http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/art icle?AID=20060620/METRO/606200354-1/AR CHIVE
Summer camp caters to gay teens
Program, at a secret Mich. location, aims to teach youths to become political activists; others are wary.
George Hunter / The Detroit News
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DETROIT -- Steven Howard is looking forward to summer camp, where the 15-year-old hopes to ride horses, hike in the woods -- and learn to advocate for gay rights.
Steven, a ninth-grader at the Detroit School for Performing Arts, is among several Metro Detroit youths who plan to attend "Camping.Out," a weeklong summer camp organized by the Triangle Foundation that aims to teach youths to become political activists for gay rights.
Steven, who lives on the east side of Detroit, said he's looking forward to getting out of his urban neighborhood for a week. "I really want to go horseback riding," he said, "but I'm interested in the political stuff, too."
The camp is the first of its kind in Michigan, said Greg Varnum, the Triangle Foundation's youth initiatives coordinator. It will feature workshops and visits by national gay rights leaders who will talk about how teens can become politically active.
"This is a unique program," Varnum said. "In Michigan, there haven't been any camps for gay youths that I'm aware of. There are camps in other states that cater to gay youths, but they focus more on traditional camping. What makes this camp unique is the focus on activism."
Camping.Out comes at a time when gay teens are organizing more than ever before. Support groups for gay youths are being formed in high schools across the country, said Martha Fugate, director and founder of the Yes Institute, a Florida-based nonprofit organization that educates school officials and clergy on gay issues.
"When I started this organization in 1995, there were no gay-straight alliances in high schools, and very few gay-oriented programs in schools," Fugate said. "But the culture is changing rapidly. There's still a long way to go, but these programs are allowing more kids to see that it's OK to come out; that they don't have to alter their lives just to be who they are."
At the same time, summer youth camps have become more specialized. There are Christian camps, soccer camps, drama camps, band camps and baseball camps, to name a few.
"This camp will be no different than, say, YMCA youth camps that give leadership training to kids," said Grace McClelland, executive director of the Ruth Ellis Center, a program that offers various social services to gay youths. "We have to train and cultivate our young people."
The camp, which will be held Aug. 13-18 at an undisclosed location in western Michigan, is offered to eighth- to 12th-graders. Varnum said about a dozen teens are registered so far for the $475 camp. Scholarships will be available for those who cannot afford the fee.
"We're going to keep the location of the camp a secret," Varnum said. "We don't want protesters to ruin what should be a fun experience for these kids."
Critics expressed several concerns about the camp, including the age of the participants, and the sleeping arrangements, in which teens who could potentially be attracted to each other will stay in the same rooms.
"Would you ever have a camp where you allowed teenage boys to be housed with girls? Or, would you allow camp counselors who are men to be housed with young girls? This is the same kind of situation -- it's a time bomb," said Linda Harvey, director of Mission America, an Ohio-based nonprofit Christian organization that studies youth homosexuality. Those concerns have been taken into consideration, McClelland said. She said the program will send a group of kids to Camping.Out.
"In a straight camp you'd separate the boys from the girls, because these are teenagers after all," McClelland said. "We've taken the necessary steps. We're going to send one adult for every two youths."
Corey Howard, Steven's father, said he thinks the camp is a good idea.
"I think it will be a positive experience," he said. "I'll admit -- I'm not a big fan of homosexuality, and I wasn't happy when he told me he was gay. But I'm his father, first and foremost, so I support him. I don't love him because of his sexual preference, I love him because he's my son."
Varnum, who said he has 20 years of experience working in various camps, and who sits on the board of directors of the American Camp Association's Michigan Branch, said special precautions are being taken with selecting volunteers to monitor the kids.
"We have people who are way overqualified who have volunteered to be camp counselors. There are directors of organizations, leaders in the field of child psychology -- it's like a dream team of camp professionals," Varnum said.
Steven said the concerns about sexual activity are unfounded.
"People think all gay people think about is sex," he said. "But that's wrong." END OF ARTICLE
This is a must read!
The World's Most
Dangerous Man
It's George W. Bush
by Justin Raimondo
As a groggy and very hung-over American hegemon wakes from a dream of imperial dominion and faces the harsh light of morning in war-torn Iraq, the cruel reality of what General William E. Odom calls "the greatest strategic disaster" in our history is beginning to dawn on our political and military elites. The U.S. Senate, which originally signed on to the president's war policy by a 77-23 vote, is backing away, and even some in the president's own party are beginning to voice strong doubts about "staying the course." Especially when we are on a course set for the same disastrous fate that eventually overtook all the strutting imperialists of times past, who took on a weaker opponent only to find that there are different kinds of strength. As Martin van Creveld, a military historian of some note, put it in an interview not so long ago:
"Basically it's always a question of the relationship of forces. If you are strong, and you are fighting the weak for any period of time, you are going to become weak yourself. If you behave like a coward then you are going to become cowardly - it's only a question of time. The same happened to the British when they were here... the same happened to the French in Algeria... the same happened to the Americans in Vietnam... the same happened to the Soviets in Afghanistan... the same happened to so many people that I can't even count them."
Van Creveld was speaking about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but the same principle applies to the Iraqi insurgency in spades, and I want to quote him at length because I have not read a clearer exposition of the strategic dilemma in which we now find ourselves.
"Question: Martin you used the word 'cowardly' yet what we've seen tonight - these commando units, the anti-terrorist squads - these aren't cowardly people.
"Van Creveld: I agree with you. They are very brave people... they are idealists... they want to serve their country and they want to prove themselves. The problem is that you cannot prove yourself against someone who is much weaker than yourself. They are in a lose/lose situation. If you are strong and fighting the weak, then if you kill your opponent then you are a scoundrel... if you let him kill you, then you are an idiot. So here is a dilemma which others have suffered before us, and for which as far as I can see there is simply no escape."
No escape - that is precisely van Creveld's evaluation of our present conundrum, which, in his view, has earned our leaders the sharpest rebuke imaginable:
"For misleading the American people, and launching the most foolish war since Emperor Augustus in 9 B.C. sent his legions into Germany and lost them, Bush deserves to be impeached and, once he has been removed from office, put on trial along with the rest of the president's men. If convicted, they'll have plenty of time to mull over their sins."
This isn't some poster over at DailyKos.com or Democratic Underground talking: van Creveld is the author of some 15 books on military history and strategy, including Supplying War (1977), Command in War (1985), and The Sword and the Olive (1998), and has been on the faculty of Hebrew University in Israel since 1971.
Yes, says van Creveld, we must withdraw, and it will be a long and very painful retreat, likely to incur many casualties, but it is nevertheless "inevitable." Yet, in his view:
"A complete American withdrawal is not an option; the region, with its vast oil reserves, is simply too important for that. A continued military presence, made up of air, sea and a moderate number of ground forces, will be needed."
The genie has busted out of the bottle, and - to mix metaphorical fables - all the president's men cannot put it back together again. If the idea of invading Iraq was to commit us irrevocably to a course set for perpetual war, then surely the cabal that lied us into Iraq has succeeded. The "creative destruction" they pined for has been visited on the Middle East, and the pillars of stability have been shattered, ushering in a new and far more credible threat to the region: the Shi'ite mullahs of Iran.
The irony is that, in conjuring a nonexistent nuclear-armed threat in Baghdad, we wound up empowering a real-world version of that imaginary monster - in Tehran.
Perhaps this is what Bush was saying when, a few weeks after demolishing the Iraqi regime, he proclaimed "Mission accomplished."
Van Creveld is right that Bush and the Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal need to be put on trial - in my view, the charge should be treason - but wrong when it comes to his existentialist "no exit" stance, which makes about as much sense - from an American perspective - as Sartre's play, i.e., very little.
The vast oil reserves [.pdf] in the region are not, after all, going to disappear: whoever pumps it has to sell it to someone, and that is inevitably going to be us: it is a question of price, not availability. As Michael Scheuer, former CIA analyst in charge of the bin Laden unit, points out, a key plank in al-Qaeda's platform of anti-Western grievances has been the complaint that we are getting their oil at cut-rate prices. If the rules of the marketplace - which the U.S., as the fountainhead of capitalism, is pledged to observe - were to be followed, then the artificially low prices paid by Western consumers for Middle Eastern oil would rise overnight - and we'd be forced to spend our money on the difference, rather than on what van Creveld describes as "the new weapons [which] are so few and so expensive that even the world's largest and richest power can afford only to field a relative handful of them."
Perhaps that wouldn't be such a bad tradeoff after all.
The sense of crisis expressed by one of the foremost military tacticians of the day is shared by many in Washington, and among the military. That's why Rep. Jack Murtha, who has a long-standing relationship with the uniformed three-and-four-stars in the Pentagon, rose to give voice to the very real fears now shaking up the establishment. In calling for a withdrawal of American troops, and a complete turnaround in our regional policy, Rep. Murtha sent a seismic shockwave through the White House, which immediately responded by likening him to Michael Moore, the left-wing filmmaker demonized by the neocons as a symbol of "anti-Americanism." The hamhandedness of this White House is positively Soviet, and about as effective as the Kremlin's denunciations of Eastern European rebels and its own dissidents as "wreckers" and "agents of imperialism."
Ah, but rumor has it that we're in for a new era of perestroika, if not bipartisan glasnost, when it comes to Iraq policy. There has been increased speculation, of late, that the U.S. is getting ready to draw down the number of troops in Iraq and hand over the reins to the Iraqis, who are on the verge - as we are constantly assured - of standing up so we can, at long last, begin to stand down. The problem is that this is nonsense, as Seymour Hersh points out in his latest contribution to The New Yorker.
We aren't cutting and running, according to Hersh: we're cutting and bombing. The idea is to substitute air power for boots on the ground and cut down our losses. It'll be just like in the Kosovo war, when the "Kosovo Liberation Army" acted as spotters for our fighter jets, who would rain down death on targets scouted out by the KLA. That this will greatly increase Iraqi casualties, civilian as well as military, seems not to be a consideration: the assumption is that we'll be killing the bad guys, with the Iraqis doing most of the grunt work. Not everyone, however, is happy with this new strategic turn. The Air Force, says Hersh, is balking, and he quotes a senior Pentagon consultant who defines the problem inherent in such a strategy: "A lot of Iraqis want to settle old scores," but "who is going to have authority to call in air strikes?" As Chris Matthews pointed out on Hardball Tuesday, you're going to have the Air Force at the beck and call of Ahmed Chalabi, a prospect that ought to transfix American policymakers with the sheer horror of it.
We aren't withdrawing from Iraq: instead, the war is being intensified, with the so-called El Salvador option unleashed, as predicted here some months ago. Iraqi death squads are even now roaming the streets of our "liberated" province, murdering Sunnis and ravaging other centers of opposition to the consolidation of Shi'ite rule. The party militias - the Badr Brigade, the Da'wa Party, the Mahdi Army of Moqtada Sadr, and others - have taken over the Iraqi "police," and the fastening on of a new tyranny is taking place in Kurdistan, where the authorities are preparing an all-out attack on the Arab population. With the full authority and backing of the two major Kurdish parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP), Arabs are being systematically forced out of their homes. Meanwhile, the ultra-nationalist Kurdish parties subsidize "settlements" for "repatriated" Kurds from all over the Middle East, in a conscious imitation of the Israelis.
Israel by the way, is the Kurds' major ally and regional sponsor, as Hersh reported in a previous New Yorker piece. Their agents, said Hersh, are crawling all over Kurdistan, even as they recognize that the American attempt to pacify the rest of Iraq is failing. This is their "Plan B," as Hersh calls it: if Iraq is being split apart at the seams, their best option is to grab a piece of it as it decomposes. That Kirkuk-to-Israel pipeline Chalabi promised his neocon backers may not be a pipe dream after all, especially if the Kurds succeed in their plan to shift the ethnic balance of oil-rich Kirkuk and seize control of the city they hail as their Jerusalem. This has American officers worried, and it contradicts the much-touted "pro-American" reputation of the Kurds as our trusted friends and allies: American commanders fear the Kurdish militias are about to precipitate a civil war, with our troops caught in the crossfire.
Once we make this an air war, the Kurdish parties will wield American jet fighters as a whip to be used against their sectarian enemies, lashing out at the Arabs, the Assyrians, and anyone else who gets in their way. While Shi'ite and Kurdish death squads comb the streets, carrying out search and destroy missions against alleged "terrorists," the Americans will patrol the skies, zapping entire villages as directed by our proxies on the ground.
There's just one problem with this strategy: "It's not going to work," says the former director of air power studies at the Royal Air Force's advanced staff college, Andrew Brookes, now an analyst with the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. Hersh cites him as asking a very pertinent question, one that conjures up the same ghosts of interventions past channeled by van Creveld.
"'Can you put a lid on the insurgency with bombing? No. You can concentrate in one area, but the guys will spring up in another town.' The inevitable reliance on Iraqi ground troops' targeting would also create conflicts. 'I don't see your guys dancing to the tune of someone else,' Brookes said. He added that he and many other experts 'don't believe that airpower is a solution to the problems inside Iraq at all. Replacing boots on the ground with airpower didn't work in Vietnam, did it?'"
The neocons hate the Vietnam analogy precisely because it suits the facts so snugly. They don't like to be reminded that their last great crusade to implant "democracy" at gunpoint ended not just in failure, but in a full-fledged military defeat. To even bring up the subject is to be accused of wanting to repeat that result - as if the critics of the policy, rather than the policymakers, are to be held morally responsible for the consequences of the course our rulers have chosen.
As the barbarian torturers we've unleashed on the Iraqis cause even our own guy, Iyad Allawi, to aver that things have gotten worse since the overthrow of Saddam, and attacks on American forces escalate along with the casualty rate, those few defenders of the war outside the White House ascribe rising opposition to those Sixties-era lefties who, we are told, want to recreate their glory days of bell-bottomed, love-beaded protest politics. It's all about "Boomer narcissism." Or so they say.
When it comes to the course this war is about to take, however, it is the narcissism of one particular Baby Boomer that carries the most weight, and George W. Bush is fundamentally different from his generational fellows in ways that are rather frightening. Hersh, citing administration insiders as well as military sources, paints a portrait of a president so caught up in his own sense of historic and religious mission as to be virtually inaccessible, either to reasoned argument or plain common sense:
"'The president is more determined than ever to stay the course,' the former defense official said. 'He doesn't feel any pain. Bush is a believer in the adage "People may suffer and die, but the Church advances."' He said that the president had become more detached, leaving more issues to Karl Rove and Vice President Cheney. 'They keep him in the gray world of religious idealism, where he wants to be anyway,' the former defense official said. Bush's public appearances, for example, are generally scheduled in front of friendly audiences, most often at military bases. Four decades ago, President Lyndon Johnson, who was also confronted with an increasingly unpopular war, was limited to similar public forums. 'Johnson knew he was a prisoner in the White House,' the former official said, 'but Bush has no idea.'"
Bush is a prisoner of his own demons, and we, in this era of the imperial presidency, are his prisoners, as he steers the country on a reckless road to ruin. The idea that there is something very wrong with that man in the White House, that he is wreathed in a darkness of potentially apocalyptic deadliness - that he is, in short, a deeply disturbed and dangerous individual - is chilling. From the image of the president as benevolent father-figure, we have come, in the historical blink of an eye that marks the time since the days of Dwight Eisenhower, to the chief executive as a reckless and wanton destroyer - not Zeus, but Loki. Blind to evidence, and rendered half-mad by a toxic mix of religious and ideological fervor, the most powerful man in the world is on a death-dealing rampage. No different, really, than one of those crazed gunmen you read about in the news, who go on a spectacular crime spree, kidnapping and murdering their way across several state lines, holding hostages and threatening to kill them the whole way.
We are, all of us, George W. Bush's hostages, and, what's especially scary is that we don't know what he's going to do next. He seems capable of anything. Hersh reports the creation of a special squadron detailed to crossing over the border and pursuing the insurgents into Syria, and certainly we have every reason to expect this war to spread. The reversion to air power perhaps augurs the dawning of new "shock and awe" campaigns, this time over Damascus and points west. This is what the War Party is gunning for, and unless popular opposition to the war forces an American withdrawal along lines suggested by Rep. Murtha - out in six months - that is exactly the prospect we face. We must escalate, or get out - we cannot "stay the course." The president and his advisers are beginning to realize this, and, given Bush's views - after all, I didn't entitle a column "George W. Bush, Trotskyite" for nothing - I leave it to the imagination of my readers which option he will choose.
Must we define ourselves by being the 'opposite' of Bush?
It's questionable if 'the average voter' realized that
A: Communisim is a form of government, like Deomcracy. They are not opposites, exactly, and there are many other forms as well. Nobody is or has ever practiced an effective form of Communism. It will fail itself over time, and very rarely needs much outside help. See: USSR, China and North Korea.
B: Socialism is NOT a form of government, was NOT practiced in reality by the Soviets and is practiced in some form in almost every type of government across the world , including the good ol' USA. See; Social Security, Health Insurance, Car Insurance, Utility Co-ops, FEMA, etc.... Socialism is only the opposite of capitalism in theory, but in reality both models co-exsist to varying degrees.
I say all this to mean that Democrats will have to do better than the 2004 strategy of "I'm not Bush' . There are no 'opposites' anymore. The Democrats cannot define their foregin policy by undoing everything that Bush did , for the pure sake that Bush did it. Here's what I mean:
Rice aimed to reassure jittery lawmakers over the course of the war in Iraq.
By Mikhail Metzel, AP
Rice deferred to the decisions of President Bush and military commanders as Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee pressed her for more specifics on the U.S. strategy in Iraq.
Asked specifically whether the United States would have troops in Iraq in five or 10 years, Rice said: "I think that even to try and speculate on how many years from now there will be a certain number of American forces is not appropriate."
Lawmakers also pressed her on strategy for dealing with Iran and Syria. U.S. officials have accused Syria of allowing foreign fighters to flow across its borders into Iraq and Iran of supporting the insurgency.
Rice said the United States was using diplomatic means to urge a change in the behavior of both countries -- but she stopped short of ruling out military force. "I'm not going to get into what the president's options might be," Rice said. "I don't think the president ever takes any of his options off the table concerning anything to do with military force."
Testifying before the committee for the first time since February, Rice sought to reassure jittery members of Congress that the Bush administration had a plan for success: helping Iraqis clear out insurgents and build durable, national institutions.
She told lawmakers the United States will follow a model that was successful in Afghanistan. Starting next month, she said, joint diplomatic-military groups -- Provincial Reconstruction Teams -- will work alongside Iraqis as they train police, set up courts, and help local governments establish essential services.
But even as Rice tried to crystalize the plan, Republicans and Democrats asked her pointed questions they say Americans need to know.
"I'm not looking for a date to get out of Iraq," Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, the top Democrat on the panel, said. "But at what point, assuming the strategy works, do you think we'll be able to see some sign of bringing some American forces home?"
Rice declined to answer directly, choosing to leave an estimate to military commanders. "I don't want to hazard what I think would be a guess, even if it were an assessment, of when that might be possible," Rice said.
Later, Sen. Paul Sarbanes, D-Md., told Rice that her response to questions about U.S. troop withdrawal "leads me to draw the conclusion that you're leaving open the possibility that 10 years from now we will still have military forces in Iraq."
"Senator, I don't know how to speculate about what will happen 10 years from now, but I do believe that we are moving on a course on which Iraqi security forces are rather rapidly able to take care of their own security concerns," Rice responded.
Republican Sens. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island were among several lawmakers who asked Rice whether the Bush administration was considering military action against Iran and Syria, and asked whether the president would circumvent congressional authorization if the White House chose that option.
"I will not say anything that constrains his authority as commander in chief," Rice said.
The lawmakers' queries followed Rice's earlier remarks that: "Syria and, indeed, Iran must decide whether they wish to side with the cause of war or with the cause of peace."
As Rice spoke, a woman in the second row of spectators shouted "Stop the killing in Iraq." A police officer motioned her out of the room.
By State Department design, Rice testified before the committee just days after Iraq apparently approved its first constitution since a U.S.-led coalition ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003. Her appearance also coincided with the start of Saddam's trial in Baghdad for a massacre of 150 of his fellow Iraqis.
At the White House, press secretary Scott McClellan praised Saddam's trial as "a symbol that the rule of law is returning to Iraq."
Rice heralded the referendum on the charter as "a landmark" and said the US. strategy was moving from a stage of transition to a stage of preparing a permanent Iraqi government.
"Clear areas from insurgent control, to hold them securely, and to build durable, national Iraqi institutions," Rice said
"Our strategy is to clear, hold, and build," she said. "The enemy's strategy is to infect, terrorize, and pull down."
Alongside Iraqi allies, she said, the United States is working to dismantle the insurgent network and disrupt foreign support for them, maintain security in areas insurgents no longer hold, and build national institutions to "sustain security forces, bring rule of law, visibly deliver essential services, and offer the Iraqi people hope for a better economic future."
With President Bush's poll numbers dragged down by public discomfort over Iraq, Rice was seeking to reassure lawmakers -- who are feeling the heat from their war-weary constituents -- that U.S. policies toward Iraq are sound.
Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill are raising questions about the Bush administration's diplomatic and military plans in Iraq amid a rising U.S. death toll, soaring costs and slumping public support for the war.
Saturday's vote was a political milestone on Iraq's path to forming a legitimate democratic government. Efforts by skeptical Sunni Arabs to defeat the charter appear to have failed, but the Bush administration has embraced their unexpectedly large turnout at the polls as a sign democracy is taking root.
The next step is in December, when Iraqis elect a new parliament and a new government -- the first permanent, constitutional government since Saddam's regime ended.
Perhaps, the key to attack him isn't abortion, but civil rights. Roberts was one of Reagan's henchmen who systematically sought to overturn all types of Civil Rights laws and legislation, from affirmative action to Title IX. This article hints that his propensity to rewrite exisiting legal statutes early in his carrer may make him unfit for the bench now.
Now if we can just get around his defense that 'he was just working for the man, and those weren't necessarily HIS views...'
This is taken directly from the Democrats for Life of America website
Empower Women
Federal Funding for Toll-Free Number/National Public Awareness Program
Enact an advertising campaign in each state to provide a toll free number that will direct a woman to organizations that provide support services for pregnant women who want to carry their children to term and/or direct women to adoption centers.
*Organizations that qualify for the referral from the toll-free hotline must be non-profit, tax exempt organizations that do not provide abortion referral services.
Conduct a National Study & Update Abortion Data
National Institutes of Health will collect accurate data on why women choose abortions. Within five years of enactment, the NIH will present its findings to Congress.
*This will be compiled on a confidential and voluntary basis.
Federal Funding for Pregnancy Prevention Education
Provide grants to school districts that are in need of funds to administer effective, age-appropriate pregnancy prevention education.
Federal Funding for Abortion Counseling and Daycare on University Campuses
Provide grants for universities and colleges to support pregnant women; provide resources and support to help women continue their education if they keep their child or make an adoption plan for their child.
*These grants will help universities establish an on-campus office for counseling, referral, and parenting services for pregnant women and daycare services for parents.
Provide Accurate Information to Patients Receiving a Positive Result from an Alpha-Fetoprotein Test tests.
Pregnant women who choose to undergo prenatal genetic testing should be provided with information on the accuracy of these tests.
There can be false-positive results, indicating a problem when the fetus is actually healthy.
Make Adoption Tax Credits Permanent
Repeal the sunset on adoption tax credits and make them permanent.
Ban Pregnancy as a "Pre-Existing Condition" in the Health Care Industry
End the discriminatory practices against pregnant women in the health insurance industry by removing pregnancy from all "pre-existing condition" lists in health care.
Require Adoption Referral Information
Require pregnancy centers and women's health centers that provide pregnancy counseling and that receive federal funding to provide adoption referral information.
Women's Right to Know
Any women's health center or clinic that provides pregnancy counseling or abortion services must provide accurate information on abortion and the adverse side effects to a woman's health. Patients do not have to accept the materials if they do not want them.
Provide Ultrasound Equipment
Provide grants to nonprofit, tax-exempt organizations for the purchase of ultrasound equipment to provide free examinations to pregnant women needing such services. This equipment will be operated by licensed professionals.
Increase Funding for Domestic Violence Programs
Offer additional federal funding for programs that have received grants by the Department of Justice for providing counseling and shelter for women and children in crisis pregnancies. The leading cause of death against pregnant women is murder.
Contraception Equity
Require insurance coverage of contraception approved by the Food and Drug Administration. (Modeled after Missouri legislation that was supported by both pro-life and pro-choice groups.)
Protect our Children
Fully Fund Federal WIC Program
Special Nutrition for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) is funded at about $4.9 billion, which advocates say is $268 million less than what's needed to serve the current 7.86-7.90 million participants.
The administration expects 8.2 million pregnant women, infants, and young children to be served by the program. Thus, this analysis assumes that an eight percent reduction translates into 670,000 fewer people being served (which is eight percent of 8.2 million).
The administration also proposes placing an overall cap on all non-defense, non-Homeland Security discretionary spending for the next five years. By 2010, those discretionary caps could force 660,000 recipients to lose WIC in 2010. Between 2006 and 2010, the WIC cuts could total $657 million.
In addition, it is estimated that every dollar spent on WIC results in between $1.77 and $3.13 in Medicaid savings for newborns and their mothers (Food Research and Action Center).
Parental Notification
Prohibit transporting a minor across a state line to obtain an abortion. Makes an exception if the abortion was necessary to save the life of the minor.
Requires states that have parental notification to inform parents of state statutory rape laws.
Provide Grants to States to Help in the Promotion and Implementation of Safe Haven Laws
Forty-six states now have some type of safe haven legislation. (The following states do not have safe haven legislation: AK, HI (Vetoed 7/2/03), NE and VT.) Most of the laws designate hospitals, emergency medical services, fire stations and police stations as safe locations. One exception is New York, which stipulates that the baby may be left with a suitable person or may be left in a suitable location so long as an appropriate person is promptly notified.
Require Counseling in Maternity Group Homes
Adoption counseling in federally funded maternity group homes and teaching of parenting skills.
Require SCHIP to cover pregnant women
HR 2268--Strickland (D-OH)/HR 4350--Dingell (D-MI)--108th Congress
Mandate SCHIP coverage for pregnant women.
Expanding coverage to pregnant women through Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and to newborns through the first full year of life.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bal-te.pension10jun10,1,2683629.story
Federal pension insurance staggers under new load
$71 billion shortfall looms in 10 years, Congress told
By Julie Hirschfeld Davis
Sun National Staff
Originally published June 10, 2005
WASHINGTON -- The federal agency that insures private pension plans faces a shortfall of as much as $71 billion in the next decade, the top congressional budget analyst said yesterday, adding urgency to efforts by President Bush and Congress to shore up the nation's increasingly troubled pension system this year.
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., under strain after taking on the pension promises of airlines, steel makers and other companies that have recently declared bankruptcy, could see its losses triple over the next 10 years unless there are major changes, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the director of the Congressional Budget Office, told a House committee.
About 34 million workers who depend on employer-sponsored pensions face major risks under the current system, which allows companies to under-fund their pensions and mask some losses.
The PBGC assumes a portion of a firm's pension obligations if the company goes belly-up -- workers in some cases have lost as much as one-third of their retirement savings. And the PBGC's problems could spell trouble for all Americans; even though the agency is not funded by taxpayers, the government would be virtually certain to step in to prevent it from becoming insolvent. A bailout could cost taxpayers billions.
There is "clearly a need for change in the law," said David S. Walker, the comptroller general of the United States and a former PBGC chief, who also testified at the Budget Committee hearing. He warned of "tremendous pressure for a taxpayer bailout" of the agency unless Congress acts.
The testimony came as Republicans on Capitol Hill unveiled legislation they said would fix the agency's problems and strengthen private pensions. The measure would increase the premiums that employers pay the PBGC to guarantee their plans and would change firms' contribution requirements in an effort to make sure they have enough money to pay workers their benefits.
"This bill strikes the right balance of establishing tougher funding requirements for employers, enhancing disclosure on behalf of workers, and protecting taxpayers from a possible multibillion-dollar bailout," said Rep. John A. Boehner of Ohio, a Republican who chairs the Education and the Workforce Committee and sponsored the measure.
Bush, who has staked much of his domestic agenda on his so-far stalled plan to overhaul Social Security, has also called for action similar to Boehner's proposal to bolster so-called "defined benefit" pensions. Those are employer-provided plans that promise workers a fixed amount of retirement benefits, as opposed to individual tax-advantaged "defined contribution" plans, such as 401(k)s.
Rep. Bill Thomas, the California Republican who is chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, indicated he wants to put the private pension bill and Bush's Social Security measure in a sweeping retirement savings measure he'd like to push through Congress this year.
Strengthening workers' private pensions might be seen as a popular add-on to the otherwise divisive idea of shifting the government retirement program toward individual retirement accounts. And if Bush's Social Security efforts should fail altogether, as some lobbyists and lawmakers privately predict, a major overhaul of the defined benefit pension system could help the president and his party claim victory anyway.
If the Social Security overhaul collapses, "doing something on [private pensions] becomes, at the end of the day, a face-saving way to say, 'OK, we did something on retirement security,'" said Bob Shepler, director of corporate finance and tax at the National Association of Manufacturers.
The measure introduced yesterday generally tracks with Bush's plan for private pensions, which sparked derision among business groups when it emerged this year. Corporate lobbyists said the president's proposal would burden companies with excessive premiums and unpredictable contribution costs, and they warned that firms might choose to eliminate their pension plans instead of meeting the new requirements.
Similar concerns were expressed yesterday about the Boehner-Thomas measure, though business lobbyists said they preferred it to Bush's.
"It's an improvement over the president's plan. But will it still be the straw that breaks the camel's back in terms of driving employers out of the system or not? Maybe," said Randel Johnson, a lobbyist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Business interests prefer Boehner's measure because it would allow limited use of "smoothing" -- eliminated under Bush's plan -- a technique companies use to mask large losses from their employees and the public.
The House measure also uses what many companies believe is a more favorable interest rate than the one Bush proposed to calculate their pension liabilities, though businesses are pushing to keep the current corporate bond rate, which they contend is much simpler and more predictable.
Administration officials praised the measure yesterday as a good first step, but both Treasury Secretary John W. Snow and Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao suggested they are committed to ending -- not just limiting -- companies' ability to misrepresent the condition of their pension plans.
"Any reform package must ensure that pension obligations are measured and reported accurately; smoothing of assets and liabilities, and the use of phantom credit balances, are inappropriate," Chao said.
James A. Klein, president of the American Benefits Council representing companies that sponsor pension plans, said Boehner's measure appears "better than the administration's proposal" but it still hews closely to Bush's approach.
Klein said the new legislation focuses on "shoring up the financial status of the PBGC in ways that we're concerned might inadvertently make it harder for companies to have [pension] plans."
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