Roomin' House Blues

Sunday May 1st at 1PM there will be a rally on behalf of immigrants and to stop the attacks on workers through the budgeting and union busting processes. The budgets are being balanced on the backs of the poor, disabled, seniors, immigrants, families with their children, union workers while someone has designed the tax loopholes big enough that you'd think they were trying to drive a herd of camels through to heaven.  It may turn out to be a disappointment to them!  It should be a good day for a walk and a good day to tell the world there is a side to this that isn't Sarah Patin's cup of tea. Event Location Judkins Park (next to St. Mary's Church) 611 20th Ave S. Seattle, WA 98144 Directions (Look for our banner at the northern baseball diamond on the field)

Mail today from Washington can on the budget in Washington State and what we can do about it. A lot has happened since the last time we emailed you. The  ‘We Are One’ week of action  was a huge success! For over five days, Washington CAN members and community members took over the capitol to demand that lawmakers put people first in the budget.  One hundred people slept in the rotunda  to protest outdated tax breaks and more than 10,000 people rallied outside the capitol steps to call on lawmakers to pass a just budget.  Last week, a group of faith, labor, and Washington CAN leaders participated in the  People’s Walk for Our Future . Marchers walked over 50 miles in rainy, cold, windy weather from Auburn to Olympia to demand that lawmakers pass a moral budget by closing frivolous tax breaks for the wealthiest.  Health care, schools, immigrants, children, communities of color, seniors,  no one is spared from budget cuts except for one group: sp...

This tongue and cheek "supporter" of Bank of America has nailed the problem on it's head. Yesterday there were picket lines at B of A's all over the country because they and other large banks are not paying their fair share in taxes.

I got some Move On mail from my friend  Bernie (Bernadette), that is from another Bernie (Sanders) .  So I'm reporting here on some related matters and then opening the mail bag for you.  Lots to do for those of you who love writing Congress poeple or clicking internet buttons.  Yesterday I went to a Move on picket line/rally in front of the B of A in Ballard, part of a national effort to deliver peoples tax bills to Bank of America and other  big banks, get people to close their big bank accounts and open Credit Union or community bank accounts.  There were similar events from other organizations in other locations.  the Catholic Workers had a  over turning the money changers table event down in Columbia city.  Someone held one at the B of A on Lake City Way.    So here is what I think you should do: 1) Close your big bank accounts if you can.   2) Change over your Credit Cards and Mortgages if you can.  3...

More mail from public citizen.  I give you the reader lots of chances to participate in letter writing campaigns. This one is to Congress. Joseph, Through tax breaks, loopholes and subsidies, billions of our tax dollars are being transferred away from working people and into corporate coffers. Meanwhile, corporate lobbyists and their allies in Congress are trying to eliminate funding for public protections that benefit the American people. Our tax dollars should be used to prevent reckless corporations from ransacking our economy, poisoning our environment and injuring workers — not to pad corporate profits. Let’s tell Congress: Stop giving away our tax dollars to reckless corporations, and start fully funding the agencies that protect us from corporate wrongdoing. Right now, the money we give away to corporations that break the law and endanger public health by far surpasses the amount we’re spending to keep them in check: Wall Street gets more than $6 billion...

What has happened to money for schools and social services. Isn't it time we stood up for what we need in this country instead of letting inequality grow by leaps and bounds.

Made at a protest of teachers in 2009, this song is my answer to the budget cuts. 

This Blog is promoting a pledge that runs 180 degrees the opposite of Grover Norquist's  infamous American Taxpayer Protection Pledge.  The weak are being assaulted in the name of balancing the budget.  A committee is being started on an ad hoc basis until membership and officers can put it on a firmer footing.  Below is the pledge and information about the committee. Public Protection Budget Pledge, State Legislators and Congress People.  I, _______________, pledge to the citizens of the _____ district  In the state of__________, and to the American people that I will:  ONE, oppose any and all efforts to balance budget deficits at the expense of families, the poor, elderly, disabled or vulnerable. TWO, oppose any net reduction or elimination of programs helping these populations, unless matched dollar for dollar by improved programs.                           ...

The deepest budget cuts in American  history on the heels of  end of the last Congress continued give away of reduced tax rates to the wealthy has only whetted the appetites of conservatives who are staying firm in there attempt to restructure wealth upwards massively.   I thought perhaps we need to look at some of the costs of budget cuts. One of the cuts I have greatest difficulty with is a $500 million cut to Women, Infants and Children (WIC).  The Tea Party Enthusiasts actually had tried to completely scrap the program which provides milk and other high protein or hi nutrition items  to families with infants and young children as a supplement to food stamps.  Without WIC many families would be replacing milk for children with Kool Aid and mothers would be forced to water down formula.  Statistics prove that WIC reduces infant mortality and "failure to thrive". This massive cut means that some infants will die who...

More from m6y mail bag, a letter from Congressman Jay Inslee. Joseph, The Tea Party and their allies in Congress are threatening to shut down the government tomorrow at midnight unless we give in to their demands. What does government shutdown mean? National parks closed. 800,000 federal workers furloughed -- with no guarantee of retroactive pay for lost wages. Pell grants won't be paid. The IRS won't audit tax returns or issue refunds on paper filings. New Social Security and veteran's claims would go unanswered. American servicemen and women will still report for duty; they just won't get paid. Click here to join me, and call on Republicans to stop playing chicken and do what's right for the American people. I've supported short-term measures in order to prevent a shut down that will hurt Americans, but it's clear now our opponents haven't been straight with us. What's blocking an agreement -- and what they and their Tea Party supporters are...

Open my email and always more mail.  Washington can is demonstrating today against the new state budget proposal in Olympia and wants support.   Another number to call for those who can't make it.  Dear Joseph, Two weeks ago, we invited you to join us for the We Are One week of action at the Capitol. We didn’t know then that our timing couldn’t have been better. On Monday, the House released its budget for the 2011-2013 fiscal years and there is only one word to describe it: UNJUST. Our state budget no longer respects the dignity and the values of the people of Washington.  That’s why  TODAY, April 6th at 3pm,  hundreds of Washingtonians are going to take over the rotunda of the legislative building to say, “NO MORE. We won’t let any more people suffer while corporations and special interests get all the breaks.” Stand with us in demanding that lawmakers close tax loopholes to prevent further cuts. Rally with us at 3pm in the rotunda of the Legislative B...

Here is the letter I wrote to Frank Chopp in the Washington State House. Dear Representative Chopp, It's time to square up to political courage, stand up to the far right assault on the budget and find away to fund the services that the population needs. Cutting 108,000,000 from Basic Health, eliminating coverage for thousands of families, $596,000,000 cut from community colleges and universities, hurting our competitiveness and innovation, and $1,200,000,000 from voter-approved initiatives to reduce K-12 class sizes and help pay teachers a living wage and other similar cuts is unworkable. This budget will 1) drive the state back into recession, 2) hurt the most vulnerable, and 3) reduce the spending power of Washington citizens thereby making our revenue crisis worse next year. When the budget cut cure for a slow economy was tried in the 1930's it drove the country back into recession. Do you refuse to learn from history? A budget that saves tax breaks for special intere...

Forwarded by my friend Nina to me, a letter from U.S. Bishops: From the Bishops: ACTION ALERT: Congress Must Act this Week to Protect our Poor and Vulnerable Brothers and Sisters Take ACTION!   Protect our Poor and Vulnerable Brothers and Sisters   This week Congress must act on the current FY 2011 spending bill to avert a government shutdown.  Some current proposals include deep cuts to programs that serve the poorest, most vulnerable people at home and abroad.  Likewise a shutdown of government services will fall most heavily on those who have the fewest resources. Fiscal responsibility is important, but it demands shared sacrifice and a special concern for poor persons at home and abroad.   Unfortunately, the voices of poor and vulnerable people have not been heard in the debate, and as a result they are being forced to bear the brunt of the proposed cuts. The vast majority of the cuts come from the non-defense, discretionary portion of the budget (onl...

Polls are showing wide swings of voters away from recently elected Republicans who are charing ahead with budget cuts and dismemberment of collective bargaining for public employee unions.   These polls are holding also for many of the recently elected Republican Congress people and in many states where the politics has been less volatile than the Upper Mid-West States. In Wisconsin, polls suggest that if there was a do over of the gubernatorial race in which Scott Walker decisively beat Tom Barret, Barrett would easily win by 52%.  Walker's support in union households has dropped from 40% to 33% and Tom Barrett's union household support has jumped from 54% to 64%.  Barrett's support among Republicans has risen to 10%.  In Michigan the new Governor created what people are calling financial martical law, where he can declare a financial emergency in a local government, take it over, and void union contracts. ...

This just in, Wisconsin Judge Rules:  “Apparently that language was either misunderstood or ignored, but what I said was the further implementation of (the law) was enjoined,” said ticked off Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi. “That is what I now want to make crystal clear.”  Meanwhile the Gov's chief aide, Mike Huebsch, rather than agreeing to comply, says they will "evaluate" the courts orders.   “We will continue to confer with our legal counsel and have more information about how to move forward in the near future,” Huebsch said. Earlier in the Day: Gov. Walker of Wisconsin, defying a court order that placed the controversial law stripping collective bargaining on hold pending court review of the extraordinary conditions under which the legislature passed the law, stated that the fact that the State Senate's publishers had printed the law meant it is in effect anyway.  This may be the first time in which a printer has been allowed to overrule a cou...

Shortly after making enemies of the labor movement and friends of labor nation wide, Gov. Walker of Wisconsin is in the middle of making enemies of Moms and Dads and Kiddies, even Republican ones, because of his draconian cuts of Wisconsin schools.   Many Wisconsin Republicans are wishing they could take back their vote for Walker according to an Associated Press article today.  After creating $82 million in new tax cuts the Gov has a $3.6 billion budget bust to deal with, even after raising "fees" on the poor like a  75 cent fee for 911 service to mobile devices.  So he is planning to cut state aid to schools by 9%,  about $900 million, at the same time as he reduces local property tax revenues for schools by an average of $550 per student.   This has sent parents with school children out to the picket lines, even ones that voted for Walker.  Math teacher Ron Blaha, who voted for Walker for restraint on frivolous spending remarked that "I di...

In the Great Depression, reputedly, when Wall Street crashed bankrupted financiers leapt to there death out New York windows.  In todays Great Recession public employees are being pushed to leap off City Hall roofs. Last week, pleading looming pension crisis and budget gap, the City of Costa Mesa, California laid off 200 of it's 450 employees, mostly less well paid ones, and a pink-slipped 29 year old maintenance worker committed suicide. Apparently to explain the suicide, the layoffs and the plans to  dissolve departments outsource city services to profit making companies, the city hired a $3,000 communications officer.  Perhaps he will be able to explain how outsourcing the services saves money after you add profits onto the cost of services.  What is clear is that whomever is brooming and mopping City Hall will be making less.  

The European debt crisis seems to be growing like contagion, rather than abating, as European governments slash and burn budgets.  Greece was in trouble from low tax collection with lots of government services.  Britain had more complicated reasons.  Ireland would probably have been fine if they had not promised a complete bailout of her national banks.  Now we come to Portugal.  She had cut her budgets twice hoping to avoid imposed austerity, but the depressive effect on her economy from the budget cuts has only made the problem worse.  Now her government collapses. An article  at Reuters:  http://blogs.reuters.com/trnewsmaker/2011/03/24/portugals-government-collapse-complicates-europes-problems/ Perhaps this is a warning to us.  Budget slashing  in an attempt to revive a depressed economy is like trying to get out of a hole by digging. while the stock market rises and there are minor improvements on...

Can you call Senator Murray? Tell her:  " Don't vote for a budget that makes cuts to education, health care, and Social Security, and puts corporations and millionaires above hardworking Americans."     Senator Patty Murray  Tacoma: 253-572-3636 Report Your Call I received an email from Move On.Org urging a call against budget cuts: I never wanted a handout. I just wanted to get my nursing degree and build the life I've dreamed of. I wanted to provide my daughter with the opportunities that my mother couldn't give me when I was growing up. That's my dream, but I'm afraid my dream is about to die.   Republicans are trying to cut the financial aid I rely on to pay my tuition. Last year, as a student, I couldn't find steady work and earned less than $4,500. If my financial aid is taken away from me, I won't be able to afford to get my nursing degree.  Once again I'm going to have to choose between paying rent or buying diapers, between havi...