Fiscal crises in state/local government
Class and inequality issues
morality, religion, welfare
homelessness, local issues
cartoons!

On fiscal crises in state government, local impacts:

• Oregon Center for Public Policy home page
• What's happened to taxes in Oregon? (from Oregon Center for Public Policy, Jan 7, 2003)
• David Sarasohn. 2004. What you don't know (about measure 30) can hurt you. The Oregonian, January 4.

Some historical context (we went through the budget crisis last year with Measure 28)

• Oregon Center for Public Policy report on who's going hungry in the state
• Oregon Center for Public Policy: Measure 28: how much will it really cost??
• Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: State budget crises are the norm
• Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: How the Bush tax cut will hurt states
• Effect of budget cuts on the elderly in La Grande (in the Observer, by Alice Perry Linker)
• State trooper positions will be lost (the Observer, by T.L. Peterson)
• Riverbend Corrections will stay open, but local workers will lose jobs (Observer, Alice Perry Linker)
• Costs of measure 28 tax increase vs costs of its defeat (Observer, Ray Linker)
• Here's one argument for getting Oregon's economy back on track--read it and try to figure out the politics.
• Impacts of cuts to balance the state budget . . . will turn lives upside down (Don Colburn, The Oregonian).
• Here's a view of U.S. state budget issues from the U.K. (by David Walker in the Guardian)
• Safety net is being overrun (Oregonian, Patrick O'Neill)
  

Class and inequality issues:

• New federal poverty guidelines (from the Oregon Center for Public Policy)

• Plans to eliminate the tax in shareholders' dividends (from Guess who?), by Edmund Andrews, NY Times
• Meanwhile, let them burn cake . . . (White House cuts $300 million from heating bill assistance, by John Fountain, NY Times)
• Analysis of the Bush proposed tax cut (Ronald Brownstein, LA Times)
• Conservatives mad cuz Democrats said 'class warfare' (specifically, Cal Thomas, townhall.com)
• More analysis of the tax cut proposal (by Molly Ivins)
• Democratic folklore (a critique of democrats' responses to Bush's tax cut, by Bill Murchison, Jan 10)
• Who's engaging in class warfare? (by Matt Miller)
• From the Economist (in support of eliminating tax on stock dividends)
• The Wall Street Journal: who are the lucky duckies?? (Jan 20)
• The White House is working hard (to avoid the tanking economy)--alternet.org, by Jim Hightower
• New federal poverty guidelines (from the Oregon Center for Public Policy)

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Morality, religion and welfare:

• Background on White House's policy of promoting marriage (Jonathan Peterson, LA Times)
• See what you think: article on family preservation (the Bush Administration is pumping money into experiments on how to 'strengthen' marriages). By Dennis Saffran.
• President Bush does end-around on funding of faith-based organizations (Washington Post, by Dana Milbank)
• New point man for White House's faith-based initiative (Washington Post, Dana Milbank)
• See the future of welfare reform, from the Republican National Committee website (and get to work!)
• The White House promotes re-employment accounts (AP writer Leigh Strope, in Washington Post, Jan 14) So . . . is this an effort to get people training toward better-paying jobs, or a transparent attempt to privatize another government program and force people into low-wage employment in a difficult job market? Or both?
• Corporate welfare: Yer not gonna believe this, but the U.S. Government is giving handouts to petrochemical companies!! (I told you you wouldn't believe it ... ). By Daphne Eviatar in Mother Jones Magazine.
• Let the faith-based funding begin (Pat Robertson's group is one of the first recipients, from the Washington Post)
• Speaking of the government regulating labor markets, here's the White House's latest maneuver (in Nando Times, Feb 1)
• There is now a course web page with more information on faith-based organizations.
• Editorial on Bush's compassionate streak (Bob Herbert, NY Times)
• The push to privatize Medicare continues (under the guise of 'choice'--Robert Pear, NY Times)
• Republican welfare reform: Get to work!! (from Washington Post, Feb 13, Laura Meckler)
• More money for marriage promotion! (Ellen Goodman, Boston Globe, Feb 23)
• The tax cut: More statistical manipulation from the White House (from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities)--keep in mind, the less families included in statistics, the more aid per family they can show (so the trick is to undercount)
• Requiem for welfare (by Evelyn Brodkin, University of Chicago--good critique of welfare reform)
• New study claims children unaffected by welfare-to-work (NY Times, Mar 7, Robert Pear)

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Homelessness, local issues:

• Homeless benefit from evictions in NYC (Village Voice, Tom Robbins)
• Article from Willamette Week on Dignity Village (a homeless community in Portland) by Nick Budnick
• Article by Marc Jolin in Oregonian, 'Defending Dignity Village'
• The homeless demographic (from mndaily.com)--how to market to homeless populations
• Opposition to migrant housing in Cove (from the Observer, Dec. 30)
• Bush White House will cut housing aid (Robert Pear, NY Times--good example of 'able-bodied' rhetoric)
• The importance of the United Way to non-profits operating in La Grande (from the Observer, Jan. 7)
• Social capital in action (The Observer, Dec. 27, by T.L. Peterson)
• This article is about a fire in Union and the community's response (much like the one above). From The Observer, Dec. 27, by T.L. Peterson).
  Political scientist James Scott says that the reliability of a reciprocal arrangement is related to the proximity of the parties. Another example of how social capital can be mobilized--we may see more of this post Jan. 28. Think about the role of the media as well--in this case, the story was reported after the response. In many cases, human interest stories that get media coverage can help families or those in need (versus the invisible who don't make the nighly news . . . ).
• Survived homelessness only to fall prey to domestic conflict (Oregonian, Feb 24, Maxine Bernstein)

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Cartoons in the news

Medicare modernization (Tom Toles, Feb. 1, ucomics)
Modernizing Medicaid (Tom Toles, Feb 11, from ucomics)
The state of the union address (Pat Oliphant, Jan 28, ucomics)
Block grants (Dan Wasserman, Feb 11, Boston Globe)
Tax policies (Nick Anderson, Louisville Courrier-Journal, Feb 7)
The direction of the economy (Gary Markenstein, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Feb 8)
Happy Valentine's Day (Tom Toles, Feb 13, ucomics)
Retirement is up on Wall Street (Jeff Stahler, Cincinnati Post)
Selling used cars or tax cuts? (Rex Babin, Sacramento Bee)