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October 30, 2001
Dr. Susan
Block
We're All Afghans Now
Tariq Ali
Busted in Munich
Francis
Beer
Toward
the Terrorist
Anti-World
October 29, 2001
Alexander Cockburn
The Left
and the Just War
John Pilger
Hidden
Agenda
of the War on Terror
David Krieger
Nukes on
the Loose
Jack McCarthy
Neo-Nazis
and 9/11
Marina Kalashnikova
The Brzezinski
Interview
Richard
Manning
Terrorism:
a definitive history
October 27, 2001
Edward
Said
A
Vision to Lift the Spririt
October 26, 2001
CounterPunch
Wire
Genocide
Scholar Gagged
Over Comments on the
Bombing of Afghanistan
Rahul
Mahajan
Poisoning
the Well
Sen. Russ Feingold
Why I Opposed
the
Anti-Terrorism Bill
John Troyer
Put
the War to a Vote
Norman Madarasz
What It
Means to be
Against the War
Patrick
Cockburn
Northern
Alliance Attacks
US Bombing Strategy
Richard Lloyd Parry
Terrible Images
of a "Just" War
October 25, 2001
Ghassan
Andoni
Raid
on Bethlehem
N.D. Jayaprakash
From
Hiroshima to NYC
Evan Schultz
Memo
to Ashcroft:
Read Marbury
The Sunshine
Project
Assault
on the BioWeapons
Convention
Sarah
Turner
Cashing
In on Patriotism
Latin American Colloquium
on Systemology
The Meridia Manifesto
Noam Chomsky
The
New War on Terror
Resources:
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Diary
Ashcroft's Onslaught
on Civil Liberties
Ridge Long Groomed
for Cheney's Job
Those CIA Killing
Bids Never Stopped
The Not-So-Great
Mayor Giuliani
Crop Duster
Ban
Will Save Lives
Madeleine Albright's
Deadly Legacy
How the Bin
Laden Women
Fled Bel Air
Tom Ridge's
Vietnam
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A CounterPunch
Journey
to Ramallah
A Word About
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How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
Responses to 9/11:
Chomsky, Russell Banks,
Zinn, and Alice Walker
A Free ebook from
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A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
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by Cockburn
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October 30,
2001
If We Really Want to
Stimulate the Economy
By Maud Hurd
If we really want to stimulate our economy, we
should put money in the hands of the people most likely to spend
it. Economists from Paul Krugman to James K. Galbraith to Joseph
Stiglitz agree, but this is exactly what the bill passed by the
House of Representatives on last does not do.
Low- and moderate-income Americans are struggling to meet the
costs of housing, utilities, health care, child care, transportation,
and other necessities. Money that is put in their hands will
immediately begin circulating through a variety of sectors of
our economy.
At the same time, of course, it will alleviate the suffering
of thousands of families trying to cope with poverty. Jobs and
wages had not kept pace with the cost of living even when the
economy was booming. When the economy slows down, lower income
workers are typically the first to be laid off and the last to
be rehired, and our current safety net is far from adequate to
either help meet families' needs, or provide counter-cyclical
support to a flagging economy.
The idea that additional tax cuts for corporations will spur
investment ignores the demand half of the supply-and-demand dynamic.
It is horribly misguided as an attempt to stimulate economic
activity, and horribly unfair in its focus on assisting those
who need it least.
Laid off workers filing for unemployment benefits rose by 8,000
last week to 504,000, the second-highest number in almost a decade.
An economic stimulus package should start by strengthening unemployment
insurance. Eligibility rules should be reformed in order to
reach more than the 39 percent of unemployed workers who currently
qualify, to count workers' most recent earning period in calculating
benefits, and to provide extended benefits beyond the initial
26-week period.
During the recession that occurred under the presidency of George
H.W. Bush, Congress released $35 billion (in 2001 dollars) in
additional unemployment benefits. The Congressional Budget Office
has estimated that the House-passed bill would provide only $2.3
billion in supplemental benefits by the end of next September.
We need to be providing more relief than last time around, not
drastically less.
Housing should also be addressed, because of its importance to
economic stability, the inability of so many full-time workers
to afford it, and the potential to create thousands of jobs by
building affordable housing. Congress should implement a foreclosure/eviction
prevention plan and provide $5 billion in immediate funds for
the HOME Investment Program to build more affordable housing
and create jobs.
In addition, the Bush Administration should stop holding up the
release of $300 million in emergency funds that Congress appropriated
for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), and
Congress should provide additional funding for this winter.
Congress should also expand Medicaid to provide coverage for
unemployed workers.
Critically important, Congress should take a step it was expected
to take before the tragedies of Sept. 11, and one that is now
needed all the more. It should boost the federal minimum wage
from $5.15 per hour to $6.45, and it should make this change
effective immediately, rather than phasing it in over three years,
as had been proposed. Because the minimum wage is not set to
automatically increase with the cost of living, every year in
which Congress does not increase it, it effectively decreases.
To be worth what it was 30 years ago, the minimum wage would
now need to be about $8. Not only can our economy, with its
vastly increased productivity, afford to pay $6.45, but with
the increases in consumer spending that would result, it can
hardly afford not to.
These measures will do more for our entire economy, as well as
for the well being of our least well-off and the stability of
our low-income neighborhoods than would new tax breaks for corporations
and billionaires. If there are tax cuts, these should go to
those who did not benefit from the rebates earlier this year.
Those rebates and also the child tax credit should be extended
to all Americans.
We are in a situation in which concern for our social safety
net and a desire to jumpstart the entire economy both demand
the same sort of action. The American public understands this
and expects its government to act accordingly. CP
Maud Hurd
is the national president of ACORN.
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