While we're all distracted following events in the MidEast and thinking about Liz Lemon's food tips, things are really going to pot in DC.
From Elizabeth:
The Republicans in Congress are proposing deep cuts in core services, and the Democrats seem to be meeting them half way. The deficit commission itself included in its core principles that we should not balance the budget on the back of the most vulnerable, and that we shouldn’t cut so quickly that we put the recovery at risk. They suggested that we should start stabilizing spending in 2012, and yet we’re slashing services in this year’s budget, with the year half way gone. I’m increasingly convinced that for a significant part of the Republican party in Congress, cutting social safety nets is a goal in itself, not a means to the end of cutting deficits. And if given the choice between cutting taxes and cutting deficits, they’ll choose cutting taxes every time. Meanwhile, the Democrats take the rhetoric about deficit cutting and shared sacrifice seriously, and go after their own base to show that they’re serious.
Mark Bittman is so upset about the cuts to food stamps and WIC that he's fasting in protest.
Who are — once again — under attack, this time in the House budget bill, H.R. 1. The budget proposes cuts in the WIC program (which supports women, infants and children), in international food and health aid (18 million people would be immediately cut off from a much-needed food stream, and 4 million would lose access to malariamedicine) and in programs that aid farmers in underdeveloped countries. Food stamps are also being attacked, in the twisted “Welfare Reform 2011” bill. (There are other egregious maneuvers in H.R. 1, but I’m sticking to those related to food.)
These supposedly deficit-reducing cuts — they’d barely make a dent — will quite literally cause more people to starve to death, go to bed hungry or live more miserably than are doing so now. And: The bill would increase defense spending.
These are programs that help women and families. Elizabeth gives some advice about how we should deal with the attacks on these programs.
Apt. 11d 
Meanwhile, the Democrats take the rhetoric about deficit cutting and shared sacrifice seriously, and go after their own base to show that they’re serious.
If she means that people poor enough to need food aid are the base of the Democratic party, she’s being very charitable to the Democrats.
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Not to mention that Americorps is being cut too, which will have a huge effect on education, after-school programs etc. and if you are cutting something that helps first graders learn to read better you are effectively diminishing the qualified workforce of the future. Very short-sighted but I suppose it makes for good soundbites…
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I like the comment on one of Laura’s links to the post on Norquist:
“Apparently “running the government like a household” (the strategy the teabaggers [sic] and the GOP love to cheer for) only includes letting the kids starve if money’s tight, not cutting into prime Beck-watching time with a second job…”
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You really think implying that people should work harder is an effective argument when unemployment is so high? I think something like 1/4 of those from 25 to 55 on my block have been laid-off at some point in the past three years.
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“You really think implying that people should work harder is an effective argument when unemployment is so high? I think something like 1/4 of those from 25 to 55 on my block have been laid-off at some point in the past three years.”
A related issue is that a lot of “rich” people may be supporting unemployed adult children, so they may not be as flush as they look on their tax forms. I wouldn’t do it quite that way, but my richest close relative is paying a 30ish married son’s car payment and house payment, as well as providing the son WPA-type projects. There are a lot of high-earning families providing intra-family welfare, AKA what The Millionaire Next Door disapprovingly refers to as “economic outpatient care.”
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I can’t quite remember how long that 30ish married relative has been under and unemployed, but it’s probably something like 2 or 3 years now that his parents have been making his payments. He got 2 master’s degrees in construction-oriented fields and went to school forever. He got a good job in his field after graduation, but was almost immediately laid off. The timing was just bad.
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“A related issue is that a lot of “rich” people may be supporting unemployed adult children, so they may not be as flush as they look on their tax forms.”
This is true. I know people I went to college with whose parents will pay for grad school indefinitely, buy apartments in Manhattan for their children, pull every string they can to get their children jobs, support them while they do volunteer work or unpaid internships, etc.
The problem is of course, that it does nothing to address the structural issues of the fact that our country is heading downhill very quickly, and the youngest generation is the canary in the coal mine. Unemployment for young people in some areas is upwards of 25%, and I read somewhere fully a third of people 18-30 have no health insurance. Anecdotally, most of my friends from high school from middle class families who went to good universities (we’re talking top ten or seven sisters type prestige) are struggling to find work (many have done americorps).
If wealthy people can provide de facto welfare for their children in perpetuam, then we get to a situation where only the children of the wealthy or the exceptionally driven and ambitious or lucky can stay in the middle class long term. This does not bode well for the future of America.
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In my relative’s case, the family welfare model may work out, but I have a bad feeling about it. He’s smart, he has a very nice personality, he’s obviously good at school, but I think he has probably bet on the wrong horse with regard to choice of profession. He’s young enough (and his parents are well-off enough) that there’s time for him to switch fields, but if things don’t go well, he’ll have frittered away his 30s waiting for something to materialize that isn’t coming.
Another young relative just found a job with a new airline after the old one laid him off. If you can believe it, he’s going to be making about $18k a year as a pilot (it’s not one of the big airlines), but there’s really no choice, because he has to keep flying to keep his qualifications current.
I think my relative the pilot will land on his feet (he’s very resourceful), but in both cases, there’s potential for severe downward mobility.
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On the economic outpatient care thing – I’ve been looking into a supposed trend of wealthier or at least established Boomer parents of buying their kids businesses/franchises over school. I find that really interesting – in some ways a total reversal of the self-made entrepreneur whose kids become doctors and lawyers. But so far I haven’t found a lot of evidence for it. (And I haven’t been working on a story directly so it’s been desultory poking around.) I’m not sure that would be downward mobility exactly but it is interesting.
On the WIC, I don’t have a great grasp of US politics. But it does seem to me that the myth/story of the “American Dream” is now actively interfering with the achievement of the dream. There seems to be an idea that real Americans don’t — will never — need that kind of help. Right when they do.
I think we have the same small-c conservative pressure up on this side of the border (and this election may give the Conservatives the majority they need), but without the added mythology there’s a kind of tempering of the dismantling of the social safety net. And of course we’re more dread socialists.
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he’s going to be making about $18k a year as a pilot
On a related note, I stopped flying regional carriers after figuring out their salaries. There is no way those guys aren’t under too much stress no matter how good they are. Because of where I usually fly, this means Southwest mostly.
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“I’ve been looking into a supposed trend of wealthier or at least established Boomer parents of buying their kids businesses/franchises over school.”
I’d be all, “Cupcake, why don’t you work five years slinging pizzas, save half your income and take all the community college business courses before coming to me about buying you a pizza franchise?”
Not that we would ever have either the money or the inclination to do that. I can think of no better way of turning a large fortune into a small one than handing a turnkey business over to a 20-something.
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“The bill would increase defense spending.”
I would happily offset the proposed food stamp and WIC cuts by ending Obama’s Libyan adventure.
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That’s probably not going to end well, but Lockerbie (and the fact that one guy who was in prison got out on sick day) make it hard to be that upset about it.
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Speaking of social services vs. adventure, there was a guy (I’m assuming) sleeping in the pedestrian tunnel I use on the way to work. He had a nice bike and some snazzy camping gear, including a clean mummy-style sleeping bag. I’m guessing he is doing a long distance bike ride as he isn’t far from a trail. He probably doesn’t know how close he is to a crowded area or he’d not sleep so soundly when he isn’t somewhere with a proper lock-up for a bike.
I probably should have woke him, but I didn’t know what to say.
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Amy P: “Another young relative just found a job with a new airline after the old one laid him off. If you can believe it, he’s going to be making about $18k a year as a pilot (it’s not one of the big airlines), but there’s really no choice, because he has to keep flying to keep his qualifications current.”
According to the guy on Salon who writes ‘Ask the Pilot’, this is normal for regional airlines. Those pilots pulling down near 100K or above both had to make it into the large jets *and* had to have maintained seniority for 20 years, through the turbulence of the airline industry.
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