For many middle and working class families in Ohio, Issue 2 hits close to home. By limiting the simple right to negotiate and demonizing public workers, Issue 2 seeks to blame police officers, teachers, and nurses for the financial woes caused by financial “wizards” on Wall Street. However, there may be something you didn’t know. Issue 2 harms Ohio’s veterans.
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A little-known part of health care reform is being pulled from implementation. The CLASS Act (standing for Community Living Assistance Services and Supports) was an initiative heralded by the late Senator Ted Kennedy for years. The basic goal of the program was to set up an insurance system for workers that protected against the risk of disability. However, Department of Health and Human Services chief Kathleen Sebelius (a Cincinnati native) declared the program fiscally unworkable.
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So progressives talk a lot about the social safety net. What exactly does that mean?Oh sure, we all know Social Security, can probably rattle off a few statistics about Medicare and Medicaid, and unemployment insurance is a hot topic. But what is the true extent of the U.S. federal government’s role in providing social welfare to its citizens? That could probably be a book. Instead, I’m just going to list a bunch of broad programs and hopefully you, being a diligent and engaged reader, will comment telling me what I’ve missed.
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The post-war American political discourse has, for the most part, remained within the confines of liberalism (the classical kind), from Reaganite conservatives to Roosevelt progressives. But beyond all that boring compromise, there is usually a limited space in American politics for radicalism. In the ‘60s, radicalism took its form in two adjacent, and occasionally overlapping movements. The “new left” was a loosely organized, mostly white, mostly student, movement centered on participatory democracy, civil rights, social issues, and the Vietnam War. In tandem, there was the black power movement, which was ideologically diverse and encompassed all sorts of institutions outside of the white, capitalist power structure (it also encompassed all sorts of government infiltration and terrorism, but that’s another story). Simply put, in the ‘60s and ‘70s, they attempted to find collective solutions to collective problems. The radical discourse of...
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Flashback to August 1st, 2011: In the midst of a steamy summer day, Washington D.C. gives the nation pause as the U.S Congress voted to increase the debt ceiling. What should have been a routine lazy Monday before August recess became a moment of catharsis straight from a summer blockbuster. Months of fighting over whether the U.S. government would honor its debts on time had created a toxic atmosphere, and rational people all throughout the country justifiably asked themselves, “What in Gods name was that for?” As the legislative calender lurches towards the super-committee and the political calender gears up for the 2012 elections, the usual questions of civility and corruption are laying by the wayside. There is a sense of a fundamental breakdown of our political system, that old norms no longer apply. It seems like a vicious...
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