@bettina27 At least. Beach boys and SF Giants. You can tell them apart by the different colored beards. # Thank you Harry Swengler, master plumber, who at our Hotel years ago taught me what I need to fix my toilet today! # Anyone know a good plumber in NW Philly? # Starting third day of intensive watering to keep our garden, especially the new plantings, alive. # Continue reading
Dear Friends, I’ll be leaving Penn ACTION at the end of the month. Last year, as the HCAN campaign was winding down, US Action asked me to become Executive Director at Penn ACTION with the hope of building a state wide grassroots political organization. We’ve done a lot of good work over the last year. But, as you all know, this is a difficult fundraising environment and we haven’t been able to raise enough, either in Washington or in Pennsylvania, to keep the project going at the level we had reached or to expand it further. So US Action decided to pull back on the project and Crystal Martzall, who did so much to make our work a success, and I will be leaving it. For the time being, Robin Stelly, who has done such great work in Bucks County will keep organizing there and will try to do as… Continue reading
@BooMan23 No one who will really do the job could be confirmed. So O should have made the nomination that makes that point. # Continue reading
Originally appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Tuesday, July 05, 2011 After a public outcry stopped the Republican plan to radically transform Medicare, a new threat to our health care is coming, this time from a surprising direction. In the negotiations with Republicans about raising the debt ceiling, the Obama administration has proposed new rules for federal matching of state expenditures for Medicaid — we call it “medical assistance” in Pennsylvania — and CHIP, the Children’s Health Insurance Program. These rules are troubling. They would lead to substantial cuts in federal support programs that provide health care to low-income children and parents, people with disabilities and senior citizens, including the 62 percent of seniors in Pennsylvania whose nursing home care is paid for by medical assistance. States now receive different matching rates for different groups of people. The federal government pays 50 percent to 75 percent of the costs for people currently… Continue reading
Originally appeared in the Harrisburg Patriot News, July 3, 2011 Ten years ago last month, President George W. Bush signed a bill cutting taxes by $1.35 trillion over 10 years. It was the first of several Bush tax cuts that ended up costing two and a half trillion dollars over a decade. Dan Gleiter, The Patriot-News Ten years later, what have we gotten for this tax cut? Where is the prosperity President Bush promised? Pennsylvania’s official unemployment rate in June 2001 was 4.8 percent. Today, the seasonally adjusted rate is 7.4 percent. Nationwide, the unemployment rate was 4.7 percent. Today, it is hovering around 9 percent. At the end of last year, supporters of Bush’s policies pushed through an extension of the Bush tax cuts for another two years. Many lawmakers say they want to extend the tax cuts again into 2013 and beyond, which would almost double the federal… Continue reading
Appeared in the “Your View” op-ed column in the Allentown Morning Call on Friday, July 1, 2011 John Locke wrote that “a long train of abuses, prevarications, and artifices, all tending the same way, make the design visible to the people” Two voucher proposals, the Ryan Medicare plan in Washington and the Piccola education voucher plan in Harrisburg, show us the real design of the Republican Party today— to help the very rich by harming working people. Both proposals claim to address real problems. Congressman Ryan’s plan is meant to deal with the long term costs of Medicare. State Senator Piccola’s plan supposedly helps low-income kids who attend failing schools. However, the proposals will not meet those goals. The Medicare plan does nothing to reduce the costs of senior health care. Indeed, it repeals the Affordable Care Act which would reduce those costs by $500 billion in the first ten… Continue reading