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A three sided budget fight

  By Philadelphia, Philadelphia Budget

Progressive forces won an important victory by building support for the preservation of essential services even if this requires a tax increase. This was a incredibly beautiful and wide ranging struggle with many people playing a role. And Mayor Nutter deserves credit for recognizing that the citizens of this city are willing to bear higher taxes temporarily in order to save services that are so important to us. Now, however, we have to recognize that fight continues on three sides. On one side, we want to make the tax increases as progressive as possible. Many of us have concerns about the regressivity of the sales taxes and the danger that the property tax increase will fall too heavily on the poor and working people if it goes into effect without the implementation of a homestead exemption and a broad based and fair revision of property assessments. On a second side,… Continue reading

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Healthcare at the crossroads

  By Health Care

We are at a crossroads for healthcare President Obama’s budget, which includes $634 billion in the budget as a down payment on health care reform, is before the Congress. This is critical. If Congress does not pass a budget that funds health care reform, it won’t happen this year in any form. Click here to call your Members of Congress to tell them to fund health care reform now! President Obama with your support has said that we can’t fix our economy if we don’t reform health care. But the momentum we have built for winning quality affordable health care for all this year will stop in its tracks if the President’s budget fails. Health Care For America NOW ahs put together some easy-to-use talking points to help you send a strong message to your Members of Congress that you support the President’s budget. Can you give your Members of… Continue reading

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A Truly Nasty Bug

  By About me

FINALLY I seem to be getting over a truly nasty virus that attacks soul as well as body This has been an extraordinarily unpleasant experience. I had a fairly normal cold for a few days starting last Friday and kept working through it as I always do while coughing and hacking away. Then on Monday, I started feeling this incredible and unremitting fatigue. It particularly attacked my hands and arms. I couldn’t lift my arms above my shoulders without feeling exhausted. And my arms and hands would get tired after two minutes of typing, keeping me my favorite thing to do with my clothes on, writing. Continue reading

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Hannah Miller on tour

  By People

As many of you know, for her new position with the Media and Democracy coalition, Hannah Miller is going to be working all over the country from a new base in Washington, DC. There was a going away party for Hannah on Friday that I missed because I was very late in getting back from Harrisburg. I was sorry to miss it because, though we said goodbye earlier in the week, I believe in the power and importance of public ceremony. And when someone who is not only one of my best friends but an important part of the progressive movement in our city leaves for a time, that event should be marked publicly. So I had hoped to be there to say a few things about what Hannah has meant to all of us. I’m a little reluctant to post this, undoubtedly much much longer more formal version, of what… Continue reading

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Health Care Cure For the Economy

  By Health Care

Daily News, February 11, 2009 People who suffer from chronic diseases are vulnerable to temporary maladies. Those with heart disease, asthma or diabetes sometimes find a bad accident or the flu creating an acute crisis. People sometimes discover chronic illnesses only when acute problems make them evident. And sometimes, it is impossible to deal with a medical crisis without addressing the underlying chronic problems. What is true for our health is also true for health care. Health care in theUnited Statessuffers from chronic maladies. The current economic crisis is showing us how bad they are. That’s why an economic recovery bill that includes initial steps toward health care reform is before the Congress now. One chronic problem is the rising cost of health care, which increases two to three times faster than inflation. Businesses, governments and individuals face insurance premium increases of up to ten percent per year. The recession… Continue reading

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Tell Senator Specter you support the economic recovery package and health care reform!

  By Health Care

The Economic Recovery Package that passed the House last week is now before the Senate. The Republicans are planning a filibuster. Some Democrats are wobbly. And so we are going to need at least two and possibly more Republican votes. The right-wing is going all out to defeat the bill, thinking that if they beat President Obama now, they can derail his entire domestic program. We can’t allow them to succeed. Continue reading

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Aggressive police patrolling on the drives!

  By Health Care

Stop speeding on the drives! Remember how the city demanded that the state police replace the city police in patrolling the Expressway, just as they patrol interstate highways in the rest of the state? Well it happened with interesting consequences elswhere anyone who live in NW Philly should know about. The police officers who formerly patrolled the Expressway have no been reassigned to East (Kelly) and West (ML King)River and Lincoln Drive. The officers who used to be assigned to the drives have been reassigned to the districts. This is a good thing in a few respects. It in effect gives us more police officers on patrol in the city. And the reassigned Expressway officers are taking their job a lot more seriously than the old timers they have replaced. Wednesday morning, for example, seven people had been stopped and warned or ticketed for speeding by 9:30 in the morning.… Continue reading

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Be There For Health Care: greet Obama supporters in Philly on Saturday

  By Health Care

Submitted by Marc Stier on Mon, 01/12/2009 – 3:34am. Be There for Health Care! Welcome people on Saturday, January 17th as they line up to hear President-Elect Barack Obama at the first stop of his train trip to Washington before his inauguration As a volunteer greeter on Saturday January 17th, you will be part of the largest mobilization of health care for all advocates Philadelphia has ever seen! Volunteers will: ·Work in pairs signing up folks as they wait on line to enter the speech venue. ·Ask everyone to sign a post card to Senators Specter and Casey – Calling for guaranteed, quality, affordable health care for all. – Endorsing the Obama / Health Care For America Now principles of health care reform that call for every American to be able to choose affordable health insurance either from their current insurer, another private insurance plan or a public plan open… Continue reading

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Library closings: they've never been mainly about the budget crisis

  By Libraries, Philadelphia

The hard thing in making the case against closing eleven branch libraries is that the fiscal crisis of Philadelphia is not a mirage. That’s why it is important to understand that the branch library closings have never fundamentally been about the budget crisis. The Mayor and Siobhan Reardon are misleading us when they keep insisting that we had to close libraries because of the city’s budget troubles. I’m not sure I fully understand what the library closings are about. But this is what I’ve managed to piece together from talking with librarians here and elsewhere in the country as well as with people familiar with some of the inner workings of the library administration. The proposal to close branches came from the library administration The library administration has wanted to close branch libraries for years. They proposed doing so under Mayor Street, when then Councilman Nutter along with Councilman DiCicco… Continue reading

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The Nutter administration (and us) at the crossroads

  By Philadelphia, Political Organizing, Progressive Politics

Originally posted at YPP The Nutter Administration stands at a crossroads. And so do we activists. It is not because the judicial decision barring the administration from closing libraries is an existential threat to the necessary powers of the Mayor. That claim, as I’ll explain in another post is nonsense. What is really at stake is whether, at this critical moment, the Nutter administration will decide to fix the broken political culture of our city or whether it will continue to work within it. What we do as activists may help determine the result. Continue reading