Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie.

On the money

In a state with a high unemployment rate and a crater of a deficit, does it surprise anyone that we are spending upwards of $65 million on lobbying. The tighter the money, apparently, the more groups need to spend to convince the state that they need the money.

  • Send me an e-mail.
  • Read poetry at The Subterranean.
  • Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
  • Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.
Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

Balancing the budget on the backs of the poor

Gov. Chris Christie’s budget envisions savings in the state’s Medicaid bills, which he says will be instituted through an overhaul that will force the federal government to make changes in the program.

But the plan on table is not so much an overhaul but a rollback that will push more of the costs of the health program designed to help those who cannot afford health care onto the very people it is supposed to help. Christie says “he wants to move Medicaid recipients into managed care” and he is proposing a series of other changes, including cutting reimbursements to nursing homes and a “$3 co-pay at adult day care centers, which take care of more than 12,000 adult residents with mental and physical disabilities. The move is expected to save the state about $1.9 million.”

The savings are minimal in the scheme of the larger budget, but as advocates for the poor and disabled pointed out during a hearing yesterday, the co-pays and other changes “would deter many disabled residents and their families from using the adult day care centers. They said the already cash-strapped facilities would then see less money due to declining enrollment.”

Christie is right to want the federal government to step in and fix Medicaid — though I suspect he has little interest in a real fix (single-payer). In any case, this is not the way to go about balancing the state’s budget.

  • Send me an e-mail.
  • Read poetry at The Subterranean.
  • Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
  • Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.
Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

Spicuzzo faces corruption rap

I can’t say I’m surprised by this. There have been whispers for a long time about the power of the Middlesex County Democrats and exactly what it is that power was being used for.

It’s too early to know how this is going to play out, but it seems that three things need to happen:
1. Joseph Spicuzzo needs to step down as county sheriff immediately.
2. Joseph Spicuzzo needs to step down as county party chairman.
3. The county Democrats need to purge their leadership of Spicuzzo loyalists and start fresh.

Anything less would be to tacitly endorse what Spicuzzo has been accused of doing.

  • Send me an e-mail.
  • Read poetry at The Subterranean.
  • Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
  • Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.
Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

Public-sector unions are not the problem

http://eastwindsor.patch.com:/swf/external_video_player.swf

    New Jersey’s public employee unions are starting to fight back by doing what working people should have been doing in this country for years. They are taking it to the streets. The teachers were in Trenton last week; today, it was the police and fire unions. Who’s next? As glad as I am to see them take to the street, we have to face the fact that these rallies lack the unity and sense of larger purpose that the Wisconsin fight has had. Workers in the Badger state face the prospect of being stripped of bargaining rights, even after giving the governor every concession he has requested. The issue there is the basic right to organize and act collectively. Here the talk is about saving pensions and medical benefits and preventing layoffs — worthy goals — but not necessarily ones that will connect with the larger swath of put-upon workers in the state. And not necessarily ones that will shift public opinion. The teachers, firefighters, police and other public workers need to rally together over several days and they need to frame their demands as more than just protecting what the public has come to see as their cushy benefits. The issue is the final assault on the compact that has governed American working live for 60 or so years, but that has been eroding for the last three decades. The collapse of the private-sector union movement, the labor movements disconnection from the larger social movements of its day (think of the bulk of unionists on Vietnam, civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights, etc.) and the general assault with government help by corporate America and presidents and Congresses of both parties has left the public-sector unions as the only strong unions in the nation. The public-sector workers need to reconnect to workers at large, find a way to cut past the jealousy that has far too many New Jersey residents saying “take away their benefits.” That kind of demand is short-sighted and will only continue the race to the bottom on wages and benefits that has American workers earning, at best, what they were earning 10 years ago, while the top one-tenth of 1 percent of earners — about 300,000 Americans — saw their wages more than triple. Public-sector unions are not the problem. The problem is the lack of private-sector unionization and a legal structure that is decidedly hostile toward union building. This is the argument they should be leading with: Stand with us now and we will stand with you later as you fight to revive the working and middle classes.

  • Send me an e-mail.
  • Read poetry at The Subterranean.
  • Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
  • Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.
Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

The right to be racist

The First Amendment’s free speech and assembly protections mean nothing unless we are willing to afford them to the most reprehensible and disturbing speech.

So, while I despise everything that the Westboro Baptist Church stands for and find their use of soldiers’ funerals deplorable, I have to applaud the Supreme Court’s ruling today:

In an 8-1 vote, Supreme Court Justices voted in favor of the Westboro Church, ruling that the protesters are protected by the First Amendment, no matter how offensive their anti-gay, anti-military message might be to some.

The church and Fred Phelps were being sued by Maryland resident Albert Snyder, the father of the late Matthew Snyder, a soldier who died in Iraq in 2006. Albert Snyder cited “emotional distress” as the reason for his lawsuit. Phelps and his family protested at Matthew Snyder’s funeral with signs that read “God Hates America” and “Semper Fi Fags”.

Nothing that the church has done or does can be defended or should be defended. Its members and views are offensive and hateful. But nothing the church does should be the subject of government interference.

Do we really want to follow the French example on this and prosecute the speaker of hateful speech? Does an anti-Semitic or racist rant warrant a jail sentence of as long “as six months in prison and up to €22,500, or $31,000, in fines”? Should Mel Gibson or Michael Richards have gone to jail, as they likely would have under French law, which “makes it a crime to incite racial hatred”? And who gets to decide what inciting hatred means?

American law, thankfully, protects our rights to be idiots. I prefer it that way.

  • Send me an e-mail.
  • Read poetry at The Subterranean.
  • Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
  • Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.
Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.