[Comment] Israel: Poverty Could Be Election Capital

From Business Week

Over the past year, two key Israeli businesspeople and longtime Labor Party backers decided to throw their weight behind a new, if controversial, contender for party leadership -- Amir Peretz. The powerful and charismatic boss of the Histadrut Labor Federation reassured industrialist and investor Benjamin "Benny" Gaon and venture capitalist Erel Margalit that, despite his union credentials, he strongly supported the free market and he viewed Britain's Tony Blair as a role model.

Gaon's and Margalit's support of Peretz raised quite a few eyebrows, but they felt the Labor Party needed a major overhaul and younger leadership if it ever was to return to power. On Nov. 9, contrary to expectations, Peretz, 54, narrowly defeated 82-year-old Labor leader Shimon Peres for the top party job. Now, Israel's political class is reeling. Peretz doesn't support Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's coalition government with Labor and has been pushing for new Knesset elections by March rather than as scheduled in November, 2006. The Knesset is expected to vote on Nov. 21 to dissolve itself, which would pave the way for early elections.

"Very Hard Times"
Peretz' challenge comes on top of other troubles for the Likud. The party is divided over the disengagement in the Gaza Strip and the northern West Bank. And on Nov. 15, Sharon's son, 41-year-old Knesset member Omri Sharon, was convicted of illegal campaign financing charges linked to his father's 1999 campaign. "If the Likud doesn't get its act together quickly and unite, then we are in for some very hard times," says Transport Minister Meir Sheetrit, a Sharon ally.

The Moroccan-born Peretz looks to have a strong chance to make gains on a divided Likud. Opinion polls taken shortly after his victory gave Labor under Peretz a boost. The Likud, which now has a 19-seat advantage over Labor in the Knesset, would see its lead narrow to seven, according to a Nov. 11 poll in the Ha'aretz newspaper.

Peretz focuses more on economic issues than on security, although he does favor immediate negotiations with the Palestinians on a final settlement. "The security issue is losing its importance as the major factor in elections and is being replaced by social and economic issues and corruption," notes Mina Tsemach, a leading Israeli pollster.

Peretz has made a name for himself by battling with his nemesis, Benjamin Netanyahu, over the latter's economic policies. The former Finance Minister, who resigned in August, slashed welfare payments, cut taxes, and sold off state-owned companies in moves to revive Israel's economy.

Buoyed by an improvement in the security situation and an international recovery, the Israeli economy grew 4.2% last year and is expected to grow 4.5% in 2005. But the improvement has not trickled down to large segments of the population. The number of Israelis living under the poverty line tops 20% and continues to rise. Most of the benefits from the boom and from Netanyahu's policies have been enjoyed by workers in Israel's so-called Silicon Wadis, where the country's high-tech industry is concentrated.

Hard Hit
The Likud may thus prove vulnerable in development towns such as Sderot, where Peretz served as mayor in the early 1990s. Established in the '50s in outlying areas, these are largely populated by low-income immigrants from North Africa. Traditionally, they have been a bastion of Likud support. But it's precisely these towns, where unemployment runs well above the 9% national average, that Netanyahu's policies have hit hardest.

Peretz would like to raise allowances paid for children and the elderly and cancel proposed cuts in education, health, and welfare. He wants to exempt workers earning less than $1,100 a month from income, social security, and health taxes, and raise the minimum wage by 30%, to $1,000 a month. Independent economists say his proposals could cost over $2 billion.

Many in the business community are concerned about the possible impact of Peretz' proposals. "If the minimum wage is raised, thousands of workers will be fired, factories will be forced to shut, and production will be transferred abroad," warns Shraga Brosh, president of the Israel Manufacturers Assn. The Likud is already painting Peretz as a socialist out of touch with the times. But his populist views have also put the party on the spot. Only hours after Peretz was elected Labor chief, Sharon announced the government was preparing a plan to combat poverty.

Peretz still faces an uphill battle to win the next election. But his ties with the country's lower-income groups have the Likud worried. With Sharon under siege in a divided party, a belated war on poverty could be too little, too late.

[Jamaica] Hughes, Salmon differ on poverty ministry

From Jamaica Observer

BY LUKE DOUGLAS Sunday Observer Writer
Sunday, November 20, 2005

Two of the government's senior technocrats have emerged with opposing views on the most cost-effective method of delivering services to the poor.

Dr Wesley Hughes favours the creation of a new ministry to run all poverty alleviation programmes.
But, Dr Jaslin Salmon insists that the job can be done by an executive agency.

"I believe a ministry would create tremendous expenses, which would eat up the meagre resources we have to put into the poverty programmes," Dr Salmon, coordinator of the National Poverty Eradication Programme (NPEP), told the Sunday Observer last week.
"I want to see a less expansive structure, but one that would provide the kind of coordination and integration that we want."

Salmon was responding to Dr Hughes' embrace of a call by academic Robert Buddan for the creation of a Ministry of Human Development under which all poverty programmes would coalesce for better management of service delivery.

Buddan, in a presentation at a poverty alleviation forum hosted by the Office of the Prime Minister at Jamaica House more than a week ago, had suggested that the creation of this human development ministry could help reduce poverty levels in Jamaica to single-digit.
The current levels are 16.9 per cent.

Last week, Hughes, director general of the Planning Institute of Jamaica and chair of the Jamaica Social Investment Fund (JSIF) - an agency within the poverty programme network - told the Sunday Observer that he was pleased that Buddan's view coincided with his own.

Buddhan had also suggested the floating of a 20-year bond to seed the ministry.
"I made the call internally some time ago, so I was heartened to hear Dr Buddan making the call as I had not had any discussion about it with him," Hughes said.
However, he made it clear that the idea was still being discussed in government circles.

"My approach is not the only approach," Dr Hughes said. "I know, for example, Dr Salmon has another approach."
Dr Salmon believes that a new ministry would only increase the size of government at a time when it should be reduced. It would also be a costly and complicated exercise, he argues.

"Ministries don't give up positions that readily, and you would get caught up in that battle over whose position is whose, and I don't think I want to see us caught in that," Dr Salmon told the Sunday Observer.

He explained that many poverty-alleviation programmes formed part of the core functions of ministries, and said he saw no need to move these programmes from their ministries.

"There are many functions taking place in the ministries for which they need the people at this point," Dr Salmon said. "If you were to set up a new ministry you would be expanding government; I think we need to contract the government."

Salmon supports the establishment of an executive agency with legal authority to coordinate all poverty programmes throughout the government. "It would have a core of technocrats, who have the authority to tie in with the ministries and some responsibility to sign off on budgetary issues," he said.

Both technocrats were quick to point out that their disagreement on the issue was not contentious, and that they both agreed on the need for greater coordination of the programmes.

"It's an ongoing debate at various levels," Dr Hughes said.
Added Dr Salmon: "We have a common understanding that there is need for a new institutional framework. It's a reasoned dialogue between Dr Hughes and myself."

On the matter of whether the country was spending too much to deliver benefits to the poor, Dr Hughes said it was so about four years ago before the Social Safety Net Reform Programme was introduced, but that was no longer the case.

Last week, the Sunday Observer reported Dr Hughes as saying the delivery of social relief in many instances was greater than the relief. "It can cost $1.50 to deliver a benefit of $1," he had said.

However, he said last week that he was referring to the situation before the reforms were introduced, but did not have the more current figures available immediately.

[U S Budget] House Budget Bill, with Almost All of it's Low-Income Cuts Intact, Moves on to Conference with Very Different Senate Bill

WASHINGTON - November 18 - On November 17, House leaders made several changes to the House budget reconciliation bill, some of them designed to garner the support of Members who were concerned that low-income families would bear a large share of the bill’s cuts. CBO analyses show, however, that these changes reduce the total level of cuts that most directly affect low-income Americans by only about two percent. The other 98 percent of the low-income cuts remain. The bill passed by the House would impose significant cuts in:

Food stamps: more than 220,000 people would be cut off the program. This includes at least 150,000 people, most of them in working families with children who have substantial work and housing expenses that drop their net incomes below the poverty line. In addition, 70,000 legal immigrants who have been in the United States between five and seven years, primarily working-poor parents and poor elderly individuals, would be cut off food stamps by 2008. The food stamp cuts would total $700 million over five years, according to CBO.

Medicaid: low-income beneficiaries would have to pay more for health care and would receive reduced services; many would end up doing without needed care. A last-minute change by the House reduced the co-payments that the poorest Medicaid beneficiaries must pay. But the House left unchanged the two most serious most serious problems in this part of the bill — the very high co-payments and premiums that beneficiaries just above the poverty line could be charged, and the health care services that states would be allowed to eliminate, including comprehensive preventive care and treatment for near-poor children.

These changes would reduce Medicaid by nearly $30 billion over ten years, according to CBO. These savings partly reflect the fact that because of the increases in co-payments and premiums, many low-income people either would not receive health care services or would not obtain Medicaid coverage at all, CBO notes. This, in turn, would result in more emergency room visits and higher emergency care costs, according to CBO, as people’s health worsens due to lack of timely care.

Child support: $24 billion in child support payments would go uncollected over the next ten years because of deep cuts in child support enforcement efforts. By sharply weakening funding for child support enforcement, the bill would undercut one of the government’s principal tools for enforcing personal responsibility on those who father a child. Child support payments would drop sharply — according to CBO, $24 billion that would be collected under current law would go uncollected under the House bill — and as a result, many children would likely be pushed deeper into poverty.

Child care: 330,000 children in low-income working families would lose child care assistance by 2010. The bill requires states to place many more parents receiving TANF cash assistance into work programs. States will have to provide child care for these parents. Yet the House bill fails to provide enough child care money even to maintain the current number of subsidized child care slots for low-income families.
As a result, states would have to shift child care slots from low-income working families that are not on TANF cash assistance to families that receive cash aid and are participating in work programs. By 2010, some 330,000 children in low-income working families would lose their child care subsidies. (This figure is a CBPP estimate; no CBO estimate is available.)

Budget Cuts Will Be Used to Finance Tax Cuts, Not Deficit Reduction or Hurricane Relief

Despite claims by supporters of the House bill, these cuts would not reduce the deficit or help offset the costs of hurricane relief. This is because the House is planning to consider a tax-cut reconciliation bill that would reduce revenues by $60 billion over five years, more than offsetting the total savings in the budget-cut bill.

Moreover, while the House budget cuts would heavily affect low-income families, the centerpiece of the House’s forthcoming tax-cut bill — an extension of the capital gains and dividend tax cuts — would overwhelmingly benefit upper-income households. Fifty-three percent of the benefits of extending those two tax cuts would go to the 0.2 percent of households that make more than $1 million a year, according to the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center.

Unlike House, Senate Achieved Savings Without Sharp Low-Income Cuts

The House’s approach to reconciliation budget cuts contrasts sharply with that of the Senate, which did not include any cuts to food stamps, child support enforcement, SSI, or foster care.

The Senate bill did include Medicaid reductions, but unlike the House, the Senate avoided changes that harm low-income beneficiaries. Instead, the Senate took on powerful lobbying interests such as managed care providers and pharmaceutical companies: the Senate bill reduced overpayments to Medicare managed care plans (as recommended by the non-partisan Medicare Payment Advisory Commission) and reduced the prices Medicaid pays pharmaceutical companies for prescription drugs. The House, in contrast, shielded managed care providers and pharmaceutical companies.

The House could have achieved the $50 billion in savings in its final bill while protecting low-income families by:

reducing overpayments to Medicare managed care plans;

lowering Medicaid prescription drug prices (by addressing the high charges imposed by pharmaceutical companies, as the Senate did); and canceling two tax cuts exclusively for high-income people that are scheduled to start taking effect on January 1. The savings just from canceling these two new tax cuts would be more than enough to replace all of the House’s low-income cuts.

It remains to be seen whether the House’s approach of imposing large cuts on low-income Americans or the Senate’s approach of protecting these people from the most severe cuts will prevail in conference negotiations.

[Comment] Education remains ticket out of poverty

From The Indianapolis Star

Our position: Education is key to helping Indiana's poor families find a way out of poverty.

Indiana's numbers are bleak. A 74 percent increase in the number of Hoosiers receiving food stamps from 2000 to 2004. A 30 percent boost in the number of students who qualify for free lunches at school because of low family incomes. A 19 percent rise in the number of students who dropped out of school in the 2003-2004 academic year.

Blame at least some of the sour statistics on the lingering effects of recession. Indiana still has a net loss of 46,000 jobs since 2000. And many of the jobs that have been created don't pay as well as the manufacturing positions that have migrated out of state.

The result, as the Kids Count in Indiana 2005 data book shows, is a sharp increase in the number of families in Indiana living near the poverty line. "The explosion in the numbers for things like food stamps is a clear indication that people are in trouble,'' Charles Warren, research manager for the Indiana Institute for Working Families, told Star reporter Tim Evans.

Warren says that about 40 percent of children in Indiana "are living in families that can't meet their basic needs.''

That number should be a shock to upper- and middle-income Hoosiers, state officials and business and educational leaders. Bill Stanczykiewicz, president of the Indiana Youth Institute, the organization that publishes the annual Kids Count report, notes that children living near or below the poverty line are more likely to suffer from abuse or neglect, develop cognitive skills at a slower pace and experience behavioral problems.

The implications are profound for a state struggling to rebuild its economy and to develop a work force capable of filling high-skilled jobs.
Improving Hoosiers' education level is essential to those goals. But if, as the Kids Count report indicates, a significant percentage of children continue to enter school behind their peers academically and live in families where education is slighted by the struggle to make ends meet, then building a better-educated work force will remain an elusive achievement.

What are the answers? One is for the state, admittedly short on money, to find a way to make early childhood education available to more kids.

Another is for state government to be more aggressive in tapping federal dollars that help poor families. Indiana was 45th in the nation in 2003 in per-capita federal spending on programs aimed at low-income children and families.
A generation of Hoosiers is fighting to pay for the basics of life. They need their neighbors' help in creating opportunities for them to succeed.

[Israel] Peretz set to fight election on poverty, not peace process

From the Independent

Amir Peretz, the Israeli Labour Party's new leader, plans to force the agenda to domestic Israeli issues and away from relations with the Palestinians in preparation for a general election which could now be as early as the end of February.

Mr Peretz will try to identify growing measures to combat poverty and social deprivation among lower-income Israelis as the key dividing line between himself and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, one of his most senior allies indicated yesterday. The Labour leader, who triggered the election by ending Labour participation in Mr Sharon's Likud-led coalition, said after the Prime Minister, who had planned to go to the country next November, was now "adamant" elections should be held as soon as possible.

Morocco-born Mr Peretz, leader of the country's trade union federation, added: "I will let him decide the date within the period of the end of February and the end of March. Any date he decides is okay with me." Mr Peretz said he hoped a date would be announced before Monday when the Knesset will start dissolving itself. A poll in yesterday's Maariv newspaper shows that, within a week of Mr Peretz being elected and with the campaign still undeclared, Labour's rating has already improved enough to give it five extra Knesset seats if Mr Sharon remains as leader of Likud, 27 to Likud's 38.

If Mr Sharon's main rival, Benjamin Netanyahu, were leading Likud, the parties would tie at 33 seats, a finding which may well increase Mr Sharon's chances of remaining at his party's helm. Mr Sharon is expected to decide in the next few days whether to remain in Likud or form a new party to bypass his right-wing rebels.

Yuli Tamir, the Labour Knesset member who ran Mr Peretz's leadership campaign and is certain to play a leading role in a Peretz administration, said she expected "social issues" to be a dominant part in the campaign. Mr Peretz has already said he wants a near-doubling of the £2.15 an hour minimum wage.

Ms Tamir said approaches to negotiations with the Palestinians were less likely to loom so large because the differences between the formal positions were "small", given that Mr Sharon is formally committed to a Palestinian state and a return to the internationally agreed road-map to peace.

If elected, Mr Peretz, is expected to approve completion of the controversial West Bank separation barrier. Ms Tamir said the new leadership was "very critical" of the policies pursued under Mr Sharon by Mr Netanyahu, the former finance minister, "which in the past few years gave advantages to the very few, the very rich and pushed a significant proportion of the population below the poverty line".

Mr Peretz, a founder member of Peace Now, called last week for early negotiations and said he "would not rest" until there was a lasting settlement with the Palestinians.

But Ms Tamir, when pressed on whether this would not sharply differentiate him from Mr Sharon, said: "At least what Sharon declares he will do is not different from what Amir says he will do. The difference is that Amir will do it, and with Sharon, I don't know whether he will do it or not."

Though Ms Tamir did not say so, Mr Peretz' strategy appears to be to legitimise his position on peace talks among the more hawkish of potential supporters, without also compromising it, by pointing to Mr Sharon's public commitments.

Ms Tamir said Mr Peretz's campaign was "probably the last chance" for Labour to "break out of a close circle" of middle-class Ashkenazy support and reach out to lower-income immigrants including hundreds of thousands from Arab countries who tended to support Likud.

One left-of-centre analyst said Mr Peretz had a chance of emulating Menachem Begin's success in 1977 as Likud leader, when he harnessed just such support to overturn a Labour hegemony seen as fossilised and corrupt. Even Mr Peretz has said he wants to be the "Menachem Begin of the Labour Party".

Ms Tamir ridiculed suggestions that Mr Peretz was trying to return to 1940s socialism, rather "humane capitalism", saying that as US President Bill Clinton had raised the minimum wage. The differences, she said, would be closer to those between US Demo-crats and Republicans.

Ms Tamir also said the Maariv poll showed a jump in support for Labour among Russian immigrants to more than 8 per cent from 2.5 per cent. She said the immigrants were "one of the major audiences we are going to appeal to to make the Labour Party relevant to different groups".

[Bob Geldof] Human rights award for Geldof

From Ireland On Line

Bob Geldof is to receive a European prize for his promotion of human rights.

The rock star and passionate campaigner against Third World poverty is due to be awarded the North-South Prize at a ceremony in the Portuguese parliament in Lisbon on Monday.

The prize has been awarded every year since 1995 to two candidates “who have stood out for their exceptional commitment to the protection of human rights, and the defence of pluralistic democracy and North-South partnership and solidarity”, according to the North-South Centre.

Being honoured alongside “Mr Bob Geldof (Ireland), Musician and Producer” will be Ethiopian women’s rights activist Bogaletch Gebre, founder of the Kembatta Women’s Self-Help Centre.

The European Centre for Global Interdependence and Solidarity, better known as the North-South Centre, was set up in 1989 by the Strasbourg-based Council of Europe, guardian of the European Convention on Human Rights, to which 46 countries, including all 25 EU member states, are signatories.

The centre’s job is to “foster links between the different hemispheres” by promoting the Council’s core values of human rights, democracy and the rule of law beyond the European continent.

Geldof and Ms Gebre are due to receive their awards from the President of the Portuguese Assembly, Jaime Gama, at the Assembly of the Republic, Palacio Sao Bento, Lisbon.

A citation on the centre’s website states: “In 1984, Bob Geldof, singer and songwriter, launched the Band Aid project to record a song in favour of the victims of famine in Africa.

“The last 20 years he has been working on the African questions. In 2005, the song of Band Aid was re-recorded and a series of concerts named Live Aid was organised.

“A member of the Commission for Africa, he is involved in the Make Poverty History campaign, which is a coalition calling for trade justice, debt cancellation and more, better aid in 2005.”

[US] ...tops in poverty among the Rich

From the Economic Times India

NEW YORK: Despite being the wealthiest country in the world with highest per capita income levels, the US also has one of the highest incidences of poverty among the rich industrialised nations, says a UN expert.

Arjun Sengupta, a well-known Indian economist, a former ambassador and an independent expert on human rights at the UN Commission on Human Rights, said here, “Despite a multitude of federal and state social benefit systems in the US, a number of problems ranging from the high cost of healthcare to lack of low-cost housing impede people struggling to get out of poverty and can been seen as a human rights abuse”.

UN statistics show that 12.7% (37m) of the population lived in poverty in ’04, while 15.7% (45.8m) were without health insurance coverage and 11.9% of households (38.2m people, including 13.9m children) experienced food insecurity.

“Resource constraints have limited the reach of the assistance programmes and social discrimination has aggravated the problems in many situations, resulting in poverty clearly seen as a violation of human rights,” Mr Sengupta declared.

[APEC] Preview: leaders to unite against poverty, epidemics, terrorism

From Monsters and Critics

Busan, South Korea - Leaders of the United States, China, Japan, Russia and 17 other nations will pool efforts this week against avian influenza and other epidemic diseases, terrorism and global poverty.

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation heads of state will also promote more liberalization of world trade, and their two-day summit is expected to draw thousands of anti-globalization protesters to the South Korean port city of Busan.

Foreign and economic ministers have met to hammer out a joint Busan Declaration and several documents for their leaders to present after meetings on Friday and Saturday. Top of their agenda is a strong leaders' statement urging all nations to work for progress in next month's crucial World Trade Organisation talks in Hong Kong.

U.S. President George W. Bush, Chinese President Hu Jintao and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi have all promised to raise initiatives on bird flu and other infectious diseases, and the summit is expected to issue an action plan for sharing information and responding rapidly to global epidemics.

Other key topics include cooperation in the fight against cross-border terrorism and corruption, and the effects of natural disasters in the region, especially the devastating tsunami that hit Asian countries bordering the Indian Ocean.

The leaders will also encourage efforts to negotiate the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.

China has kept the momentum in protracted six-party talks over North Korea's nuclear weapons programme, balancing the tough demands of North Korea and the United States, and persuading the other five parties to agree to a joint statement of principles. APEC members South Korea, Russia and Japan are also participating in the talks.

Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing last week said Hu planned to present China's views in Busan on 'advancing the balanced developent, stability and sustainable growth of the global economy' and would 'introduce China's future economic development plan'.

The APEC leaders plan to hold several bilateral sessions during the summit.

South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun has promised to meet Koizumi on Friday, despite the Japanese leader's latest visit to the controversial Yasukuni war shrine. But a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman on Tuesday said there was 'no such arrangement' for a meeting between Hu and Koizumi, 'because we don't think the atmosphere or conditions are right'.

Bush is scheduled to hold bilateral talks in Busan with Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, according to the White House's official itinerary. U.S. officials also requested a meeting between Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Bush will travel to Beijing late Saturday, immediately after the APEC summit, for meetings with Hu and other Chinese leaders on Sunday.

Some 40,000 security personnel will be deployed in Busan, with an alliance of South Korean farmers and international anti-globalization groups promising to mobilize 100,000 protesters in the city on Friday.

APEC groups nations whose 2.6 billion people account for about half of the global economy. It was founded in 1989 with the aim of creating a free-trade region, and the Busan summit was originally planned to focus on the group's 1994 Bogor goals for promoting free trade.

But the summit is instead dominated by the upcoming WTO talks.

During the ministerial meetings this week in Busan, South Korean Trade Minister Kim Hyun Chong said the APEC leaders would send a 'strong political message' to the WTO.

Kim brought together APEC's trade ministers with WTO chief Pascal Lamy on the sidelines of the meeting to discuss the row over agricultural subsidies within the WTO. Critics blame the European Union and the United States for failing to offer substantial cuts in farm subsidies at the WTO talks.

The WTO's current Doha development round was launched in Qatar in 2001 with the specific intention of reforming trade rules to benefit developing countries.

The international aid agency Oxfam last week said that, four years on, development issues were being pushed aside by headline grabbing disputes between rich nations. Oxfam said the December 13-18 WTO ministerial talks in Hong Kong would fail unless rich countries made offers to open their markets for poor nations.

'It's no exaggeration to say that these [Doha] negotiations hold the key to a better future for billions of people,' World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz said recently in Beijing.

[France Riots] France to Extend Curfew as Calm Returns to Cities

From Bloomberg

Nov. 14 (Bloomberg) -- The French government approved extending the nation's state of emergency as curfews and bans on public meetings in Paris and Lyon brought calm to areas hit by more than two weeks of violence.

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy presented at today's cabinet meeting a plan to extend the state of emergency for a period of three months, starting Nov. 21. The measures were put in place Nov. 8 to curb violence in towns around the nation's biggest cities.

While the number of cars torched fell to 284 last night, about 15 percent of the peak, the government said it would like to keep the ``exceptional measures'' in place. President Jacques Chirac will address the nation tonight.

``It's a measure which is strictly temporary and which would apply only where it is strictly necessary,'' Chirac told the cabinet meeting, government spokesman Jean-Francois Cope said.

The center of Paris was calm late yesterday after the authorities imposed a ban on public meetings on Nov. 12. The violence that began in a Paris suburb on Oct. 27 spread to towns and cities across France in the worst public unrest in the country since a student uprising in 1968.

The wave of unrest began in the Paris suburb of Clichy-sous- Bois after accidental death by electrocution of two teenagers who were fleeing a police check. The rioting in suburbs housing immigrants and their descendants prompted the government to invoke a state-of-emergency law for the first time in 50 years, allowing local authorities to impose curfews.

`Back to Normal'

``We're going back to normal in the cities,'' said National Police Chief Michel Gaudin. The number of torched cars dropped last night from 374 the previous night, he said at a press conference at the interior ministry in Paris.

The state of emergency needs parliamentary approval to be extended beyond 12 days. The government spokesman said the draft bill would allow the ending of ``these exceptional measures'' by decree before the end of the three-month period. The plan will be examined in parliament tomorrow, Agence France-Presse reported.

``We still have a lot of work to do,'' Gaudin said. ``It isn't normal that there's this number of torched cars at cruising speed. The Interior Minister has never considered that the situation in terms of urban violence was satisfactory'' even before the riots, he said.

Gaudin said the police is working with domestic intelligence to gather evidence and establish responsibilities for damages to cars and public property. He said measures will be taken to change recruitment patterns in the police and hire more people from ethnic minorities, as in countries, such as the U.K.

Mirroring Society

``Our police must mirror the French society as it is in the year 2005,'' Gaudin said. France, with a population of about 62 million, has one of the largest communities of immigrants of Arab origin in Europe, totalling about 5 million.

Gaudin said France will deport foreigners, even holders of a valid resident permits, found responsible of taking part in episodes of urban unrest, he said.

Lyon, the third-largest French city with a population of 422,000 people, was calm late yesterday, AFP reported. The city authorities banned public meetings after rioters fought with police in the city center two days ago. Overnight curfew restrictions remain in force in about 40 French municipalities.

The European Union yesterday offered France 50 million euros (58.6 million) for urban rebuilding in riot-hit areas, AFP cited European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso as saying before he met Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin yesterday.

Unemployment

The riots partly reflect tensions in neighborhoods where youth unemployment exceeds 30 percent and where sizeable Muslim communities reside in the largely Catholic country. They have left one person dead, 8,300 cars torched and 2,652 people arrested since the night of Oct. 27.

Sarkozy, after meeting with police on Paris's Champs Elysees two days ago, repeated a promise to deport immigrants found guilty of rioting, a stance that has drawn criticism from defenders of minority rights.

``Foreigners found guilty can and will be expelled,'' Sarkozy said. He said deportations could begin as early as today.

[France Riots] Chirac admits poverty fueled riots

From The Detroit Free Press

But French president chastises violence

BY ANGELA DOLAND
ASSOCIATED PRESS

PARIS -- President Jacques Chirac directly addressed for the first time the inequalities and discrimination that have fueled two weeks of rioting across France, saying Thursday that the country has "undeniable problems" in its poor neighborhoods.

Violence continued to slow under state-of-emergency measures and heavy policing, with far fewer skirmishes and fewer cars burned. And eight police officers were suspended, two of them suspected of beating a man held during the riots.

Chirac had spoken publicly about the unrest only once in a brief address focused on security measures. But on Thursday, he said that once order is restored, France will have to "draw the consequences of this crisis, and do so with a lot of courage and lucidity."

"There is a need to respond strongly and rapidly to the undeniable problems faced by many residents of underprivileged neighborhoods around our cities," he said.

"Whatever our origins, we are all the children of the republic, and we can all expect the same rights," Chirac said.

But he also pointed a finger at parents, saying "too many minors" have joined the violence, some "pushed to the fore by their elders."

The crisis has led to questions about France's failure to integrate its African and Muslim minorities. Anger about high unemployment and discrimination has fanned frustration among the French-born children of immigrants from former colonies.

One 20-year-old who grew up near Paris said he had stopped looking for a job and joined the rampage.

"Maybe I burnt cars. I know it's not very nice of me, but, to be honest, I am happy that things heated up everywhere to let everybody know that we are sick of it," said Ahmed Zbeul, hanging around a courthouse Thursday to support friends on trial.

In La Courneuve, north of Paris, two cops were suspected of hitting a man taken in for questioning, the Interior Ministry said. The two were suspended along with six others suspected of witnessing the incident Monday. The victim had minor injuries, the ministry said.

[China] Members call for poverty alleviation on SAARC summit

From Xinhua Net

DHAKA, Nov. 12 (Xinhuanet) -- Prime Minister of Bangladesh Begum Khaleda Zia Saturday stressed the need for mobilizing all necessary human and material resources of South Asian nations for poverty alleviation in the region and proposed declaring the coming 2006-2015 as "the SAARC Decade for Poverty Alleviation."

In her welcome address to the inaugural session of the 13th SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) Summit in Dhaka, Khaleda Zia, who was elected as chairperson of SAARC in the session, said that in the last SAARC summit held in Islamabad in 2004, all member states recognized alleviation of poverty as the over arching goal of all SAARC activities. "We must mobilize all necessary human and material resources" to address the poverty on a regional scale, she said.

Widespread incidence of poverty continues to be a major concern for the South Asian nations. Intra-regional trade in South Asia is still about 4 percent of the region's combined trade with the rest of the world. Foreign direct investment in the region accounts for a mere one percent of the global total.

Terming accelerating economic growth as major SAARC objective, the prime minister said all member states must ensure that the SAFTA (South Asia Free Trade Area) Agreement enters into force as agreed upon with effect from Jan. 1, 2006.

She also called for a common investment strategy to generate investment flows from within and outside the region.

As natural disasters presented a new challenge to the region, Khaleda Zia said, a regional response should be developed to face the disasters such as tsunami, floods, earthquakes, cyclones.

On combating terrorism, she said that the last SAARC summit adopted an Additional Protocol to the SAARC Regional Convention, so as to deal effectively with the financing of terrorism. Four countries including Bangladesh have ratified the protocol.

She urged the remaining members of the regional forum to expedite their ratification so that the protocol can enter into force at an early date, if possible by the end of the year.

Terming South Asia as an emerging economic giant with unlimited potential, the prime minister said, "Realizing South Asia's true potential is the challenge facing us today."

The prime minster said the ongoing 13th SAARC Summit enables the South Asian nations "to look to the future and forge a blueprint for the next phase of SAARC activities."

[Comment] Similarities between poverty in the United States, France

From The Alameda Times Star

PARLEZ-VOUS pauvret, discrimination, dsespoir? (that is poverty, discrimination and hopelessness.)
That has a different ring from libert, egalit et fraternit (the French national motto translating to liberty, equality and brotherhood.)

Anyone surprised by the recent rioting in France hadn't been paying attention to the living conditions of the immigrant population, largely from North and West Africa.

They are isolated in ghettos living with dilapidated public housing, inadequate schools, gangs, drug dealing, police harassment, a 30-percent unemployment rate, fatherless families.

Are we talking Saint-Denis or Ghosttown in West Oakland? In France, the inner-city is in the suburbs. The projects are called Les Cites.

The impoverished suburbs have even produced French rap, which includes a hardcore variety along the lines of gangster rap in the United States.

The similarities are striking. But they haven't gone unnoticed. The youth advocates there sound like the youth advocates here. A couple of years ago, a young French sociologist interviewed me about the Oakland community reaction to youth crime as part of her research on youth crime in the U.S. She planned to apply her research to the immigrant communities in France.

"All the youth know that they won't find equality if they go to high school here. They will have the chance of a snowball in Hell to enter one of the 'grandes ecoles.' (specialized higher education) How do you justify that?"

"All this gives rise to a real feeling of abandonment on the part of the residents."

"Just in Seine-Saint-Denis, there were 160 teaching positions not filled at the reopening of schools this fall. There are still 80 posts vacant."

"The level of education in primary school is low, very low. The average of national evaluations in (grades 5 to 6) is lower than in all the other (educational priority zones.)"

"We have the feeling of being trapped in here. We are not the ones who have the keys. It's them. For (the majority of the youth) it's difficult for them to imagine another future than in the housing complex."

As I said, are we talking Clichy-sous-Bois (where the rioting started) or Coliseum Gardens in East Oakland?

The French even have their version of hard line conservatives who vilify the poor. Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy's comments calling the young residents "thugs" and "scum" were believed to have escalated the violence. It calls to mind the comments of Republican Congressman Richard Baker, overheard by a reporter: "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did."

The scenes from suburban Paris recalled Watts in 1965. The scenes from New Orleans depicted a different calamity. Both were born of the same causes, poverty and neglect.

The United States, France and other developed countries have spent the last two or three decades ignoring poverty. Conservatives blame poverty on the moral weakness of the poor. Liberals throw up their hands, exasperated by the complexity of the problem. In either case, we lost the will to get people out of poverty and left them to their inner cities or suburbs.

However, pretending poor people don't exist clearly does not work. That is the inescapable lesson coming out of New Orleans and France's suburbs. We can ignore consistently underperforming schools, dropout rates, crime in ghettoized areas and the country's unrealized potential when large segments remain uneducated. But eventually the society will be forced to deal with the anger and frustration of its poor citizens.

Borrowing from Langston Hughes' classic poem, "A Dream Deferred," what happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up, fester, stink, sag? Or does it explode?

When it explodes, it isn't contained in the ghettos. It spills over to the entire society.

In the wake of Katrina and the French riots, top government officials of both countries have vowed to renew their efforts to eradicate poverty and discrimination. Maybe these events have been a wakeup call. Maybe.

[Israel] New Labor Party leader knows poverty

From The Seattle Post Intelligencer
By AMY TEIBEL
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

JERUSALEM -- Growing up poor in southern Israel, Amir Peretz, the newly elected leader of Israel's Labor Party, knows firsthand about the gap between the country's haves and have-nots.

But as Israel's top union leader, he also knows how to wield power, bringing the economy to a standstill with nationwide strikes pushing the demands of large unions that form the base of his support.

On Thursday, with a dramatic upset victory over elder statesman Shimon Peres, he thrust his campaign for greater social and economic equality even more prominently onto the national stage, pledging to bring Labor back to its egalitarian roots.

Peretz, a 54-year-old Moroccan native, grew up on the margins of Israeli society. His family immigrated in 1956 and settled in the Israeli town of Sderot near the Gaza Strip, where his father worked on a kibbutz. Peretz's formal education ended in high school.

Many Moroccans and other Sephardi Jews of Middle Eastern descent turned their backs on the country's founding Labor Party decades ago. They felt - and still feel - disenfranchised by Israel's European elite, who sent them to live in remote towns with few services while siphoning off many of the best jobs for themselves.

"And from this public emerges a proletarian prince who takes over the party and becomes its owner," said Israeli political commentator Daniel Ben-Simon.

"This is a sign that he will bring (to the party) not only the immigrants, but all those who are on the fringes and felt this party never spoke to them on their level, but always looked down on them.

"It's not an upheaval, it's a revolution."

Peretz's rise to power was swift. After reaching the rank of captain in the army, he was elected to parliament on the Labor ticket in 1988. In 1995, the father of four became head of the Histadrut Labor Federation.

Since then, Peretz has become a nationally known figure, and an easy target for TV satire because of his trademark walrus mustache and impassioned rhetoric.

Peretz has crippled the economy on various occasions with nationwide strikes intended to wrest concessions from the government as it privatizes state industries and negotiates collective bargaining agreements. For this, he has won the backing of Israelis who feel betrayed by social spending cuts.

But in comments Thursday, he was savvy enough not to cross rhetorical red lines.

"I don't intend to damage the free market and competition," he said. "But I want Israel's free market to serve people, and for competition to be fair, so we won't be turned into a jungle where people lose their ability to survive."

After making a pilgrimage to the grave of Yitzhak Rabin, the former Israeli prime minister who was assassinated 10 years ago this month, Peretz said the Labor Party needs to look inward to regain control of the government it lost in 1977.

"The ability of the Labor Party to become an alternative to the rulers can be fulfilled only if we return to ourselves," he said.

[India] SAARC: India to pitch for fight against poverty, terrorism

From Matamat

Dhaka, - India will strongly pitch for an "indivisible fight" against poverty and terrorism in South Asia and push hard for evolving SAARC as a regional trade bloc and an economic union at the two-day Summit of the regional grouping here from November 12.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who arrives here tomorrow evening, is expected to highlight the need for strengthening regional cooperation in fighting the scourge of terrorism.

Ratification of the Additional Protocol to the SAARC Convention on Suppression of Terrorism and early conclusion of a Comprehensive on International Terrorism are likely to be emphasised by Singh during his address at the Summit.

Outlining India's expectations from the SAARC Summit, Singh said yesterday in Chandigarh that the destiny of South Asia was inter-linked be it poverty, disease, natural disasters or the issue of terrorism. "Thus we must learn to work together to deal with these challenges." In a veiled reference to Pakistan, Singh said no country can pretend that cross border terrorism will not affect it internally and that our terrorist could be someone's "freedom fighter."

[Israel] Anti-poverty plan in limbo

From YNet News

Labor party ministers say NIS 4 billion to be earmarked to war on poverty. Prime Minister’s Office: It’s an imaginary sum
Ronny Sofer

War on poverty going bankrupt? While Labor party ministers boast of an anti-poverty plan to the tune of NIS 4 billion (about USD 900 million,) associates of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon put a damper on the plan, saying such sums were imaginary.

“There is no way those sums of money will be approved,” sources at the Prime Minister’s Office said in response to Labor’s festive declarations.

As early elections become a likelier possibility, it appears parliamentarians across the political spectrum may be using the war on poverty to elicit more votes in a country where about 1.5 million people are under the poverty line and one of every three children lives in poverty.

The anti-poverty plan, prepared by Labor party Ministers Isaac Herzog and Shimon Peres, called for designating about two percent of the State budget, or about NIS 4 billion, to a plan that would include large tax benefits for employers who hire new workers, a revolution in professional training, and considerable assistance to the disabled, among other measures.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Ehud Olmert (Likud) proposed his own plan, prompting Ariel Sharon to order Peres and Treasury officials to join forces and present a joint plan within two weeks. However, the State budget proposal was introduced Tuesday, with Olmert saying he would not breach it by as much as a cent.

'Budget deficit better than human deficit'

Labor party officials say that "We are within the numbers we quoted," referring to approximately 2 percent of the state budget, over NIS 4 billion.

"If 500,000 people in Israel will continue to go to soup kitchens – we will not be in the government," Peres' aides said.

"Better a budget deficit than a human deficit," they added.

Peres himself told Ynet Monday that he is absolutely certain that the prime minister and finance minister will go along with him to implement the plan initiated by himself and the housing minister, based on the plan of former U.S. President Lyndon Johnson in the 1960's.

However, Finance Ministry officials were not willing to obligate themselves to any sum that would be allocated to the plan to fight poverty.

"I heard numbers rolling, NIS 4-5 million. I must say that there is no agreement on these sums and there is no obligation for any number. I am not responsible for this or that number," Olmert said in the Knesset Finance Committee meeting Tuesday morning.

"We are forming the plan as we speak and we will submit it on the determined time," Olmert's aides in the Finance Ministry said, stressing again that they do not intend on changing Israel's fiscal policy as not to shake international faith in Israel’s economy.

Are Peres and Herzog instilling false hopes among Israel's poor? Is this a media spin started by Labor and joined by Sharon and Olmert, in sight of the upcoming elections? Could it be that none of the senior ministers can quote the real sums allocated to the plan to fight poverty, only 10 days before it is to be submitted to Sharon? Indeed, the answer to all those questions may be “Yes.”

[Kenya] Poverty highest where education level is low

From The Kenyan Standard

By Noel Wandera

Gonzi Rai’s Ganze Constituency is the worst hit by poverty in Kenya, a new report has revealed.

The report on poverty and inequality released by Government yesterday presents a preliminary socio-economic profile of poverty for the urban and rural population.

It derives the findings based on the level of education and gender of the household heads based on the 1999 population and the housing census data.

The report says poverty is high across all households in Ganze, whether led by the uneducated, those with primary education or those who have attained post-primary education.

Thus, poverty incidence in houses where the head has no education was 89 per cent, primary education 79 per cent and secondary and above 65 per cent.

In generally, the socio-economic dimensions of the constituency profile indicate that households headed by individuals with secondary education or above have less poverty compared to those headed by individuals with primary education.

Overall, the emerging spatial pattern reveals that controlling for education attainment of the household head, poverty rates vary substantially among constituencies.

According to the report, households in Kuria Constituency whose households heads have primary education are three times as likely to be poor compared to households in Githunguri constituency that are headed by persons that never went to school.

"This is suggestive of substantial variation in the returns to higher education across rural constituencies in Kenya," says the report.

In all of Kenya’s 210 constituencies, households headed by individuals with no education have the highest poverty incidence, a pattern that is replicated in urban and rural residents.

In contrast to Ganze, Githunguri Constituency in Central Province has the lowest incidence of poverty among rural households headed by a member with no education, with the incidents rated at 27 per cent.

The poverty incidences among rural households whose heads have primary education ranges from 20 per cent in Kabete Constituency in Central Province to 82 per cent in Kuria Constituency, Nyanza Province.

Kabete residents whose rural households are headed by people with post-primary school educational attainment shows the least rate of poverty — a mere 1 per cent — while in a similar scenario, seven out of every 10 households from Kuria Constituency in Nyanza Province experience the highest poverty rates of 79 per cent.

Among urban households, poverty incidents for households headed by persons with no education varies from a low of 10 per cent among the urban residents of Maragwa Constituency in Central Province to almost 100 per cent of the urban residents of Nyaribari Masaba Constituency in Nyanza Province.

[Israel] Sharon: Plans for war on poverty must be completed in two weeks

From Haaretz Ireal News

By Zvi Zarahiya, Haaretz Correspondent

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Sunday told the Finance Ministry it has two weeks to complete its plans to launch a war on poverty in cooperation with the office of Vice Premier Shimon Peres.

Sharon made his demand Sunday morning in a meeting with Peres, acting Finance Minister Ehud Olmert, Housing and Construction Minister Isaac Herzog, Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer and senior officials in the Finance Ministry.

Professional Finance Ministry teams will hold meetings over the next few days to put the finishing touches on its plan to reduce poverty. Budgetary modifications will be made after the first Knesset reading of the budget and before the second and third.

Funding for the program will come from the state budget.

In the meeting on Sunday, Peres said, "We cannot accept a situation in which 500,000 people are going to soup kitchens. We must examine first and foremost the humanitarian deficit and not just the financial deficit."

Peres called on the government to make substantial changes to the budget to reduce poverty in Israel.

Peres told Finance Ministry officials, "Stop saying that you are responsible for economic growth. You are also responsible for poverty. You brought us more poverty in the last two years than growth. If there is anything that caused economic growth, it is the disengagement plan."

Sharon said that changes to the budget are to be based on a plan drawn up by Peres and Herzog to fight poverty. Portions of Olmert's plan will also be included.

"We must begin to treat poverty and I expect actual results in the short-term. I ask that sources close to Peres be partners in preparing an operative plan, and I expect that by the middle of November, the plans be completed and budgeted," said the prime minister.

At the meeting, Herzog proposed a Labor Party program to fight poverty that is expected to cost NIS 4.5 billion. The principles of the plan include incentives for employers to hire new workers, increased pensions for the elderly and handicapped, aid to low wage-earners, increased spending on job training, aid for higher education and housing solutions for poor families.

Herzog said that the price of the program is half the cost of the disengagement, and that existing sources from the government must be taken and redistributed over a few years.

[US] Poll results: Eliminating poverty should be No. 1 U.S. priority

From The San Jose Mercury Times

PETER PRENGAMAN

Associated Press

LOS ANGELES - Eliminating poverty in America is more important than fighting terrorism, especially to blacks, U.S. troops should be pulled out of Iraq, and money saved on war should be used to rebuild hurricane-scarred New Orleans, according to a national poll released Thursday.

When asked, "What do you think should be the most important priority for the U.S.?" a majority of blacks, 58 percent, chose "eliminating poverty" over other answer choices "rebuilding our own cities," "fighting terrorism," and "establishing democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan."

Pluralities of other ethnic groups - 43 percent of Hispanics, 40 percent of Asians and 36 percent of whites - also chose eliminating poverty as their top priority.

"I don't remember poverty ever finishing as the No. 1 priority on any kind of list," said Sergio Bendixen, whose firm Bendixen & Associates conducted the poll. "The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the images of poverty have clearly made a large impact on many Americans."

Hurricane Katrina pummeled the Gulf Coast in September, killing more than 1,000 people and devastating New Orleans. President Bush and the Federal Emergency Management Agency were sharply criticized for sluggish response efforts as millions of television viewers watched thousands of New Orleans residents - many black_ struggling to survive amid abject poverty.

The survey was conducted by telephone Oct. 14-21 among 1,035 adults nationwide - 258 whites, 268 Hispanics, 259 blacks and 250 Asians.

Most were sampled using the "random digit dial" technique, to reach people with unlisted and listed phone numbers. Japanese, Asian-Indians and Filipinos - half the Asian subgroup - were sampled based on first and last names from phone listings and other public databases.

Interviews were conducted in six languages. The sampling error for each subgroup was plus or minus 6 percentage points except sampling error cannot be calculated for Asians not sampled using random digit dial.

The poll found that a majority of blacks, Asians and Hispanics, and a plurality of whites believed U.S. troops should be pulled from Iraq to pay for rebuilding in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

When asked "How should the government finance its share of the Hurricane Katrina relief effort?" 77 percent of blacks, 69 percent of Hispanics, 60 percent of Asians and 46 percent of whites chose "By getting our troops out of Iraq as soon as possible."

The findings were similar to an AP-Ipsos poll last month that found 42 percent favored cutting spending on Iraq to pay for relief efforts in the Gulf Coast.

Thursday's poll found a majority in all four ethnic groups would first look to nongovernment groups for help during a future natural disaster.

Interviewees were asked, "If your community was impacted by a natural disaster similar to Hurricane Katrina, whom do you think you could count on the most to help your family?"

Eighty-one percent of blacks, 74 percent of whites, 69 percent of Hispanics and 63 percent of Asians chose community and religious organizations over government and the U.S. Armed Forces.

A point of divergence between whites and blacks centered on interpretations of television images showing people in New Orleans breaking into supermarkets and other stores in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Respondents were asked, "Do you think they were looters and criminals or do you think they were people trying to take care of their families and their needs?"

Fifty-seven percent of blacks answered "trying to take care of their families." Only 31 percent of whites chose that answer, while 46 percent of whites said the people "were looters and criminals."

Hispanics and Asians were almost evenly split on their interpretations.

[US Budget] Update: Human Needs Still at Risk

From Sojourners

by Yonce Shelton

As Congress aims to finish its work for the year in mid-November, a major goal is approval of the 2006 budget reconciliation bill (H. Con. Res. 95). Despite a victory last week in the Senate, the outlook for millions of low-income families remains dire. And tax cuts for the wealthy are still on the agenda.

The House leadership is still trying to increase from $35 billion to $50 billion the mandatory cuts in the budget. Some House members are also calling for across-the-board cuts to discretionary programs, including energy and nutrition assistance for low-income families. A vote to make these changes was scheduled for last week but was delayed, partly because of strong efforts from the advocacy community. However, efforts to make these cuts continue, and the most vulnerable are being targeted to save money.

Monday, the House Ways and Means Committee announced plans to increase its social cuts from $1 billion to $8 billion. Additional cuts will come from foster care, child support, and aid to disabled people. The House Energy and Commerce Committee still plans to cut $11 billion from Medicaid, despite the fact that the Senate Finance Committee has reduced its Medicaid cuts from $10 billion to $5 billion. Further, the House Agriculture Committee has failed to follow the Senate Agriculture Committee's example last week of deciding, after much pressure from advocates and individuals across the country, not to make any cuts to the Food Stamp Program. It was a positive step forward and a win for low-income people and advocates. But House Agriculture Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) is still asking his committee to cut as much as $1.5 billion from the Food Stamp Program.

Another concern is that the House Education and Workforce Committee has passed a Temporary Assistance for Needy Families reauthorization bill (H.R. 240), raising work requirements from 30 to 40 hours per week while only increasing child care funding by $1 billion. This legislation might be included in the final budget bill, meaning easier chances for passage. Again, the Senate's approach is much better. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) has said he hopes to address TANF as a separate bill with a child care funding increase of $6 billion. The increase in work hours in the House bill effectively means mothers will work more with little additional support for child care and safety.

As many congressional leaders look for more cuts to critical human needs programs, misguided plans to cut $70 billion in taxes - mostly benefiting the wealthy - have yet to be questioned by those in power. Many in the Senate and House leadership are hoping it goes unnoticed that although the traditional purpose of a budget reconciliation bill is to reduce the deficit, the budget and tax proposals together would increase the national deficit by $35 billion. In effect, cuts to programs for poor people are financing more tax cuts for the rich.

Action Alert:

Several House committees are making key funding decisions this week that could hurt low-income families (see above). Call your member of the House of Representatives at (202) 224-3121 (Capitol switchboard) and ask them to:

* OPPOSE CUTS TO SOCIAL SUPPORTS SUCH AS MEDICAID, FOOD STAMPS, AND CHILD CARE
* OPPOSE TAX CUTS THAT BENEFIT THE RICH AND TAKE SUPPORT AWAY FROM THE POOR

[John Edwards] Poverty is this generation's civil-rights movement, says ex-Senator

From UC Berkeley News
By Bonnie Azab Powell

BERKELEY – Hurricane Katrina ripped aside the mask of equal opportunity in America and exposed poverty's face as primarily black and deeply disillusioned. Now that almost two months have passed, many have again chosen to avert their eyes. But last night at UC Berkeley, more than 1,500 or so students and others lined up from the Martin Luther King, Jr. Student Union all the way to Sather Gate for the chance to hear a former senator and vice presidential candidate talk about poverty.

"Poverty is the great moral issue of our century," John Edwards told the audience crammed into every square inch of Pauley Ballroom. "Young people on college campuses have sparked movements in the past," he said, invoking Berkeley's Free Speech Movement and other sea changes in civil rights, the Vietnam War, and apartheid brought about by college students. "You can do it again," he challenged them. "People living in poverty need you. And another thing: America needs you."

Edwards was visiting campus as part of a 10-stop college tour to promote Opportunity Rocks, a nascent, student-led effort to motivate young people to fight poverty at the grassroots level through community service and political action. (Berkeley's Opportunity Rocks chapter is headed by student Andy Solari, also president of the Interfraternity Council.) No longer representing North Carolina in the U.S. Senate, Edwards directs the Center on Poverty, Work, and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and chairs the Center for Promise and Opportunity, a nonprofit organization dedicated to studying and alleviating poverty.

Edwards is a natural speaker, and his Kennedyesque call for public service appeared to strike a resounding chord with this Berkeley audience. He began his discussion of poverty in America by focusing on those residents of New Orleans who had not fled Hurricane Katrina. "Here's why they didn't leave: because they couldn't," he said, enumerating how they lacked things many in his audience might take for granted, like a car, credit card, and bank account.

What poor residents needed, he emphasized, was not just charity, but opportunity — for example, the opportunity to rebuild their city themselves. "The last thing we ought to be doing [in New Orleans] is giving big contracts to multinational corporations," he said. It was the first of several statements to elicit a standing ovation. (Another was a shout-out to U.S. Congresswoman Barbara Lee of Oakland, who is pushing for legislation to address poverty.)

Through Opportunity Rocks, Edwards is asking students to commit to doing 20 hours of community service per semester. Its website promises that students who register will be able to find guidance for what kinds of service are neeed, as well as track their progress in online forums and blogs.

Some students commented afterward that Edwards' speech was a bit skimpy on the details of this service. Alice, a graduate student in political science said, "I believe in what he was talking about, but he didn't give us a lot of concrete action that we on the ground can take. I was hoping for some new insights." (She asked that her last name be withheld because her country of origin frowns on its students making political statements abroad.)

Edwards provided more specifics, however, on how he and the Center for Promise and Opportunity hope to address poverty on a national level. He would like to end the "national disgrace of our minimum wage" with a substantial increase. He proposes to give housing vouchers to poor families that they could use to live anywhere, not just in Section 8 housing, in neighborhoods with good schools if they choose. Iif Hurricane Katrina's devastating effect on New Orleans has taught us one thing, he said, it's that "it is not a good thing to cluster poor people together."

He would also like to issue "work bonds," through which the government would match any savings that low-income families manage to accrue, helping them save to buy homes and send their children to college.

Throughout his speech, Edwards emphasized that America does not have to be a land of haves and have-nots — that "we can do something about that."

He offered his own life as proof. "Some of you might remember that I'm the son of a mill worker — that is, unless you've been asleep for the past few years," he said with a wink and to much laughter. For those few who had been snoozing, he offered a quick recap of his path from a working-class childhood to becoming a successful trial lawyer, state senator, and "what some would consider a serious candidate for the presidential nomination." (Although "that 'some' was mostly me," he confessed self-mockingly.)

Tackling the conservative stance that all such success can be achieved only by pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps, Edwards said emphatically, "I did not get here by myself; I could never have gotten here by myself." He had help from his parents, from "great, heroic public school teachers," and "a great state university system," which helped him get several degrees that he never could have afforded at a private college, he said.

Edwards told the assembled students that it was not enough to ask what they can do for the 37 million Americans who live in poverty in their country; they should ask what they can do for the world, too.

"There's an enormous void in America of moral leadership here and abroad," he chided. The ongoing genocide in the Darfour region of Sudan, the billions of people who live in more abject poverty than Americans can even imagine — these too need our attention, he said, perhaps even more than "that mess in Iraq."

At the end of his speech, Edwards stepped off the stage and around the barriers erected by his campus hosts, the Cal Berkeley Democrats. He was instantly mobbed by hundreds of students wanting to shake his hand and pose for photos with their digital cameras and cell phones, which he good-naturedly did for almost as long as his 40-minute speech.

Third-year chemical biology student Irene Mungo explained why she had lingered after the speech to snap a photo: "I admire him very much — not just because he ran for president but for what he stands for, for standing up for those who can't. I'm pre-med, and I already intended to help people in my country, Kenya, but I'm definitely even more inspired now."