The Progressive has obtained a copy of the note left by outgoing President George W. Bush for his successor, Barack Obama. Read it here.
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.
Return of the rule of law
President Barack Obama said during his inaugural address Tuesday that
Our founding fathers faced with perils that we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations.
Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake.
Just hours after the speech, the new president took the first step toward reinvigorating the “charter,” bringing back the rule of law and ending the era of expediency:
(T)he administration of the newly inaugurated president, in one of its first actions, instructed military prosecutors late Tuesday to seek a 120-day suspension of legal proceedings involving detainees at Guantanamo — a clear break with the approach of the Bush administration, whose term ended at noon Tuesday.
It’s expected that Obama will follow up by closing Guantanamo:
In Washington, meanwhile, aides to President Obama were preparing an executive order that would begin the process of shutting down a detention facility at the Guantanamo Bay naval base for captured terrorist suspects. According to the Associated Press, the draft executive order calls for closing the detention center within a year. It was not immediately known when Obama would issue such an order.
Stimulus should build for the future
As Barack Obama said during his speech yesterday, government spending has to work or the money shouldn’t be spent. And while we need a massive economic stimulus both to prevent economic freefall and to begin the hardwork of rebuilding our economy, we shouldn’t assume that all spending is good spending.
That’s why some in the environmental community are ready to do battle over plans currently being crafted.
According to The Washington Independent,
a growing chorus of environmental groups says it falls short of those goals, providing too much funding for new roads and too little for public transportation and other green initiatives.
Under the current proposal, new construction could consume three times as much funding as public transportation. The environmental groups hope more public transit money will be added when lawmakers make changes to the proposal in committee, an amendment process which began Wednesday afternoon.
“At a time of erratic energy prices, Congress should use this opportunity to move
America away from highways and toward railways and mass transit,” said Karen Wayland, legislative director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group. “The transportation component of the stimulus package underfunds mass transit in deference to highways and bridges.”
They say there is
plenty of room to improve the Democrats’ blueprint. At the forefront of their criticism, the proposal includes $30 billion for highway construction but dedicates only $10 billion to public transit and rail — a discrepancy prioritizing new roads at the expense of public transportation.
Brent Blackwelder, president of Friends of the Earth, says the spending on new roads will only act to increase pollution and fuel consumption — two problems the Democrats’ proposal was designed to alleviate.
“It is particularly disappointing to see that, unlike highway funds, public transportation and passenger rail funds have been cut below the levels suggested by the House Transportation Committee, limiting job creation in these areas,” Blackwelder said in a statement. “Public transportation investments create 19 percent more jobs per dollar spent than investments in new highways.”
Daniel Becker, head of the Safe Climate Campaign, said the proposal is a significant step in the direction of cutting pollution and increasing energy efficiency, but there are notable holes that could use plugging. “There’s a lot of new asphalt-laying [in the bill],” Becker said, “and that will undercut a lot of the green efforts.”
Marchant Wentworth, legislative representative for clean energy with the Union of Concerned Scientists, agreed that the $10 billion for public transit is insufficient to accomplish the Democrats’ goals. “You could triple that and still have needs out there for relieving congestion,” he said.
I’m not saying that a good chunk of the road money is not needed — some of it definitely is. But road money would be best spent on repairs and upgrades to existing infrastructure, rather than carving out new thoroughfares that will just lead to sprawl and more congestion down the road. If some of the money were shifted from asphalt to mass transit, that would go a long way toward greening the stimulus.
And if the tax cuts were to be scrapped, that money could then go toward other green projects — or “to provide further relief to Americans in distress — enhanced unemployment benefits, expanded Medicaid and more.”
A shrinking pie
Conservatives used to talk of expanding the economic pie as a way to ensure that the lower classes got what they needed, rather than redistributing some money down the income ladder. It was an approach that, though it might have sounded good on paper, just never worked.
The failure, unfortunately, is made worse by reports like this:
New Jersey’s unemployment rate climbed to its highest level in 15 years last month, triggering worries that the drain on the state’s unemployment insurance fund will prompt payroll tax increases.
The 7.1 percent unemployment rate was a full point increase over the rate in November, and just barely under the national average of 7.2 percent, Gov. Jon Corzine and State Labor Commissioner David Socolow announced today.
Basically, the pie is shrinking and the people on the bottom are finding that a smaller portion of nothing is still nothing.
Another reason to turn off the radio
For lovers of slightly edgy rock ‘n’ roll, the news that alternative station 106.3, G-Rock, in Eatontown is changing its format hits a sour note.
In an effort to appeal to a mainstream audience, Press Communications LLC has switched the format of a local alternative rock radio station to current hits radio.
“What our research showed us was that we needed to have a more mass appeal format that reached all ages between 18 to 44,” said Alice MacCormack, general sales manager for station owner Press Communications LLC. The radio station is broadcast as WHTG-FM 106.3 in Eatontown and WBBO-FM 106.5 in Bass River Township.
Once called G Rock Radio, the station is now known as Hit 106. The change was made at noon Monday, MacCormack said.
The new format, according to The Asbury Park Press, “includes music from recording artists such as Rhianna, Pink, Beyonce, Taylor Swift and David Cook.”
This from a station — formerly dubbed “Jersey’s Rock Alternative” — that
was known for breaking in top alternative bands, such as The Ting Tings and The Duke Spirit.
Of course, the blogger says sarcastically, you just can’t have too many stations playing songs by the winners of American Idol.
