While Congress and the White House continue to consider economic recovery proposals designed to bring our country out of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, some deficit hawks are promoting the notion that the short-term costs of the economic downturn and the recovery plan ought to be linked to long-term reductions in Social Security and Medicare. They have characterized expenditures for these critical programs as representing an “entitlement crisis” or a “long-term fiscal crisis.”

“Children of incarcerated parents are more likely to drop out of school, engage in delinquency and subsequently be incarcerated themselves.”
The report was based on statistics released by the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Statistics citing data from 1997, 2004 and 2007.
“There is a growing awareness that parents who go to prison do not suffer the consequences alone.”
The report states that in 2007, there were 1.7 million children in the United States with a parent in prison, more than 70 percent of them children of color.

We need to make sure the money is spent wisely on projects that deliver the biggest bang for the buck,” Ben Scott, policy director of Free Press, said Monday during a conference call with other broadband advocates and reporters.

Free Press is especially concerned that stimulus funds shouldn’t be used to build networks that are “obsolete” because they’re too slow. In a report issued Monday, the organization urged the National Telecommunications and Information Administration–tasked with distributing $4.7 billion in broadband stimulus–to establish speed guidelines for the new networks.

Recently, the Obama Administration announced that it would not participate in the April 2009 United Nations Conference Against Racism – a follow up meeting to the 2001 Conference in Durban, South Africa…Gerald LeMelle, Executive Director of Africa Action, discusses what really happened at the first conference and why the Obama administration’s refusal to attend this time around is troublesome.

What do you think of the stimulus compromise?

It will have some effect, though not an efficient effect. The original bill wasn’t big enough and they made it smaller. By my estimate, the drop in demand is $1.3 trillion a year they’re trying to replace and the latest version of the stimulus is about $350 billion a year and I’m excluding the alternative minimum tax because I don’t think anyone would count a tax cut no one ever anticipated people paying out as stimulus.

Some experts, such as Robert Alvarez, a top Energy Department official during the Clinton administration, want the government to pick a new site for storing the waste. Alvarez recognizes the political difficulties ahead. “Everybody will just get angry if they learn their backyard might be a candidate site,” he says.

A real end to the war would mean this withdrawal was the first step towards a complete withdrawal of all U.S. troops in Iraq and bringing them home, not redeploying them to another failing war in Afghanistan. It would mean pulling out all the 150,000+ U.S.-paid foreign mercenaries and contractors, closing all the U.S. military bases, and ending all U.S. efforts to control Iraqi oil.

And so far, that is not on Obama’s agenda.

If the unemployment rate is 12% when Obama’s first term ends, he can forget about getting re-elected, even if the budget is balanced. On the other hand, if he has managed to bring the unemployment rate down to a reasonable level, no one other than a few Washington pundits will be bothered by the deficit that might have been necessary to achieve this result.

I don’t think the labor movement doubts Obama’s support in principle. Unlike the Clintons, who were never comfortable with labor and only became pro-labor as a matter of convenience, he has been a union supporter his entire career. No one doubts his support of EFCA. But I think for Obama the question is, where in his priority list is this?

President Obama named a tough, hard-nosed former Secret Service agent to lead the federal oversight board for the $787 billion recovery package. I’m sure Earl Devaney will live up to his reputation as a top-notch investigator of fraud and abuse. But oversight of the stimulus must be about more than just catching crooks and waste after the fact. We must also make sure the money is being spent wisely and effectively to help the economy and target those most in need — right now.