ensure that affordable energy gets to New Yorkers who need it most and that New York meets its climate goals," said Public Power NY.

Despite the absence of the proposed reforms in the budget, author and advocate Naomi Kleincalled the deal a "big win" for campaigners who have spent years pushing for public power in New York.

The budget also includes the All-Electric Building Act, a first-in-the-nation state law that will ban the use of fossil fuels in new buildings, starting in 2026 for structures with fewer than seven stories and 2029 for taller buildings.

Campaigners with Food & Water Watch (FWW), Earthjustice, NYPIRG, and New York Communities for Change successfully pushed Hochul and state lawmakers to exclude a "poison pill" provision which would have allowed local governments to opt out of the new requirements, enabling the entire state to take a "historic step" toward ending the use of oil and gas to heat and power buildings.

Once enacted, the measure will save households between $904 and $3,000 per year, according to an analysis by think tank Win Climate, but advocates noted that the law will go into effect two years after they had demanded—the result of a multimillion-dollar lobbying campaign by oil and gas giants, critics said.

"New Yorkers are resisting fossil fuels everywhere they pop up, from the power plants that pollute our air to the pipelines that put our communities in harm's way. Now buildings can be a part of that solution," said Alex Beauchamp, northeast region director at FWW. "Unfortunately, we're still moving too slowly, and Gov. Hochul is to blame. Instead of fighting for the swift transition off fossil fuels that the climate crisis demands, the governor caved at the eleventh hour, giving the fossil fuel industry another year of delay to profit at our expense. We won't stop fighting until we end our devastating addiction to fossil fuels."

Certain commercial buildings also won't have to comply until 2029, a carve-out that will benefit "large warehouses and box stores operated by the likes of Amazon" and will "reduce the bill's positive impact and further defer to corporate lobbyists," said FWW.

Rachel Rivera, a Brownsville, Brooklyn resident and New York Communities for Change member whose home was devastated by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, said the budget deal led her to have "mixed emotions."

"This policy is a political compromise between what's needed for the people and the death-dealing fossil fuel industry, the people who hurt my family so badly," said Rivera. "On the one hand, New York, my home, will be the first state to end fossil fuels in new buildings by law. That's huge because my community needs to save money, breathe clean air, and get good jobs in clean energy, not die in an extreme weather crisis, as members of my family have. Sadly, this great new law will go into effect years later than it should."

"New York is far behind what's needed for climate justice," she added. "I want to thank our bill sponsors, and all the movement leaders who fight for what's right."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

The post VA Care & Benefits Delayed: Care-Givers Point Finger At Privatization appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Steve Early - Suzanne Gordon.

"Bring it back."

That's what Congressman Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.)—who is running to replace Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) in 2024—said Friday in response to new research highlighting some benefits of the expanded child tax credit (CTC) of 2021.

Krista Ruffini, an economist and assistant professor at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy, shared a working paper about how Covid-19 pandemic stimulus and expanded CTC payments impacted infant health on the open access research platform SSRN.

After three rounds of stimulus checks throughout the first year of the pandemic, households with children received $250-$300 per child each month for the last six months of 2021 through the CTC expansion included in the American Rescue Plan relief package.

Ruffini found that "increased resources during pregnancy improve child well-being, and that unconditional cash transfers have large effects on infant health." Specifically, she connected an additional $1,000 with "increasing Apgar scores 0.02 points, reducing very low birth weight by at least 0.6 percentage points, and reducing preterm births by approximately 3 percentage points."

\u201cPayments were super important for infant health and broad across the popn: less low birthweight, fewer pre-term births, higher Apgar scores 2/4\u201d

— Krista Ruffini (@Krista Ruffini) 1681498682

"Payment timing is also important: Resources received during the final months of a pregnancy yield a greater health benefit than those received earlier on," the economist explained. "Patterns in prenatal care and maternal health suggest that these benefits to infants accrue through both investments in children as well as improvements in the prenatal environment."

"The improvements in infant health documented in this paper are consistent with previous work showing that families used the payments on essential goods and services and to improve their financial position. It builds on this literature by showing that these improvements in material hardship benefited the next generation in ways that are expected to yield long-term benefits," she wrote. "These findings are particularly relevant as dozens of U.S. cities are piloting guaranteed income programs and policymakers contemplate a permanent expansion of the federal child tax credit."

\u201cWhy? Families spent $ on essentials and paid down debt, + less maternal smoking, more prenatal care. Altogether, consistent w large body of work showing importance of resources on infant & child health. 4/4\u201d

— Krista Ruffini (@Krista Ruffini) 1681498682

Despite the well-documented benefits of the boosted CTC, including a dramatic drop in child poverty, congressional Democrats' efforts to lengthen the period of the program or even make it permanent have been unsuccessful.

After long joining with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) to thwart various priorities of Democratic lawmakers and President Joe Biden, Sinema formally ditched the party in December and became an Independent. Although Sinema has not officially announced whether she will seek reelection next year, Gallego's campaign has gained national attention since launching in late January.

Throughout his campaign, Gallego has shared his experience growing up poor, as one of four children being raised by a single mother, and accused Sinema of fighting "for the interests of Big Pharma and Wall Street at our expense."

As Gallego's campaign said Friday:

Sen. Sinema helped block the expanded child tax credit from being included in the Inflation Reduction Act—essentially giving a thumbs up to 3.7 million children living in poverty. While, simultaneously, she fought to protect the carried interest tax loophole—a favorite of her hedge fund donors.

Growing up as the child of a poor, single mother, Ruben understands what the child tax credit means for millions of hard-working Americans and their children. That is why he has always been and remains a firm and vocal supporter of the child tax credit—because working families deserve to make ends meet and no child should ever have to worry about where their next meal will come from. In the Senate, Ruben will always fight for working people—because that's who he is and where he comes from.

While Sinema weighs whether to run for Senate again, her campaign filings for the first quarter of this year revealed Friday that she only raised $2.1 million, compared with Gallego's $3.7 million since launching his campaign.

Sinema "brought in funds from several prominent Republican donors and Wall Street sources. She raised more than $280,000 from employees of Blackstone, the private investment company, and $196,000 from employees of the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm," Politico reported. "Former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci also gave her campaign the maximum $3,300, while the No Labels Problem Solvers PAC gave $10,000."

\u201cThe top 1, 2, and 3 private equity firms in the world also happen to be Kyrsten Sinema's three largest contributors. What a coincidence! \n\nBlackstone: $286,850 \nThe Carlyle Group: $196,400\nKKR: $53,700 \n\nAnd that's just for the first quarter of the year.\u201d

— Replace Sinema (@Replace Sinema) 1681517340

Gallego's campaign highlighted that less than $6,000 of Sinema's funds for January through March came from small-dollar donors, while 98% of those who have given to his campaign are small-dollar donors.

"I'm proud to be running a people-powered campaign where 98% of my donors are small-dollar donors who chipped in less than $100," Gallego said. " It's unfortunate that Sinema has pursued a different strategy: catering to a small group of rich donors."

"It doesn't seem to be getting her very far," he added. "At the end of the day: this seat is not going to be bought by a few rich guys on Wall Street. It's going to be won with the support of regular, everyday Arizonans—and I'm proud to have them in my corner."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Jessica Corbett.

There’s an ongoing debate in Washington about the need to trim government spending. As our representatives in Congress wrangle over words like “cuts” and “reforms,” the salient issue remains that long-standing entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare are on the chopping block. It’s time that we acknowledge just how essential these programs are to supporting home and medical care for older Americans and the caregivers who provide that care.

Care benefits are mistakenly deemed unnecessary but any cuts to this lifeline would be devastating to both older adults and their caregivers. Cuts to Medicare, in particular, would do grave harm to caregivers – direct care providers and unpaid family members alike – who spend countless hours making sure those in their charge live dignified and rewarding lives despite their challenges.

These cuts will only make a hard job infinitely harder by limiting resources and expanding the health burden caregivers bear in their work. We know this because we work with caregivers on a daily basis at Culpepper Garden to serve low-income older adults in our independent- and assisted-living residences. That’s why we urge our Congress to immediately take Medicare off the chopping block during these debt ceiling deliberations. Instead, they must preserve, and even strengthen, it.

There are about 65 million Americans on Medicare, and, according to the AARP, one in five Americans in 2020 had been a caregiver — that’s about 53 million adults. Of those, most are female Baby Boomers and the vast majority are women of color taking care of a family member. Given how many people are affected, questions about Medicare’s future are far from insignificant.

Among the proposals to cut Medicare benefits include reducing reimbursements that providers receive for treating Medicare patients. In fact, this has already occurred and some doctors argue that decreasing their payments from the federal health insurance program will mean fewer of them will agree to take on new Medicare patients because they just can’t earn enough money doing so. This, in turn, will make it harder for patients to access the care they need and that, of course, means they will get sicker and rely on their caregivers for care that should be provided by a doctor.

Access to high quality care is critical – not just to treat disease, but also to prevent it. According to the CDC, chronic diseases are not only responsible for $4.1 trillion in healthcare costs every year, they are also the nation’s leading cause of illness, disability, and death. Properly funding Medicare, and supporting caregivers and assisted-living programs, will improve health outcomes for older adults and will ultimately help the economy by reducing healthcare costs.

Another change is limiting home health benefits for Medicare patients that cover at-home services like direct care, therapists, and so on. Many of our residents rely on these benefits and cutting them would mean more of them would either need frequent hospitalizations (that many already can’t afford) or end up at a nursing home. Outcomes that ultimately send patients back to institutional care simply cost more than when a patient stays at home, where most Americans prefer to receive care in the first place.

Protecting these benefits is why Reps. Terri Sewell (D-Alab.) and Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) introduced H.R. 8581, the bipartisan Preserving Access to Home Health Act of 2022. We urge our lawmakers to bring this bill to a vote immediately and pass this bill to protect critical Medicare services that low-income older adults rely on. Doing so would better millions of lives and save the economy trillions of dollars.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Marta Hill Gray.

The Washington Post (2/5/23) warns that in 2034, when Social Security exhausts its reserves, “seniors face an immediate 25 percent cut in benefits.” Its solution to this problem: cutting benefits sooner, plus raising (regressive) payroll taxes.

When Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post for $250 million in 2013, he didn’t transform it into a paper that elevated the perspectives of the wealthy elite—it had already been that for decades. What he did do was put it on steroids: Over the next three years, the Post doubled its web traffic and surpassed the New York Times in its volume of online postings. One result: The paper’s traditional hostility to federal retirement programs has become only more amplified.

As progressive economist Dean Baker (FAIR.org, 3/19/18) has written, “The Post calling for cuts to [Social Security and Medicare] is pretty much as predictable as the sun coming up”—it’s been up to this for decades, as Bezos is probably aware. So when it once again called for retirement benefit cuts on Sunday, February 5, Baker was unsurprised (Beat the Press, 2/5/23).

The Post came out swinging in the piece (2/5/23), with the headline “Yes, Social Security and Medicare Still Need to Be Reformed—and Soon.” It began by fretting over the depletion of the trust funds for Social Security and Medicare:

The longer Congress puts off fixes, the more painful they will become for the 66 million seniors, and growing, who receive monthly Social Security payments and the approximately 59 million people enrolled in a Medicare plan.

Among other solutions, the board suggested “raising the Medicare eligibility age to 67 to match the existing Social Security retirement age for those born in 1960 or later.” As Baker pointed out (Beat the Press, 2/5/23):

As people who follow policy have long known, this would have little effect on the budget, since it would raise the amount spent on providing insurance in the ACA exchanges.

‘Bipartisan grand bargain’

President Ronald Reagan and Speaker Tip O’Neill got together in 1983 to pass a bipartisan plan that allowed working people to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy (Extra!, 3–4/97). (image: WAMU, 10/1/13)

But that was far from the worst of the Post’s suggestions. In the final paragraph of the editorial, the Post made its intentions even clearer. Attempting a call to action, the board wrote:

Mr. Biden was among 88 senators who voted in 1983 for a bipartisan grand bargain, negotiated by a commission led by Alan Greenspan and signed into law by President Ronald Reagan, that rescued Social Security. Forty years later, if he and Republican leaders are willing to work in good faith, Mr. Biden could safeguard the greatest legacies of both the New Deal and the Great Society.

To translate: In 1983, Congress “rescued” Social Security by cutting it. The 1983 law did not change the actual age at which you can retire and draw Social Security benefits. It left that at 62. Instead, it simply said you’d get less money for retiring at any point before the new full retirement age, which reached 67 last year. For instance, those retiring at 62 today face a 50% larger cut in benefits for early retirement compared to before 2000.

The Post apparently remembers these reforms fondly. And it wants more.

‘Modest benefit adjustments’

For the Washington Post (6/4/22), the US keeping retirement benefits at their current level is making “promises to its elderly that it cannot possibly keep while continuing to do right by younger generations.”

This is not the only time the editorial board has called for stiffing the seniors in recent months. Last year, the board published an editorial (6/4/22) headlined “The Medicare and Social Security Disaster That Washington Is Doing Nothing to Fix.” The board sounded the alarm: “The nation has made promises to its elderly that it cannot possibly keep while continuing to do right by younger generations.”

Before calling for “some mix of modest benefit adjustments and tax hikes” to shore up these earned benefit programs, the Post spent most of the piece attempting to instill fear in its readership about the latest projections for the finances of Social Security and Medicare. After laying out the numbers, the board wrote:

These numbers may seem small. They are not; total federal spending has historically hovered around 20% of GDP. The trustees are projecting a vast expansion of outlays for the elderly that would hollow out the government’s ability to spend on education, infrastructure, anti-poverty programs and other investments in children and working-age adults.

The Post quite explicitly places Social Security and Medicare in direct conflict with other government programs in this passage. But under even minor scrutiny, this idea of a zero-sum conflict between protecting elderly entitlement programs and investing in children falls apart.

Why can’t we spend more on social programs? The answer is—we can. According to a 2019 report from the University of New Hampshire, total government spending in the US, which sits at 38% of GDP, puts the US at 12th out of the 13 highest-income countries in the report.

The US does rank first in healthcare spending, but this is not because of largesse directed towards the elderly. Rather, it is a result of the brutally inefficient design of the US healthcare system, marked by administrative bloat and inflated prices.

As Baker observes (Beat the Press, 2/5/23), Medicare, which is much more efficient than private health plans, points to the solution, not the problem. In fact, studies have estimated that Medicare for All, a target of the Post’s vitriol in the past (1/27/16, 8/12/18, 5/4/19), would actually lower overall healthcare spending while improving health outcomes (Jacobin, 12/3/18).

What to do with resources

Compared to high- and middle-income countries, the US spends far less of its GDP on social protection, and spends more on its military—and on its highly inefficient healthcare system (Carsey Research, Fall/19) . 

When it comes to spending on social protection, which includes retirement programs for the elderly, the story is more straightforward. The US comes in last place among the highest-income countries. It spends 57% less per capita than the average in these countries. As the UNH report explains:

Social protection is the only spending category for which US spending is greatly lower than other countries. The difference explains how the United States can spend so much more than other countries on its military and health services while still spending so much less than other countries overall.

To portray Social Security cuts as necessary in light of this evidence is absurd.

What we’re really talking about when we’re discussing Social Security and Medicare is what we want to do with our resources as a country. We have more than enough wealth to provide solid retirement benefits and good medical care to the elderly. The question is: Do we want to do that? Or do we want to cut the programs that do those things? It’s really that simple.

It just so happens the Post favors cuts over human welfare. Exactly the kind of perspective Bezos deemed well worth putting his money behind.

ACTION ALERT: You can send a message to the Washington Post at letters@washpost.com, or via Twitter @washingtonpost.

Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective. Feel free to leave a copy of your message in the comments thread here.

The post The Washington Post Is Coming for Your Retirement Benefits appeared first on FAIR.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Conor Smyth.

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

While unemployment benefits can be a huge help when you’ve lost your job, at tax time, they can leave you with more questions than answers. Here’s what you should know about your unemployment benefits when it comes to filing your taxes.

Generally, yes. The federal government will tax your unemployment benefits, and most states will as well. Unemployment benefits count toward your income and are taxed by the federal government at rates according to the IRS’ tax brackets.

It’s a bit more complicated when it comes to state taxes. Most states fully tax unemployment benefits just like they would for regular income. Some states don’t tax unemployment income at all, while others only partially tax the benefits. See how your state taxes unemployment benefits here.

Yes. State unemployment agencies allow you to have federal and state taxes taken out of your unemployment checks. The IRS recommends you do this to avoid surprise tax bills. You can set this up when you first apply for unemployment, or at any point while you are receiving it, by filing Form W-4V and sending it to your state’s unemployment agency. You will also have to fill out your state’s withholding form to have state taxes withheld from your benefit. Most states also allow you to do federal and state withholding online via their unemployment websites.

Never miss the most important reporting from ProPublica’s newsroom. Subscribe to the Big Story newsletter.

When you sign up for voluntary withholding, your benefits will be withheld at a federal flat rate of 10%, no matter your income bracket. If you choose to not sign up for voluntary withholding, you can also make quarterly estimated tax payments to avoid surprise tax bills.

Important: If you are receiving unemployment benefits, setting up a withholding now may save you from a surprise tax bill next year.

States that gave you unemployment benefits should send you a Form 1099-G. For those who don’t receive it in the mail, you may need to access the form on your state’s website. This form calculates all the unemployment income you received and tells you how much (if any) was withheld for taxes. This should help you calculate your income when filing your taxes. The IRS also provides special directions for those who repaid part of their 2022 unemployment.

What If My Form 1099-G Is Wrong? If you receive an incorrect Form 1099-G, the IRS recommends contacting the state agency that issued the unemployment benefits to request a revised form. If you’re unable to obtain a corrected Form 1099-G before Tax Day, you should still file an accurate tax return and only report the income you actually received.

In some cases, an incorrect Form 1099-G might indicate that you have been the victim of unemployment fraud, which has been a growing problem. Here is how to recognize if this has happened to you.

It depends on your income and how you choose to prepare your taxes.

If you made under $73,000 in 2022, you are eligible to file your taxes for free. But remember, your unemployment benefits count toward your adjusted gross income. Even if your income surpasses $73,000, some tax preparation services now include a Form 1099-G as part of a “simple” tax return, which they will let you file free of charge. And the IRS offers its free fillable forms — an electronic version of IRS paper forms — to anyone, regardless of income.

Important: So-called free tax preparation websites are often trying to push you to pay them more money. You can find truly free filing options on the IRS website.

No. Unemployment benefits are yours to keep, except for the amount you may owe in taxes. But make sure you’re getting the right amount.

In a few cases ProPublica found, simple mistakes have led states to overpay unemployment recipients and then demand huge sums of money back. A bill to remedy this was proposed in 2020, but as of January it’s still in committee.

Yes, but only for 2020 unemployment benefits. The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 changed the tax code so that the first $10,200 of unemployment benefits you received in 2020 was free of federal taxes. That meant that only the money you received over $10,200 counted toward your taxable income.

Congress did not renew this tax relief after 2020. As a result, all unemployment benefits, except for those received in 2020, are treated as income and taxed.

About this guide: ProPublica has reported on the IRS, the Free File program and other tax topics for years. ProPublica’s tax guide is not personalized tax advice. Speak to a tax professional about your specific tax situation.

Kristen Doerer is a reporter in Washington, D.C. Her writing has appeared in PBS NewsHour, The Guardian and The Chronicle of Higher Education, among other places. Follow her on Twitter at @k2doe.

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Kristen Doerer for ProPublica.

Roughly 41 million Americans are currently enrolled in this program, which the government has long used to ease hunger while boosting the economy during downturns.

Many families enrolled in the program, commonly known as SNAP but sometimes called food stamps, stand to lose an average of roughly US$90 per person a month.

While researching SNAP for an upcoming book, I've observed that this program has provided critical assistance to struggling families over the last three years. The extra benefits, which Americans can use to purchase food at the roughly 250,000 stores that accept them, have helped millions of people weather the pandemic's economic fallout and high inflation rates.

More in U.S. got SNAP benefits during Covid-19 pandemic

Millions of Americans will find it harder to put enough food on the table starting in March 2023, after a Covid-19 pandemic-era boost to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits comes to an end. Congress mandated this change in budget legislation it passed in late December 2022.

Roughly 41 million Americans are currently enrolled in this program, which the government has long used to ease hunger while boosting the economy during downturns.

Many families enrolled in the program, commonly known as SNAP but sometimes called food stamps, stand to lose an average of roughly US$90 per person a month.

While researching SNAP for an upcoming book, I've observed that this program has provided critical assistance to struggling families over the last three years. The extra benefits, which Americans can use to purchase food at the roughly 250,000 stores that accept them, have helped millions of people weather the pandemic's economic fallout and high inflation rates.

SNAP benefits grew during the pandemic

In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, lines at food banks grew and millions lost their jobs. One way that Congress responded was with legislation that let the states, which administer this federally funded program, expand SNAP benefits during the public health emergency.

Under this temporary arrangement, all families who were eligible for SNAP could get the maximum allowable benefit amount for the size of their household. Otherwise, that maximum amount would only be available to people with no income at all. But starting in March 2023, SNAP benefits will once again be distributed everywhere on a sliding scale based on income levels.

Some states began to drop the extra benefits in the spring of 2021. But 32 states and the District of Columbia were still offering the extra help in February 2023.

Maximum monthly SNAP benefits available in 2023

Although the unemployment rate has recently fallen to the lowest level since 1969, the extra SNAP benefits have continued to help low-income families deal with soaring prices that increased the cost of food consumed at home by 11.3% in the 12 months ending in January 2023.

With more people enrolled in the program today than before the Covid-19 pandemic, and the distribution of extra benefits, SNAP spending reached a record $114 billion in the 12 months that ended in September 2022.

Looming hunger cliff

Many experts on food insecurity have long argued that SNAP benefits have historically been too low.

The Biden administration has already tried to boost them by adjusting the "Thrifty Food Plan"—the standard the U.S. Department of Agriculture uses to set SNAP benefits based on the cost of a budget-conscious and nutritionally adequate diet.

As a result, benefits rose an average of $36 a month, a 21% increase, in October 2021. That increase more than offset the expiration of a temporary seven-month boost in benefits that Congress had approved earlier that year.

SNAP benefits automatically adjust every October based on the increase in food prices in July as compared with the previous year. In 2022, they increased 12.5%. But when prices are rising quickly, as is currently the case, SNAP benefits can lose a lot of ground in the months before the next adjustment.

Many advocates for a stronger safety net say that SNAP benefits are too low to meet the needs of low-income people. They are warning of a looming hunger cliff—meaning a sharp increase in the number of people who don't get enough nutritious food to eat—in March 2023, when the extra help ends.

At that point, the lowest-income families will lose $95 in benefits a month. But some SNAP participants, such as many elderly and disabled people who live alone and on fixed incomes and who only qualify for the minimum amount of help, will see their benefits plummet from $281 to $23 a month.

Most people on SNAP who get Social Security benefits will see their SNAP benefits fall. That's because of the 8.7% cost of living increase in Social Security benefits implemented in January 2023, which increases their income and lowers the amount of nutritional assistance they can receive. And some of these Americans may even have enough income that they no longer qualify for SNAP at all.

For an average family of four on SNAP, benefits will fall from the maximum of $939 to $718, according to an estimate by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, an anti-poverty research group.

Food banks, already under stress because of higher food costs and falling donations, are bracing for higher demand. Food banks in some states that ended the emergency boost in benefits early have seen a 30% increase in need.

More people on SNAP also reported skipping meals in the states that dropped extra benefits than those that did not.

Lawmakers poised to resume a longtime fight

Several Democrats have proposed legislation to increase SNAP benefits over the long term. But many Republicans want to reduce spending on SNAP and put more limits on who can get the program's benefits.

Debate centers around whether unemployed adults deemed capable of working should be able to get SNAP. This argument, almost as old as the program itself, was largely set aside during the pandemic.

Legislation enacted in early 2020 suspended a requirement that limited benefits for adults under 50 who meet the government's definition of able-bodied and have no dependents. They can receive no more than three months of SNAP benefits every three years—unless they work or participate in a work-training program at least 20 hours a week.

This time limit will come back when the public health emergency ends in May 2023.

But many critics of SNAP have argued the work requirements were never effectively enforced. A few Republicans want to make tightening restrictions on SNAP benefits a condition for raising the debt ceiling. At this point, it isn't clear if they will succeed.

Debate over SNAP reforms is likely to come up when Congress considers the program as part of broad food and agriculture legislation known as the farm bill. Congress must act to renew the program before October 2023.

But with the House narrowly controlled by Republicans and the Senate controlled by a slim Democratic majority, I believe it will be hard to make big changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Tracy Roof.

“The EPA’s initial guidance for the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund states that at least 55% of the fund will provide financial and technical assistance for low-income and disadvantaged communities. This is a positive step towards making the just transition affordable and accessible to those most in need,” said Jessica Garcia, climate finance policy analyst at Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund. “The EPA should continue collecting feedback from the directly impacted communities that this fund aims to serve and developing robust criteria for its applicants to achieve its dual directive of protecting communities from climate impacts and providing them financial tools to safeguard their future. ”

According to the guidance, at least $15 billion of the $27 billion fund will benefit low-income and disadvantaged communities, and there will be two award competitions. The $20 billion General and Low-Income Assistance Competition will set aside at least $8 billion for low-income and disadvantaged communities, and the entire $7 billion Zero-Emissions Technology Fund Competition will benefit those communities. The EPA will release more details in its Notices of Funding Opportunities in early Summer 2023.

“The EPA’s commitment to facilitate technical assistance and capacity building to strengthen community-based organizations will be a step forward in helping them prepare for the impacts the climate crisis will bring,” said Ishmael Buckner, policy advocate with Public Citizen’s Climate Program. “Enabling disadvantaged communities to participate in an equitable transition toward lowering greenhouse gas emissions must be a key part of this program. As the EPA begins to act, we hope this program will catalyze the jobs of the future while mitigating climate risk for disadvantaged communities. It is vital that the EPA’s competition guidance set forth eligibility criteria and strong reporting and accountability requirements to ensure that selected fund recipients meet the needs of communities and the greenhouse gas reduction goals.”

“The EPA’s guidance–if well executed–means the GHGRF will meet President Biden’s Justice40 Initiative goals by directing at least 55% of the benefits to disadvantaged and environmental justice communities,” said Garcia. “As the EPA develops requirements for these grant competitions and makes decisions on program design, eligible recipients, and eligible projects, it should continue to align them with Justice 40, which requires that 40% of the funds flow directly to said communities.”

Americans for Financial Reform, Public Citizen, and partners submitted comments to EPA in response to their Request for Information on the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. Organizations, communities, and individuals are also invited to participate in the EPA’s newly-announced national community roundtable series to provide the agency feedback on solutions that will benefit them the most.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

As Republicans threaten cuts to Social Security and other essential federal programs, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), along with Reps. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) and Val Hoyle (D-Ore.) in the U.S. House of Representatives, introduced legislation that would expand Social Security benefits by $2,400 a year and ensure Social Security is fully funded for the next 75 years – all without raising taxes by one penny on over 93 percent of American households that make $250,000 or less.

These estimates reflect an analysis of the legislation conducted by the Social Security Administration at the request of Sen. Sanders. The analysis was also released today in a letter from Chief Actuary Stephen Goss.

Joining Sanders, Warren, Schakowsky, and Hoyle on the Social Security Expansion Act are Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), and Ed Markey (D-Mass.), as well as 25 cosponsors in the House including Reps. Alma Adams (D-N.C.), Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), Cori Bush (D-Mo.), Troy A. Carter (D-La.), Greg Casar (D-Texas), Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Jesús Chuy García (D-Ill.), Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), Rick Larsen (D-Wash.), Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), Stephen F. Lynch (D-Mass.), Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), Gwen Moore (D-Wis.), Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), Grace Napolitano (D-Calif.), Eleanor Holmes-Norton (D-D.C.), Donald M. Payne, Jr. (D-N.J.), Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.).

“At a time when nearly half of older Americans have no retirement savings and almost 50 percent of our nation’s seniors are trying to survive on an income of less than $25,000 a year, our job is not to cut Social Security,” said Sen. Sanders. “Our job is to expand Social Security so that every senior in America can retire with the dignity that they deserve and every person with a disability can live with the security they need. The legislation that we are introducing today will expand Social Security benefits by $2,400 a year and will extend the solvency of Social Security for the next 75 years by making sure that the wealthiest people in our society pay their fair share into the system. Right now, a Wall Street CEO who makes $30 million pays the same amount into Social Security as someone who makes $160,000 a year. Our bill puts an end to that absurdity which will allow us to protect Social Security for generations to come while lifting millions of seniors out of poverty.”

“Social Security is an economic lifeline for millions of Americans, but many seniors are struggling with rising costs,” said Sen. Warren. “As House Republicans try to use a manufactured debt ceiling crisis to cut the Social Security that Americans have earned, I’m working with Senator Sanders to expand Social Security and extend its solvency by making the wealthy pay their fair share, so everyone can retire with dignity.”

“Social Security lifts more people out of poverty than any other program in the United States. In 2021 alone, Social Security lifted over 18 million seniors out of poverty,” said Rep. Schakowsky. “Instead of working to protect Social Security, my Republican colleagues are plotting to cut benefits and raise the retirement age. I am proud to introduce the Social Security Expansion Act with Senator Sanders, Senator Warren, and Congresswoman Hoyle, to protect the national treasure that is Social Security. This bill will extend the Social Security trust fund’s solvency and expand benefits so that everyone in America can retire with the security and dignity they deserve after a lifetime of hard work.”

“Every American should be able to retire with respect and security by knowing that they will receive the Social Security payments they have earned,” said Rep. Hoyle. “With the rising cost of living, it’s time to modernize and expand the program. I’m proud to co-lead the Social Security Expansion Act, my first bill in Congress, which helps address the disproportionate amount Social Security recipients spend of their income on things like health care and prescription drugs. While House Republicans are willing to put Social Security on the chopping block, we are fighting hard to protect Americans’ hard-earned benefits and expand coverage.”

One of the most successful and popular government programs in U.S. history, Social Security has never failed to pay out every benefit owed to every eligible American on time and without delay. Before 1935, when it was signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, about 50 percent of the nation’s seniors were living in poverty, as well as countless Americans living with disabilities and surviving dependents of deceased workers. Nearly 90 years later, the senior poverty rate is down to 10.3 percent and in 2021 alone, during the onslaught of the Covid-19 pandemic, Social Security lifted 26.3 million Americans out of poverty, including more than 18 million seniors.

Despite this long legacy of combatting poverty, more must be done to strengthen the program, not cut it. While the average Social Security benefit is only $1,688 a month, nearly 40 percent of seniors rely on Social Security for a majority of their income; one in seven rely on it for more than 90 percent of their income; and nearly half of Americans aged 55 and older have no retirement savings at all.

By requiring millionaires and billionaires to finally pay their fair share into the program, the Social Security Expansion Act would ensure the fund’s solvency to the end of the century, help low-income workers stay out of poverty by improving the Special Minimum Benefit, restore student benefits up to age 22 for children of disabled or deceased workers, strengthen benefits for senior citizens and people with disabilities, increase Cost-Of-Living-Adjustments (COLAs), and expand program benefits across-the-board.

The Social Security Expansion Act has also been endorsed by more than 50 major organizations, including: Social Security Works, AFA CWA, AFSCME, Alliance for Retired Americans, American Federation of Government Employees, American Federation of Teachers, American Postal Workers Union, BMWED/IBT, International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE), United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, National Education Association, Indivisible, MoveOn, National Domestic Workers Alliance, People's Action, Public Citizen, Care in Action, CASA, Center for Medicare Advocacy, Center for Popular Democracy, Blue Future, Church World Service, CommonDefense.us, Connecticut Citizen Action Group, Demand Progress, Health Care Awareness Month, Hunger Free America, Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, Just Care USA, National Partnership for Women & Families, NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, NJ State Industrial Union Council, Oregonizers, Our Revolution, Right to Health Action (R2H Action), Sunrise Movement, The National Employment Law Project, Upper West Side Action Group: MoveOn/Indivisible/SwingLeft, Working Families Party, National Korean American Service & Education Consortium (NAKASEC), Indivisible Marin, Children's Aid, P Street, East New York Farms, Partners for Dignity & Rights, Generations United, Broadway Community, Inc., National Council of Jewish Women, New York State Public Health Association, Justice in Aging, National Women's Law Center, Americans for Tax Fairness, National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, Labor Campaign for Single Payer, and American Medical Student Association.

Read the bill text, here.
Read the fact sheet and full list of supporting organizations, here.
Read the Social Security Administration’s analysis of the legislation, here.
Read an analysis of what the world’s wealthiest people would pay under this legislation, here.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Video clips uploaded to social media showed a large crowd of older people in raincoats and holding umbrellas gathered in rainy weather in a public space outside the gates of the city government compound, with police in high-visibility jackets linking arms to prevent them from approaching the gates.

A resident of Wuhan, the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, surnamed Zhang said both uniformed and plainclothes police were out in large numbers at the protest, with several official buses parked at the scene.

"There were a lot of police officers there protecting [the municipal government], but this is a matter of public feeling," he said.

The protest came after warnings from the central government in Beijing that it won’t be bailing out cash-strapped local governments, whose coffers have been drained by three years of President Xi Jinping’s zero-COVID policy, which ended in December.

"This country is in trouble, and they haven't raised medical payments -- how can they reduce them?" Zhang said. "How are people supposed to manage?"

‘Ordinary people first’

【#武汉 万人市府集会】
【医药补贴缩减 抗议者呛:太不像话了!】
武汉市上万名退休人员本周三（8日）聚集在市政府门前请愿，要求政府官员公开解释为何将每月两百六十多元的医药补贴，降至数十元。集会者称，全市近两百万名退休工人受此影响，倘若政府不解决问题，定于本月15日举行更大规模的抗议。 pic.twitter.com/iG7XQL7yDi

— 自由亚洲电台 (@RFA_Chinese) February 8, 2023

He said the authorities had known the protest was coming and had held a "stability maintenance" meeting at city hall to deal with the issue.

"Retirees are demanding an explanation from the government as to why their medical benefits have been cut from 260 yuan (US$38) a month to less than 100 yuan (US$15)," a subtitle on one of the videos says.

"If they don't get an answer from the government, they will hold an even bigger rally," the text says.

"The cuts always come for ordinary people first, huh," comments a voice on the same video. "Why don't officials' [benefits] get cut? It's disgusting!"

"This doesn't look like a scene created by U.S. or overseas forces or whatever," a person comments on one of the video clips. "This is entirely the doing of the government."

"They all talk about serving the people, but who are they really working for? There are more than a million retired workers in Wuhan, and there are thousands, possibly more than 10,000 here today."

Retired steelworkers

A local resident who gave only the surname Gao for fear of reprisals said the majority of protesters were retired workers at the Wuhan Iron and Steel plant, with some from other state-owned enterprises.

"They are calling for their medical benefits to be restored to their original level, which was 260.93 yuan a month," Gao said. "A lot of people have had theirs cut to 88 yuan or 82 yuan."

"They are calling on the government to give them a public response [today] ... and if they don't, they will hold a rights protection rally in Zhongshan Park on Feb. 15," he said.

The payments are intended to cover the costs of repeat prescriptions in retirement, and come at a time of skyrocketing healthcare costs that have put medical treatment beyond the reach of many in retirement, Gao said.

"There are nearly 2 million retirees in Wuhan," he said.

A retiree from Wuhan's Jiang'an district who gave only the surname Chen said the cuts have had an impact on huge numbers of people, and that more public protest is likely.

"Anyone who has a personal stake in this will go," Chen said, adding that he had been planning to go, but had held off after getting a warning from his local police station.

"People in the community where I live contacted me asking me to go with them last night," Chen said. "But I was warned off by the police."

"I told them I definitely wanted to go, so a policeman drove me, but I was only allowed to watch from a long way off," he said.

A Jiang'an district resident who gave only the surname Pang said some people had also been protesting big cuts to funeral expense claims, from 70,000 yuan (US$10,300) to just 30,000 yuan (US$4,400) per person.

"It wasn't just Wuhan Iron and Steel retirees who went, but also many other retired workers from different industries, and people whose homes had been [forcibly] demolished," she said.

Repeated calls to the municipal government offices and to its Letters and Visits [complaints] department went unanswered during office hours on Wednesday.

Crushing people who speak up

China's army of petitioners, who flood the ruling Chinese Communist Party's official complaints departments daily, frequently report being held in unofficial "black jails," beaten, or otherwise harassed, if they persist in a complaint beyond its initial rejection at the local level.

They are often escorted home forcibly by "interceptors" sent by their local governments to prevent negative reports from reaching the ears of higher authorities.

They then face surveillance, harassment and possible detention on criminal charges.

People in China frequently challenge those in power, despite nationwide measures aimed at nipping popular protest in the bud, the U.S.-based think tank Freedom House reported in November 2022.

Despite pervasive surveillance, a "grid" system of law enforcement at the neighborhood level and targeted "stability maintenance" system aimed at controlling critics of the government before they take action, the group identified hundreds of incidents of public protest between June and September 2022 alone.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Gu Ting for RFA Mandarin.

As House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Biden prepare for their first face-to-face meeting this week to discuss raising the debt ceiling, we speak with Marxist economist Richard Wolff about why the limit on the federal government’s borrowing lets politicians avoid making hard choices about taxing the wealthy. House Republicans are pushing for major spending cuts as part of any deal to raise the federal government’s $31.4 trillion borrowing limit. “It’s 99% theatrics,” says Wolff, professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a visiting professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of The New School. Wolff also discusses the economic impact of the Ukraine war.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

The national ACLU and its Arizona arm sought the records after U.S. Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) revealed last year that "Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), a law enforcement component of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), was operating an indiscriminate and bulk surveillance program that swept up millions of financial records about Americans."

Following a February 2022 briefing with senior HSI personnel, Wyden wrote a March letter urging DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari to launch a probe into the Transaction Record Analysis Center (TRAC)—a nonprofit created as a result of a settlement between the Arizona attorney general's office and Western Union, a financial services company that fought in state court against the AG's attempt to obtain money transfer records.

As the ACLU released records about TRAC, Wyden on Wednesday shared a new letter requesting that "the Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Inspector General (OIG) investigate the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Drug Enforcement Administration's (DEA) relationship" with the Arizona-based clearinghouse.

"My oversight activities over the past year have uncovered troubling information, revealing that the scale of this government surveillance program is far greater than was previously reported," Wyden wrote to DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz.

"Between October and December of 2022, my office received information from three other money transfer companies—Euronet (RIA Envia), MoneyGram, and Viamericas—which confirmed that they also delivered customer data in bulk to TRAC, in response to legal demands from HSI and other governmental agencies," the senator divulged.

Some customs summonses—a form of subpoena—applied to transfers of $500 or more between any U.S. state and 22 other countries and one U.S. territory. Those summonses were withdrawn "just 10 days after HSI had briefed my staff" in February, Wyden noted, adding that HSI has not yet scheduled his requested follow-up briefing.

Summarizing the documents acquired by the ACLU, Freed Wessler and Walter-Johnson wrote:

From 2014 to 2021, Arizona attorneys general issued at least 140 administrative subpoenas to money transfer companies, each requesting that the company periodically provide customer transaction records for the next year. Those subpoenas were issued under the same state statute that the Arizona Court of Appeals held in 2006 could not be used for these kinds of indiscriminate requests for money transfer records. This means the Arizona attorney general's office knowingly issued 140 illegal subpoenas to build an invasive data repository.

The documents we obtained reveal the enormous scale of this surveillance program. According to the minutes of TRAC board meetings we obtained, the database of people's money transfer records grew from 75 million records from 14 money service businesses in 2017 to 145 million records from 28 different companies in 2021. By 2021, 12,000 individuals from 600 law enforcement agencies had been provided with direct log-in access to the database. By May 2022, over 700 law enforcement entities had or still have access to the TRAC database, ranging from a sheriff's office in a small Idaho county, to the Los Angeles and New York police departments, to federal law enforcement agencies and military police units.

As Freed Wessler told The Wall Street Journal, which exclusively reported on the materials, "Ordinary people's private financial records are being siphoned indiscriminately into a massive database, with access given to virtually any cop who wants it."

The Journal also spoke with TRAC director Rich Lebel, who "said the program has directly resulted in hundreds of leads and busts involving drug cartels and other criminals seeking to launder money," and "because money services companies don't have the same know-your-customer rules as banks, bulk data needs to be captured to discern patterns of fraud and money laundering."

According to the newspaper:

Mr. Lebel said TRAC has never identified a case in which a law enforcement official has accessed data improperly or the database has been breached by outsiders. The program has seen an increase in use in recent years because of the surging opioid crisis in the U.S., he said.

Law-enforcement agencies use TRAC's data to establish patterns in the flow of funds suspected of being linked to criminal activity, Mr. Lebel said, and the more comprehensive the data, the better the analysis. TRAC manages data that law enforcement provides, he said, and what it is receiving and storing is often in flux.

While declining to discuss TRAC's funding, Mr. Lebel said the nonprofit was originally stood up with money from the Western Union settlement that has since been exhausted. Mr. Wyden and others have said TRAC is federally funded.

Wyden wrote in his letter to Horowitz that "this unorthodox arrangement between state law enforcement, DHS, and DOJ agencies to collect bulk money transfer data raises a number of concerns about surveillance disproportionately affecting low-income, minority, and immigrant communities."

"Members of these communities are more likely to use money transfer services because they are more likely to be unbanked, and therefore unable to send money using electronic checking or international bank wire transfers, which are often cheaper," he explained. "Moreover, money transfer businesses are not subject to the same protections as bank-based transactions under the Right to Financial Privacy Act."

The senator's office said Wednesday that he "is working on legislation to close legal loopholes and ensure people who use money transfer services have the same privacy as those who use banks or money transfer apps."

Freed Wessler and Walter-Johnson also highlighted that "because members of marginalized communities rely heavily on these services rather than traditional banks, the burden of this government surveillance falls disproportionately on those already most vulnerable to law enforcement overreach."

"The government should not be allowed to abuse subpoenas and sweep up millions of records on a huge number of people without any basis for suspicion," the pair argued. "This financial surveillance program is built on repeated violations of the law and must be shut down."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

The post An Entire Decade of Benefits Denial for Vets After Toxic Chemical Exposure? appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Jonathan Sharp.

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Ray Suarez.

Anti-hunger advocates and economists are lauding the permanent food assistance program for children in summer months—included in the $1.7 trillion spending package unveiled Tuesday—as an historic victory in the fight against food insecurity, while also noting that the funding mechanism for the plan will sharply reduce federal pandemic-era food benefits for people across the country.

The omnibus spending legislation that's being debated by the U.S. Senate Wednesday would create a "Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer" (EBT) debit card program for low-income families, providing a monthly $40 per child grocery benefit that would be adjusted for inflation over time.

Roughly 30 million children who are eligible for free or reduced-price school lunches would be automatically enrolled in the program, which would help their families to afford food in the summer—when low-income households have been shown to struggle with food insecurity at higher rates than during the school year.

The bill includes a provision allowing rural families to have summertime school meals delivered rather than having to pick them up—a requirement that has historically left 6 in 7 low-income children unable to access summer meals.

The Summer EBT program represents "a historic investment in the nutrition, education, and well-being" of millions of children, wrote Zoe Neuberger and Katie Bergh, senior policy analysts at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

"Lawmakers should have looked to other offsets, including the revenue system, rather than ending these temporary food assistance benefits in this manner."

But a trade-off included in the spending package, cutting off pandemic-era increases to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits—often called food stamps—is "troubling," added Neuberger and Bergh.

"The new permanent Summer EBT benefit is paid for by ending temporary emergency SNAP benefits (known as emergency allotments) earlier than expected," they wrote on Tuesday. "These emergency SNAP benefits have helped some of those whom the pandemic hit hardest afford groceries, but will now stop at the end of February instead of continuing (in states that would have chosen to do so) as long as the public health emergency is in place. Lawmakers should have looked to other offsets, including the revenue system, rather than ending these temporary food assistance benefits in this manner."

If the spending package passes, families who have benefited from boosted SNAP benefits will lose an average of $82 per person, per month.

The elimination of the program is expected to hit senior citizens hardest, with people who receive the minimum benefit seeing their monthly benefits plummeting from $281 to just $23.

"Food banks are going to be overrun" as they were when the coronavirus pandemic began, said John Corlett, president of the Center for Community Solutions in Ohio.

Crystal FitzSimons, a policy analyst with the Food Research and Action Center, noted that the public health emergency for which the SNAP emergency allotments were introduced "is not over," with the official designation currently in effect through January 11, 2023, having been renewed every 90 days since January 2020.

"Cutting SNAP to pay for child nutrition is not the right choice," FitzSimons told The Washington Post on Wednesday. "We still are in a public health emergency. These allotments have been a huge benefit to families to make ends meet at a time when we're still reeling from the impacts of the pandemic."

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), who pushed for the inclusion of the Summer EBT program, said in a statement that lawmakers' work to address food insecurity "is far from over."

"I remain committed to passing a comprehensive child nutrition reauthorization," said Stabenow, "and also protecting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program as we begin work on the 2023 Farm Bill."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Julia Conley.

Anti-hunger advocates and economists are lauding the permanent food assistance program for children in summer months--included in the $1.7 trillion spending package unveiled Tuesday--as an historic victory in the fight against food insecurity, while also noting that the funding mechanism for the plan will sharply reduce federal pandemic-era food benefits for people across the country.

The omnibus spending legislation that's being debated by the U.S. Senate Wednesday would create a "Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer" (EBT) debit card program for low-income families, providing a monthly $40 per child grocery benefit that would be adjusted for inflation over time.

Roughly 30 million children who are eligible for free or reduced-price school lunches would be automatically enrolled in the program, which would help their families to afford food in the summer--when low-income households have been shown to struggle with food insecurity at higher rates than during the school year.

The bill includes a provision allowing rural families to have summertime school meals delivered rather than having to pick them up--a requirement that has historically left 6 in 7 low-income children unable to access summer meals.

The Summer EBT program represents "a historic investment in the nutrition, education, and well-being" of millions of children, wrote Zoe Neuberger and Katie Bergh, senior policy analysts at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

"Lawmakers should have looked to other offsets, including the revenue system, rather than ending these temporary food assistance benefits in this manner."

But a trade-off included in the spending package, cutting off pandemic-era increases to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits--often called food stamps--is "troubling," added Neuberger and Bergh.

"The new permanent Summer EBT benefit is paid for by ending temporary emergency SNAP benefits (known as emergency allotments) earlier than expected," they wrote on Tuesday. "These emergency SNAP benefits have helped some of those whom the pandemic hit hardest afford groceries, but will now stop at the end of February instead of continuing (in states that would have chosen to do so) as long as the public health emergency is in place. Lawmakers should have looked to other offsets, including the revenue system, rather than ending these temporary food assistance benefits in this manner."

If the spending package passes, families who have benefited from boosted SNAP benefits will lose an average of $82 per person, per month.

The elimination of the program is expected to hit senior citizens hardest, with people who receive the minimum benefit seeing their monthly benefits plummeting from $281 to just $23.

"Food banks are going to be overrun" as they were when the coronavirus pandemic began, said John Corlett, president of the Center for Community Solutions in Ohio.

Crystal FitzSimons, a policy analyst with the Food Research and Action Center, noted that the public health emergency for which the SNAP emergency allotments were introduced "is not over," with the official designation currently in effect through January 11, 2023, having been renewed every 90 days since January 2020.

"Cutting SNAP to pay for child nutrition is not the right choice," FitzSimons told The Washington Post on Wednesday. "We still are in a public health emergency. These allotments have been a huge benefit to families to make ends meet at a time when we're still reeling from the impacts of the pandemic."

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), who pushed for the inclusion of the Summer EBT program, said in a statement that lawmakers' work to address food insecurity "is far from over."

"I remain committed to passing a comprehensive child nutrition reauthorization," said Stabenow, "and also protecting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program as we begin work on the 2023 Farm Bill."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Julia Conley.

But one year later, most of the trade has been one-way: from China, which exports machinery, auto parts, electronics and consumer goods, sources in Laos tell Radio Free Asia. Laotian exports, hindered by China’s strict COVID policies at the border and other structural barriers, have made up just a small fraction by comparison.

“The Laos-China train carries a lot of goods from China to Laos but only a few [goods] from Laos to China, mainly because of the Chinese zero-COVID policy,” a Lao transport official told RFA. 

Passengers, too, say train service has been far from ideal. Laotians say they face difficulties buying passenger train tickets, which must to be done in person at rail stations. People often waited in long lines for up to six hours, forcing some to pay others to stand in line and buy tickets, though these middlemen charge high markups for their service.

The anecdotal evidence seems at odds with reports from state-run media on both sides of the border. Laos’ Vientiane Times said the railway boosted exports during its first year of operation and helped to revive tourism in Laos, meeting a need for travel between Vientiane and the northern provinces.

China’s official Xinhua news agency reported that about 2 million metric tons of goods, most of which was cross-border freight, had been shipped both ways along the Lao section of the railway to date, and nearly 1.3 million passengers had traveled along the route.

Part of ‘Belt and Road’

A centerpiece of China’s Belt and Road Initiative of state-led lending for infrastructure projects to tie countries across Asia to China, the railway began operating on Dec. 3, 2021, running between Kunming in China’s Yunnan province and Laos’ capital of Vientiane.

The Lao section of the railway handles an average of two trains each way daily, covering 254 miles and 10 passenger rail stations from Boten on the Chinese border to Vientiane. 

Structural problems have contributed to the imbalance. Many Laotian companies are not set up to ship their products by train to China. For example, many ship their goods in small quantities, not large enough to be shipped in train containers.

Rubber, cassava, minerals and potash can be transported by train, but fresh produce like bananas and watermelons still must be transported by truck across the border, the official said.

Laotian companies also encounter barriers at the Chinese border, including getting through red tape and paperwork, as well as import tariffs, the official said.

“The Chinese are very strict about our goods, especially at the border,” he said. 

An official at the Ministry of Public Works and Transport said that Lao officials are working with the railway company and their Chinese counterparts to improve the service by simplifying the process of renting containers for the transport of goods and by reducing wait times at stations.

Mobile app

To address problems with buying tickets in Laos, the railway company began selling passenger tickets online this week via a mobile app.

“It has been difficult to buy the train tickets because they were not available online. That’s why there are a lot of middlemen, scalpers and scammers. They buy tickets then sell them to others at higher prices,” said a businessman in Vientiane, who often travels on the train.

A tour guide in Luang Prabang, one of the stops along the train route, complained that his customers must arrive at the train station early and wait outside for hours in hot or rainy weather. They also have no access to a restroom because the station opens only an hour before the train arrives, he said.

One passenger told RFA on Monday that the railway company should have developed and rolled out the ticket-purchasing app before passenger services were offered for convenience and to eliminate paying middlemen who jack up rail ticket prices.

Translated by Sidney Khotpanya for RFA Lao. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Lao.

The post Railway Vote Benefits One of the Least Deserving Industries appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Phil Mattera.

Most of what I do is made out of other stuff. That’s true for all of us. We’re the sum of our influences. I don’t have any tricks up my sleeve. Those influences are folk, country, and gospel. It’s clear to hear that in what I do. I’m not necessarily a folk, country, or gospel artist, but those paths braid and show up. The common thread in everything I do is my phrasing. If I were a horn player, my breath, that’s straight out of those kinds of music.

The long view is that all of that music is rooted in place, in a way that a community tells its story to itself and to others throughout time. A lot of music is specific to its community. Those specificities are about trains of thought or social issues, whereas gospel music or folk music, those are ways of telling personal stories.

For example, if you trace the arc of a song like “Beat the Drum Slowly,” the trunk of the tree is songs about death, songs that tell you what to do with a body when it dies. You wrap the body in white linen, you put coins on its eyes, you put it in a cart, horses, whatever. “Streets of Laredo,” “St. James Infirmary,” “Beat the Drum Slowly.” There’s a bunch of these songs. They’re in Ireland, in Texas, in New Orleans. When I was in Europe, people were like, “Oh, yeah, there’s one here, there’s one there.” The story and the need to tell the story in song, it’s not isolated to a place. It’s something that connects places, connects people, and connects us to who was before and who comes after us.

You’ve walked across the country multiple times. Is there a clear link between movement and creativity for you?

Any activity that is somatic or kinetic frees your mind. Driving does it, walking does it. Cooking, for me, does it. Anything where I’m engaged, that frontal bit, there’s something to do. My body’s moving. With walking, there’s a rhythm. There’s a pace and phrasing to walking that definitely influences me. My mind is really free. My long walks these days tend to be full-day, not multi-day anymore. It’s particularly in cities that I like to do it. I’ll go 10 miles easy, walk from wherever I am to wherever the water is. That’s where the oldest part of the city is. Walk around in that area, then find my way back somehow.

Do you notice anything about your walking cadence and the way you approach the guitar?

All my stuff begins at a certain tempo. It doesn’t end up there, but that tempo is definitely my footstep. As you build a piece, you adjust it to the tempo it wants to be. Pretty much everything I do starts off with this medium gait. Duple meter is pretty ingrained, but I fuck with that. I will consciously try to do phrases that are odd by starting on my right foot and ending on my left foot, knowing that if I start a phrase on my right foot, then the next phrase starts on my left foot, I know it’s an odd tempo. I do that a lot.

How did you start improvising?

I grew up playing classical. In classical music, there’s a boss. What’s on the page is the boss. What the composer intended, that’s the boss. In classical music, you’re not your own boss ever. That’s fine, that’s for a reason. Any song that’s sung tends to lend itself to having a structure that you have to follow. Words are the boss, a lot of times. They’re the boss of how a song goes, when it starts and when it ends, and what order the emotions lay out in.

I’m not against structure. I’m not even against doing things the same way. But in the creative process, I like to be free. Once it’s the performance, there’s room for all of it in my music. Some things I do exactly the same, and that’s its own fun thing, is to adhere to that. Some things I do differently. In performance, what changes is the dynamic in the room.

Can you name what it feels like to be lost in music?

I don’t think I can. That’s taking words and putting them to something wordless. That limits whatever it is, that mystery.

Has your confidence with improv grown over time?

Definitely. It takes training. I wouldn’t even call it confidence, I would call it committing. Whatever idea you’re having, you don’t question it. It’s like improv partners in standup comedy. It’s the “yes, and” rule. To apply that to your own self, your own impulses. “If I’m going for this, I’m going to go for it. I’m not going to check that swing.”

There’s not space to be overly critical.

No, you move on. If you can’t stand to listen to it, don’t listen to it. It exists in the moment.

When recording you’re trying to solve ‘technical puzzles’. Which puzzle have you been focused on recently?

The music on the new record is a couple years old. I’ve been focused on bringing it to the stage. In the cycle of what I do, there’s creation time, performance time, and they don’t necessarily mix too much. There is a puzzle that I’m excited to be solving, but I can’t name it. I know what it is, and I know where to find it, but I’m not close enough to solving it to speak it. It’s about the lightness of feel in the rhythm. The best examples being in Salsa music, how Salsa music just floats, even though it has a heavy rhythm section. I’m trying to get to the root of it right now, but I’m nowhere near it.

Song structure takes shape when preparing for live performances?

That’s true with a few exceptions, like the covers. On the new record, the two traditional songs, the melody exists, and I get to treat it a certain way, but there’s walls around that. “The Crack Where the Light Gets In” asked me to consider: “How do I turn this riff into an actual song?”

Did something click that allowed you to get there?

I wanted to build it like a vocal arrangement. I was building it like some kind of transcendent, religious vocal arrangement with parts coming in, going up and up and up. I like how the piece came out, but I don’t know that I reached where I hoped I could get to. Everything else is just pure improv.

Where/how do you keep track of your ideas?

I have about 200 clips of things on my phone. Sometimes I return to those, but they’re never what I thought they were. I have found that good ideas repeat themselves.

If the idea is good enough, you’ll remember it.

Yeah. It comes back. That assumes daily practice where I’m in a space where once a week I get time to play. There’s a difference between rehearsing for a show or playing. I have to be in a certain playing practice that’s daily for that to work. I have to be in conversation with that part of myself.

What does it look like when you are in that practice?

I have a set up at home. I spend a good part of most winters in Mexico City, and I have a space there that works in a similar way, but I don’t have as much equipment. Usually just an acoustic guitar.

Do you set an agenda or pick a skillset to focus on?

If it’s a skill set, it’s not related to composing. It’s related to the technical aspect of playing, like getting my thumb to be in a meter outside of two or four. I’m not necessarily building pieces around that. I’m just practicing. I’m a believer in technique and repetition, getting moves under your hands that you can use or abuse. I spent one Portland winter learning all of the Segovia scales, major and minor. I made a giant mural on my bedroom wall of the circle of fifths. I would play the scales backwards and forwards through the circle of fifths, all of them, every day, until they were just there. That’s not a piece, that’s not a song, but it’s the technique embedded in those scales that frees you.

How do crowd size and venue impact your experience as a performer?

If it’s 200 or under, I can really talk to them. You can get in conversation and have everyone be together. If it’s bigger than that, 500 to a thousand or more, you can’t talk, really. Everything has to be in one or two sentences and you have to play slower because the size of the rooms have sonics where a lot of the little or fast stuff gets lost. You have to adjust the technique for a larger room if you don’t want it to get lost. Same goes for playing inside or outside. There’s moves you can do. From an artistic standpoint, the best size rooms are those 300 ones where you can do every move. The audience is getting a mix of room sound and PA sound. They’re getting the actual amp. The bouncing from the walls is not enough to affect the experience of the primary source. Everyone’s close enough.

It’s also fun to play in bigger rooms. It’s this adrenaline rush. I was opening for some friends at the Fillmore on New Year’s Eve five or six years ago. A thousand or 1500 cap. There’s one song I do where there’s a snippet of “I’’ll Fly Away” inside of it, and for whatever reason, the whole room just started singing the song. I was like, “Oh, my god.” I’ve never inspired that before or since, and just kept going with that part. The whole room, the entire Fillmore auditorium was singing ‘I’ll Fly Away’. I had not prompted it. I felt like a giant wave surfer where you’re like, “If I make a false move now, we are all going under.” Things like that are possible in these rooms.

How has your relationship to touring changed over the years?

The first time I ever went on tour I was 26 and was like, “Wait a minute, you can travel and play music and get paid all at the same time? This is the fucking best.” I was like, “This is what I’m going to do for the rest of my life. How could I not do this?” I was already a road dog at that point. In an activist way, living on the road for years at that point. But then, it was like, “You can get paid for this? Jesus.” That was enough for me at that point. I’m not that way anymore. The economics of being 26 are different from the economics of being where I am now.

It’s complicated. Music Twitter, all the people saying it’s not fair and this and that, I totally get that. It isn’t fair, and also, life’s not fair, but it’s also a very First World, a market-based approach to music. It is a market. We engage in a marketplace, and if you’re not getting a fair price for what you’re bringing to market, then there’s a problem either in what you’re bringing or in the nature of the marketplace, maybe both. The idea that one could play music for a living, it’s a pretty far-out-there idea to begin with.

I have a slightly different perspective than a lot of people. It’s not that I disagree with them, because it’s true. There’s a broken system that we’re involved in. People are making money. It’s not the artists. This is true, and it’s not fair. But no one is owed a living for their creative work. No one. If you bring work to the marketplace, you subject it to that marketplace, and I think that’s not something people understand until they’re farther down the road. Just because I love to do something does not mean the world owes me anything for that.

I’m noticing bands wanting to be on the road immediately rather than build locally.

There’s a lot of ways to look at that. What if you’re from a small place? When I first started touring, I was living in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Playing once a week at the cowboy bar. That’s cool, but you’re not going to build a career on that. There’s a big difference between an urban or a rural perspective. A huge difference. Different worlds. Everybody’s path takes its own place, and communities are not necessarily geographically located now that we have the internet. What you’re saying kind of gets to that question of what resources are available and what actions are possible within the base of those resources?

Social media provides a narrative that you should be great at something right away.

Yeah, and I’m a late bloomer. I did a lot of other things. The first solo guitar record I did came out when I was 40. I don’t believe that only geniuses and young people get to do creative lives.

What does a successful collaboration look like?

It’s that spirit of openness. A feeling like you can reach something that is out of reach on your own and that you’re helping the other person reach something that is out of reach on their own. That you’re creating a third thing made of the pieces of you and whoever else. That the sum of the parts is something that transcends each of the parts. Not that it’s better or that it’s more, but just that it’s something that any one person couldn’t get to on their own and that it’s a satisfying conversation for everyone who’s participating in it.

Did you have a visual of what being a full-time musician could look like growing up?

That’s part of why I’m such a late bloomer. It’s the logic of me being the age, gender and whatever else I am and being able to, by myself, get in front of people and play an electric guitar. The odds of that working are slim to none. I didn’t have a lot of paths through those woods. There was a guitar player who, back when I was a teenager and a young adult, she’s a session player in the Bay Area. Her name’s Nina Gerber. I ended up taking lessons from her. She’s the one who taught me how to improvise for the first time.

I grew up in a really small town. There wasn’t a lot of music. Live music wasn’t anything I can remember, beyond concerts in big places, but with peers or anything like that, it didn’t exist. Somehow I became aware of her. She played with a lot of different people. Most notably, she was Kate Wolf’s guitar player for a good chunk of her career. That was the first person I identified where I was like, “I want to know what that person knows.”

This content originally appeared on The Creative Independent and was authored by Jeffrey Silverstein.

In less than three months, millions of people across the U.S. could be kicked off Medicaid and see their food benefits slashed if the Biden administration declines to further extend the federal public health emergency that was first declared at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

Last week, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra announced an extension of the public health emergency (PHE) until January 11, but it's not clear whether the administration is planning another renewal—leaving millions of households concerned about their health coverage and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits.

"Urgent action will be necessary to stabilize health and food security among those at greatest risk."

More than 40 million people across the U.S. are currently receiving SNAP benefits and around 90 million are on Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP).

In an op-ed published by STAT on Tuesday, Allison Maria Lacko, Allison Bovell-Ammon, and Richard Sheward noted that "many individuals and families will experience the cumulative impact of losing access to both Medicaid and SNAP or losing access to Medicaid and having SNAP benefits reduced."

Coronavirus response legislation signed into law in March 2020 boosted state Medicaid and SNAP funding and loosened eligibility requirements, allowing millions more people to enroll as the pandemic wreaked havoc. Crucially, the bill also included a "continuous coverage" requirement that bars states from removing people from Medicaid while they're still receiving the extra federal funding.

That provision has allowed millions of people, including kids on CHIP, to maintain health coverage throughout the deadly pandemic, which threw millions out of work and off their employer-provided insurance.

Once the PHE is allowed to lapse, states will resume eligibility screenings and begin removing people from the program if they're deemed ineligible. The Biden administration estimated in a recent study that 15 million people—including more than 5 million children—could lose coverage once the PHE declaration ends.

The administration stressed that many could have their coverage stripped despite still being eligible for Medicaid, a problem attributed to "administrative churning" that "can occur if enrollees have difficulty navigating the renewal process, states are unable to contact enrollees due to a change of address, or other administrative hurdles."

Emergency SNAP expansions will also unwind, a potential disaster as hunger remains high across the U.S. even as pandemic-related measures have largely kept it from skyrocketing.

The Food Research and Action Center estimates that most SNAP recipients will see their benefits cut by $82 a month when the PHE ends.

In their STAT op-ed, Lacko, Bovell-Ammon, and Sheward argued that "urgent action by healthcare systems, community organizations, and all levels of government will be necessary to stabilize health and food security among those at greatest risk."

"While vaccines and treatments lessen the life-altering threat of Covid-19," they added, "it is important not to lose sight of the imminent danger to health posed by the expiration of effective expansions of Medicaid and SNAP."

HHS has said it will give states a 60-day notice before lifting the PHE, which has been extended 11 times since the start of a pandemic that is still killing hundreds of people every day in the U.S.

Last month, President Joe Biden claimed during an interview that "the pandemic is over," a remark that congressional Republicans cited to demand a formal end to the PHE and billions in Medicaid funding.

While advocates have been warning for months that the end of the PHE could come with devastating consequences for vulnerable Medicaid and SNAP recipients—and public health more broadly—little has been done at the state or federal level to avert disaster.

Advocates have urged Congress to use must-pass spending legislation to shore up Medicaid and SNAP benefits before millions lose access.

"Congress can help maintain recent health coverage gains through enacting policies including postpartum coverage, continuous eligibility, and funding for Puerto Rico and the territories," Allison Orris, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, wrote earlier this month.

"As policymakers negotiate the year-end spending bill," Orris added, "they should also consider other policies—such as a permanent reauthorization of CHIP and inclusion of the proposed Medicaid Reentry Act—that also could help people with low incomes gain, retain, or access the coverage they need."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Jake Johnson.

To some, he’s an autocrat in waiting, and to others, a smart operator seeking to maximize aid for his volatile and economically-lagging nation.

A Seventh-Day Adventist who has a martial arts black belt, Sogavare is also a political brawler whose fortunes have fluctuated over the years alongside the frequent strife of Solomon Islands politics. 

After rising through the civil service in the 1990s, he is now in his fourth stint as prime minister. His first term, from June 2000 to December 2001, followed a coup, though he was elected by parliament – part of a chaotic period that resulted in a years-long military intervention in the Solomon Islands led by U.S. ally Australia.

Over time, Sogavare has become more adept at marshaling the levers of power in his favor, researchers say. Earlier this year he pushed a constitutional amendment through parliament that allowed elections, set for 2023, to be delayed on the basis the country couldn’t afford a national vote and a major sporting event – the Pacific Games – in the same year.

“He is totally driven by the desire to remain PM forever,” said Matthew Wale, leader of the opposition in the Solomon Islands parliament. “He grants the demands of anyone who will help him achieve that.”

Sogavare, 67, has increasingly tilted the government of the South Pacific archipelago of some 700,000 people towards China. In 2019, he switched diplomatic recognition to China from Taiwan – an unpopular move in the country’s most populous province, Malaita – and earlier this year, he signed a security pact with Beijing. 

China is helping to bankroll the Pacific Games in the Solomon Islands capital Honiara next year and is training the country’s police. Last weekend, more than 30 Solomons police officers headed to China for a month’s instruction in policing methods.  

Meanwhile, Sogavare signed up to a pact between Pacific island nations and the United States at a summit in Washington last month, in what one observer described as a pragmatic move.

“Solomon Islands, and Sogavare himself, needs good relations with traditional partners, despite Solomon Islands’ growing security ties with China,” said Mihai Sora, a Pacific analyst at the Lowy Institute and former Australian diplomat in the Solomon Islands.

“It’s not zero-sum for Sogavare, rather it’s about maximizing the potential benefits he can bring to his country. So pragmatism is the main driver, but there is also a personal element when push comes to shove.”

Mercurial and perplexing

Sogavare can seem a mercurial and perplexing figure to outsiders, and even for researchers and others who have spent years in the Solomon Islands. His office didn’t respond to a request for an interview.

At a regional meeting in July, Sogavare effusively greeted Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with a hug following months of tensions with Australia, the largest donor to the Solomon Islands. 

But within weeks, Sogavare was threatening to ban foreign media from the Solomon Islands, after critical Australian coverage of its China links, and lashing out at perceived Australian government interference. Canberra had offered, clumsily, some analysts say, to pay for the Solomon Islands elections.

Sogavare credits his formative political ideas and skills to Solomon Mamaloni, a charismatic Solomon Islands leader who died in 2000. A staunch nationalist and man of the people who chewed betel nut and drank heavily, Mamaloni distrusted the West, Australia in particular, and U.S.-dominated institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. 

Sogavare became Mamaloni’s protege in the late 1990s. Sogavare believed he was in contact with Mamaloni after his death, according to a biography of Mamaloni by Christopher Chevalier, and other sources.

“He was like a father to me, I was like his son and he taught me many things,” American anthropologist Alexis Tucker Sade quotes Sogavare as saying of Mamaloni in her 2017 doctoral dissertation on the Solomon Islands. 

Seances with spirits

In an interview with Tucker Sade, Sogavare described a four-hour encounter in his government office with Mamaloni’s spirit, one of a number of supernatural encounters with the former prime minister that Sogavare claimed to have had in the decade following his death. 

He also acknowledged being a heavy drinker around the turn of the century. Nowadays, he is widely said to abstain from alcohol.  

Sogavare’s seances are not out of the ordinary in the Solomon Islands, where strong traditional beliefs are mingled with Christianity’s emphasis on the afterlife, said Chevalier.

“He is his own man. But I don’t think he has forgotten the lessons of Mamaloni,” Chevalier said. “He has obviously learned how to strategize and how to bring people on board in the very complex horse-trading that goes on.”  

Not everyone in the Solomon Islands views the connection with Mamaloni positively. The former leader sought a strong and independent Solomon Islands, but his legacy, which at the time of his death included a country mired in corruption and ethnic strife, is debated.

“Some people may say Mamaloni is some kind of a political savior to them,” said Celsus Irokwato, an adviser to the premier of Malaita province. “I see him as one of those who have set the stage for the failures of Solomon Islands.” 

Sogavare stands out because he is unpredictable and doesn’t conform to local cultural norms for leadership, based on respect earned from constant community involvement, said Clive Moore, an emeritus professor at the University of Queensland and author of an encyclopedia of the Solomon Islands.

Sogavare’s parents were missionaries from the island of Choiseul in the Solomons, but he spent much of his early life in Papua New Guinea, where he was born in 1955, and in the Solomon Islands capital Honiara. 

“He doesn’t behave in a traditional manner. He’s a bit of a bully, I think, in the way that he yells at people, the way he yells in the parliament,” said Moore.

With his tilt to China, Sogavare may reap short-term political benefits such as from a successful staging of the Pacific Games, Moore said. But he could be storing up crises if increased Chinese involvement in the country results in economic domination rather than new skills, jobs and higher living standards for Solomon Islanders. 

“Eventually he is going to cause a big problem for another prime minister or for another government,” he said.

BenarNews is an RFA affiliated news service.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Stephen Wright for BenarNews.

Advocates for senior citizens and millions of other people who receive monthly benefits from the Social Security Administration applauded Thursday as the agency announced a historic increase in monthly payments, and called on Congress to further expand Social Security to ensure future beneficiaries can afford housing and other essentials.

"Retirees must be vigilant and make sure they are voting for candidates who will protect the benefits they earn, not put them on the chopping block."

More than 70 million people will benefit from the 8.7% cost-of-living adjustment (COLA), including about eight million children and adults who have disabilities or low incomes and receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits.

On average, beneficiaries will receive $145 more per month in response to the fastest inflation in four decades. The COLA is the largest boost to the New Deal-era program since 1981.

The agency's announcement "highlights what seniors have always known—that Social Security's automatic inflation protection is vital," said Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.), a lead sponsor of legislation to expand the program. "This increase is good news as it protects benefits against losing their purchasing power over time, but we must do more to help beneficiaries now!"

The adjustment comes as Republicans repeat false claims that Social Security is an unsustainable burden on the U.S. government, with lawmakers including Sens. Rick Scott (Fla.) and Ron Johnson (Wis.) proposing that Congress review the program every five years or annually.

"Republicans in the House and Senate and on the campaign trail are tripping over each other to put forward their own extreme and risky schemes to cut or end Social Security as we know it," said Richard Fiesta, executive director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, in a statement Thursday. "Retirees must be vigilant and make sure they are voting for candidates who will protect the benefits they earn, not put them on the chopping block."

Proponents of social safety net programs have long countered Republican attacks on Social Security, with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) noting earlier this year that the program is currently funded to pay 90% of benefits for the next 25 years and 80% of benefits for the next 75 years.

Congressional action to expand the program would ensure senior citizens now and in the future can afford necessities, said advocacy group Social Security Works, noting that other forms of income for retirees cannot be adjusted the way Social Security can.

"The annual cost of living adjustment is one of Social Security's most essential and unique features," said Nancy Altman, president of the group. "Unlike private-sector pension plans, whose benefits erode over time, Social Security is designed to keep up with rising prices."

"Unfortunately, even with today's COLA, many simply cannot make ends meet, because their earned Social Security benefits are inadequately low," Altman added. "Congress should pass legislation to protect and expand Social Security, and pay for it by requiring the wealthiest to contribute their fair share."

The vast majority of Democrats in the U.S. House have co-sponsored the Social Security 2100 Act, which would improve minimum benefits, the COLA, and benefits for people who are widowed, as well as raising the cap on payments by wealthy Americans, who contribute as little as .08% of their income to Social Security, compared to the 6.2% rate contributed by most workers.

Despite the bill's popularity and Republicans' attacks on the program ahead of the midterm elections, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has not allowed a vote on the Social Security 2100 Act.

"Social Security's annual cost of living adjustment is a reminder of how valuable Social Security is, but also of how modest the underlying benefits are," said Altman. "We must expand, not cut, benefits."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Julia Conley.

This content originally appeared on openDemocracy RSS and was authored by Serhiy Guz.

This content originally appeared on openDemocracy RSS and was authored by Noah Anthony Enahoro.

Starbucks management is reportedly planning to deny new paid leave benefits to unionized workers, another wrinkle in the company's aggressive and unlawful campaign to stamp out organizing momentum nationwide.

According to an internal memo obtained by More Perfect Union, Starbucks is set to announce Monday that it is ending Covid-19 sick pay benefits that offered employees two five-day rounds of paid leave per quarter if they contracted the virus or were exposed to it.

The memo adds that Starbucks intends to unveil new paid leave benefits that include "faster sick time accrual." However, the document states specifically that the company will attempt to exclude unionized workers from the new benefits, citing federal labor law requiring management to bargain with unions over any changes to wages, benefits, and working conditions.

Starbucks, currently led by billionaire CEO Howard Schultz, insists it is barred by federal law from "making or announcing unilateral changes," even as it unilaterally moves to end Covid-19 benefits for both unionized and nonunion employees.

"The memo suggests that Starbucks is legally permitted to unilaterally strip unionized stores of the current Covid leave benefits, but banned from implementing the new benefits in those stores," More Perfect Union notes.

Starbucks Workers United, the group leading the organizing campaign that has racked up more than 220 union wins across the U.S. since December, immediately slammed the memo as further evidence that company management "has no regard for the law."

"We are demanding that Starbucks bargain over their attempts to end Covid pay and benefits," the group wrote on Twitter. "Interesting how Starbucks claims to not legally be able to give us new benefits in THE SAME letter they unilaterally take away benefits."

"If Starbucks actually believed they couldn't give union stores new benefits unilaterally, they wouldn't be unilaterally stripping us of our benefits now," Starbucks Workers United continued. "Their goal is to retaliate against and punish union stores."

Starbucks' latest anti-union move comes as the company is facing a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) complaint for illegally denying unionized workers wage and benefit boosts that it provided to nonunion employees. A hearing in the case is scheduled for October 25.

Bloomberg Law reported earlier this month that "Workers United International President Lynne Fox sent a letter to Starbucks on behalf of union stores waiving their right to bargain over the pay and benefit changes, and calling for the company to provide them to union stores as well."

Robert Giolito, an attorney who represents Starbucks Workers United in California and Arizona, told the outlet that "Schultz's stated reason for not affording wage increases and benefits to union stores was wiped out once the union presented its waiver."

"The minute the union gave the waiver, he can give those wages and benefits," Giolito added. "But if he did that, it would undercut the entire motivation of this policy, which is to discourage unionization."

The coffee giant's plan for new sick leave benefits was reported just days after the Biden White House facilitated a deal between rail carriers and unions that—at least temporarily—averted a nationwide railroad strike. At the center of the yearslong labor dispute was paid sick leave, which—unlike other wealthy countries—the U.S. government doesn't guarantee to workers.

"This, as much as anything that has been written, emphasizes the need for the U.S. to guarantee sick workers some form of paid sick days and paid medical and family leave legislation," Eileen Appelbaum, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, said in a statement last week.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Jake Johnson.

The post The Union Advantage for Young Workers: Higher Wages and More Benefits appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Haley Brown.

To name just a couple of examples, Elon Musk went from $24.6 billion in March 2020 to $234 billion roughly two years later. The co-founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, merely doubled their wealth—to nearly $114 billion and $109 billion, respectively.

While the ultra-rich were enjoying huge gains, the taxes they pay have been anything but. Those at the very top have been averaging federal income taxes of just 8.2 percent, “a lower rate than many ordinary Americans pay.” Congress has been a major helpmate, offering an array of tax giveaways that overwhelmingly favor people with money—from the mega-rich all the way down to the garden variety rich.

One of the biggest breaks, heavy with irony, is the fact that taxes are higher on work income than they are on wealth income (e.g., income from capital gains and dividends). The maximum rate on long-term capital gains is only 20%, compared to 37% on earned income such as wages.

Some of the irony comes straight from history. Over a generation ago, in the Tax Reform Act of 1986, the Republican icon Ronald Reagan equalized taxes on capital gains and other income. It was Democrat Bill Clinton who went back to the old way, cutting capital gains rates.

There’s plenty of talk (most recently from President Biden) about bringing back equal taxes, but it hasn’t come close to happening. What’s close to happening instead is yet another handout to the retired rich.

More than two years ago, on April 13, 2020, Daily News readers came across this headline: “The coronavirus stimulus was a bonanza for well-off retirees.” The story was about required distributions from retirement accounts being waived for a year, including, of course, the taxes that come with them. The 2020 move was a blip, a temporary bonanza; what’s now on deck, needing only Senate approval, is a permanent three-year pushback. Instead of starting at age 72, taxable required distributions wouldn’t begin until age 75.

It’s the key provision in the Securing a Strong Retirement Act of 2022. Every Democrat in the House voted for it, the only nays coming from five Republicans. Daniel Hemel, a tax professor at the NYU School of Law, called it “a deeply cynical deficit-expanding giveaway to high-income taxpayers…Progressives and deficit hawks alike should say no to this gimmicky.”

Tax lawyer Robert Lord spoke to the corruption of the 1974 law that first established retirement accounts: “What started out as a well-designed program to help ordinary Americans…has been transformed by the financial industry, the rich people they serve, and those carrying water for them in Congress. Today, IRAs and retirement plans…function primarily as vehicles to further enrich America’s wealthiest.”

Figures compiled by the Tax Policy Center back up Lord’s claim: “[A]lmost 90% of tax breaks for retirement savings go to the highest-income 20% of U.S. households, a group that would save anyway.”

Tax expert Len Burman also weighed in on the new Secure Act, calling it “regressive and a budget scam. It’s scored as revenue neutral, but it will cost billions in lost revenue outside the ‘budget window.’”

In the end, it’s just another slap in the face to tax fairness. Only the particulars make it any different from all the other slaps that already litter the tax code. (There’s already one more in the making, a bipartisan Senate cryptocurrency bill that includes “a huge tax avoidance opportunity for those involved in the crypto business.”)

Nothing is more subjective than taxes, and the conservative publisher Steve Forbes once offered his own special take: “The tax code is a monstrosity and there’s only one thing to do with it. Scrap it, kill it, drive a stake through its heart, bury it and hope it never rises again to terrorize the American people.”

Few would have suspected that the tax code itself — over time and with constant help from Congress — would become one of the most generous friends the rich ever had.

• This article first appeared at www.nydailynews.com.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Gerald E. Scorse.

Progressive policy analyst Matt Bruenig on Thursday pointed to a little-noticed detail in Sen. Marco Rubio's so-called "pro-family framework," which the Florida Republican released late last month to expand on the GOP's vision for the country as millions of people are forced to continue unwanted pregnancies following the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

A key element of the plan is Rubio's proposal for "paid" family leave, which he developed in 2018 with former presidential adviser Ivanka Trump.

"Cassidy and Rubio are really just proposing parental leave loans."

As Common Dreams reported at the time, Rubio's plan would offer employees eight to 12 weeks off of work to take care of their families, but those weeks would be paid for by the workers themselves by dipping into their Social Security accounts.

The proposal was panned when it was released in 2018, with the Urban Institute noting it would cut retirement benefits by 3% to 10% over the course of Americans' later years.

Bruenig, founder of the progressive think tank People's Policy Project, noted an even more "cruel" provision in the plan which would affect parents who die after using the benefit and before they reach old age.

"In order for Rubio's proposal to truly be budget-neutral, he needs the Social Security Administration (SSA) to be able to recover all of the parental leave benefits it pays out," Bruenig explained. "For people who live long enough to claim Social Security, this is easy enough: The SSA recovers the leave benefits by docking their Social Security checks."

For people who die before they are able to collect Social Security benefits, however, "all of the parental benefits they received during their life are deemed overpayments and the SSA makes their estate pay them back."

"So when mom or dad tragically dies a few years after having their third kid, the surviving spouse will have to send a big fat check to the SSA," Bruenig wrote.

Ryan Cooper of The American Prospect marveled at "the level of casual malevolence you need" to concoct such a funding mechanism, while political scientist Kevin Elliott wrote that for the Republican Party, "literally anything is thinkable except raising taxes on rich people."

Patrick T. Brown of the Ethics and Public Policy Center suggested that future versions of Rubio's proposal, like one proposed by Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), might amend the provision regarding premature death, but Bruenig wrote that their plan "would have the same problem assuming they actually tried to stick to the cost-neutral commitment."

"Cassidy and Rubio are really just proposing parental leave loans," said Bruenig. "It's all unworkable in various ways."

The Republicans' insistence on requiring parents to pay for their leave through their Social Security "is bizarre for a lot of reasons," Bruenig added, noting that an actual paid leave program "would cost very little and could almost certainly be funded by increasing the payroll tax by 0.1 to 0.2 percentage points."

Bruenig also took aim at Rubio's plan for the Child Tax Credit (CTC), the expansion of which helped millions of families afford groceries and other essentials last year before the monthly payments were cut due to right-wing opposition.

Under Rubio's plan, the full CTC benefit would only be offered to parents who earn more than $29,412 per year, and parents with no earnings—those who are likely to be most in need of financial support—would be eligible for no benefits.

"It is hard to understand how creating a child benefit that excludes the most desperate families is meant to be a 'pro-life benefit' aimed at helping people who, post-Dobbs, are unable to receive abortion services," wrote Bruenig. "Abortion is most prevalent among young women with very low or no earnings, including many young women who are still in education."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Julia Conley.

The post Lack of Universal Childcare and Other Family Benefits Hurts LGBT Parents and Caregivers appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Julia Godfrey, Julia Yixia Cai and Shawn Fremstad.

Republican politicians are scared to death. They seek to create a smoke-filled room to provide political cover. Of what issue are they so terrified? Social Security.

Republicans never acknowledge that they support slashing and even ending Social Security.

Republican politicians say they support Social Security. They say they want to eliminate its projected shortfall. But do they offer a substantive proposal? Absolutely not. Instead, they hide behind process to avoid political accountability.

They want Democrats to hide with them behind closed doors. The goal is to come up with an unamendable package, supported by Democrats, that is full of benefit cuts and gives Republicans political cover to rob working families of their earned benefits. Fortunately, the Democrats will have no part of it.

Democratic policymakers are offering concrete proposals for all the world to see. They are begging their Republican colleagues to release a proposal of their own.

The Democrats are calling the Republicans' bluff, but the Republicans are refusing to show their cards. Why? Because they are afraid. The reason they are so afraid is not hard to see. They are radically out of step with their own voters.

As polarized as Americans are over many issues, poll after poll shows that an overwhelming majority of Americans—Republicans, as well as Democrats and Independents—believe that Social Security is more important than ever. They strongly oppose any and all cuts. They want to see benefits expanded. And they want the wealthiest to pay their fair share.

Of course, Republicans never acknowledge that they support slashing and even ending Social Security. Instead, they offer vague platitudes, professing their love for Social Security; they attack Democratic proposals; and they seek, as Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) proposes in his so-called TRUST Act, to create closed-door, smoke-filled rooms to do their dirty work without political accountability.

Or, they propose, as Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) has, to require Congress to reauthorize Social Security every five years. That would undermine the Social Security guarantee, causing enormous insecurity for millions of beneficiaries. It would offer Social Security's opponents in Congress enormous leverage to make draconian cuts even when they are not in control, thanks to the non-constitutional requirement of 60 votes in the Senate for nearly everything.

In true Orwellian fashion, Scott proposes, as part of his plan, "Force Congress to issue a report every year telling the public what they plan to do when Social Security and Medicare go bankrupt." It is as if he is not part of Congress, at all. In truth, Social Security cannot go bankrupt but it is projecting a manageable shortfall, still over a decade away. The Democrats have put several plans on the table. What is your plan, Sen. Scott?

Republican efforts to hide their desire to cut benefits were on full display at last week's Senate Budget Committee hearing on Social Security.

On the same day as the hearing, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and six of their colleagues introduced the Social Security Expansion Act. That legislation increases benefits by $200 a month for current and future beneficiaries. Among other provisions, it updates the minimum benefit, so no one will retire into poverty after a lifetime of work. It also updates the way the cost-of-living adjustment is calculated to make it more accurate—so important in this time of high inflation.

he Social Security Expansion Act pays for every penny of those benefit increases. It completely eliminates Social Security's projected shortfall, so that all benefits will be paid in full and on time for the next three quarters of a century and beyond.

How does it accomplish all of this? Not by crouching in the shadows. It openly proposes requiring those with incomes over $250,000 to pay their fair share.

During the hearing, Republican senators were eager to state their opposition to the Social Security Expansion Act. Romney proudly proclaimed, "This bill has no chance whatsoever of receiving a single Republican vote in either House."

So what do Romney and his fellow Republicans propose instead? The so-called TRUST Act: A commission, whose recommendations would be unamendable, subject to a simple up-or-down vote, that Romney wants us to trust with our earned benefits.

Disingenuously, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) suggested a Senate vote pitting the Social Security Expansion Act against the TRUST Act. These are not in any way comparable measures. One is a comprehensive plan for Social Security's future, the other is a cowardly retreat behind closed doors.

During the hearing, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) politely but forcefully called out the hypocrisy which all could see:

"What Sen. Sanders has done is put together a plan. On the table, open to everybody firing at it. if people don't like it, they can say why they don't like it. But it seems to me the beginning of this conversation needs to be an alternative plan from our Republican colleagues. Put your plan on the table so we can discuss it. Not something discussed behind closed doors."

The last Republican to offer a substantive bill was the late Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Texas). He introduced his proposal in the lame duck session, when he was retiring. How many co-sponsors did he get? None.

Why? Because the bill was transparent and honest. It slashed benefits while transforming the program from wage insurance where benefits are related to earnings to a program where benefits are low and subsistence level for all. Revealingly, the Johnson plan cuts benefits by a larger amount and a decade and a half sooner than if Congress took no action whatsoever.

This plan isn't just a relic of 2016. Sixteen Republicans from extremely safe congressional districts have just released a budget that essentially incorporates the Johnson Social Security plan, massively slashing Social Security benefits (notwithstanding that Social Security, by law, is not part of the federal budget, but its own, self-funded pension plan). 

They call for a vote on the entire budget. If they really mean what they say, they should introduce their Social Security plan as a stand-alone bill. Then, the House should vote on competing proposals for Social Security: The Republican plan to cut benefits, and Rep. John Larson's (D-Conn.) plan to expand benefits.

Larson is the author of the Social Security 2100 Act, which is co-sponsored by over 200 of his colleagues. Like the Sanders bill, the Larson bill provides an across-the-board benefit increase, and a number of targeted increases. It pays for every penny of improvement, and cuts the projected shortfall in half. It does all of this by requiring only those earning over $400,000 to pay more.

The public deserves to know where their representatives stand before they head to the polls in November. If I were the Speaker, I would issue a public challenge to the 16 conservative Republicans: Introduce your Social Security proposal as legislation, and let's have a vote on it and the Larson bill, head-to-head. 

I would be surprised, though, if the Republicans accepted the challenge. They know that, while their donors would be happy, their voters would not.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Nancy J. Altman.

Starbucks management has reportedly threatened employees with the loss of trans-inclusive health benefits if they vote to unionize their shops, drawing a formal complaint from workers as the union officially reached 150 election victories across the United States on Tuesday.

Just last month, Starbucks—which has offered trans-inclusive benefits since 2012—announced it would cover travel expenses for employees who obtain gender-affirming care out of state, a decision that came as a growing number of Republican-controlled state legislatures moved to pass anti-trans legislation.

"We feel powerless on a state level. Unionizing our store at least gives us something small to grab onto, that we can make our store a safe place."

But it now appears that Starbucks is trying to wield those health benefits as a weapon against union organizing, which has reached hundreds of the company's locations across the United States.

"Starbucks is telling its baristas that unionizing could jeopardize the gender-affirming healthcare coverage for transgender employees that the company offers, according to a complaint filed with the federal labor board," CNBC reported Tuesday.

Bloomberg, which first reported the complaint filed by Workers United, noted that "Starbucks Corp. managers in several states have told baristas that its vaunted transgender-inclusive healthcare benefits could go away if they unionize." The Workers United complaint alleges that Starbucks has engaged in unlawful coercion by "threatening employees with loss of benefits."

Neha Cremi, a Starbucks employee in Oklahoma—a state that has enacted a series of anti-trans measures in recent months—said that Starbucks "realizes that we as trans partners feel particularly vulnerable at this time" and is attempting to exploit that vulnerability.

"I think that in some cases they are willing to take advantage of that," said Cremi. "We feel powerless on a state level. Unionizing our store at least gives us something small to grab onto, that we can make our store a safe place."

Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, called Starbucks' latest union-busting tactic "disgusting."

Former Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner wrote on Twitter that she has heard from several baristas in Cleveland about Starbucks' threats against trans health benefits.

"If you're willing to play around with trans-inclusive care as it relates to unionization," Turner wrote, "not only do you not respect your employees, you don’t truly don’t recognize the humanity of your trans employees."

Starbucks has ramped up its aggressive anti-union push in recent weeks as workers in state after state have moved to exercise their collective bargaining rights, persisting in the face of management's ongoing campaign to slash benefits, cut hours, and shut down entire locations.

Last week, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz signaled that he has no intention of cooperating with unionized shops despite legal requirements to bargain in good faith. The National Labor Relations Board has accused Starbucks of violating federal law hundreds of times over the past six months, but the company does not seem deterred.

"We are in business to exceed the expectations of our customers," Schultz said during a New York Times event on Thursday. "The customer experience will be significantly challenged and less than if a third party is integrated into our business."

On Tuesday, Starbucks Workers United announced that the union has officially scored 150 election victories nationwide as organizing momentum continues to grow in the wake of historic wins in Buffalo in December.

"For context," the group noted, "there were ZERO unionized Starbucks stores six months ago."

Starbucks Workers United at Massapequa, New York recalled that when it first filed for a union election in February, just 60 other locations had done the same. That number is now in the hundreds—and the union has won an overwhelming majority of elections held thus far.

"Absolutely incredible," the Massapequa branch said. "So proud of everyone who has been part of this."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Jake Johnson.

The childcare and universal pre-K provisions included in a $1.75 trillion package passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in November would hugely benefit not only families but also the American economy, businesses, and state governments.

"It's arguably the single most important thing we can do for families emerging from the pandemic and returning to work."

That's according to a report published Monday by the Century Foundation (TCF) and Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) as the Build Back Better (BBB) package remains stalled in the evenly split Senate due to Republicans and a few right-wing Democrats.

"The pandemic has only highlighted a decades-old issue: The United States does not have a childcare and early education system," said report co-author Julie Kashen in a statement. "Families are struggling to meet the high cost of care, while facing rising costs of other necessities, and it's harder than ever to find quality care when and where they need it."

"Families have mostly been piecemealing it," the TCF senior fellow and director of women's economic justice told the Politico newsletter "Morning Shift." She noted that "more than half of all families live in childcare deserts where there just isn't enough licensed childcare for every child."

"This isn't just a problem for families—it's holding businesses and our economy back," Kashen added in her statement. "Our study shows that federal investments in childcare and pre-K are a win-win-win. It's arguably the single most important thing we can do for families emerging from the pandemic and returning to work."

The BBB proposals, as the study highlights, "would lower childcare costs for nine out of 10 families with young children in the United States while improving the quality of the early education they receive, raising wages of poorly compensated childcare workers, and covering the costs associated with higher quality care."

"Universal preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds will finally be available, and parents will have the choice to find the right program for their family in center-based, home-based, family-based, school-based, and Head Start programs," the report continues. "The programs build on federal-state partnerships, setting federal parameters while providing states with funding and flexibility to build the early childhood education system that families have long needed."

The analysis shows that BBB's policies would provide:

• $48 billion in increases to economic output from increased parental employment;
• $60 billion in gains for businesses and state tax revenue from decreased childcare-related disruptions; and
• at least a $30 billion boost to the economy from the expansion of the childcare sector and related indirect and induced job increases.

Lack of affordable, reliable childcare reduces the hours that parents—particularly mothers—are able to work, and can even push them out of the U.S. labor force entirely, the report explains.

"This in turn causes interruptions to job and career advancement, including lost promotions and raises, lost opportunities to build new skills and expertise, and contributes to the motherhood earnings penalty," the study states. "Over the lifecourse, it means lower retirement savings and higher poverty rates for mothers than for fathers as they age."

"Due to the intersecting impact of interpersonal discrimination and other forms of racism, Black and Latina mothers have faced even more acute challenges than their white counterparts," the analysis adds, "as have working-class mothers of all ethnicities and races when compared to upper-middle-class and higher-income mothers."

The study suggests that the BBB policies "could lead to roughly three million more parents—mostly mothers—entering the labor force or increasing their work hours nationally (about 1.1 million due to new entries and two million due to increased hours)."

The researchers calculated benefits across all 50 U.S. states and found:

On a state-by-state basis, the estimated earnings increase among parents entering the workforce or increasing work hours ranges from around $70 million a year in Vermont and Wyoming to $1.8 billion in Illinois, $1.7 billion in Pennsylvania, $1.8 billion in New Jersey, and more than $2 billion in states with higher populations such as California ($6.7 billion), Florida ($2.4 billion), New York ($3.1 billion), and Texas ($4.5 billion). These income benefits would have a ripple effect, raising additional tax revenue and encouraging new spending in local economies.

While focusing on the policies' shorter-term benefits to families, the economy, employers, and state governments, the report emphasizes that "it is crucial to acknowledge that there are additional longer-term economic benefits for the children and communities impacted."

The childcare and universal pre-K proposals "will support children's healthy development, family economic security, and gender and racial equity," the study declares, concluding that "they are also essential to helping state economies grow and prosper."

The analysis was released the day before Kashen is set to testify on such policies before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP).

Though Republicans and Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) oppose the House-approved BBB bill, progressives are calling on Senate Democrats to keep working to pass a bold package before this year's midterm elections.

Over 120 advocacy groups wrote in a recent letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) that "now is the moment to do everything in your power to ensure that we get the best, most inclusive reconciliation bill possible across the finish line."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Jessica Corbett.

ANALYSIS: By Bryce Edwards

How determined are Labour to take the necessary steps to fix inequality and poverty? Will electoral calculations triumph over their principles and stated ambitions?

These are some of the questions being asked on the political left, as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s government looks determined to stand by while social problems continue to get worse under their watch.

During their last term in government, Ardern and colleagues failed to be transformational on their key promise of fixing inequality and poverty. And now they are choosing policies that massively increase inequality, while ignoring the plight of those at the bottom.

• READ MORE: ‘You can’t eat kindness’

That’s why this week more than 60 charities and NGOs made an open plea to the government to increase welfare benefits before Christmas.

Despite the extraordinary conditions at the moment, Ardern response was a firm “no”. Poverty advocates say Labour should be “ashamed”, with many suggesting that the prime minister’s own advocacy of kindness and compassion is directly contradicted by her actual decisions.

Writing in The New Zealand Herald today, Matthew Hooton argues that the poverty advocates “have a point” in their dissatisfaction, as “Ardern’s response to these issues is unsatisfactory”. He argues that this week’s rejection of benefit increases “has prompted the first mini-rebellion on her left”.

Hooton is particularly dismissive of Ardern’s plea for more time to consider benefit levels: “she says more ‘work’ is needed but it is not clear what ‘work’ is required to make a basic decision on benefit levels.

Why is more ‘work’ needed?
Ruth Richardson, after all, took just 53 days after the October 27 1990 election to announce her benefit cuts. It is not obvious why any more “work” is needed to make the opposite decision.

In any case, the “work” was presumably already done in Ardern’s now eight and a half years in the children’s portfolio and by her [Welfare Expert Advisory Group].”

So should the left be rebelling? And is Labour putting hanging on to power above tackling poverty? Hooton seems to believe so: “The Prime Minister just emotes her usual concern.

“This is not economically or socially sustainable — and surely not politically sustainable either. There must come a time when Ardern’s own political base demands something more on such issues than her frowny-concerned face.

“It will be another 100 years before Labour again wins a mandate like the one Ardern secured last month. If she won’t act now on the issues she says concern her, left-wing activists will be entitled to ask whether hungry children and young couples struggling to buy a house really mean anything to her beyond being useful walk-on parts during election campaigns.”

Similarly, writing in the National Business Review yesterday, Brent Edwards says the debate “is a pointed rejoinder to Ardern from those who do not believe she is as committed to reducing child poverty as her rhetoric suggests”, and he argues that the decision to keep benefits down is unsurprising, given that Ardern’s decisions are guided by electoral considerations.

Brent Edwards contrasts the benefit decision with the first policy announcement of the Finance Minister: “Grant Robertson announced the Cabinet had decided to extend the small business cashflow loan scheme, which was due to end next month, for another three years and extend the interest-free period from one to two years.

Wooing the business community
“It is also looking at other changes to make the scheme more accessible for small businesses. It was the new government’s first decision of this term and is part of its attempt to woo the business community.”

So, just how long will beneficiaries and others in poverty have to wait until Labour delivers? Today’s Stuff newspaper editorial asks: “It takes more than one term to solve it, but will it take more than two?”

The editorial says Ardern is risking damage to her own brand by talking about kindness but doing the opposite: “Poverty advocates are used to hearing governments say one thing about poverty, especially the emotionally powerful issue of child poverty, but do another.”

They also ask: “What is the political cost of kindness? Or conversely, what is the political cost of doing nothing?”

Poverty advocates are understandably upset by Ardern’s rejection of action on poverty, and some are starting to speak out strongly against her and the government. Auckland Action Against Poverty’s coordinator Brooke Stanley Pao has said that Ardern is “choosing to keep people and families in poverty”.

According to this article, Pao “challenged the prime minister and other politicians to try and live on the current benefit for a month and ‘see how they find themselves’.”

Brooke Stanley Pao also wrote about this just prior to the election, saying, “You can’t eat kindness“. Responding to Ardern’s mantra, she says “We want more than kindness. We want the political bravery necessary to lift people out of poverty. Anything else is lip service.”

Leftwing bloggers losing faith
Other leftwing bloggers are losing their faith that Labour and Ardern really believe in progressive politics. For example, No Right Turn says: “The message is clear: their ‘kindness’ extends only to rich people, who will be exempted from paying their fair share of the costs of the pandemic (or society in general).

“As for poor kids, they can keep on starving. Which once again invites the question: what is Labour for, exactly, if they’re not going to ever deliver anything?”

The Child Poverty Action Group reports “the dismayed, disappointed and, in some cases, furious response to its dismissal” of benefit increases by Ardern and asks of the Government, “What, exactly, are they waiting for?”

She argues that increased payments would have an immediate impact on alleviating poverty.

McAllister also draws attention to the Government making decisions in the Covid environment that are likely to worsen inequality while ignoring the needs of those at the bottom: “Using children as economic shock absorbers – that’s unreasonable.

“Covid-response policies that stretch inequity even further – that’s unreasonable. Child Poverty Action Group research this year has shown that core entitlements for those receiving benefits are mostly far below key poverty lines, and in some cases will be tipping people into severest poverty.

“We modelled a scenario that shows 70,000 additional children are at risk of poverty due to Covid-19 on current policy settings.”

Why Labour is ‘tinkering’
For more on what Janet McAllister thinks is wrong with the current government policies, see Why Labour’s tinkering of our welfare system just isn’t enough.

Looking back at what Labour have implemented over the last term, she concludes: “By themselves, these policies are disappointing. It’s still just tinkering around the edges and far from big, bold moves to cut the mustard.

“They’re of no use to many of our poorest families.”

Another poverty advocate, Max Rashbrooke of Victoria University of Wellington, has written in The Guardian about how disappointed he is with progress on child poverty under the government, and how things look set to get worse unless policies are implemented that live up to the lofty targets set by Ardern.

The problem according to Rashbrooke is that Ardern “has relied largely on the ‘third way’ policies of her Labour predecessor, Helen Clark, in her fight against child poverty.”

And so although there has been some “modest progress” on some poverty measures, these are essentially the result of picking the low-hanging fruit. He points to Treasury modelling showing that “the number of families in ‘material hardship’ – those reporting they are unable to afford basic items – will ‘rise sharply’.”

Is it true that the government can’t afford to increase benefits? Not according to business journalist Bernard Hickey, whose must-read column this week argues that Ardern and Robertson seem determined to massively increase inequality by following outdated economic philosophies.

Making homeowners richer
He asks: “Is it more important that homeowners are $100 billion richer? Or that hundreds of thousands of children are left unnecessarily in poverty?”

Here’s Hickey’s main point: “It is bizarre that a Labour government and a Reserve Bank that talk a big game on their social responsibilities and sustainability are choosing to pump up to $150 billion into increasing housing market valuations for the richest half of New Zealanders who own homes, but don’t think they can afford increasing benefits at a cost of $5.2 billion for the hundreds of thousands of kids and their parents living in poverty.”

He points out that “economists as conservative as those at the OECD, the IMF and the World Bank are now begging Governments to do things differently by spending money on the poor and on infrastructure, rather than just pumping up asset prices to make the rich even richer.”

Hickey also refers to a report out this week with findings from the Growing Up in New Zealand longitudinal study. You can read the report here: Now we are eight: Life in middle childhood.

Hickey sums up the inequality findings: “Nearly 40 per cent are living in cold, mouldy and damp homes. About a third are obese. About 20 per cent of the families surveyed did not have enough money to eat properly.

“Nearly 15 per cent of the eight-year-olds had already moved school twice, largely because of having to move from one rental property to the next.”

Not everyone is criticising Labour’s rejection of benefit increases. Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking says that giving into such a demand would take the government down a “slippery slope”, and be too expensive for little real gain.

Urgent need for relief
There is no doubt there is urgent need for relief for those at the bottom. And this week the Auckland City Mission launched a campaign to replenish their run-down stocks of food, noting that prior to covid they estimated “10 percent of Kiwis experienced food insecurity on a regular basis.

“Due to covid-19, it believes the figure is now closer to 20 percent – or one million people – who do not have enough good food to eat on a weekly basis.”

And today it’s being reported that the government’s two-tier welfare payments have come to an end.

Finally, what’s to be done about poverty and inequality, given this government has no great interest in being transformational on this issue? According to veteran leftwing commentator Chris Trotter, “it’s time for some ‘earnest struggle’”. He argues that Labour will only ever carry out leftwing reforms if they are forced to.

Trotter wants to see less reliance on appeals to Ardern and Robertson to “be kind”, and more mass marches down Auckland’s Queen St.

Dr Bryce Edwards is a New Zealand-based political scientist of reliability and prominence. His analysis and commentary is regularly published on EveningReport.nz. This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre with permission.