To be an effective advocate for progressive causes and social issues, it is important that you know your opponents. Understanding their positions, especially those coming from smart people with whom you may disagree, will help you hone your position and strengthen your arguments.
With that in mind, Joey Novick and I travelled to Morris Township earlier today to have a conversation with Republican Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll. Carroll is a libertarian in the Ron Paul mode, and while most of his views are outside of what we may consider the mainstream, he is firmly entrenched in his principals. Our discussion included slavery, marriage equality, the voting rights act, anti-bullying legislation, medical marijuana, and what to do about Camden's crime and poverty. Some of Carroll's thoughts may be surprising or even shocking.
(Marie's piece here has been getting a lot of buzz around the Twittersphere today, so it's well worth promoting. Follow the links she provides to some other responses to the S-L's editorial; I've added some others below. - promoted by Jersey Jazzman)
I was very disappointed to start my New Year off this morning by reading a fact-less and biased op-ed piece in The Star Ledger about the Voucher Bill. It had already lit up the Twitter and Facebook feeds long before I had my first cup of coffee, with Save Our Schools NJ and NJParents1 posting fact-filled responses.
It is reprehensible and irresponsible for the state's largest newspaper to publish such a work of fiction. Anyone could do a quick Google search to find plenty of evidence to refute their claim that vouchers offer 'a lifeline for poor kids'. I do hope Politifact New Jersey does their homework on this one.
This is not a Democrat vs. Republican or state vs. NJEA issue. This is an issue of our government offering false hope to families of struggling students, financial aid to struggling private and parochial schools, and tax breaks to big corporations. This program that has been tried in various cities around the country for 20 years with no measurable success does nothing to address the crushing effects of poverty on a child's ability to learn. And according to both the US Census Bureau and the NJDOE, poverty, or lack thereof, is a major factor in a child's success in school.
If Trenton is serious about helping struggling students, why not let corporations give those tax breaks to programs that will help the poor live decent lives including affordable health insurance, housing, jobs, and ESL classes? Or how about giving that money directly to the school districts not only to invest in measures that have been proven to work such smaller class sizes, rich, deep curriculums, and strong half day pre-K and full day kindergarten programs, but to help them buy much needed materials and fix broken down, dilapidated buildings?
Newspapers are supposed to uncover the truth, not perpetuate lies. The Star Ledger can and should do better.
As the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, "You are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts."
Now they're calling Hunterdon the new face of food stamps. Hunterdon, where the median household income is $98,000 a year, just saw a spike in food stamp usage in 3 years of 514%. Flemington, my town, is the county seat, a small town with more empty storefronts than it used to have and its anchor, the historic Union Hotel, shuttered. People who live in Flemington generally make considerably less than those in the surrounding burbs of Raritan Twp and Readington. But this has always been a middle-class town.
CNN just came to town to interview people at the Flemington Food Pantry, which has also seen a surge in use, and in usefulness. It's a wake-up call, for anybody still needing one, of what's happening to the middle-class. For some people suddenly unable to make it, it's bewildering, they're not prepared, and they never thought they'd "be there". To be sure, the numbers here started out low. And there are places in New Jersey where poverty is more deeply settled, where people have been struggling for years, for so long that some of the rest of us have forgotten to think much about that. This is what OWS has been about - and Occupy Trenton, and Newark. The census now tells us about half of us are low-income or living in poverty now, a statistic still sinking in, for me. But not for everybody.
Camden is a city in trouble and many politicians from Governor Christie to Mayor Redd to Senator Norcross and Assemblymen Wilson and Fuentes are getting a lot of press coverage. No doubt, there are a lot of bad people who are taking advantage of the city's inbred poverty and the Governor's cutbacks in public safety and education to the detriment of the law-abiding and struggling residents of that city. But the silver lining is that there are also residents who are quietly working below the radar to incrementally improve the situation there.
One such citizen is José Delgado, a retired investigator for the public defender and former long-time member of the Camden Board of Education. I spoke with Delgado this afternoon about crime, education, and the hopes for Camden's future.
Do you feel better off today than you did in 2000? Your job, your home, your retirement - do you feel more secure about all that? If you answered no, you are certainly not alone in the Garden State.
New Jersey's economy in the 2000s did very little to improve the lives of working families across the state, despite income growth during the early part of the decade. As a result, many people are worse off today than they were as we entered the new century.
That's the top-level message in the newest report by New Jersey Policy Perspective, which we released this morning.
More on New Jersey's 'lost decade' after the fold.
Unless you have some sort of telepathic connection to the Internet, you are reading this article on a computer. Perhaps that computer is in your home – a place that provides you with shelter and comfort. Perhaps you are viewing this piece on a computer at work – you’re among the fortunate Americans who have a job. Or maybe you’re less well off, don’t have regular access to a computer, and are reading this on a system at one of the many struggling libraries in New Jersey.
Yet, there are hundreds of thousands of your fellow Garden State residents who don’t have the wherewithal to read this blog. They may be homeless or living in substandard housing. They may be too sick because they have no access to health care. Or they may be more worried about whether they can afford the bus fare to get to the food bank so their family can have a nutritious meal.
Reporting on poverty in New Jersey is not as exciting as following our well-to-do governor’s political rants or lamenting the Yankees’ performance. As liberals, we may be going through some self-satisfying self-congratulations about the fact that we are finally seeing activist protests on Wall Street and around the nation. But let’s remember what precipitated these demonstrations – it’s the growing chasm in our society between the rich and the poor – the extermination of the middle class. Hundreds of thousands of your fellow citizens can’t even afford fare to these demonstrations or, if they’re lucky, can’t get time off from their minimum wage jobs.
As pointed out by our friends at Down With Tyranny, a vote was held yesterday in the House with respect to the National School Lunch Program - a program that is even more necessary now given the state of the economy:
H.Res.362. It expresses the House's support for the goals and ideals of the National School Lunch Program and "recognizes that our pupils deserve access to high-quality, safe, and nutritious meals in school." It passed 403-13, every Democrat and 155 Republicans, including the entire GOP congressional leadership voting in favor.
And guess who was one of the 13?
Let's look at some numbers. There are approximately 200,000 children living in Bergen, Sussex and Warren Counties. Of that, there are 12,400 children in Bergen who are on reduced or free lunch programs due to need, over 2,300 more in Sussex County and another 1,900 in Warren County. That is one out of every twelve children in these three counties who can't afford a decent meal and rely on the National School Lunch Program.
And this is too offensive for Scott Garrett to support.
Garrett is very good at explaining away his unconscionable votes with a caveat such as "I agree in principle but..." or "I would have supported this, but....". Quite frankly, actions speak louder than words. Time after time and vote after morally reprehensible vote, Garrett shows where his loyalties lie. This is about struggling families. And just as his vote against clean drinking water shows, Garrett can't keep explaining away votes that show a pattern of disdain for the health and welfare of those in his district that he is supposed to represent.
What makes this worse is the fact that the BCDO is choosing to give Garrett a pass without even so much as a challenger to a man whose actions and record are nothing short of abominable.
If you haven't already heard of Half in Ten, hopefully you will soon. Picking up where his presidential campaign left off, Senator John Edwards, together with ACORN, the Center for American Progress Action Fund, the Coalition on Human Needs, and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, has launched a campaign whose goal is as ambitious as it is simple: to reduce poverty in the United States by 50 percent within 10 years. The plan goes something like this:
(1) Elevate and sustain a focus on the situations facing the poor and middle class today
(2) Build and strengthen an effective constituency to demand legislative action on poverty and economic mobility
(3) Advance specific legislative and policy proposals that will deliver real benefits to struggling American families
There really is no reason the richest nation on earth can't achieve these goals. We have more than enough money. It's just a matter of political will, adjusted priorities, and a commitment to get it done.
Edwards will be in Newark today as part of a national tour to promote the Half in Ten campaign, and to join the call for a hike in New Jersey's minimum wage. He'll be visiting the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, which has been described as a "think and do tank" with a focus on urban research and advocacy to the advancement of New Jersey's urban areas and residents. (And, luckily for me, it's conveniently located just steps from my office - so, I should be able to drop in at lunchtime and report back later this afternoon.)
Imagine, if you would, a part of New Jersey where farmland and marshes take precedent in the landscape over developed cities and towns, and instead of the urban issues that preoccupy cities like Camden, Newark and Trenton, different issues -- development vs. an agricultural economy, migrant workers vs. working-class and working-poor New Jerseyans, and urban redevelopment zones and their lack of investment -- are dominant. In getting to this triangle of cities in Cumberland County, one could be at a loss in whether they're in New Jersey at all; after waking from sleep on a trip north, one out-of-state person I know who came to Cumberland County asked what state she was in, after seeing the vast tracts of open spaces, the dense pine forests, and the low-lying swamps and streams that are dotted with old farms. This narrative is about the economic problems besetting three urban areas of this region: the mini-metropolitan triangle area of Vineland- Bridgeton- Millville and what can be done about it.
The recent House vote on the minimum wage is a perfect example. Ferguson had the opportunity to do good for the working poor of our nation, and instead tried to do well for himself.
The original idea was fairly simple: raise the national minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour over the next two years. This means a person working 40 hours a week with no vacations or days off would get a raise from $10,775 to $15,175 (approximately).
It's not a lot, but an extra $4,500 or so is nothing to sneeze at for someone making $50,000. For someone making $10K it's a huge increase. It would also be the first increase in the national minimum wage since 1997.
Just for reference, 2006 federal poverty guidelines put the poverty level for a single person at $14,700. Even with the increase (and assuming the poverty level doesn’t rise) this increase would mean a person working full time with no breaks would make less than $500 more than poverty in 2009.
I know it's naive, y'know, to believe the electorate actually CARES about such matters, but still ... shouldn't the spokesmodels for the Democratic Party be SHOUTING THEIR FOOL HEADS OFF about this simple, stunning statistic?
