Republicans Make a Move

The three week stalemate in Wisconsin had been going on since the senate's democrats left the state, making it impossible for republicans to pass a bill curtailing collective bargaining. However, republicans altered the bill to the point where it was no longer necessary to have 20 senators present. Then, with no democrats present to debate the bill, they pushed it through in under half an hour.

Mr. Walker, a Republican whose efforts to diminish collective bargaining rights have placed him firmly in the national spotlight during his less than three months in office, applauded the Senate’s move on Wednesday night, and said it brought the state a step closer to balancing its budget. “The action today will help ensure Wisconsin has a business climate that allows the private sector to create 250,000 new jobs,” Mr. Walker said, in a statement released minutes after the unexpected vote.

Although the bill still needs approval from the State Assembly on Thursday morning, that chamber already approved the bill once before. The democrats were outraged saying that the bill undid 30 years of civil rights and that it is unfair to working families.

Budget Plan is a Rocky Road

 As the deadline approaches for congress to reach a decision on the budget, tensions are running high. Many are getting exasperated now as a plan for test votes failed. The house republicans and the senate democrats were each supposed to send their version of the bill to be voted on but Senator Mitch McConnell from Kentucky refused to move on as agreed. According to a N.Y. Times article, many congress members expressed that the president needs to help guide the debate if the budget is ever going to be passed.

“The truth of the matter is this: This debate, as important as it is, will not be decided by House Republicans or Senate Democrats negotiating with each other or past each other. The debate will be decided when the president leads these tough negotiations, and right now that is not happening.”

 The current proposals, $61 billion in cuts sought by house republicans and an alternative $10 billion in cuts put forward by senate democrats, are still not reasonable enough for the bill to pass. It will be a while before the tricky balance is found and the bill can be passed but it would certainly speed up the process if Obama were to intervene and help guide debates. It is important that they are able to decide before March 18 to avoid a government shutdown.

Is Poverty Up or Not?

It's no secret that the recession we experienced had an impact on poverty levels. However, due to current methods of getting these measures, it is hard to be clear exactly how it was impacted. Nancy Folbre of the N.Y. Times explains that the method currently used for official measures does not include certain programs and therefore understates the positive effects of them.

By the traditional non-experimental measure, poverty jumped to 14.3 percent in 2009 from 13.2 percent in 2008. This measure, however, does not include the value of in-kind benefits, such as food stamps (under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), tax benefits such as the Earned Income Tax Credit, and some other government programs that received a special boost from the federal stimulus put into effect in 2009.

Fortunately, this suggests that poverty levels were impacted as much as it seemed from the recession.

Most of these measures indicate little if any change between 2008 and 2009, indicating that public antipoverty programs did their job pretty well.

She explains that the unofficial, experimental measures take many more factors into effect and are therefore more accurate. In any case, it is clear that poverty is still on the rise. More and more families are sinking into poverty and unemployment is still high. That is why it is important to support anti-poverty programs and volunteer. Hopefully in the near future poverty levels will begin to fall and our country can ultimately heal.

Obama is not a Keynesian!

Homeless Left Out in the Cold

When the city's coldest night approached in Newark, homeless people had to take refuge anywhere warm they could find. Some chose to travel elsewhere to avoid the cold. Temperatures dropped to 13 degrees which enacted the cities "code blue" program.

Teams of outreach workers checked on street dwellers every two hours under the department’s “Code Blue” procedure, which goes into effect when the temperature or wind chill drops below freezing and is heightened when the readings fall below 20 degrees, according to Mr. Diamond.

While shelters were available for the homeless to stay in, many remarked that they don't like the shelters as much as fending for themselves. During times like this, the issue of homelessness becomes especially apparent. Although it's clear that something has to be done, it's also important to make sure that any government are effective and helpful to ensure government spending does not increase too much.

Rising Food Prices Means Rising Poverty Levels

A recent study shows that the rise in food prices is pushing more people in developing nations into poverty. Food prices have risen drastically since last year, causing some people to live on $1.25 per day or less. According to a N.Y. Times article:

The bank’s price index soared 29 percent from January 2010 to January 2011 (15 percent just from October to January). Wheat, maize, sugar and edible oils have seen the sharpest price increases in the last six months, with a relatively smaller increase in rice. The rising prices have increased the vulnerability of economies, particularly those that import a high share of their food and have limited capacity for government borrowing and spending.

In hard economic times like now, it's important to try to keep prices as stable as possible. The article suggests taking measures to "calm jittery markets" such as making investments in raising environmentally sustainable agricultural productivity, better risk-management tools, less food intensive biofuel technologies, and climate change adaptation measures. It is important to do whatever possible to make sure that this problem doesn't cause a more drastic level of poverty.

Counting the Homeless

It's no secret that homelessness and poverty is an issue that affects the U.S. as a whole. Recently, people gathered in San Francisco to help with the biannual homeless census. In order to receive funds from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the city needs a number of how many homeless people are living there. The people walked the streets and counted the homeless resulting in $18 million from HUD. In an interview with the N.Y. Times, mayor Edwin M. Lee reported on the growing issue of homelessness in San Francisco.

...the numbers were rising because San Francisco was a national destination for the down and out. “People come to San Francisco for a lot of different reasons, including the weather and our success in providing services,” Mr. Lee said.

Although no numbers were released in the article, in 2009 San Francisco’s homeless count found 6,514 homeless, including 2,709 people literally sleeping on the street, 1,516 in emergency shelters, 394 in jail and 98 in hospitals and clinics. It is clear that this is a serious issue, but there is no easy solution. For now, the best we can do is to provide the best services we can.