EDITORIAL : THE NEW YORK TIMES, USA

 

 

An Unfair Burden

For all of the economic hardship of the last several years, there was reason to hope that the nation could avoid a crushing increase in the number of Americans living in poverty. That hope is fading fast.

In 2008, amid a deepening recession, a Census Bureau measure showed that the number of poor Americans rose by 1.7 million to nearly 47.5 million. In 2009, thanks in large part to the Obama stimulus, the rise in poverty was halted — a significant accomplishment at a time of worsening unemployment. When data for 2010 are released in the fall, poverty is expected to have stayed in check because the stimulus, including aid to states and bolstered unemployment benefits, was still in effect last year.

This year and next are a different story. The stimulus is waning and Republicans are targeting poverty-fighting programs for deep cuts. Obama officials have said that low-income programs will not be automatically cut to fit a preconceived target from the debt-limit talks, but there is no guarantee they will stick to that position.

Exempting low-income programs has been a major feature of deficit deals going back to 1985. Both sides should publicly commit to that now, and take steps to strengthen the safety net. The alternative is unconscionable harm:

MEDICAID Federal stimulus funds for Medicaid — an additional $102 billion to the states over the past three years — run out at the end of June. Long-term deficit reduction will require controlling health care costs. But with the economy weak, there is no excuse for immediate cuts to the joint federal and state health program that is a lifeline for 68 million low-income Americans.

UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS In 2010, Congress allocated $56.5 billion to renew expiring federal jobless benefits through 2011 but dropped a $25-a-week supplement that had been added under the stimulus. That reduction could push an estimated 175,000 people into poverty this year.

Another threat is that jobless benefits won’t be renewed — or will be watered down — when they expire at the end of 2011. A recent bill from some House Republicans would let states use federal jobless money for other purposes, denying unemployed workers the cash they need to get by.

FOOD AID Some 44.6 million Americans use food stamps at a cost, this year, of $71.5 billion. House Republicans want to turn the program into a block grant, which would end the guarantee of food aid to all who qualify. The federal Women, Infants and Children assistance program, which helps some nine million low-income people, is also being targeted. Earlier this month, the Republican-controlled House voted to cut $733 million from the $6.7 billion program. That would force WIC to turn away an estimated 300,000 to 450,000 eligible applicants next year.

TEMPORARY ASSISTANCE FOR NEEDY FAMILIES This $16.6 billion block grant, known as TANF, helps states provide cash to two million poor families, as well as child care and other services. This year, an estimated 700,000 recipients will face reduced benefits, in part because a TANF contingency fund for use during downturns has not been replenished. A $5 billion infusion from the stimulus — used, in large part, to subsidize jobs for TANF recipients — also ended in 2010. Congress did not extend it, cutting off funds for 250,000 jobs.

Much of the real money for deficit reduction will inevitably have to come from popular programs, like reducing payments to Medicare providers, and reining in defense spending. And it must come from tax increases, no matter how much Republicans may wish it otherwise.

Making the poor carry a heavy part of the deficit burden is intolerable.

 

 

Bullying in N.J.; Bargaining in N.Y.

New York and New Jersey, like so many other states, are struggling with big budget gaps and high health care expenses for union employees. The Cuomo administration in New York sat at the bargaining table and worked out a fair arrangement for bigger contributions by workers. Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, by contrast, bullied and postured and got the Legislature to strip unions of collective-bargaining rights on health insurance.

The New Jersey way may produce short-term financial benefits, but it is not a path toward long-term labor peace or effective state management.

Mr. Christie is one of several Republican governors this year to blame the rights of unions — as opposed to the benefits of unions — for their states’ financial woes. By stripping away those rights rather than bargaining, these governors really hope to reduce the political power of unions, which is usually wielded on behalf of Democrats.

He and his allies (including some conservative Democrats) pushed through the Legislature a plan to require substantially higher health insurance contributions from state workers. The plan will allow the state to supersede labor negotiations on those benefits, giving power to a state board to dictate terms over the next four years. For many union workers, health care negotiations were the only leverage they had in preserving basic rights because they do not have guaranteed bargaining on wages and other benefits.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York took a different approach. He told the unions how much money he needed to save and allowed the negotiators for both sides to determine the shape of the cuts, using the threat of layoffs to make sure an agreement was reached. The unions didn’t like it but appreciated the ability to help determine how the cuts would be apportioned between wages and benefits. They can also sleep more soundly knowing that their bargaining has preserved their job security — a reassurance not shared by their counterparts in New Jersey.

New York’s example stands as a rebuke to the bulldozer tactics of Mr. Christie and the other Republican governors.

 

 

Dangerous Imports

The Food and Drug Administration has proposed sensible steps to cope with the dangers posed by a flood of imported food, drugs, cosmetics and medical devices. The trouble is, Congressional Republicans are determined to cut the agency’s budget when it ought to be getting an increase to deal with this worsening risk.

Nearly two-thirds of the fruits and vegetables and 80 percent of the seafood eaten in the United States now come from abroad. Half of the medical devices and 80 percent of the active ingredients in medications sold here are also made elsewhere, often in countries whose regulatory systems and manufacturing standards are weak.

American companies and American regulators screen only a tiny sample of the imports. In recent years, a contaminated blood-thinning drug was linked to 81 deaths in the United States, contaminated pet food killed or sickened thousands of cats and dogs and counterfeit test strips to monitor blood sugar levels posed a risk to diabetics. Those products were made in China, which often resists American efforts to investigate contamination or counterfeiting cases on its soil.

The F.D.A. now wants to move beyond intercepting harmful products that have reached American ports or markets to beefing up its nascent efforts to prevent those goods from ever reaching this country. The agency proposed this week to create global coalitions of regulators and a global database to better identify problems at manufacturing plants and to save resources by consolidating inspection efforts.

That’s all to the good. But the agency needs to clean up its own act in this country as well. Its antiquated computer systems can’t talk to each other, making it difficult for inspectors to determine which imports need close scrutiny. An inspector general’s audit found that the agency has often been slow to recall imported foods contaminated with salmonella or other dangerous microbes.

A new food safety law requires the F.D.A. to inspect 600 foreign food facilities within a year and greater numbers each year thereafter. That will require increased financing. Yet House Republicans have voted to reduce the agency’s budget, and some Senate Republicans are resisting offers by food producers to pay fees to underwrite inspections abroad and in this country because they consider that a tax. Some Republicans would rather adhere to their antitax ideology or insist on steep budget cuts than protect consumers from a clear and rising danger.

 

 

On the Art of Puttering

We are a driven people, New Yorkers. Too much to do, not enough time. We keep lists; we crowd our schedules; we look for more efficient ways to organize ourselves — we get things done when we’re not too busy planning to get things done. Even our leisure time is focused, and there is something proactive about our procrastination. We don’t merely put things off. We put things off by piling other things on top of them. As Robert Benchley once noted, “anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn’t the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment.”

But every now and then there comes a day for puttering. You can’t put it in your book ahead of time because who knows when it will come? No one intends to putter. You simply discover, in a brief moment of self-awareness, that you have been puttering, or, as the English would say, pottering. It often begins with a lost object. Not the infuriating kind that causes you to turn the house upside down while looking at your watch, but the speculative kind. “I wonder where that is,” you think.

You begin to look. Your attention is diverted almost immediately and then diverted again. You move through the morning with a calm, oblivious focus, taking on tasks — incidental ones — in the order they present themselves, which is to say no order at all. Puttering is small-scale, stream-of-consciousness problem-solving. It is setting sail on a sea of random course changes. The day passes, and you have long since forgotten what you were looking for — or that you were looking for anything at all. You feel as though you’ve accomplished a lot, though you have no idea what. It has been a holiday from purpose.