Tuesday, August 28, 2007

US Census Bureau Data: Bush Policies Victimize Children and Working Families

Low and middle income families have lost ground in what the Census Bureau called an uneven economic recovery. Only persons of retirement age or those in the very highest income brackets made gains. Everyone else lost ground during Bush's so-called "recovery". The Census Bureau called "unprecedented" the increase in poverty for working American households.
The new Census figures are disappointing for the fifth year of an economic recovery -- showing a significant decline in poverty for people over 65 but no significant decline in poverty for children or adults aged 18 to 64, and only a modest improvement in median income. In 2006, the poverty rate remained higher, and median income for non-elderly households remained $1,300 lower, than in 2001, when the last recession hit bottom. It is virtually unprecedented for poverty to be higher and the income of working-age households lower in the fifth year of a recovery than in the last year of the previous recession.

--New Census Bureau Data on Income and Health Insurance, Robert Greenstein, Executive Director, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

In the same report: "...the number of Americans without health insurance increased 2.2 million in 2006". The number of uninsured children now exceeds 600,000. Recent progress in this area stalled in 2005, reversed in 2006 --the year Bush cut funding for State Children’s Health Insurance Program. This is an ongoing story and the worst is yet to come.
This is particularly noteworthy because the President has vowed to veto legislation that the House and Senate passed (in different versions) that would resume progress in this area and shrink the number of uninsured children by 3 to 4 million. In addition, on August 17, the Administration unveiled a controversial new policy that would force many states to cut back their SCHIP programs, forcing up to several hundred thousand more children into the ranks of the uninsured. Today’s sobering data on the rising number of uninsured children should prompt the President to rethink his positions on children’s health insurance.

--New Census Bureau Data on Income and Health Insurance, Robert Greenstein, Executive Director, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

In a related development, it must be noted that some two years on, tens of thousands are still homeless in Katrina's wake. You remember Katrina! Katrina dramatized the fact that George W. Bush cares nothing for the people of the US. His primary concern is how best to make $billions$ for his crooked cronies by exporting what the US exports best: death, human misery, destruction.
Tomorrow marks the two year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, and still there are tens of thousands of families without homes. 30,000 families are scattered across the country in FEMA apartments, 13,000 are in trailers, and hardly any of the 77,000 rental units destroyed in New Orleans have been rebuilt. To share some of these people's stories, we have put together a short film, "When the Saints Go Marching In."

Katrina: Two Years On, Robert Greenwald

During the making of this video, we heard the heartbreaking stories of good people unable to return home. We have heard the story of the Aguilar family who lost their home to the storm and only received $4,000 in payments from their insurance company. We have met Mr. Washington, an 87-year-old man and former carpenter, who owned three homes prior to the storm. He is still living in a FEMA trailer today. And we?ve met Julie, who could have returned to her job and normal life, if the government had opened up the public housing units that she had lived in prior to the storm.

--Brave New Foundation

The numbers had been predicted. They are just what we might have expected from a man like Bush, so utterly lacking empathy, humanity, compassion. Bush is no cowboy. He's a carpet bagger, a spoiled frat boy who never grew up, never had to, never did an honest day's work for an honest dime.


Allen Spinney sings a Merle Haggard Classic







Why Conservatives Hate America




Spread the word:

yahoo icerocket pubsub newsvine

6 comments:

Mark Prime (tpm/Confession Zero) said...

Carry the shovel out back, Condi
Wear thick latex gloves
Leave not a trace
Carry the bodies out back, Dick
Do not wear shoes
Be meticulously mulish
George's legacy depends upon it
Leave not a trace behind
Shovel the dirt in with haste, Condi
Bury the evidence forthwith
Give history nothing to find
Save for the lowly stench of hubris...

daveawayfromhome said...

Republicans claim that those who want to raise taxes upon the rich are trying to "redistribute the wealth", but it seems to me that the current tax plan does the same thing in favor of the rich. Taxes are the way a society pays for its own upkeep, and those as benefit from that society most should be expected to pay the most to keep the society going. I think it's about time that this undeclared class war be declared. Ever seen the movie "A Bug's Life"?

Diane B said...

Today on Buzz Flash, there is an interesting article about how Blackhawk is building airbases in the Coastal cities of the US! What is this group up to?

Len, and all of you, I feel their preparing for a complete financial melt down.

I hope, I'm wrong.

Unknown said...

daveawayfromhome said...

Republicans claim that those who want to raise taxes upon the rich are trying to "redistribute the wealth"

The wealth SHOULD be re-distributed because the current system is wasteful and inefficient by virtue of its being unfairly distributed UPWARDS. The rich --in fact an utterly unproductive elite --produces NOTHING! It lives upon "investments" which of themselves produce absolutely nothing!

Bushies will claim that the current system creates investment capital. Bullshit! It does nothing of the kind. Where was that "capital" before it trickled up?

It was working!

Before it "trickled up" via unfair tax cuts for the already wealthy, the money was actually working, supporting small business, hiring people and putting food on tables.

In reality, the "super rich" -- Bush's base --are economic vampires. It is no coincidence that when the US was most egalitarian it was most productive. The US led the world in numerous areas. Now, the US lags Europe, China, Japan, indeed, most of the world in most key areas. Capital "trickling up" to Bush's base is money lost to productive investment, lost to small business, lost to consumers who might have spent it in ways that might have created jobs here in the US.

Since the regime of Ronald Reagan, almost EVERY ONE of those trends has gone down as the concentration of wealth measured by the GINI index has gone up and up and up. The citizens of the US have been robbed blind by would-be, phony aristocrats of no true class. Revolution now!

but it seems to me that the current tax plan does the same thing in favor of the rich.

It does! See my comments above.

Taxes are the way a society pays for its own upkeep, and those as benefit from that society most should be expected to pay the most to keep the society going. I think it's about time that this undeclared class war be declared. Ever seen the movie "A Bug's Life"?

Having raped America, it's elite now proposes to live off of it like ticks on a bloated corpse. I have NO USE for the stupid, uncultured elite of pigs that has been created and nurtured by the likes of Bush, Reagan and the rest of the GOP.

Diane B said...

And, sadly, the poor folk in nearby towns will celebrate the location of the bases near their communities. See my comments above.

We are living in the last days of the evil empire that the GOP has made of America. A pox on that goddamn party and may the bastards rot in hell.

Perhaps my next article should be "How the GOP LOOTED America".

Unknown said...

poetryman said...


thepoetryman said...

Carry the shovel out back, Condi
Wear thick latex gloves
Leave not a trace
Carry the bodies out back, Dick
Do not wear shoes


Hell is too good for these ghouls.

Unknown said...

Great Post! The truth may be sickening, but it was time it came out.
I really like your writing. Easy to read and to the point. That's why I subscribed to you. ThXs also for ur comments on Wampuss Kitty and your reference. You've made my day! Have a great evening.