An end-of-year message from Robert Reich

Brown's Tunnels could cost as much a $ 67 billion.

California Progress Report
by Dan Bacher

15 Wins for the Progressive Movement in 2013 | News & Notes, What Matters Today | BillMoyers.com

15 Wins for the Progressive Movement in 2013 | News & Notes, What Matters Today | BillMoyers.com

A Progressive Agenda- Sen. Bernie Sanders

Ad: "Restore Unemployment Insurance Now"

Student debt and College Presidents Pay

A Nation Fails Its Youth When Millions Go to College Presidents, Not Students

http://my.firedoglake.com/brandonj/2013/12/18/a-nation-fails-its-youth-when-millions-are-given-to-presidents-not-students/

A recent report by The Chronicle for Higher Education has found 42 private college presidents made over $1 million in executive pay, up from last year’s figure of 36 millionaire presidents. The list was based on 2011 federal tax data from institutions receiving endowments.
University of Chicago president Robert J. Zimmer was first on the list with $3,358,723 in total compensation. This is an increase compared to former New School president Bob Kerrey’s total compensation of $3,047,703 when he was first last year.  Last year, Zimmer was ninth on the list with $1,597,918 as compensation.
To place the salary in context, the University of Chicago, for the 2011-12 year, had its tuition and fees as $43,780. The average debt of students, in 2012, was $22,663 and 34 percent of students graduated with debt that same year, according to Project on Student Debt.
Last year, when The New York Times reported on the list, Jack Stripling commented on issue that has grown since last year — inflated pay:

NSA

Makes Absolutely No Sense: David Cay Johnston on Budget Deal That Helps ...

Health Care, Covered California, and Deductibles

Socialism: Converting Hysterical Misery into Ordinary Unhappiness

Corey Robin, https://www.jacobinmag.com/2013/12/socialism-converting-hysterical-misery-into-ordinary-unhappiness/

In yesterday’s New York Times [1], Robert Pear reports on a little known fact about Obamacare: the insurance packages available on the federal exchange have very high deductibles. Enticed by the low premiums, people find out that they’re screwed on the deductibles, and the co-pays, the out-of-network charges, and all the different words and ways the insurance companies have come up with to hide the fact that you’re paying through the nose.

For policies offered in the federal exchange, as in many states, the annual deductible often tops $5,000 for an individual and $10,000 for a couple.
Insurers devised the new policies on the assumption that consumers would pick a plan based mainly on price, as reflected in the premium. But insurance plans with lower premiums generally have higher deductibles.
In El Paso, Tex., for example, for a husband and wife both age 35, one of the cheapest plans on the federal exchange, offered by Blue Cross and Blue Shield, has a premium less than $300 a month, but the annual deductible is more than $12,000. For a 45-year-old couple seeking insurance on the federal exchange in Saginaw, Mich., a policy with a premium of $515 a month has a deductible of $10,000.
In Santa Cruz, Calif., where the exchange is run by the state, Robert Aaron, a self-employed 56-year-old engineer, said he was looking for a low-cost plan. The best one he could find had a premium of $488 a month. But the annual deductible was $5,000, and that, he said, “sounds really high.”
By contrast, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the average deductible in employer-sponsored health plans is $1,135.

Ed. Note:  He is  not saying that Covered California is a bad deal.  Only that you should look closely at the annual deductible as well as the monthly premium.

The Best and Worst of 2013 | California Progress Report

The Best and Worst of 2013 | California Progress Report

Delta Tunnels Protest

by Dan Bacher 

Over 400 people organized by Californians for a Fair Water Policy, a statewide coalition opposing Gov. Brown’s massive water export tunnels, on Friday attended a rally at the State Capitol protesting the Bay Delta Conservation Plan as the 120 day comment period for the BDCP and environmental documents began. 

"So, on this Friday the 13th the BDCP public comment period begins," said Bill Jennings, Executive Director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA). "They give us 40,214 pages of documents – that’s a nine-foot high stack containing 20% more pages than the 32 volumes of the last printed edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. We’re asked to provide comments within 85 working days – that’s 473 pages a day. You can purchase a printed copy for only $3,000." 

"Turn the pages and you’ll discover what William Burroughs meant when he observed that, 'a paranoid schizophrenic is simply someone who’s discovered what’s going on,'" quipped Jennings. 

Choosing Democracy: DSA Honorary Chair, Labor Leader, Eliseo Medina on...

Choosing Democracy: DSA Honorary Chair, Labor Leader, Eliseo Medina on...: DSA Honorary Chair, Labor Leader, Eliseo Medina on Fasting for Immigration Reform

Last Friday Night Film Series Event of 2013!

Campus Progressive Alliance Presents

DIRTY WARS

“Utterly Riveting.” –- New York Times

“Incredible. A Must See.” -– Chris Hayes, All- In, MSNBC

 “Jaw Dropping.” -- Vanity

 Free Admission! Everyone Welcome!

Friday, December 13, 2013

Shorts – 6:00pm  Feature - 6:30pm

Mariposa Hall 1000

Sacramento State University

Info: paub1221@sbcglobal.net

Robert Reich: Raw Deal

   Robert Reich : A Raw Deal

Austerity is bad economics

The budget deal passed the House today. The proposal includes not extending the unemployment benefits for the long term unemployed.  This is an outrage. Over 220,000 California workers will lose the benefits that provide food and shelter for their families.  Corporate agriculture gets bailed out, the banks get bailed out, but the unemployed get pushed aside. The crisis was caused by finance capital.  The unemployed and their families  should not have to pay for their crisis.

 In economics, austerity is the  policy of reducing government spending by cutting social services such as health care, education, food assistance, and other welfare assistance.  Governments   reduce spending by cutting money for these and similar services.  At the federal level, Republicans seek austerity by cutting social Security and Medicare. In the case of state governments in the U.S., public tax money is used for police, fire fighters, park services, nurses, doctors, social workers and health assistants.  Austerity programs cut these services.

Its a bad bargain- call and say NO

The Congressional  negotiators have announced a deal for the budget- a bad deal.   The proposal includes not extending the unemployment benefits for the long term unemployed.  This is an outrage. Corporate agriculture gets bailed out, the banks get bailed out, but the unemployed get pushed aside.

The crisis was caused by finance capital.  The unemployed  should not have to pay for their crisis.
From the Coalition on Human Needs

Important issues.

• Some are saying that since the unemployment rate went down in November, we don't need any more federal unemployment insurance for those out of work more than six months.  

But wait:  long-term unemployment ROSE last month.  In November, 37.3% of the jobless had been out of work for six months or more, up from 36.9% in September.  The proportion of long-term unemployed is double the rate in 2007 (before the recession hit).  (Source:  Economic Policy Institute.)

• Congress has never let long-term UI benefits expire unless the long-term jobless were no more than 1.3 percent of the labor force.  Now, they are double that - 2.6 percent.
• Denying this basic survival assistance to millions will hurt them badly and is simply wrong.  But it also hurts everyone because it takes a massive whack at the economy.  Estimates of the number of jobs lost in 2014 if federal unemployment benefits expire range from 240,000 (U.S. Council of Economic Advisors) to 314,000 (Economic Policy Institute).   

McResources

Thom Hartmann on "The Crash of 2016: The Plot to Destroy America—and Wha...

Remembering Nelson Mandela: From Freedom Fighter to Political Prisoner t...

Half of all families in the U.S. near poor

Half of all families in the United States are poor, near poor or face economic insecurity where “one major setback in income could push them into poverty.” That’s the shocking conclusion of a report released today by The Hamilton Project. Released by the left-of-center think tank housed at the non-partisan Brookings Institution, the report is a bombshell for those who believe that the current workings of the economy are both sound and fair.

According to the report titled “A Dozen Facts About America’s Struggling Lower Middle Class,” families with household incomes under $60,000 a year “live in economically precarious situations.” The earnings of half of all American households fall between $15,000 and $60,000. And it’s barely sufficient for many to keep their head above water.

Sadly, the tough news for workers who face economic insecurity and their children doesn’t end with lower pay. Four out of 10 kids who live in families earning between $15,000 and $60,000 face hunger, food insecurity or food-related health challenges such as obesity.

And on top of it all, working poor and lower-middle-class workers pay the highest marginal tax rates of any other group of taxpayers in America, reaching up to 95 percent of earned income.

Read the entire piece at Colorlines.com

California Holocaust

antiracismdsa: California Holocaust: Some celebrate the 300 anniversary of Serra’s birth.  by   George Monbiot Nowhere is the Church’s denial better exemplified than in it...

The Pope v. Unfettered capitalism

John Nichols 

Remember when the Occupy movement [1] demanded that issues like income inequality [2], race-to-the-bottom globalization and the failures of the free market be placed on the agenda?

Remember the silly critique [3] of Occupy that said the movement’s necessary challenge to austerity lacked specifics?

Problem solved.

The pope has gotten specific.

Condemning the “new tyranny” of unfettered capitalism and the “idolatry of money,” Pope Francis argues in a newly circulated apostolic exhortation [4] that “as long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world’s problems or, for that matter, to any problems.”

The pope has taken a side, not just in his manifesto but in interviews, warning: “Today we are living in an unjust international system in which ‘King Money’ is at the center.”

He is encouraging resistance to “the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation [5]” that creates “a throwaway culture that discards young people as well as its older people [6].”