Dems’ agenda, people’s future at stake this week

 Bill Knight column for 8-26, 27 or 28, 2021

  

Simmering discord in the U.S. House this week may tempt some to think of Shakespeare’s old line “A pox on both your houses.”

That’s understandable...

… unless you have kids, find health care inadequate, feel college is unaffordable, think the rich don’t pay their share of taxes, or worry about climate change.

The House is about to debate the $3.5 trillion spending plan that passed the Senate on a party-line vote, plus the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill that the Senate also approved.

However, two caucuses of House Democrats disagree on the next steps in meeting challenges to the country. Nine conservative Democrats say they won’t back the (budget reconciliation) spending plan unless the infrastructure measure comes up first, and 96 members of the Progressive Caucus (co-founded 30 years ago by the late Illinois Congressman Lane Evans) insist on voting for the budget spending plan first or they won’t back the infrastructure bill.

In the Senate, conservative Democrats Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona are now wavering, too, and progressive Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts dismissed such conservative threats as “climate denial masquerading as bipartisanship.”

Most House Democrats want to enact Biden’s agenda and serve the public. (After all, Biden voters were clamoring for a pro-democracy, pro-racial justice administration different than the Trump term, not bipartisanship-above-all and better highways.

“Congress can make a down payment not only in hard infrastructure through this bipartisan legislation,” said Illinois’ progressive Congresswoman Marie Newman, “but also in social, human and climate infrastructure through the reconciliation process.”

Infrastructure funding would mean tens of thousands of good, unionized jobs and improvements besides highways, and airports: upgrading the electric grid, mass transit, and high-speed internet PLUS restoring public confidence that government can address people’s needs despite filibuster obstructionism and deference to campaign contributors’ interests.

In Illinois, that could include funding for roads and bridges, but also cyberattack protections, electric-vehicle charging stations, replacing dangerous lead water pipes and modernizing public transportation.

As Newman said, the infrastructure bill alone is insufficient if social needs aren’t addressed. That makes the budget plan more important, progressives say.

The budget plan/reconciliation – the largest expansion of the social safety net since the New Deal decades ago – could cut prescription drug costs, make two years of community college tuition-free, guarantee medical leave, provide universal Pre-K, a Civilian Climate Corps, Medicare expansion and more.

The budget bill is a blueprint outlining goals; lawmakers have yet to detail specifics.

Conservatives want cuts or compromises, despite analysts such as Columbia University economic historian Adam Tooze saying the infrastructure bill will pay for itself with increased economic output and its increased tax revenue.

Progressives argue the current bills ARE the compromise since they’d originally urged a $6 trillion investment in infrastructure AND social needs, and groups such as Public Citizen, MoveOn.org, Women’s March, and the Working Families Party are rallying for unity.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who on Saturday said it’s vital to act swiftly, scheduled the spending plan-reconciliation first, saying, “The House must pass the budget reconciliation immediately. [It’s] the key to unlocking the 51-vote privilege of the reconciliation package for our transformative Build Back Better” priorities. (House Dems have a 220-212 majority; the Senate is split 50-50, with Vice President Kamala the tiebreaker.)

Pelosi also said after reconciliation and infrastructure, she’ll introduce the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would restore and bolster voting rights weakened by the Supreme Court and some states’ efforts to suppress turnouts.

Despites infighting, Senate Leader Chuck Schumer and President Biden have largely sidestepped the bickering. They seem to respect conservatives’ traditional, cautious approach while also valuing progressives’ ideas and energy. The Democratic Party is a big tent, and caucuses often work together (witness progressive freshman Congresswoman Cori Bush’s protest about expiring eviction protections, resulting in an extension).

Democratic leaders in both chambers say they’re optimistic that the bills will pass, and Progressive Caucus member Ro Khanna from California said, “It’s going to be a challenge. I’m confident we’ll get it done.”

Schumer hopes for legislation to be finalized by mid-September.

Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell and 16 other Republicans who voted for infrastructure know that repairing bridges and roads is popular, but so is repairing Americans’ lives.

Still, maybe it’s time for sparring Democrats to appreciate winning a 69-30 infrastructure vote and pass the budget reconciliation – “settling” for some advancements.

Another old saying, attributed to Voltaire, comes to mind: “Perfect is the enemy of good.”

Our Haitian neighbors need human solidarity

Bill Knight column for 8-23, 24 or 25, 2021

 Some 1,800 miles from downstate Illinois, Haiti and its recent disasters are another time and place.

But “no one is an island,” as it’s sung.

Likewise, no island should stand alone.

How can those with nothing lose everything?

Exactly 100 years ago, in the aftermath of the U.S. military’s 1915 invasion of Haiti and what became a 19-year occupation, the U.S. Senate sent a delegation there to investigate claims about forced labor, racial segregation and press censorship that had led to a rebellion, according to the U.S. State Department’s Office of the Historian. The U.S. government reorganized Haitian rule, but after another uprising in 1929, the United States began its withdrawal, finally completed in 1934.

Now – already suffering from poverty and the pandemic, government corruption and gang violence, and the July 7 assassination of president Jovenel Moise – Haiti on Aug. 14 was hit by a 7.2-magnitude earthquake, and two days later the country was flooded and scoured by Tropical Storm Grace’s rain and winds.

About 2,000 have been killed, more than 10,000 injured and 30,000 made homeless, and hospitals aren’t just overwhelmed; many are utterly destroyed.

Twenty years ago, I was on a church medical mission there and came away humbled and inspired, so personal emotions swirl about Haiti, the poorest country in the hemisphere. There's sadness at the tragedy, and there are pleasant memories of Haitians somehow maintaining happiness through hardship.

SORROW: I saw first-hand the abject deprivation and lack of drinkable water, much less an infrastructure, in Haiti; my heart aches. Having interacted with everyday Haitians, worshipped with them and driven with them on rural roads more like Illinois creeks than any highway imaginable, I feel deep grief.

JOY: Witnessing an unbridled delight in Haitians despite lives of such scarcity is not only humbling, it's shocking. Theirs is a defiant culture exhibiting hope and faith amid colossal obstacles and odds.

SHAME: The United States refused to recognize the newly independent republic when they drove out Haiti’s slave-holding French colonizers in 1804, then the U.S. participated in an embargo with other nations to force Haiti to pay reparations to France for liberated lands. Haiti – once the wealthiest colony in the world – paid untold sums to France until 1947, not only borrowing money from American, German and French banks, but exhausting its natural resources to meet the imposed terms. Former plantations that grew and exported coffee and sugar are now barren; once-lush forests are hills of stumps; nearby seas have been fished out. All that helped give rise to ruthless leaders from the 19th century through the notorious Duvalier family in the 20th century to recent officials, allegedly involved in trafficking drugs and children.

FEAR: Weeks after the twin catastrophes, sorely needed aid is missing or arriving slowly.

When I was an editor for the Washington (D.C.) Weekly in the ’80s, one of my writers was Leon Wieseltier, who in The New Republic expressed the despair some felt about the well-intentioned fundraising following a 2010 earthquake in Haiti – despite the faith, hope and love of Haitians.

Wieseltier wrote, "Tragedy cannot be adequately met with confidence and cheerfulness [some show]. We cannot overtake what the world has done to us, what we have done to ourselves. Let us quicken to the intervals between our indifferences, because whether or not God exists, WE do, and much of the time – though not now, as the planes clog the runways in Port-au-Prince – we are terrible."

Others avoid pessimism for practicality.

 “This is what the country needs: tents, food, medicine, toiletries, water, clothes, rescue equipment and wheelchairs,” Marjorie Modesty, a psychologist in the hard-hit area helping coordinate assistance, speaking to The Guardian. “We need rescuing.”

Please pitch in. Below are three of many possible groups working there. Our donations may seem like drops in the bucket, but as English author Geoffrey Chaucer wrote, “Many small make a great.”

* Doctors without Borders https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/what-we-do/news-stories/news/haiti-earthquake-msf-responds-urgent-medical-needs#p1

* FOKAL Haiti Relief https://ademen.org/fokal-haiti-relief-fund/

* Haiti Emergency Relief Fund http://www.haitiemergencyrelief.org/haiti-struck-by-7-2-magnitude-earthquake/

Warren’s proposals could fund entire reform packages

 Bill Knight column for 8-19, 20 or 21, 2021

 

 From Canton and Kewanee to Chicago and Shawaneetown, Illinoisans could use a hand, but not long after the Senate recently passed the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, plus a budget resolution paving the way for a $3.5 trillion budget-reconciliation bill, some lawmakers started squawking about the price tag – despite the momentous benefits the measures would provide.

However, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) last week reminded Congress that she has three proposals that would to raise more than enough money to pay for the initiatives by making corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share in taxes.

The bipartisan infrastructure measure would underwrite work on roads, bridges, airports, public transit, lead-pipe replacement and more; the reconciliation bill would fund key domestic social programs such as extending the child tax credits, expanding Medicare, making community colleges tuition-free, lowering prescription drugs, and launching clean-energy incentives.

 If Congress and the president were to adapt Warren’s wealth tax, create her tax on real corporate profits, and approve her Internal Revenue Service funding to catch rich tax cheats, some $5 trillion in revenue would be raised.

“Though not every Democrat agrees with every one of my ideas, Biden campaigned aggressively on a suite of progressive tax policies, and voters embraced these changes at the ballot box,” Warren wrote in the Washington Post. “No matter how loudly Washington lobbyists bleat otherwise, progressive tax policies are wildly popular. Americans understand that our tax system has been rigged to reward the rich and powerful at the expense of everyone else. So, let’s fix it.”

First, as she previously proposed, a 2% tax on the wealth of the top 0.05% (that’s 5/100 of 1%) of the nation’s wealthiest households would generate about $3 trillion over the next decade “without raising taxes on 99.95 percent of Americans,” she said. “It’s supported by 68% of the country, including a majority of Republicans.”

Next, Warren’s Real Corporate Profits Tax Act, which she introduced last week, could raise $700 billion over the next decade. It would create a 7% tax on income over $100 million that corporations report to their shareholders as “book profits,” not the profits they report on their tax forms. This could collect more revenue and help ensure that corporations actually pay what should be owed.

“These companies boosted their stock prices and increased CEO pay by telling their shareholders they raked in hundreds of millions of dollars in profits, while simultaneously telling the Internal Revenue Service that they don’t owe any taxes,” Warren said. “Only about 1,300 public companies would pay the tax.”

Her third idea is one Biden has supported: increasing IRS funding so the agency can more effectively find wealthy individual and corporate tax cheats. Pointing out that Congress drastically cut IRS funding in recent decades – resulting in the agency losing 20% of its enforcement budget and a third of its enforcement workers – Warren this spring introduced a bill creating yearly IRS funding of $31.5 billion, some 2.5 times higher than its 2021 budget, compared to Biden’s proposed $8 billion annual increase,. That could raise as much as $1.75 trillion, Warren said.

“It’s no surprise that audit rates for taxpayers making more than $10 million have plummeted,” she wrote. “This should enrage every American who plays by the rules. Over 70% of Americans support giving the IRS more resources to make sure the wealthy and corporations aren’t evading taxes. Let’s enforce the law.”

Elsewhere, a recent analysis released by the Fight Inequality Alliance, the Institute for Policy Studies, Oxfam International, and the Patriotic Millionaires group said if the world levied a 99% tax on only the profits billionaires made from COVID-19 – when “billionaire wealth surged by $1.8 trillion from the early days of the pandemic through last month,” Warren said – it could raise enough money to pay for a free vaccine for everyone on Earth — and have enough left over to provide $20,000 in cash to hundreds of millions of unemployed workers.

That’s may be an unrealistic notion, but it shows how much billionaires’ wealth grew while the rest of the world suffered during the pandemic and the extreme wealth of the richest people, which could be tapped for the common good.

Huge livestock farms still threaten water, air, rural life

Bill Knight column for 8-16, 17 or 18, 2021

 Water is arguably the state’s most precious natural resource, between the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers, countless lakes and ponds, and underground aquifers – those bodies of porous rock or sediment saturated with groundwater that seeps through the soil and resurfaces through springs and wells.

Now, in an area known for roadside stands selling locally grown produce, the sandy, fertile terrain of Mason County faces a planned 2,480-hog operation between Havana and Kilbourne, a half mile from the village of Peterville.

Such large-scale industrial livestock productions (generally called CAFOs, for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) are causing campaigns to stop them and to fix Illinois’ Livestock Management Facilities Act, which critics say fails to protect the health and quality of life of rural communities.

The state Agriculture Department already has tentatively approved the Mason project, and an assessment from the Farm Service Administration (because the applicant seeks federal funds) tentatively OK’d it, although its draft seems lax, suggesting it’s exempt from provisions of the Natural Resources Conservation Service, Farmland Protection Act and other statutes, adding that the CAFO ‘will not cause any adverse human health or environmental effects.”

A 2008 study by the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production outlined considerable public health, environmental, animal welfare and rural livelihood consequences, and the Illinois Pollution Control Board in 2003 reported, “Nearly 40 percent of the nation's assessed waters show impairments from a wide range of sources. Improper management of manure from CAFOs is among the many contributors.”

            (Full disclosure: I’m not neutral on the issue, as I testified in the Capitol decades ago, summarizing dangers as “S.W.I.N.E.” – the Smell, Water contamination, Indemnification letting polluters escape responsibility, Nutrient overloading from spreading enormous amounts of manure, and Enforcement of weak laws by under-resourced agencies.)

Heart of Illinois Sierra Club Conservation co-chair Joyce Blumenshine expresses alarm.

“The Mahomet Aquifer underlies this area and is unconfined, meaning the aquifer is not far below the surface and is overlain by soils that easily and quickly allow surface water to reach the aquifer.”

Another environmental assessment is needed, she adds: “a full biological and site area ground assessment to evaluate the long-term impacts.”

Others see the aquifer as crucial, but also note flaws in the application, proximity to populated areas, and effects on local infrastructure and property values.

“We do not envision a 2,400-head hog confinement enhancing future positive development in Mason County,” Kay Curtis of Kilbourne told the Mason County Board. “We respect raising livestock but not this model of intensive production that has degraded rural communities and water resources across the country.”

Again, most critical is the Mahomet Aquifer, which according to the state’s own 2018 report, recommends a plan to maintain its groundwater quality, identify potential contamination threats to its water quality, and determine actions that might be taken to ensure its long-term protection.

Randy Burgett, who lives near the site, said, “There is water here in ditches 99% of the time,” adding that some of the area is so marshy “cattle won’t even walk [there].”

The local Mason County Concerned Citizens and the statewide Illinois Coalition for Clean Air & Water (ICCWA) vow to oppose such projects, and to monitor water as they lobby for regulations that balance needs of livestock producers and residents. Elected representatives, both federal (since federal funds are involved) and state (where lawmakers’ districts are affected), may be contacted.

It’s a statewide problem; Fulton and Warren Counties face similar controversies. In Fulton, two 2,480-head CAFOs are proposed to be sited adjacently, under different names, to exploit a loophole that says operations with fewer than 5,000 head need no public hearings. Also, activists say the operator’s existing   Warren site, built in 2015, apparently has had no required septic system.

When the laws are inadequate, citizens become desperate, or despair. Other states have better laws, but Illinoisans and county officials struggle to be heard.

“Winnebago County recently passed resolutions at the local level against two CAFOs and have stalled them,” said ICCAW’s Karen Hudson.

Illinois needs seven reforms, according to Danielle Diamond of the Socially Responsible Agriculture Project:

* Require CAFOs to register with the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA);

* make CAFOs get permits from the IEPA;

* close the “expansion” loophole letting operations more than double their size every two years without public hearings;

* empower county boards to issue binding recommendations to the state Department of Ag;

* grant legal standing for the public to demand open hearings on applications;

* create reasonable setbacks from surface waters, homes and towns; and

* make applicants submit complete waste-management plans for public review and for state approval before construction approvals.

 

Failing such changes, the Land of Lincoln will increasingly be known as the “Land of Stinkin’.