Liberal AND Conservative:
Bush gives State of the Union
Bay Area delegates give Bush’s State of Union an ‘F’Democrats deplore president’s address
Bush Continues to Unite the World… Against Him
Bush Health Proposal in State of the Union Message Won’t Make Insurance Affordable
Community conversation: President Bush’s State of the Union address
President Bush, State of Union: New Orleans, Not Burma
Bush State of the Union addresses on energy: yada, yada, yada
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged bush regime, government corruption, healthcare, human needs, iraq war, news, politics
Today in the Salt Lake Tribune:
Rise in minimum wage OK’d by House–Utah representatives are divided along party lines; Senate plans tax breaks for businesses
According to this article, the U.S. House voted to raise the minimum wage to a meager $7.25/hour (remember, this is not a living wage and is actually what I consider a slave wage). But (scratching my head), Utah’s republican delegation voted against this. Rep. Bishop’s excuse is that by raising minimum wage, businesses won’t be able to hire workers and that will lead to more homelessness, blah, blah, blah.
Bull. That’s a front for big greedy businesses and corporations that want to hire people for poverty level wages so they can make more profit. I mean, after all, if they are required to all of a sudden increase wages, their profit margins will decrease.
If that were to happen, the big business owner might have to get rid of one of his SUV’s and perhaps his summer resort home. Oh the agony!
What about putting profit back into the business instead of reaping a huge amount of profit?
How about writing legislation like this:
If a business grosses up to $1 million it could reap up to 25% profit on its gross revenues, with a scale looking like this:
Between $1-$10 million, 20% profit
Between $10-$15 million, 15% profit
and up to where once a company got to $100 million, the profit could be at 5% – that’s still a lot of money.
The more the business grosses, the less the profit.
There are loopholes, like, for example, a corporation could open up 100 businesses to make the huge profits, but legislation could be written to outlaw that.
Federal maximum wage laws should also be put into effect so that corporate CEO’s can’t be getting 50-60 times more than the average worker. That’s criminal and there should be a law against that.
The current bill to raise the wages is still not good enough. The proposed legislation calls for this increase to be phased in over two years. It’s been ten years since the last increase (which went to $5.15/hour and has remained there). Even at the current proposed wage, the average worker still needs to have two jobs to survive. With inflation, soon it will be three jobs.
The entire wage system needs to be revamped nationwide so that the average worker can make a comfortable living with one job and the corporate hogs don’t continue to exploit the workers so they can have most of the wealth.
Tonight was the regular weekly peace vigil in which I have been taking part for over 5 years. Each week we get our share of honks along with at least several anti-peace passersby who yell derogatory things at us (“Get a job!”, “Get a Life!”, “We Love Bush!”, etc.).
Tonight the temperatures were frigid, yet three of us bundled up (I mean, like we looked like Pillsbury Dough-People!). We had a small propane heater to warm up our hands. We each held signs for about 1/2 hour. Among us, by profession, were a Gulf War vet, a teacher, and a building manager.
A young woman (about 25) stopped her SUV in front of us and yelled, “You people should get jobs so that my parents’ taxes don’t pay for your welfare checks!”. It was obvious to us that she did not read our signs with messages of peace and because we were donned on bulky winter outerwear and were huddled around a propane heater holding signs, she thought we were homeless because we “looked the type”. Then we realized that she referred to her parent’s taxes, meaning that she does not have a job and is supported by her SUV owning parents.
What Bah-Humbug holiday spirit this young woman had. Not only did she have us pegged wrong because she wasn’t paying attention, she has no sensitivity towards those less fortunate than herself.
In Utah, DHS Raids Raise Concerns
By Justin Rood – December 13, 2006, 1:16 PM
A troubling report from the DHS immigration raids yesterday, from the Salt Lake (Utah) Tribune. In this case, DHS agents allegedly separated workers by their skin color — light-skinned were considered citizens, dark-skinned got scrutiny. Predicatably, they swept up at least one dark-skinned U.S. citizen up with immigrant workers:
If only for a few minutes, Maria felt like an ”illegal alien” in her homeland – the United States of America. Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged government, human needs, human rights, immigrant issues, immigration laws, politics, Utah
All across the U.S., including here in Utah, thousands of arrests of immigrants have been made this week in a Homeland Security Secretary “Operation Wagon Train”.
While poor working people have been carted off, leaving their small children and other family members frightened and alone, the rich owners of the companies that employed the immigrants, who are claimed to be undocumented, sit comfortably in their homes without facing any penalties for not following proper procedure in hiring workers.
To top this off, the owner had been told of the upcoming raid, but was told not to inform the workers.
Further, families are not being allowed contact with their arrested loved one. Workers in the raids were placed on “administrative arrest”. A day after his wife was arrested in the Hyrum raid at Swift & Co., Tony Ivarra hadn’t heard about her. The couple has a 9-year-old daughter. “I don’t know how she is, I don’t know anything,” he said in Spanish at a community informational meeting, which was conducted mostly in Spanish, for families affected by Tuesday’s raid. Leo Bravo, director of the Multicultural Center of Cache Valley, said that the arrests had left many broken families and his Logan center will be open 24 hours a day to help those in need. Families and friends took in children who were left stranded when their parents were arrested.
It’s likely that many of those arrested will face deportation.
Now there’s some passionate conservatism for you – good ‘ol family values. Protect the rich business owner and hisfamily while his workers and their families incur inhumane charges and detainment.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged government, human needs, human rights, immigrant issues, immigration laws, politics, Utah
Also in today’s news is this item:
Sort of like the 12 person panel that spent $50,000 to determine if Utah should raise its minimum wage (not!)?
According to White, the council found that a comparative composite salary for county commissioners elsewhere is about $103,000.
County employees are generally given a cost-of-living salary increase of about 3-4 percent annually. However, elected officials are not, and they most likely won’t receive another raise next year.
I realize that each county decides how to spend its money but this is provided to point out as an example how fiscal decision making regarding income/salaries is not equitable. Elected officials and other “leaders” seem to always get the big pay increases while the folks who work to pay their salaries have to work two and three jobs to put food on their tables.
There’s something wrong with this picture.
The Utah Governor’s Office is going to release a “study” on raising minimum wage this Thursday. The “study” cost $50,000 and had 12 people on the “study” panel. The “study” resulted in no conclusive recommendations, therefore waiting until Congress raises the federal minimum wage (which hasn’t been done in eight years).
Why is it that it takes a panel and tens of thousands of dollars to decide to raise incomes to liveable (from poverty) standards? Other fiscal issues that do not impact human needs don’t experience the same process. Whenever legislators and other officials have a vote on raising their salaries, there is no panel or special funding involved to conduct a study.
Republicans, according to the article, “suspect” that most minimum wage earners are teens. But an organization that advocates for the homeless and low income has done studies that show less than 20% of minimum wage earners are teens. And so what if they are? Most teenagers I know have jobs because their families need them to help support themselves because of the low family income.
There should be absolutely no question that the ordinary working citizen’s income needs to be raised. End of story.
The Salt Lake Tribune has a piece today regarding the eviction of residents in a Midvale Mobile Home Park, resembling the simlar continuing saga of the Cottonwood Heights Mobile Home Residents being evicted. A developer has bought the land (sound familiar?) and plans to build townhomes on it. Residents have until January 31 to leave. Many are on fixed incomes and cannot afford to move their mobile homes. And they don’t know where they will be able to find housing.
What a travesty. I think that if developers are going to be permitted to purchase such land, there should be a clause that requires the developer to provide aid to the residents to move into affordable housing instead of leaving residents “out in the cold”, so to speak.
I’ve been following the saga of Cottonwood Heights Mobile Home Residents facing eviction from their homes due to development of the land on which their homes sit.
KUER Radio’s site has this piece from September that I imagine is still relevant (for donations)to help displaced residents with the costs of having to move:
Mobile Home Owners Move to Make Way for Development
COTTONWOOD HEIGHTS, UT (2006-09-18) Children, the elderly, and the working poor – all residents of the 50-year-old Meadows Mobile Home Estates in Cottonwood Heights are faced with moving out of their mobile homes to make way for a new upscale development. But most of the families don’t have the money to move.
Tax deductible donations to the Meadows Relocation Fund can be made to the Community Action Program in Salt Lake City or deposits can be made at any JP Morgan Chase Bank in the Meadows Relocation Fund account.
Salt Lake Community Action Program
764 S 200 West Salt Lake City, Ut 84101 (801)359-2444 (801)355-1798 (f)
I am very happy with the Winter Coat Exchange that took place yesterday.
What made it all worthwhile was being able to give coats away to folks from all socio-economic levels. Well-off folks took coats, driving home the concept of reusing; Women with children that had been referred to us by a local social agency came and took coats. One young man, dressed in very thin, practically sleeveless, clothes was looking at the coats and started to walk away. We told him he could take a coat and he said “for FREE?”. We explained the coat exchange. He walked away with a warm coat on a rather cold day. He was one of many like this.
A veteran picked out a coat and profusely thanked us and stayed around to chat for awhile. An older man exchanged his thin hoodie for a warmer jacket.
Folks who donated appeared with arm loads of coats and sweaters with smiles on their faces. Some stayed and participated and others dropped off their donations as part of their errand-running for the day.
The smiles were priceless. The looks of content as folks walked away with warm clothing were “warming” in themselves.
Although we got lots of media to show up, I haven’t seen anything appearing on the TV stations that covered us, nor in the papers today. I think there were stories more important than ours to put in today’s news. But that’s o.k. We got the coverage of the feature article in “IN Utah this week” magazine and hopefully our sound bytes will be on KCPW radio Monday or Tuesday. We were listed on multiple community calendars and the Deseret News announced it as an article in the Utah section on Thursday. The reporters/videographers/photographers that did show up shared personal stories with us and it was obvious that they enjoyed being with us rather than at the stampedes at the shopping malls – by virtue of the fact that they stayed around for a long time.
The left over coats are being taken to Crossroads Urban Center Thrift Store next week.
Start saving your coats – Next year this will be even bigger. Thanks to all who participated in any way with this – from donating and coming down to hang out, to printing out flyers and posting and publicizing to all your friends, co-workers, and clients. And a special thanks to the Green Party of Rhode Island for the inspiration to do this, which got this coverage of their event:
Deanna Dee-Dee Taylor 