Economy -- A Divided Dream

January 18, 2008

by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Satyam Khanna, Matt Corley, and Ali Frick

ECONOMY

A Divided Dream

In 1994, Congress passed the King Holiday and Service Act honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with a national day of service, in order to "bring together people who might not ordinarily meet" and "break down barriers that have divided us in the past." Unfortunately, over recent years, some of those barriers have increased, and the divide between African-Americans and whites on economic and health issues has widened. Under Bush's tenure, economic gains have been tilted significantly towards the wealthy at the expense of lower-income minorities. "How have African Americans fared since conservatives have been in charge of the economy? Not very well. Their increases across key economic indicators have been slower under Bush as compared to the 1990s." Today, in the shadow of MLK Day, President Bush is unveiling an economic stimulus package that takes some steps in the right direction but fails to do enough for the economy or help those most in need.

AN ECONOMY FOR THE PRIVILEGED: In the wake of poor economic indicators, the White House has tried to focus on more positive aspects of the economy. For example, Bush proclaimed in late December: "Unemployment is a low 4.7 percent. ... And the fundamentals of our economy are strong." But unemployment isn't "low" for African-Americans, and the "fundamentals" of the economy look very different from the perspective of many African-Americans. In 2007, the unemployment level of African-Americans stood at a distressing 8.3 percent, while for white Americans, it hovered at 4.1 percent. These levels have increased by an average of 0.2 percent each year under Bush after declining in the 1990s. Furthermore, more African-Americans were mired more deeply in poverty in 2006 than in 2000, in contrast to the strong improvement of the 1990s. In 2006, African Americans' median income was $32,132 -- $2,603 lower than their median income of $34,735 in 2000. Between 2000 and 2006, the number of employed African Americans grew on average by just 0.7 percent annually, compared to 2.8 percent between 1992 and 2000. Fortunately, last year, Congress raised the minimum wage, and minority women will most likely be amongst the biggest beneficiaries. Fully 33 percent of women earning minimum wage are African-American or Hispanic.

HOMEOWNERSHIP WOES: The recent housing crisis has disproportionately affected blacks, as they are traditionally more likely to get a mortgage loan from a sub-prime than a prime lender. For example, "African-Americans of all income levels were twice as likely or more than twice as likely to receive high-cost loans as whites" in 171 metropolitan areas in 2005, according to the National Community Reinvestment Coalition. Furthermore, the increase in African-American homeownership has been slower under Bush than in the 1990s. For example, "the homeownership rate for whites increased three times faster than the homeownership rate for African-Americans between 2000 and 2006." During this time, the homeownership rate for African-Americans increased by an average annual growth rate of just 0.1 percent. Compare this number to the 1990s, when African-Americans' homeownership rate increased by an average annual growth rate of 0.8 percent from 1994 to 2000.

ONGOING LACK OF HEALTH INSURANCE: Under Bush's watch, the percent of African-Americans without health insurance has increased from 18.5 percent to 20.5 percent. In the fight against AIDS, for example -- a disease that disproportionately affects African-Americans -- Bush has failed to address the issue in the eyes of the African-American community. Forty-nine percent say the United States is "losing ground" on the domestic AIDS epidemic; half also say that HIV/AIDS is a more urgent problem in their community than it was a few years ago. The new Congress has made strides in addressing some of these disparities. Legislation such as the State Children's Health Insurance Reauthorization -- which Bush vetoed twice, thereby depriving four million children of health care -- is crucial for covering African-American uninsured children. Meanwhile, the administration is doing its best to impede efforts to improve coverage for low-income African-Americans and other groups, blocking efforts by Ohio and other states to expand Medicaid coverage.

IRAQ -- ARMY CHIEF OF STAFF SAYS SURGE 'SUCKED ALL OF THE FLEXIBILITY' FROM THE ARMY: The White House, Pentagon, and senior military officials made the decision last September "to begin a slow withdrawal of troops from Iraq." But now President Bush said he is "open to slowing or stopping the withdrawal of troops to avoid jeopardizing recent security gains in Iraq." This rethinking of strategy comes as Army Chief of Staff George Casey and other high-ranking officials "worry the high troop levels in Iraq are causing growing manpower strains on the army." In an interview last week, Casey told the Wall Street Journal that escalation has "sucked all of the flexibility out of the system" and the Army must "find a way of getting back into balance." The Center for American Progress's Lawrence Korb and Brian Katulis write that that the administration's current debate is merely "tinkering at the margins." As Casey's assertion makes clear, the United States is not prepared to keep several hundred thousand troops deployed in Iraq indefinitely and therefore must "begin an orderly withdrawal of U.S. forces." Korb and Katulis conclude that such a withdrawal "is necessary if the United States is to improve its overall security posture in the Middle East and the world." "For this reason," they write, "we need to begin drawing down all of our military forces in Iraq. Only then will we achieve the balance Gen. Casey says is necessary."

CIVIL RIGHTS -- CONGRESS INTRODUCES BILL TO FIGHT VOTER CAGING: Yesterday, House Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers (D-MI) introduced the Caging Prohibition Act of 2008, a bill that would target the insidious tactic of "voter caging, which is used to challenge the legitimacy of voter registrations. "Voter caging is a practice by which mail is sent to a registered voter's address and, if the mail is returned as 'undeliverable' or if it is delivered and the voter does not respond, his or her registration is challenged in order to suppress voter turnout," explained Conyers's office. The tactic recently gained public attention after allegations surfaced that former U.S. attorney Tim Griffin championed its use in 2004, when he was research director of the Republican National Committee. Griffin oversaw a scheme in Florida that attempted to disenfranchise African-American servicemembers. Among other provisions, Conyers's bill designates voter caging as a felony, carrying fines up to $250,000 and five years imprisonment. In November, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) introduced a similar bill in the Senate.

MEDIA -- JOHN GIBSON CELEBRATES INCREASE IN 'ANGLO' BIRTH RATE, ASKS 'DO YOU STILL THINK I'M A RACIST?': In May 2006, Fox News host John Gibson sparked controversy when he claimed on air that in "twenty-five years...the majority of the population [will be] Hispanic" because "Hispanics are having more kids than others" and "white people are having fewer." Worried about the demographic shift in America, Gibson urged his audience to "do your duty. Make more babies." On his radio show Wednesday, Gibson returned to the controversy, touting an Associated Press article about the "baby boomlet" in the United States in 2006, as vindication for his call that "the dominant, or largest, population sector, which is Caucasians" should "make more babies." Declaring, "I was right," Gibson celebrated the increased birth rate of "non-Hispanic white women." Gibson also complained about his critics who called him a "racist" for his May 2006 comments. "I was simply saying look what happened in Europe," said Gibson. Immigrants "having kids like crazy" meant "England wasn't looking so British anymore" because "Anglos" and "selfish white people weren't going through the hard work of having babies." He closed the segment by asking his "drooling left-wing" critics if they "still think I'm a racist."

The House Oversight Committee announced yesterday that it will hold hearings on missing White House e-mails. Responding to White House claims that there is "no evidence" of missing emails, Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) released "an internal White House study" identifying "473 separate days in which no electronic messages were stored" by White House offices.

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee defended South Carolina's right to display the confederate flag on public grounds. "You don't like people from outside the state coming in and telling you what to do with your flag," he said. "If somebody came to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag, we'd tell them what to do with the pole; that's what we'd do."

The Washington Post reveals the coal industry's multi-million dollar campaign "in primary and caucus states to rally public support for coal-fired electricity and to fuel opposition to legislation that Congress is crafting to slow climate change." Americans for Balanced Energy Choices, a coal front group, has already spent $1.3 million on ads in Iowa, Nevada, and South Carolina.

CNN reported yesterday that "lobbyists are working overdrive in Washington trying to make sure that their cash cows are not affected by any economic stimulus plan."

"About 75% of Baghdad’s neighborhoods are now secure, a dramatic increase from 8% a year ago when President Bush ordered more troops to the capital, U.S. military figures show."

Approximately "10% to 20% of Marines and soldiers returning from Afghanistan and Iraq may have suffered" traumatic brain injury. Yet according to an Army task force study released yesterday, there are "major gaps" in identifying and treating the injury that "were created by a lack of coordination and policy-driven approaches."

"Because of an unprecedented surge in immigration applications last summer, legal immigrants will have to wait much longer during the next two years to receive visas or naturalization papers." The average wait time is now 18 months, "up from 7 months or less last year."

The House Select Committee on Global Warming called on the Interior Department yesterday "to hold off auctioning oil and gas leases in northwest Alaska's Chuckchi Sea until the department decides whether to list polar bears as threatened under the Endangered Species Act." "Every time there is a choice between extinction and extraction in this administration, extraction wins," Chairman Edward Markey (D-MA) said.

"The CIA has concluded that members of al-Qaeda and allies of Pakistani tribal leader Baitullah Mehsud were responsible for last month's assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto," according to CIA director Michael Hayden. He also said the groups were "behind a new wave of violence threatening that country's stability."

The Washington Post reports that FEMA has reversed course again on what to do with its Katrina trailers. After originally purchasing 145,000 trailers and then selling them at steep discounts because communities refused them, FEMA is now seeking to repurchase them at the original price "because of concerns that the trailers are tainted with formaldehyde."

And finally: Yesterday, Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) "launched into a lengthy question to Ben Bernanke during the Fed chairman's House testimony." "Seeing as how you were the former CEO Of Goldman Sachs," Kaptur began before being "quickly stopped by Mr. Bernanke and the laughter in the room." "I've got the wrong firm?" she asked, before being corrected that she was thinking of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. Said Mr. Bernanke: "I was the CEO of the Princeton Economics Department." (Watch the video here.)

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House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) yesterday introduced the Caging Prohibition Act of 2008, which would outlaw the practice of voter caging.

TEXAS: State leads nation in wind power capacity.

FLORIDA: "Florida's Save Our Homes amendment has helped the state's wealthiest homeowners the most."

MONTANA: "A climate scientist's speech to high school students was canceled" over concerns that "the Nobel Peace Prize laureate's message on climate change would be 'anti-agriculture.'"

KANSAS: "Religious conservatives have dusted off a largely forgotten 1887 state law that allows citizens to launch grand jury investigations" to "turn Kansas into one of the nation's biggest abortion battlegrounds."

THINK PROGRESS: Former White House adviser Karl Rove fails to mention President Bush's name even once during his speech.

THE BLOTTER: Gen. Tommy Franks received $100,000 to endorse a failed veterans charity.

CREW BLOG: CREW and Media Matters tell CNN to exclude "proven liar" Ralph Reed from its political coverage.

NEWSHOUNDS: Fox News's John Gibson attacks The New York Times, saying if it "can't take an argument with" Bill Kristol, "how can it face down Al Qaeda?"

"I think, to the best of what all the analysis we've been able to do, we have absolutely no reason to believe that any e-mails are missing."
-- White House spokesman Tony Fratto, 1/17/08

VERSUS

"Tony Fratto is lying. There is considerable evidence demonstrating that millions of White House emails are missing from between 2003 and 2005; in fact, White House spokesperson Dana Perino confirmed this in a previous statement, televised on April 13, 2007."
-- CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan, 1/17/08

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