Democrats
and Republicans pass budget to prepare US for war
10
February 2018
The bipartisan budget bill passed by Congress and signed into law
by President Trump Friday morning marks a new stage in the American ruling
class’ drive for social counterrevolution and world military domination.
The deal, which reached Trump’s desk only because of support from
congressional Democrats, expresses the oligarchic character of American
society. Behind the factional mudslinging and mutual recrimination between
Democrats, Republicans and Trump, it is the corporations and the
military-intelligence agencies that dictate government policy. All sections of
the financial aristocracy agree: the desperate social needs of working people
must be subordinated to private profit and the preparation of the American
military machine for a major war.
The budget agreement provides the military with $1.4 trillion over
the course of the next two years, a 13 percent increase from 2017 and 7 percent
more than what the White House requested. The size of the year-to-year increase
alone—$80 billion—is larger than the combined annual military spending of every
other country in the world except China.
An additional $71 billion is earmarked for “overseas contingency
operations,” i.e., ongoing wars, indicating plans to continue indefinitely the
17-year-old war in Afghanistan and escalate the war in Syria, where US air and
artillery strikes killed over 100 Syrian government-backed forces on Wednesday.
In preparation for the possibility that increased US military
operations abroad may lead to conflict with a nuclear-armed power such as
Russia or China, the budget provides the military with the resources necessary
to replace its entire nuclear arsenal. It puts an end to limits placed on
military spending in 2013 as part of a bipartisan agreement to cap domestic
social spending, paving the way for even more astronomical increases in funding
for the Pentagon.
The role of the Democrats in passing this deal exposes the
right-wing character of their opposition to Trump. It was the Democrats who
ensured that there would be sufficient votes to pass the bill in both houses of
Congress after a faction of Republican deficit hawks in the House of
Representatives announced its opposition. In the Senate, the Democrats voted
four-to-one for the bill, providing more “yes” votes and fewer “no” votes than
the Republicans. In the House, 73 Democrats voted for the agreement. Without
their votes, the bill would have fallen short by a wide margin.
After the Democrats saved the budget bill, Trump signed it,
tweeting, “Just signed Bill. Our Military will now be stronger than ever
before. We love and need our Military and gave them everything.” Democratic
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer echoed Trump in praising the deal,
saying it “gives our fighting forces the resources they need to keep our country
safe.”
In an effort to lend the war budget a democratic veneer, Schumer
claimed that it increases social spending. In reality, the bulk of the
non-military spending comes from the limited expansion of several programs that
already exist, such as the Community Healthcare Center (CHC) system and the
Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Prior to this budget, 54 percent of
federal discretionary spending, i.e., excluding entitlement programs such as
Medicare and Social Security, went to the military. Now this figure will
increase to 59 percent.
Little of the new spending will reach people in need. For example,
a paltry $2 billion is being made available to fix the electrical grid in
Puerto Rico, where one third of the population remains without power more than
four months after Hurricane Maria. In contrast, the bill provides $2.3 billion
in recovery funds to the Florida citrus industry. Puerto Rico has estimated
that fixing its grid would cost $17 billion.
Six billion dollars is allocated for the opioid crisis, a major
factor in the ongoing decline in US life expectancy. This is far less than the
$45 billion proposed in the 2017 congressional health care debate, which
leading advocates called “woefully, woefully short.”
Much of the $6 billion will go to arming the police and
prosecuting users. An unnamed White House official told CNN on Thursday that
opioid spending “is a law enforcement issue.” On Thursday, Attorney General
Jeff Sessions placed the blame for the opioid crisis, which killed 63,000
people in 2016, on its victims. “I mean, people need to take some aspirin
sometimes,” Sessions said. “Tough it out.”
The budget deal provides a mere $20 billion for infrastructure
spending. According to the Federal Highway Administration, $328 billion is
required just to fix crumbling bridges in the US.
Coming on top of the multi-trillion-dollar tax cut for the rich
passed in December, which the Democrats never seriously opposed, the massive
increase in military spending will increase the federal budget deficit to $1
trillion or more for years to come. The drive to use the resulting increase in
the US debt as justification for dismantling the core social programs from the
1930s and 1960s—Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid—has already begun.
At his weekly press conference, Republican Speaker of the House
Paul Ryan reiterated his pledge to wage war on these entitlement programs. “The
military is not the reason we’ve got fiscal problems. It is entitlements,” he
declared.
After signing the budget bill on Friday, Trump said the social
spending in the agreement was “waste.” He added that “costs on non-military
lines will never come down if we do not elect more Republicans in the 2018
election and beyond.”
Perhaps the most cynical point in the political theater
surrounding the bill’s passage was the eight-hour speech Wednesday by
Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who read the stories of young
undocumented immigrants who were brought to the US when they were children and
have legal status under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)
program. The bill includes no protection for the 800,000 DACA beneficiaries who
face possible deportation beginning March 5, when the DACA program expires.
Pelosi’s stunt, which followed the announcement of a bipartisan
budget agreement in the Senate, was an elaborate attempt to provide political
cover for the Democratic Party, which had already agreed behind the scenes to
provide the votes needed to pass the measure in the House. In typical fashion,
a number of Democrats were allowed to cast meaningless “no” votes to preserve
their “progressive” bona fides for future elections.
The Democrats have only disdain for those who sought to pressure
them to the left. Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown said of constituents who appealed
to him to vote against the budget deal, “If the suggestion is if I’m spooked by
them or they affect my voting record, the answer is of course not.”
The passage of the budget bill shows the social character and
political role of the Democratic Party. It is as much a pro-war, pro-corporate
party as its Republican counterpart. It shares the Trump administration’s goals
of increasing “border security,” reducing taxes on the wealthy, boosting
corporate profits and preparing the military for total war—with its domestic
component of internal repression.
The Democratic Party’s main differences with Trump are of a
right-wing character, aimed primarily at forcing Trump to adopt a more
bellicose policy against Russia in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. The
Democratic Party-inspired hysteria against “Russian interference,” including
the bogus Mueller investigation into Trump collusion with the Russians, is a
central element in this drive. It is accompanied by the reactionary campaign
against “fake news” on social media, aimed at creating the framework for
Internet censorship and an escalating attack on free speech.
In the working class, there is broad opposition of an entirely
different character, based on anger over poverty, social inequality, police
violence, poisoned water, student debt, health care costs and fear of
deportation. This tremendous potential social power must be awakened and given
an independent, socialist direction. It is only on this basis that the
catastrophic war plans of US imperialism can be stopped.
Eric London
US: Food insecurity may be twice as common as previously estimated
By Mark Ferretti
10 February 2018
Lack of sufficient access to nutritious food is a much greater problem for the American working class than previously understood, according to research published in the Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition. In a survey of 663 households in Columbus, Ohio, researchers found that 32 percent were food insecure. This rate of food insecurity is double that of previous estimates based on county-level census data.
The researchers considered about half of food-insecure households to be “very low food secure.” People in this group are “skipping meals, at risk for experiencing hunger, and probably missing work and school and suffering health problems as a result,” according to Michelle Kaiser, PhD, an assistant professor of social work at Ohio State, and lead author of the study. Although the current research only examined Columbus, other metropolitan areas likely have similar disparities, she added.
“This study exposed the vastly different experiences of people who all live in the same city,” said Dr. Kaiser. “My suspicion is that most people don’t recognize that there are such discrepancies and can’t imagine living where they couldn’t easily go to a grocery store.” Notwithstanding the obliviousness of the more comfortable layers of the population, these data provide further evidence that the country’s deepening social divisions are reaching critical proportions.
For their study, Dr. Kaiser and colleagues surveyed economically and racially diverse households to understand consumer decision-making and food access. They also audited 90 food stores for the availability of items on the US Department of Agriculture’s Thrifty Food Plan and MyPlate list. The Thrifty Food Plan lists low-cost foods intended to ensure adequate nutrition. This plan is the basis for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which also is known as food stamps. MyPlate offers nutritional advice, such as emphasizing the consumption of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and healthy proteins.
Although African-Americans were overrepresented among the food insecure, the totality of the data indicated that the divide between food security and food insecurity was fundamentally one of class, not of race. Annual income tended to be less than $25,000 among food-insecure individuals and more than $50,000 among the food-secure. Full-time employment was significantly less common in food-insecure households (54.7 percent) than in food-secure households (75.2 percent). More than 20 percent of food-insecure households depended on Supplemental Security Income (SSI), veterans’ benefits, or other disability benefits, compared with 8.5 percent of food-secure households. About 5 percent of food-insecure households received unemployment benefits, compared with 3 percent of food-secure households. The food insecure were approximately five times more likely to participate in SNAP and nearly four times more likely to participate in the Women, Infants and Children assistance program than the food secure.
As a part of its turbocharged assault on the working class, the Trump administration proposes to cut $193 billion from SNAP over the next 10 years. This proposal goes even further than the $8.7 billion cut to SNAP that President Obama signed into law in 2014. If Trump’s proposal is enacted, it would deprive millions of poor and working-class Americans of assistance, forcing many to skip meals.
In Dr. Kaiser’s study, differences in education coincided with these differences in income. The highest level of education in food-insecure households was more likely to be a high school diploma, GED, two-year degree, or technical degree. But a higher percentage of people with a bachelor’s degree or graduate degree were food secure.
Previous investigations have linked food insecurity with higher risks of depression, anxiety, and social isolation. Dr. Kaiser and colleagues found that obesity, high blood pressure, and prediabetes were significantly more common among the food insecure than the food secure.
The investigators’ audits indicated that supermarkets were more likely than specialty markets, partial markets or convenience stores to offer all of the Thrifty Food Plan items and all of the MyPlate recommendations. Yet, compared with food-secure participants, food-insecure respondents were significantly more likely to shop at partial markets and convenience or corner stores, which had poorer selections. One reason is that the food insecure lived closer to partial markets and convenience stores, while the food secure lived closer to supermarkets and specialty stores.
More than 27 percent of food-insecure households had difficulties finding fresh produce, and 26 percent were “not at all satisfied” with neighborhood food access. “The types of food stores most accessible to food-insecure households rarely stock healthy food items,” said Dr. Kaiser. “In contrast, food-secure households are less likely to have to confront the same environmental challenges as food-insecure households to purchase and consume healthy foods.”
Barriers to obtaining food (e.g., access, safety or crime, and affordability) were more common for food-insecure households than for the food secure. Food-insecure participants also had difficulties with transportation. They were less likely to use their own cars and more likely to get rides from acquaintances, ride public transportation, or walk to get food, compared with the food secure.
More and more grocery stores and supermarkets in low-income areas are closing, according to Dr. Kaiser. Companies rarely establish a new grocery store in an urban area, particularly if it would be near a neighborhood with a high rate of poverty. These decisions are based purely on the profit motive. As they chase middle-class and wealthy shoppers, the big supermarket chains shutter stores in poor and working-class areas. Consequently, as Dr. Kaiser’s study indicates, poor and working-class people are left with fewer options, which leaves them in worse health than their wealthier peers.
Like companies in any other industry, supermarkets extract their profits from the labor of their employees. As shareholders demand greater returns, the supermarket chains abandon less profitable locations and wrest concessions from their workers. The result is a worsening of inequality and continuing assaults on the health and well-being of the working class.
"The picture emerging is one of a society wracked by burgeoning social inequality, a catastrophic health crisis, and a government health policy aimed at deliberately lowering life expectancy while catering to corporate profit."
Falling US life expectancy: The product of a deliberate ruling class policy
9 February 2018
An editorial in a British medical journal has focused renewed attention on the shocking reality that life expectancy in the United States is declining. “Failing health of the United States: The role of challenging life conditions and the policies behind them,” published Wednesday in BMJ, formerly the British Medical Journal, builds on reports in December by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that revealed US life expectancy declined in 2016 for the second year in a row.
The editorial’s authors, Steven H. Woolf and Laudan Aron, both sat on a joint panel of the National Research Council and Institute of Medicine in 2013 that investigated US health disadvantage compared to other member countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). According to World Bank Data, the average life expectancy of an aggregate of 35 OECD countries stood at about 75.5 years in 1995. By 2015 the rate had risen to 80.3 years, while the US lagged behind at 78.7 years.
The editorial points to the myriad diseases and behaviors contributing to decreased lifespans in America, as well as to the social and economic factors driving them. The picture emerging is one of a society wracked by burgeoning social inequality, a catastrophic health crisis, and a government health policy aimed at deliberately lowering life expectancy while catering to corporate profit.
The opioid epidemic, alcohol abuse and suicides are leading causes of death in the US. The rate of fatal drug overdoses rose by 137 percent from 2000 to 2014. In 2015 alone, more than 64,000 people died from drug overdoses, exceeding the number of US fatal casualties in the Vietnam War. The suicide rate rose by a staggering 24 percent between 1999 and 2014.
These “deaths of despair” have disproportionately affected white Americans, including adults aged 25-59, those with limited education, and women. The sharpest increases have been in rural areas.
As to why the rise in mortality has been greatest among white, middle-aged adults and some rural communities, the editorial points to possible factors, which all relate to class issues. They include “the collapse of industries and the local economies they supported, the erosion of social cohesion and greater social isolation, economic hardship, and distress among white workers over losing the security their parents once enjoyed.”
The 2013 panel found that “Americans had poorer health in many domains, including birth outcomes, injuries, homicides, adolescent pregnancy, HIV/AIDS, obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.” It found that Americans are more likely to engage in unhealthy behaviors, such as intake of high-calorie foods, drug abuse and firearm ownership.
The editorial also notes that such behaviors are linked to “weaker social welfare supports and lack of universal health insurance.” What does this mean in the lives of workers and their families? It means cuts to food stamps and cash welfare assistance, the shutdown of community clinics and scarcity of substance abuse programs, lack of health insurance and/or burdensome medical bills. All these factors contribute to poor health outcomes and premature deaths.
Falling life expectancy—one of the most important measures of the social health of a society—has elicited no response from any faction of the US political establishment, neither the Trump administration nor the Democratic Party. On Thursday evening, the US Senate was deliberating on a two-year budget agreement that would increase military spending by $305 billion.... BLOG: WITH NO FUNDING FOR A WALL AGAINST NARCOMEX!
At his weekly press conference, House Speaker Paul Ryan said that the main factor contributing to the government’s increasing deficit is not the Pentagon’s gargantuan budget, which funds the US military’s aggression around the globe, but the so-called entitlements—Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid—programs that workers depend on for their retirement and their families’ health.
As the Democratic Party continues its obsession with claims of Russian meddling in the 2018 US elections, the Trump administration has pursued its assault on social programs. After failing in numerous attempts to repeal and/or replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the White House repealed the ACA’s individual mandate as part of the corporate tax overhaul, and has allowed states to begin imposing work requirements for Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor and the disabled.
Discussion of health care and the well-being of American workers has become a non-issue for the Democrats, as they have emerged as the most adamant representatives of the military-intelligence agencies, supporting an impending war against Russia—in opposition to Trump and the Republicans and their saber-rattling against North Korea.
In reality, the war against the health of American workers has been a bipartisan conspiracy conducted over decades as part of a conscious strategy to pare back the gains won through the social struggles of the working class begun over a century ago.
Under the Obama administration, the implementation of the ACA was a key volley in the ruling elite’s social counterrevolution in health care. Sold as an expansion of health care, it was in fact aimed at limiting and rationing workers’ access to vital medical treatments and medicines as “unnecessary” and “lavish.” At the same time, through the universal mandate, it required individuals and families to purchase coverage from private health insurers under threat of tax penalties.
Both the Democrats and Republicans bemoan the high cost of health care in America. But the reality is that the high cost of health care—Americans pay on average $10,000 per person, per year—is not the result of actual spending on health care for workers and their families for vital treatments. It is because the US leaves the vast majority of pricing for drugs, procedures and hospital stays in the hands of the private sector. While hospitals and drug companies charge outrageous prices, millions of people remain uninsured and untreated.
For the ruling class, the increasing number of deaths of working men, women and youth is a “cost of doing business.” Indeed, it is seen as a positive good, as early deaths mean fewer costs associated with caring for the elderly—and more resources to pump into the stock market.
The US health care crisis is a national emergency. The ruling classes of the world, moreover, look to the US as a model for their own ruthless assault on jobs and social programs. To address this crisis requires a frontal assault on the wealth of the corporate and financial elite.
The vast resources currently monopolized by the top one percent must be made available to finance a universal health care system, in which everyone has access to high-quality care as a basic social right.
Such a social and economic reorganization requires the building of a mass movement of the working class, in opposition to both Democrats and Republicans, uniting workers of all races and nationalities in a fight against the capitalist profit system.
Kate Randall
OPIOID ADDICTION IN AMERICA:
OBAMA AND HIS CRONIES IN BIG PHARMA AT WORK!
OBAMA’S CRONY BANKSTERISM destroyed a TRILLION DOLLARS in home equity… and they’re still plundering us!
Barack Obama created more debt for the middle class than any president in US
history, and also had the only huge QE programs: $4.2 Trillion.
OXFAM reported that during Obama’s terms, 95% of the wealth created went to
the top 1% of the world’s wealthy.
PRINCETON REPORT:
American middle-class is addicted, poor, jobless and suicidal…. Thank the corrupt government for surrendering our borders to 40 million looting Mexicans and then handing the bills to middle America?
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