http://select.nytimes.com/2006/07/24/opinion/24krugman.html?th&emc=th
Black and Blue By PAUL KRUGMAN Published: July 24, 2006 According to the White House transcript, here's how it went last week, when President Bush addressed the N.A.A.C.P. for the first time: THE PRESIDENT: "I understand that many African-Americans distrust my political party." AUDIENCE: "Yes! (Applause.)" But Mr. Bush didn't talk about why African-Americans don't trust his party, and black districts are always blue on election maps. So let me fill in the blanks. First, G.O.P. policies consistently help those who are already doing extremely well, not those lagging behind - a group that includes the vast majority of African-Americans. And both the relative and absolute economic status of blacks, after improving substantially during the Clinton years, have worsened since 2000. The G.O.P. obsession with helping the haves and have-mores, and lack of concern for everyone else, was evident even in Mr. Bush's speech to the N.A.A.C.P. Mr. Bush never mentioned wages, which have been falling behind inflation for most workers. And he certainly didn't mention the minimum wage, which disproportionately affects African-American workers, and which he has allowed to fall to its lowest real level since 1955. Mr. Bush also never used the word "poverty," a condition that afflicts almost one in four blacks. But he found time to call for repeal of the estate tax, even though African-Americans are more than a thousand times as likely to live below the poverty line as they are to be rich enough to leave a taxable estate. Economic issues alone, then, partially explain African-American disdain for the G.O.P. But even more important is the way Republicans win elections. The problem with policies that favor the economic elite is that by themselves they're not a winning electoral strategy, because there aren't enough elite voters. So how did the Republicans rise to their current position of political dominance? It's hard to deny that barely concealed appeals to racism, which drove a wedge between blacks and relatively poor whites who share the same economic interests, played a crucial role. Don't forget that in 1980, the sainted Ronald Reagan began his presidential campaign with a speech on states' rights in Philadelphia, Miss., where three civil rights workers were murdered in 1964. These days the racist appeals have been toned down; Trent Lott was demoted, though not drummed out of the party, when he declared that if Strom Thurmond's segregationist presidential campaign had succeeded "we wouldn't have had all these problems." Meanwhile, the G.O.P. has found other ways to obscure its economic elitism. The Bush administration has proved utterly incompetent in fighting terrorists, but it has skillfully exploited the terrorist threat for domestic political gain. And there are also the "values" issues: abortion, stem cells, gay marriage. But the nasty racial roots of the G.O.P.'s triumph live on in public policy and election strategy. A revelatory article in yesterday's Boston Globe described how the Bush administration has politicized the Justice Department's civil rights division, "filling the permanent ranks with lawyers who have strong conservative credentials but little experience in civil rights." Not surprisingly, there has been a shift in priorities: "The division is bringing fewer voting rights and employment cases involving systematic discrimination against African-Americans, and more alleging reverse discrimination against whites and religious discrimination against Christians." Above all, there's the continuing effort of the G.O.P. to suppress black voting. The Supreme Court probably wouldn't have been able to put Mr. Bush in the White House in 2000 if the administration of his brother, the governor of Florida, hadn't misidentified large numbers of African-Americans as felons ineligible to vote. In 2004, Ohio's Republican secretary of state tried to impose a ludicrous rule on the paper weight of voter registration applications; last year, Georgia Republicans tried to impose an onerous "voter ID" rule. In each case, the obvious intent was to disenfranchise blacks. And if the Republicans hold on to the House this fall, it will probably only be because of a redistricting plan in Texas that a panel of Justice Department lawyers unanimously concluded violated the Voting Rights Act - only to be overruled by their politically appointed superiors. So yes, African-Americans distrust Mr. Bush's party - with good reason. *** The High Cost of Being Poor By Barbara Ehrenreich, AlterNet Posted on July 21, 2006, Printed on July 24,2006 http://www.alternet.org/story/39273/ There are people, concentrated in the Hamptons and Beverly Hills, who still confuse poverty with the simple life. No cable TV, no altercations with the maid, no summer home maintenance issues -- just the basics like family, sunsets and walks in the park. What they don't know is that it's expensive to be poor. In fact, you, the reader of middling income, could probably not afford it. A new study from the Brookings Institute documents the "ghetto tax," or higher cost of living in low-income urban neighborhoods. It comes at you from every direction, from food prices to auto insurance. A few examples from this study, by Matt Fellowes, that covered 12 American cities: * Poor people are less likely to have bank accounts, which can be expensive for those with low balances, and so they tend to cash their pay checks at check-cashing businesses, which in the cities surveyed, charged $5 to $50 for a $500 check. * Nationwide, low-income car buyers, defined as people earning less than $30,000 a year, pay two percentage points more for a car loan than more affluent buyers. * Low-income drivers pay more for car insurance. In New York, Baltimore and Hartford, they pay an average $400 more a year to insure the exact same car and driver risk than wealthier drivers. * Poorer people pay an average of one percentage point more in mortgage interest. * They are more likely to buy their furniture and appliances through pricey rent-to-own businesses. In Wisconsin, the study reports, a $200 rent-to-own TV set can cost $700 with the interest included. * They are less likely to have access to large supermarkets and hence to rely on the far more expensive, and lower quality offerings, of small grocery and convenience stores. I didn't live in any ghettoes when I worked on Nickle and Dimed --a trailer park, yes, but no ghetto -- and on my average wage of $7 an hour, or about $14,400 a year, I wasn't in the market for furniture, a house or a car. But the high cost of poverty was brought home to me within a few days of my entry into the low-wage life, when, slipping into social-worker mode, I chastised a co-worker for living in a motel room when it would be so much cheaper to rent an apartment. Her response: Where would she get the first month's rent and security deposit it takes to pin down an apartment? The lack of that amount of capital -- probably well over $1,000 -- condemned her to paying $40 a night at the Day's Inn. Then there was the problem of sustenance. I had gone into the project imagining myself preparing vast quantities of cheap, nutritious soups and stews, which I would freeze and heat for dinner each day. But surprise: I didn't have the proverbial pot to pee in, not to mention spices or Tupperware. A scouting trip to K-Mart established that it would take about a $40 capital investment to get my kitchenette up to speed for the low-wage way of life. The food situation got only more challenging when I, too, found myself living in a motel. Lacking a fridge and microwave, all my food had to come from the nearest convenience store (hardboiled eggs and banana for breakfast) or, for the big meal of the day, Wendy's or KFC. I have no nutritional complaints; after all, there is a veggie, or flecks of one, in Wendy's broccoli and cheese baked potato. The problem was financial. A double cheeseburger and fries is lot more expensive than that hypothetical homemade lentil stew. There are other tolls along the road well-traveled by the working poor. If your credit is lousy, which it is likely to be, you'll pay a higher deposit for a phone. If you don't have health insurance, you may end taking that feverish child to an emergency room, and please don't think of ER's as socialized medicine for the poor. The average cost of a visit is over $1,000, which is over ten times more than what a clinic pediatrician would charge. Or you neglect that hypertension, diabetes or mystery lump until you end up with a $100,000 problem on your hands. So let's have a little less talk about how the poor should learn to manage their money, and a little more attention to all the ways that money is being systematically siphoned off. Yes, certain kinds of advice would be helpful: skip the pay-day loans and rent-to-pay furniture, for example. But we need laws in more states to stop predatory practices like $50 charges for check cashing. Also, think what some microcredit could do to move families from motels and shelters to apartments. And did I mention a living wage? If you're rich, you might want to stay that way. It's a whole lot cheaper than being poor. Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of 13 books, most recently "Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream." This piece first appeared on her blog. (c) 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved. View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/3927 *** (This is a new group spurred by PDA-LA Pres. Marcy Winograd. When you come to someone else's demo, esp. a critical new group making its debut to a skeptical public, you should confine your slogans to their given ones. They deserve all support. -AFS) Call for an Immediate Ceasefire! Join LA Jews for Peace & Other Anti-War Actvists For Peace Vigils Wednesday, July 26 & Friday, July 28th Noon - 1 PM Israeli Consulate 6380 Wilshire Blvd. LA, 90048 (on Wilshire east of La Cienega) Bring Signs & Banners Ceasefire Now! War is not the answer Humanitarian Crisis Looms in Lebanon & Gaza Violence Begets Violence In Solidarity With Anti-War Protestors in Israel Let us stand in solidarity with thousands of Israelis, Lebanese & Palestinians protesting the violence. For more information, contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> See what's inside the new Yahoo! 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