Half Changed World

I had heard earlier in the day that McCain was having some sort of telephone town hall today, but I was still somewhat taken aback when the phone rang after dinner and I was connected to it.   I’d love to know how I got on their list of "independents and moderates" — Virginia doesn’t have party registration.  Is it because I voted in the Republican presidential primary in 2000?  If so, their data systems did a good job of matching me to my voting history at my old address.

When I was connected to the call, it was already under way — I assume they had some fixed number of
lines available, and when someone hung up on them, they went down their
list of numbers until they reached someone else.  When I came on, he was in the middle of a response to question about farm subsidies and sugar tarifs — I thought he gave the right answer (that they’re undefensible).  He did a poor job on one about how to respond to people who say that he’d just be Bush 2.0 — going into his differences with Obama, before seeming to remember what the question was. I only listened for about 10 minutes because the boys were needing my attention.

I’ve never lived in a state that was really in play during a Presidential election.  It should be interesting.  According to Real Clear Politics’ poll averaging, McCain has a slight lead in Virginia so far. Given that Virginia hasn’t gone for a Democratic presidential candidate since Kennedy, Obama’s doing well even to keep it in play.  Four years ago, I let myself be caught up in the election-day frenzy enough to believe that Kerry had a chance.  I think Obama’s got more than a chance, but we’ve got four long months to go.

Today’s book review is part of a MotherTalk tour.  That means I got a free copy of the book and an Amazon gift certificate to review the book.  But, given the topic, I’m confident that I would have reviewed the book in any case.

The Maternal is Political, edited by Shari MacDonald Strong, is a collection of essays by women writers about "the intersection of motherhood and social change."  Some of the authors are famous, either as politicians (Nancy Pelosi, Benazir Bhutto), activists (Cindy Sheehan), or writers (Barbara Kingsolver, Anne Lamott, Anna Quindlen), but most of them are by women you’ve never heard of, talking about how their motherhood has affected their political activity.  In most cases, the essays are about how mothering has inspired them to take action, but some of them are about the struggles to balance the demands on their time from their families and their activism (the essay by Valerie Weaver-Zercher about "Peace March Sans Children" made me grin in recognition).

One of the things I liked about the book was the wide range of issues covered,  Several of the essays are about opposing war as a mother’s issue, but others touch on abortion, homeschooling, public schooling, religious freedom, disability, environmentalism, sexual harassment, adoption and more. Of course, I have some quibbles about the topics that are missing… I find it hard to believe that there’s not one about health care (Flea could have done a great job with that one) and in general, I think economic justice issues were under-represented.  (And yes, I should have submitted an essay… I can’t find it now, but I’m pretty sure I posted the call for submissions here when it came out.)

In spite of that long list of issues, the voices were different enough that the book never felt like a litany of complaints.  Anna Quindlen’s piece on being pregnant in New York made me laugh, and two essays made me cry — Cindy Sheehan’s anguished farewell to activism to "try to regain some of what I have lost… before it [the system] totally consumes me or any more people that I love" and Kathy Briccetti’s joyful account of her family’s second-parent adoption.

I also liked the recognition that there are many ways to be political.  A few of the writers were elected officials, and some engaged in politics by writing letters to the editor, going on protest marches, or submitting testimony to their state legislators.  But many of them were political in everyday ways — raising feminist sons and daughters, choosing to reduce use of hazardous chemicals and natural resources, speaking up about equality in personal encounters, standing up to a man harassing another woman (who is someone else’s daughter), helping out another mother by taking care of her kids when she’s in a crunch.  I think those examples may really help people who feel like they don’t have time to be politically active — or that nothing they do will make a difference — to think of ways to incorporate activism into their lives.

My one real complaint about the book is that there are two essays about personal relationships with people who are (gasp!) Republicans, but no actual Republicans — or even conservatives — in it.  I would have liked to read an essay by someone whose experiences as a mother made them an anti-abortion activist.  I would have loved to read an essay by Cathy McMorris Rodgers on the challenges and insights of serving in Congress as the mother of an infant with Down’s syndrome.  I don’t know if Strong made a deliberate choice to only include liberal voices, or if it’s a function of the way the call for essays was marketed, but I think it limits the audience for the book unnecessarily.

We’ve been receiving a torrent of mailings and autodialed calls about tomorrow’s primary for the open 11th Congressional district seat.  I’m going to vote for Byrne.  I think the mailings (from Women Vote, not Byrne) calling him a war profiteer were pretty over top, but I do find it a little queasy-making that he works for a defense contractor in "community relations" while chairing the Fairfax Board of Supervisors.  And fundamentally, the only criticisms I’ve heard about Byrd are that she’s "divisive" (e.g. has opinions) and is "shrill" (e.g. has opinions and is female).

There’s been lots of talk about Jim Webb as a possible running mate for Obama.  I’m not nearly as opposed to him as Kathy G.  While he’s said some incredibly stupid things about women in the past, from listening to him during both his Senate race and as Senator I believe that he’s truly learned since then (and not just gotten PC drummed into him).  And he’s been consistently out there on the economic justice issues I care about.  But he’s a dreadful campaigner — he won in 2006 because it was a tidal Democratic year and because George Allen couldn’t keep his foot out of his mouth, not because of his own campaigning.  And I’m not at all confident that the Dems could keep his seat if he vacated it.  (Well, unless the Republicans keep nominating the likes of Jim Gilmore.)

I can’t say I’m particularly enthusiastic about Tim Kaine as a running mate either.  He’s a nice guy and a solid governor, but I don’t really think he brings the evangelical vote with him, and he’s not someone I particularly associate with changing the way Washington works.

Here’s my wild and crazy VP suggestion:  Coleen Rowley.

Who’s your VP suggestion?

It appears that Congress overrode the President’s veto on (most of) the Farm Bill today.  (Due to a clerical error, the bill that was sent to Bush omitted an entire title — earlier today, it looked like they might have to pass the whole bill over again, but apparently they’ve decided that they can override the veto on what was sent to him today, and deal with the last title after the Memorial Day recess.)

The bad news is that the bill continues huge subsidies for agribusiness, at a time when commodity prices are at record highs.  The good news is that it contains some real improvements for the Food Stamp program (now to be called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP) — increasing the average benefit by increasing the amount of income that is assumed to be needed for purposes other than food, allowing more  child care expenses to be deducted, allowing the employment and training program to help people buy the equipment and uniforms they need to start a job, adjusting the asset limit for inflation over time.  There’s also more money for WIC (which is *not* an entitlement, and can run out of money when lots of people apply.)

So, how do you weigh these issues?  People I generally trust don’t all come down on the same side of this. Parke Wilde at the US Food Policy blog is pretty disappointed.  He’s astonished to find himself agreeing with the President’s criticisms of the bill.  The Food Research and Action Center is thrilled to finally pass the nutrition title improvements.

I’m more on the FRAC side of this argument.  While this is definitely a bill I need to hold my nose to support, I don’t see any other way that we could have gotten the nutrition title improvements.  While the White House may not have actively opposed these improvements, they sure weren’t going to put pressure on wavering Republicans to support them in a freestanding bill.

Just wanted to give a heads up that HR 5781, which would provide federal employees with 4 weeks of paid parental leave, is headed to the House floor for a vote next week.   (If you read the bill text at that link, it will say it’s 8 weeks of paid leave, but it was cut to 4 weeks in committee.)  Outside of the DC area, this probably hasn’t gotten much attention, so it’s worth dropping your Representative a line to encourage support.

I used to be a fed, and lots of people were shocked when I told them that I didn’t get any paid maternity leave.  The feds generally provide good benefits, so everyone assumes that they provide parental leave.  They don’t — and they don’t have any sort of short-term disability program, either — although you can use any annual leave (vacation) or sick leave that you’ve accrued.  The problem is that while long-term federal employees often have months and months of sick leave accrued up, most of the people who have babies aren’t long-term employees (since the federal government hires very few 12 year olds).  By hoarding my leave days carefully, and working up to the day I went into labor, I was able to take 12 weeks off with pay when I had D.  When I had N, less than 3 years later, there was no way I could have saved up enough leave — and I was better off than most second-time parents, as T was staying home with D, so I didn’t have to use up sick days when he was sick.

So, this bill both makes parenting significantly more manageable for federal employees, and also puts the federal government on record that parental leave is important.  And it even has a chance of being passed in both Houses.

I’ve got a delightful little book that I want to blog about, but tonight’s not the night.  I keep hitting refresh on CNN, but the percent counted doesn’t seem to have gone up in the past hour…

In his quasi-blog* at The Atlantic, James Fallows asked whether anyone can name a more stupid policy that passed with bipartisan support during the last 50 years than the McCain-Clinton proposal for a gas-tax holiday.  His pick from the many submissions he received is the mandates and subsidies for corn-based ethanol.  The full list of popular submissions is worth reading — Fallows notes that while some of them had worse effects than ethanol subsidies, in order to make the short list, a policy had to be obviously bad even without the benefits of hindsight.

The policy that I was surprised not to see on the list is the mortgage interest deduction, the one policy that everyone from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities to the American Enterprise Institute agrees is terrible policy.  It’s expensive, regressive, and most people agree that it makes homeownership MORE expensive for the people likely to be on the margin between owning and renting.  I don’t know if it misses the 50 year cut off, or if Fallows’ readers are likely to be in the group that benefits from it, and so are blind to its faults.

What else would you put on the list?

*It’s a quasi-blog because it doesn’t allow comments.  This is clearly Fallows’ choice rather than The Atlantic’s because Yglesias has a real blog on their site.

From my friends at the Coalition for Human Needs:

On Tax Day, we ought to feel that we’re paying for a government that helps when a recession hits.

Now
we’re in a recession.  The President opposes help to the unemployed and
others facing hardships.  Some in Congress want to do the right thing –
and some are mostly hearing from corporate lobbyists.  Who will prevail?

Call on Monday and Tuesday, April 14-15:  1-800-473-6711*
Tell your Representative and Senators to do more to reverse the recession – by helping those in need.

You can make the difference! Here’s how:

Call 1-800-473-6711* toll-free, and ask for each of your U.S. Senators and your Representative; tell them: 

I am a
constituent of Rep/Sen ___ and I am calling to urge him/her to do more
to reverse the recession.  Economists agree that the best way to boost
the economy is to help those in need.  That’s why he/she should support
extending unemployment insurance, more nutrition and home energy
assistance, and aid to states to prevent harmful cuts in health care
and other services.   

Economists of all stripes agree that the best
way to boost the economy is to put money into the hands of those who
will spend it quickly:  low- and moderate-income people.  But if
Congress only hears from corporate lobbyists, there will be more deals
that ignore the 80,000 who lost jobs and 20,000 who lost their homes last month alone – as well as the millions who are going without because of skyrocketing food and energy prices.

 (For more information: see Towards Shared Recovery, http://www.chn.org/pdf/2008/stimulus4142008.pdf)

At tax time, it’s worth remembering that for 2007 millionaires each
average more than $114,000 for the tax cuts enacted since 2001.
They’re doing okay.  But the bottom half of U.S. families have seen
their income shrink during the same period, and the recession will make
things far worse for those whose incomes are low to middling.  Helping them helps all of us.

Need Help finding your Member’s name?

• Find your Rep. at: www.house.gov.
• For your Senators’ names go to www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

*This
toll-free number is provided courtesy of the American Friends Service
Committee, a Quaker organization which works for peace and social
justice. AFSC welcomes groups to circulate and use the number in
support of non-partisan work for budget priorities that fund human
needs, not war and without linking the alert to a website that solicits
donations or is coordinated and/or publicized with actions used to
support or oppose any party or candidate for public office.

**********************

And here’s the paper my organization put out.

Here’s the letter that I just sent to my Senators and Representative:

Dear xxx:

While I am deeply concerned about the current housing and economic situation, I am writing to urge you not to support a massive give-away to the banks and homebuilders who got us into this mess.

In particular, it is outrageous to provide a tax credit to encourage people to buy foreclosed or new homes, thus making it even harder for people who have stayed current on their mortgages to sell their houses.  I also oppose the provisions that would rebate previously paid taxes to those who prospered during the housing boom.

I think the idea of allowing a deduction for housing costs for those who do not itemize their taxes is appealing, but it should be paid for by capping the mortgage interest deduction for houses worth more than $1 million.

As the new jobs numbers show, we are heading into a recession.  Congress should extend unemployment insurance benefits, put more money into WIC and LIHEAP, and temporarily increase the Medicaid match rate to ensure that poor families don’t lose their health coverage.  That would help the people who are suffering the most, not the people who created the problems.

Thank you for your consideration.

***

There are some good things in the bill — some money for community-based actions, some money for financial counseling.  But they’re outweighed by the massive giveaway.  I’d rather no bill than this bill.

I’ve quoted here before from the speech that Dr. King gave on the eve of his assassination.  It’s a stunning speech, made almost unbearable by the clarity of hindsight.  I’ve included pieces of it in my haggadah for Passover at times, and no one ever seems to manage to get through it without their voice breaking.  Thanks to the wonders of YouTube, you can watch some of it online. 

This 40th anniversary of King’s death has a particular resonance, because of the comparison in that final speech between him, and Moses, seeing the promised land, but not making it there himself.  The Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years before they made it.  How long will we wander?

***

I was at a meeting last week where we were discussing Obama’s speech about race, and someone said that he thought there were echoes in it of Kennedy’s speech after King’s death.  I hadn’t heard it, so I went and found the video online.  Go watch it.  (Warning — this clip cuts to footage of Kennedy’s assassination.)