News from
COMMUNITY BULLETIN – June 2006
TABLE
OF CONTENTS
1.)
Message from Liz
A.) Rejecting The YoYos by Jared Bernstein
B.)
Important Community Events
i.)
Town Hall Meeting on Fair Rent Laws
ii.)
Town Hall Meeting on Illegal Hotels
iii.)
2.)
Community Spotlight
A.) Tenant Seminar on
Demolition Issues
B.)
Raise the Roof for Habitat: Benefit Concert
C.)
Affordable Housing Opportunities in
3.)
Spotlight on Policy
A.)
Economic Development Subsidies for Foie Gras Production
Message from Liz . . .
Last
fall, I used this message to write about the need to begin addressing the
serious problem of growing inequality both here in
Rejecting
The YOYOs by Jared Bernstein <http://www.tompaine.com/search/index.cgi?search=Jared%20Bernstein&IncludeBlogs=1&SearchFields=keywords&Template=author>
The
way the polls
tell the story, American politics may be closing in on a tipping point.
Even among traditional supporters, the Bush agenda is wearing thin. Sure,
presidential approval ratings bounce around, but the depth and the persistence
of Bush’s negative trend suggest that this isn’t just about the cost of a
gallon of gas. A majority of the electorate may well be ready for a change.
If so,
the result would be a shift in power from conservatives to Democrats in the
midterm elections. Simply changing the guard, however, won’t ensure that we
start to address the broadly-shared sense that somewhere along the way, we’ve
gotten fundamentally off-track.
It’s time
for the WITTs to take over from the YOYOs.
Come
again?
American
politics have always been a balancing act between protecting the rights and
privileges of individuals, and working together to meet profound challenges.
Yet in recent years the emphasis on individualism has been pushed to the point
where it is hurting our nation’s standing in the world, endangering our future,
and, paradoxically, making it harder for individuals to get a fair shot at the
American dream. The message, sometimes implicit but often explicit, is, You’re
on your own, or YOYO.
Under
YOYOism, whatever economic challenges we face as a nation—globalization, health
care, inequality—the best solution is for people to fend for themselves. Its
central goal is to shift economic risks from the government and corporations
onto individuals and their families. You can see this beneath the surface of
almost every recent conservative initiative: Social Security privatization,
personal accounts for health care, attacks on labor market regulations, and the
perpetual crusade to slash the government’s revenue through regressive tax
cuts—“starving the beast”—and block the government from playing a useful role
in our economic lives.
While this
fast-moving reassignment of economic risk would be bad news in any period, it’s
particularly harmful today. The challenges we face are generating both greater
inequalities and a higher degree of economic insecurity in our lives.
Even with
unemployment low in historical terms, the earnings of most workers have failed
to keep pace with inflation, much less with our impressive productivity growth.
Productivity growth is up 15 percent over the current recovery and the profit
share of national income is at a 39-year high, but the inflation-adjusted
weekly earnings of the median, or typical, full-time worker are actually down
by two percent.
Conservatives
are in denial about these facts, continuing to cite GDP growth, etc., as if
such top-line statistics will make workers feel better about their squeezed
paychecks. And it’s no surprise that they’re stuck with an economic message
that amounts to “it’s all good.” Under YOYO economics, there is no explanation
for an economy that’s doing fine except for the people in it.
Meanwhile,
Democrats are generally following the adage, “when your opponent is beating
himself up, sit down and watch.”
“We’re
not them” could be a winning platform right now. But to stop there sacrifices a
unique opportunity to introduce a new, optimistic agenda with the potential to
reach an electorate that understandably seems stuck between apathy and
cynicism.
Such
sentiments grow right out of the YOYO narrative: in our competitive, global
economy, the best your government can do is give you a tax cut, a private
account, and get out of your way. After that, if you’re not skilled enough to
compete, well, “we feel your pain.”
We need
an alternative vision, one that supports individual freedom but also emphasizes
that such freedom is best realized with a more collaborative approach to
meeting the challenges we face. The message is simple: We’re in this
together , or WITT.
Where
YOYO economics explains why we cannot shape our participation in the global
economy to meet our own needs, or provide health coverage for the millions who
lack that basic right, or raise the living standards of working families when
the economy is growing, WITT policies target these challenges head on. These
outcomes occur not through redistributionist Robin Hood schemes, but through
creating an economic architecture that reconnects our strong, flexible economy
to the living standards of all, not just to the residents of the penthouse. As
the pie grows, all the bakers get bigger slices.
Step one
is to restore some fiscal sanity and basic competence at all levels in national
government, a step we’ll hopefully begin taking in November. Beyond that, there
are actually a number of good, big ideas floating around to create precisely
the architecture
There are
doable plans for universal health coverage, boosting retirement savings, and
for creating an ambitious partnership between business and government to
seriously pursue energy independence. There are roadmaps for tapping the
growth-enhancing benefits of globalization to replace the domestic labor demand
it saps from our job market. Put it all together, and we create the potential
to reconnect the well-being of working families to the growing economy.
The YOYOs
chickens are coming home to roost, and many of us await with great hope the
arrival of the much more optimistic, can-do, WITT agenda. The only question:
who has the vision to lead the way?
Town
Hall Meeting on Fair Rent Laws Help
Put Fair Rent Laws on the Next Governor's Agenda!
Date: Wednesday,
June 14th Time: 7:00 - 8:30 PM Place: St. Bartholomew's Church
Town
Hall Meeting on Illegal Hotels Is
Your Landlord Renting to Tourists? Join
your elected officials and find out your rights under the law
Date: Thursday, June
15th Time: Refreshments at 6:30 Meeting
starts at 7:00 PM Place: Hartley House
413 West 46th
Street b/t 9th & 10th Avenues Call
212-716-1665 for further information
Summer
Blood Shortage Drive Cosponsored
by Liz Krueger and NYU Medical Center
Date:
Monday-Wednesday July 10th, 11th and 12th Time: 9:30 AM to 5:30 PM
Place: NYU Medical Center 530
First Avenue between 30th& 31st Appointments
preferred but walk-ins accepted
Call (212)
263-5440 for appointments or further information
Community
Spotlight
Tenant
Seminar on Demolition Issues:
Eviction
Intervention Services (EIS) is hosting a free tenant seminar entitled "Will
a Demolition be your Downfall? Steps to Safeguarding Your Home" that will
address the use of demolition proceedings by landlords as a means of emptying
entire buildings, as well as issues regarding how to obtain repairs and
maintain a safe environment in your apartment. This seminar will take
place on Wednesday, June 14th, 2006, from 2:00 to 4:00 PM at the EIS Offices at
Raise
the Roof for Habitat: Benefit Concert for Habitat for Humanity
On
Saturday, June 17th at 2:00PM, five of New York City's finest choirs will
perform a benefit concert for Habitat for Humanity-NYC, in recognition of their
efforts to create decent affordable housing and foster homeownership for New
Yorkers in need. The concert will take place at St. Bartholomew's Church,
at
Affordable
Housing Opportunities in
Cooper
Square II and III Affordable Housing is now accepting applications for 63
units, including studios and 1 and 2 bedroom apartments. Rents for these
units will be $452-744.00 per month depending on income and unit size. To
be eligible, applicants have incomes between $16,950 to $35,450, depending on
unit and family size. Applications will be selected by lottery with
preference given to
Spotlight
on Policy
Economic
Development Subsidies for Foie Gras Production
Empire
State Development Corporation (ESDC) recently awarded a $420,000 grant to a
farm that force-feeds ducks to expand their livers a startling 10 times the
normal size—an inhumane practice used to mass produce foie gras. Foie gras is a
delicacy often found in French restaurants. This is a particularly egregious
example of the misuse of economic development subsidies, and highlights the
need for better accountability over the ESDC and other public authorities that
provide these subsidies.
Hudson
Valley Foie Gras, the recipient of the nearly half-million dollar grant says
the money will be used to produce two manure treatment facilities as well as to
renovate the building that houses the animals. The farm intends to add only 10
employees to their current staff of 150 over the next three years, all the
while implementing a 10 percent increase in the number of ducks the farm
processes annually, reaching 325,000.
The
process of producing foie gras is extremely inhumane. To enlarge the
duck's liver, the source of meat used to make foie gras, the farm inserts a
tube into the esophagus of each duck and three times every day the farmers pour
approximately one cup of corn pellets directly into each duck's stomach. This
takes place every day over a 4-week period. The duck's livers are
forcibly grown to such extreme measures that the animal often dies prematurely
due to their internal organs exploding inside their bodies.
It is
simply mind-boggling the ESDC would find the subsidizing of the cruelty to
animals to be an appropriate use of taxpayer dollars. The paltry economic
benefits the local community may reap fails to justify the way these animals
are handled, and fails to show
This
grant is just the latest in a series of questionable funding decisions by the
ESDC. In 2004, fully 40 percent of ESDC-funded projects were out of compliance
with job creation goals according to ESDC's own report. Less than half of
the projects not meeting these goals were penalized in any way.
In an
effort to provide for better accountability for these kind of subsidies, I have
introduced legislation (S.5921) to increase accountability for these kinds of
corporate subsidy deals. The Corporate Accountability for Tax
Expenditures Act would require that State economic assistance provided by any
state agency or public authority must be based on the terms of a standardized
written incentive agreement. The legislation mandates that certain development
assistance agreements be submitted to the Department of Taxation and Finance,
and also provides that if a business fails to create or retain the specified number
of jobs and breaks the contract, the business will no longer qualify for State
economic assistance.
This
grant reflects the poor judgment of the ESDC when operating within a system
which fails to mandate transparency and accountability when dispensing taxpayer
dollars to corporations. Giving nearly half-million dollars to an organization
that fails to provide substantive local economic impact in terms of jobs, adds
insult to injury for the already inhumane and offensive animal rights
violations occurring at the Hudson Valley Foie Gras Farm.