Category: Counting the Cost

Has the Great Recession ended with our economy returning to normal? That may be “conventional wisdom,” or the word we get from those who think that there is no more intervention needed to stimulate the economy. President Barack Obama has bragging rights on the reduction of unemployment rates and the fact that economic growth is robust. Citing these improvements, our Republican Congress wants to continue to tighten the federal budget belt. Despite this, the Federal Reserve Bank’s Open Market Committee says that there is too much slack in the labor market, and that unemployment rates could be lower than they are now.

Just a week or so after Black History Month concluded, the Civil Rights Movement experienced a special commemoration. Tens of thousands thronged to Selma, Ala. for a historic march across the Edmond Pettus Bridge, marking March 7, 1965, the 50th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday” when armed police officers attacked peaceful marchers attempting to walk to Montgomery, the state capital. More than 10,000 people were attacked in 1965, including Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), whose powerful eloquence puts the entire protest movement in context.

Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Calif.) couldn’t bring his French bulldog, Lily, on an Amtrak train. So when Amtrak funding came up for a vote, he inserted a provision that required one car on an Amtrak train to be designated a “pet car.” Pet owners will pay a fee to bring their furry companions on the train, and there are size restrictions to the pets that can travel. Still, this new provision is seen as a victory for pet owners who ride trains.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel just got spanked. Despite a campaign war chest of more than $15 million and the support of President Barack Obama, the former Congressman and White House chief of staff could not avoid a run-off in the non-partisan mayoral election.

Olivia Juliet Hooker celebrated her 100th birthday on February 12. In 1944, she was among the first five African American women allowed to serve in the Coast Guard as a SPAR (the acronym derived from the translations of the Coast Guard’s motto, “Semper Paratus, Always Ready”). SPARS was the nickname of the United States Coast Guard’s Women Reserve.

The racial differential in the poverty rate is staggering. Last time I checked, about 12 percent of people in the United States, one in eight people are poor. Depending on race and ethnicity, however, poverty is differently experienced. Fewer than one in 10 Whites are poor; more than one in four African Americans and Latinos are poor.

I like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Her progressive ideas are just what we need while Hilary Clinton is straddling the fence, and still cozying up with bankers. Warren says she isn’t running for president, but there are quite a few political action committees urging her to run.

President Barack Obama knocked it out of the park during the State of the Union address. He was strong, progressive, firm, and relaxed. He was almost cocky as he offered a few jokes, smugly announced that he would have no more elections, and just generally exuded confidence. Instead of the kumbaya thing, he laid out his priorities to a Republican Congress that will likely block much of what he proposed, especially when it comes to raising taxes on the wealthy to support his free community college program.

One could not help but be impressed by the millions that turned out in Paris to stand against the Islamist terrorists who killed workers at the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and four others at a kosher grocery store. Two law enforcement officers were also killed, bringing the total to 17.

As he labored for social, civil and economic justice, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was extremely concerned both about the educational inequities that were a function of segregation, and about the purpose and quality of education. As early as 1947, as a Morehouse College student, he wrote an article, “The Purpose of Education,” for the Maroon Tiger, the college newspaper. His article is as relevant today as it was then.