Jay Bookman:
[W]hile our elected leaders like to brag about how much they’ve cut spending, they wash their hands of its real-life consequences. Per capita state spending on education, for example, has fallen by 21 percent since 2008, according to Carolyn Bourdeaux of the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University, yet when local school districts complain that it has become financially impossible to pay their teachers and keep their doors open for a full school year, the governor and state legislative leaders refuse any responsibility.
And in an era of rising caseloads and families under pressure, state officials cut 900 child welfare case positions since 2007 and slashed state spending in child welfare by 27 percent (inflation adjusted), according to figures compiled by the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute. With numbers like that, it was inevitable that dead children would start showing up, and they have. In 2012 alone, more than 150 Georgia children brought to the attention of state child-welfare officials ended up dead. [...]
The thing is, the damage caused by years of budget cutting and tax cutting is probably just as severe in other important state agencies. It’s just harder to capture the impact in a single heart-rending picture.
Arjun Sethi at CNN:
As millions of Americans gather in their homes for the holidays, there will be those who will congregate in a different kind of home.
An abode common to other parts of the world now proliferates across America: Tent cities [...] Preliminary findings by The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty show that tent cities have been documented in almost every state, and they're growing.
A report released by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, for example, found that homelessness and hunger rates are rising, culminating in 47 million Americans living below the poverty line. A fledgling economic recovery, high unemployment and contracting government services are largely to blame. So is the paucity -- or paradox -- of affordable housing. While homelessness is increasing, more than 10% of homes in America are empty.
More below the fold.
What toll does poverty take on the human body? Watch this:
A Spanish actress, Inma Cuesta, stars in the video titled "The effects of poverty", a 30 second introduction into how poverty can blemish her face and completely change her appearance.
As she stares blankly at the camera she says quietly: “Life passes by for all of us, but it doesn't pass by in the same way for everyone.”
The video ends with a slogan which translates to: “Hunger, sickness, exploitation, injustice: They all leave their mark.”
The early-aging caused by all these effects, are currently being felt by 842 million people in the world. Unemployment of course plays a huge part in this too. The number of unemployed is not just another number, but endless, heartbreaking stories of social crisis. Joblessness has harmful effects on the emotional aspect and unemployment is a problem of society as a whole, not just those experiencing it.
Helaine Olson at Reuters:
On Yahoo, there’s the Daily Habits of Wealthy People. Lifehack could support a vertical devoted to the topic, with posts including 10 Habits of the Richest People in the World, 7 Reasons Why You’re not a Millionaire and, my personal favorite, 11 Sleep Habits of Successful People.
Even if you take these lists at face value, all they are doing is confusing access with virtue. [...] The subtext to all these conglomerations of sometimes-dubious statistics is the same: the shiftless poor deserve their fate. Never mind unemployment, and full-time jobs that don’t offer a living wage. Just eat an apple a day and floss your damn teeth.
But if the wealthy don’t engage in proper behavior — well, they’ve got an excuse.
Jimmy Williams at US News examines corporate welfare:
Section 5010 of the U.S. tax code is a very interesting piece of federal law. Not to pick on my friends in the liquor industry, but we the taxpayers subsidize "flavored" liquors to the tune of $1.1 billion every 10 years. Think about it: when I turned 18 (yes I'm that old), I'd walk into a bar and there would be plain vodka, plain rum, plain gin, etc. Today, walk into a bar and there are thousands of flavors to be had. Why? Well because Section 5010 of the Internal Revenue Code gives distillers a "discount" for adding flavor. Makes sense right? Don't get me wrong. I love my citrus flavored vodka with club soda. It's refreshing but I'm not sure if it's $1.1 billion worth of refreshment in these tight times. [...]
Or take the domestic oil and gas industries. They make the liquor industry look destitute. We the taxpayers subsidize companies like Chevron, Exxon and Shell to the tune of $7 billion a year. This confuses me. This confuses most Americans.[...]
According to the Cato Institute, we the American people subsidize corporate America to the tune of more than $90 billion annually, while individual people on welfare only pull down around $59 billion. I like simple math. It's easy for me to understand. Corporations are getting the better end of that bargain but I don't hear Sen. Mitch McConnell and Reps. Jack Kingston and Bill Cassidy – the latest decriers of welfare – declaring a war on the corporate CEOs (who are actually driving real Cadillacs). The hypocrisy is staggering.
Ruth Rosen argues that more attention needs to be paid to women in the SNAP debate:
As I read dozens of think tank and government reports, and newspaper stories, however, I am surprised to notice that even strong opponents of the cuts describe SNAP's recipients as children, teenagers, seniors or the disabled. Why have single mothers disappear from such accounts about the poor? There are plenty of "needy families," "households," and "poor Americans," but the real face of poverty and the actual recipients of food assistance are single mothers, whose faces have been absorbed by the more abstract language of "poor Americans" and "needy households."
Even the strongest opponents of these cuts don't focus on women or mothers. Instead they publicize pinched-faced children -- a better poster image -- staring hungrily at food they cannot eat. Or, they discuss the public health impact these cuts may have on children. According to most reports, even from the Agriculture Department, "children and teenagers" make up almost half of the recipients of food assistance. But they don't mention the mothers who receive this assistance in order to feed those children and teenagers. From the stories about food stamps, you'd think that only children, teenagers, the elderly and the disabled have gone hungry.
The words "women" or even "mothers" rarely appear.
Switching topics,
The New York Times calls for a phone system with safeguards:
Is it time to phase out the telephone system that has been with us since the days of Alexander Graham Bell?
The Federal Communications Commission is grappling with this question as more Americans switch from wired phones to cellphones and Internet-based services like Skype. The number of conventional phone lines has fallen by about half since 2001, to 96 million at the end of last year, while the number of wireless subscribers have more than doubled, to nearly 305 million. [...]
As the F.C.C. deals with new technology, it needs to keep in place safeguards that have long ensured that the phone system serves everyone. Today, Americans who cannot afford regular phone service can get a subsidized wired or wireless connection. That should continue even if the underlying technology changes.
On health insurance,
Neil Howe at US News explains why millennials will enroll in the ACA:
According to a new Harvard University Institute of Politics Poll, 29 percent of 18- to 29-year olds without health insurance say they will definitely or likely enroll in the exchanges and another 41 percent say they are "50-50 at the moment." This is a surprisingly high share given the confusion and controversy surrounding a program that has hardly launched. These numbers are likely to grow in the coming months.
Why will millennials opt for coverage? Not because of any allegiance to Obama – but rather because they put a high priority on ridding their lives of uncertainty. millennials defy the usual assumption that young people are risk takers, never think about the future, and regard themselves as "young invincibles." These characteristics might have been true for Boomers and Gen Xers as 20-somethings, but the reality has reversed.
Finally,
Eugene Robinson makes the case fore Edward Snowden over Pope Francis for Person of the Year:
Snowden, unlike Francis, is rarely accused of humility. It is fair to describe him as smug and self- righteous — an imperfect messenger, to say the least.
But what a message.
He was an obscure analyst working for a National Security Agency (NSA) contractor at a remote outpost in Hawaii. When he began working in the secret world, by his own telling, he was a true believer. But he became disillusioned — and then incensed — at what he considered outrageous violations of individual privacy by a surveillance apparatus that was out of control. Snowden’s decision to leak massive amounts of information concerning some of the NSA’s most secret and intrusive spying programs has done more than embarrass officials in Washington. It has galvanized efforts throughout the world to protect what little privacy we have left.