Jacksonville, FL – As the partial government shutdown entered its 35th day on January 25, federal workers gave the country a lesson in the power of labor. Citing “a slight increase in sick leave” at two of the largest air traffic control centers on the eastern seaboard, the Federal Aviation Authority ordered a 90-minute ground stop for flights going into LaGuardia Airport in New York City.

Within hours, President Donald Trump announced an end to the shutdown, after taking a deal offered three weeks earlier by the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives. The deal to reopen the government and provide back-pay to the 800,000 furloughed federal workers did not include funding for Trump’s proposed wall along the southern border or any additional funding for border security.

Why did Trump, the self-styled ‘master of deals’ who staked his presidency on the construction of a border wall, fold like a cheap suit on Day 35? The president had paid a steep cost for this debacle from the beginning when he publicly agreed to “own” the shutdown. Poll numbers consistently showed a solid majority of Americans blaming Trump for the shutdown.

But the credit for ending the longest government shutdown in U.S. history belongs to the working class – not political grandstanding by congressional Democrats or even poll numbers.

Government shutdown and the working class

The partial government shutdown began on December 22, 2018. Funding for a number of key agencies expired, and President Trump refused to sign any bill from Congress that did not include nearly $6 billion in funds for a wall along the southern border of the U.S.

The impasse left 800,000 federal workers, the majority of whom are unionized, furloughed and without pay. Over half of these furloughed workers, 420,000, were legally required to continue working without pay because their particular jobs are deemed ‘essential’, like air traffic controllers and airport security. Predictably, as time went on, many of these workers stopped showing up entirely. Absenteeism became rampant in the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) airport security operations, where TSA agents are already some of the lowest-paid federal workers.

Unions representing these furloughed workers, like the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), led protests and pickets in Washington D.C. and across the country. These efforts drew support from the rest of organized labor, particularly in adjacent industries to those affected by the shutdown. Union leaders forcefully argued that the stress on workers created by the shutdown, along with growing absenteeism and short-staffing, created major safety hazards and risks for both employees and the general public.

The Trump administration added fuel to the fire with a series of insulting comments and condescending advice to struggling workers and their families. Trump, a billionaire real estate mogul, ludicrously claimed he could “feel their pain,” while later suggesting hungry furloughed workers should just tell their local grocery stores that they would pay “later” at the checkout counter. Wilber Ross, Trump’s Commerce Secretary, publicly said he “couldn’t understand” why federal employees were complaining instead of “taking out loans” to pay for their necessities.

Further highlighting the class warfare at work during the shutdown, Trump and several of his officials began floating ideas for reducing or eliminating federal employees’ pensions. These anti-worker comments and proposals proved the final nail in the coffin for many workers who may have bought into Trump’s cynical populist campaign message in 2016. It became all too clear that Trump serves the same class and interests that he himself comes from: billionaires, banks and corporations.

Federal workers and the strike weapon

Some liberal journalists and political commentators brought up the idea of a federal employee strike early on, which drew criticism from some labor leaders. Joe Burns, a former negotiator for the Association of Flight Attendants and a prominent labor writer, wrote on the Reviving the Strike Facebook page, “So the New York Times who would never support federal workers’ right to strike, publishes a piece by Barbara Ehrenreich saying federal workers should strike. How about leave it to federal workers to decide and not have them be pawns in the so-called ‘resistance’? I love striking but am sick and tired of folks thinking they can call strikes for other people.”

Burns is right to criticize the out-of-hand suggestion to strike by comfortable liberals without skin in the game. Despite heavy unionization, federal workers have tremendous legal restrictions on their right to organize – restrictions imposed by many of the same politicians these commentators support. They are legally prohibited from striking, and workers who engage in a work stoppage face serious charges and a lifetime ban on federal employment. Federal employee unions cannot bargain over wages and benefits, which are set by Congress, and the Hatch Act severely limits their ability to lobby or engage in any political action.

Leaders of AFGE, including their international president, got arrested protesting Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in Washington D.C. just a few days before the shutdown ended, but on the whole, the union has resisted calls for more radical action. Part of this comes from the devastating memory of Ronald Reagan busting the air traffic controllers’ strike more than 30 years ago, which signaled a wider employer-led offensive against labor in the 1980s.

But another aspect of AFGE’s reluctance to push back harder comes from internal divisions. Federal unions include law enforcement elements, like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, who outspokenly favored Trump in 2016 and actually supported the shutdown, despite also working without pay. Many federal employees, because of their proximity to the military industrial complex, tend to hold deep conservative beliefs, and union leadership has avoided challenging the backwards ideas of some members. As a result, some labor leaders saw a real risk that a large part of their membership would refuse to participate in a work stoppage or organized slow-down.

Labor militancy grows

But as the shutdown dragged into its fourth week with no end in sight, more militant voices in organized labor began proposing more drastic action. On January 20, the international president of the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA), Sara Nelson, issued a call for the labor movement to begin discussing a general strike in response to the government shutdown.

“There is a humanitarian crisis unfolding right now for our 800,000 federal sector sisters and brothers who are either locked out of work or forced to come to work without pay due to the government shutdown,” said Nelson at an award ceremony honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “We can end this shutdown together. Federal sector unions have their hands full caring for the 800,000 federal workers who are at the tip of the spear. Some would say the answer is for them to walk off the job. I say, ‘What are you willing to do? Their destiny is tied up with our destiny – and they don’t even have time to ask us for help.’”

Nelson ended her blistering remarks with a call for renewed militancy and solidarity. “What is the labor movement waiting for?” she asked. “Go back with the fierce urgency of now to talk with your locals and international unions about all workers joining together – to end this shutdown with a general strike.”

By January 25, the international president of the Communication Workers of America (CWA), Chris Shelton, pledged something similar. “CWA is ready to pursue every option available,” said Shelton in a press release, “up to and including participating in general strikes involving all working people if necessary: union members and non-union workers exercising their power to help end this damaging and dangerous shutdown.”

Withholding labor stops the shutdown

This growing militancy among many labor leaders set the stage for Trump’s retreat and the end of the shutdown. On January 25, federal workers officially missed their second paycheck since the shutdown began. That day, a critical number of air traffic controllers in Washington D.C. and Jacksonville, Florida called out sick, forcing the FAA to ground flights for 90 minutes. While an unknown number of controllers stayed home in Jacksonville, six of the 13 in the Washington D.C. facility, which handles one-fifth of U.S. commercial flight traffic, called in sick and could not be replaced.

While the air traffic controllers’ union leaders denied organizing a ‘sick-out’, the results proved the staggering power of workers withholding their labor. LaGuardia saw 47 cancelled flights and 580 delays, while Newark saw 40 cancellations and 300 delays. Kennedy Airport also saw 230 delays, and the combined effect was backlogged flights and chaos at airports across the country. It was the airline executives’ worst nightmare come true, which they expressed several times on conference calls with shareholders during the shutdown.

Hours later, the Trump administration bowed to pressure from congressional Republicans and business executives and agreed to end the shutdown. No $6 billion in funding for a wall. No increase in border security. Nothing. It marked the latest humiliating loss for the president, who had previously said he wouldn’t reopen the government without funding for a wall, and it was dealt out by workers.

Summing up the shutdown

Even as liberals tried to credit House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with ending the shutdown – or more ludicrously, the arrest of Trump associate Roger Stone earlier that morning – most media outlets couldn’t deny the decisive role played by labor. But what role was that?

The AFL-CIO put out a statement crediting workers for ending the shutdown, but it made no mention of the critical role of air traffic controllers withholding their labor. Instead, they credited “marching, rallying and protesting together.” That all happened, true, but it made no discernable impact on Trump’s calculus for 35 days. It’s an out-of-touch statement by more conservative labor leaders, like AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka, who have generally rejected the strike as a viable weapon for decades, putting their faith in lobbying teams and elections instead.

No one knows precisely the level of organization among those air traffic controllers who didn’t come to work on January 25. It could have occurred, as union leaders claimed, as an inevitable “symptom” of going weeks without pay. But the most important lesson for labor doesn’t require any intent on the part of the absent air traffic controllers: The working class has the power to shut down the country by withholding its labor.

The deal to reopen the federal government restores funding for three weeks, expiring again on February 15. Trump claims that without a $6 billion deal on his border wall, he will shut down the government again. Many federal workers expect this to happen again, and that could mean organized labor faces the same dilemma of the past 35 days.

It will take militant leadership, stronger organization and a recognition of the power held by the working class to beat back Trump’s attacks on labor. The strike is back on the table for hundreds of thousands of workers. Public school teachers in West Virginia, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Arizona and Los Angeles have struck in the last year, with many breaking the law to do it and winning their demands. Charter school teachers in Chicago made history by striking and winning a great contract late last year. Hotel workers have struck to improve industrywide conditions and win recognition.

The shutdown shows us that it’s time for labor’s leaders to embrace the strike and fight back. And if they won’t, it’s time for them to get out of the way of the rank-and-file leaders who will.

Dave Schneider is a union steward for the Teamsters and a rank-and-file UPS worker in Jacksonville, Florida.

#JacksonvilleFL #US #PeoplesStruggles #AirlineIndustry #AFLCIO #FlightAttendants #PublicSectorUnions #governmentShutdown #Strikes #DonaldTrump #AFGE

Jacksonville, FL – AFGE (American Federation of Government Employees) held a rally and march to end the government shutdown on January 19. Over 10 unions were represented, including teachers, electricians and nearly a dozen rank-and-file Teamsters. Several speakers gave personal accounts of how they and their families had been affected. The 70 union members marched down to a busy intersection while chanting “End the shutdown, call the vote!”

Protesters held signs that read “29 days without pay” and “Do what is right.” They stood and waved to honking cars and semi trucks. Bike police couldn’t resist coming over to harass the members near the end of the rally, but protesters stood fast. Union members gave several testimonies to local media that covered the downtown rally.

Joyce Westley, CWA retiree, gave her thoughts on the shutdown: “I think it’s unfair to those workers affected because they are just being used as pawns. It is inconsiderate to those families, the hardships that are being caused. And not just for the workers who are going to be paid, there are more who will not get to be caught up with their money so I’m standing out here for them. I hope our congress; the senate and the president can come together to get this resolved. The wall – that’s not a major issue here. It's terrible to cause so much hardship for so many people. It needs to stop now.”

#JacksonvilleFL #PeoplesStruggles #furlough #governmentShutdown #Florida

Los Angeles, CA – With less than a 24-hour notice, about a dozen Chicanos and Latinos gathered in Los Angeles, January 9, against Trump’s proposed wall. Chanting, “Trump! El burro! No! Al muro!” (Trump the jackass! No to the wall!) and “When I say, ‘Trump,’ you say, ‘No wall!’ Trump! No wall!” the angry protesters gathered at the busy intersection of 4th Street and Soto Street in Boyle Heights. As they walked home, Roosevelt High School students and working-class families greeted the protestors.

“We are here today because we know Trump doesn’t support people like us,” said Noemi Galindo who herself is an immigrant from Mexico. “After today every time I see Trump, I’ll only see a burro!”

Among those gathered were members of Centro Community Service Organization (CSO), Padres Contra La Privatización del Este (Eastside Parents Against Privatization) and Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO). The emergency action was called on by the Legalization for All Network (L4A), which Centro CSO is affiliated with. Trump’s push for billions to build a border wall and to further militarize the U.S. border has resulted in a prolonged partial U.S. government shutdown.

“We have been fighting against deportations and against militarization at the border long before Trump,” said longtime Chicano revolutionary Carlos Montes. “We demand legalization for all today, and just as before, we say no Trump wall! Down with Trump!”

#LosAngelesCA #PeoplesStruggles #governmentShutdown #DonaldTrump #borderWall

“Our members put their lives on the line to keep our country safe,” said J. David Cox Sr., national president, American Federation of Government Employees.

“The harm to federal employees began at the first moment of the shutdown. Hundreds of thousands of federal employees are working under sometimes dangerous conditions, including the plaintiffs who were forced to work overtime without pay,” said Heidi Burakiewicz, partner at KCNF DC. “Approximately 420,000 federal employees are continuing to work, but don’t know when they will get their next paychecks. This is not an acceptable way for any employer, let alone the U.S. government, to treat its employees. These employees still need to pay childcare expenses, buy gas, and incur other expenses to go to work every day and yet, they are not getting paid. It is a blatant violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act.”

The lawsuit is brought on behalf of all ‘essential’ federal employees, those who are required to work without pay during the shutdown.

After the 2013 shutdown, approximately 25,000 essential federal employees, represented by KCNF DC, sued the government, arguing that the Fair Labor Standards Act requires that all employees, including federal employees, be paid on time for their services. In 2014, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims agreed and, in 2017, the court held further that the employees were entitled to twice their back pay because of the violation. However, even while the government is calculating the damages to those approximately 25,000 employees, the Office of Personnel Management has not required that essential federal employees be paid on time during the current shutdown.

#WashingtonDC #PeoplesStruggles #governmentShutdown #AFGE

San José, CA – Today, Oct. 15, right-wing Republicans in the House of Representatives stopped the House Republican leadership from trying to pass a compromise measure to re-open the federal government and raise its debt ceiling. This marks another step towards the first U.S. debt crisis in history.

On Oct. 17, the federal government will not be able to borrow more money to pay its bills. The federal government will only be able to pay out what it collects in taxes, plus about $30 billion in cash that it has on hand. In the two weeks after that, the federal government will run short of money to pay all its bills, with the most likely date being Nov. 1, when $55 billion in Social Security benefits, Medicare payments, and military pay, benefits and retirement benefits are due.

From now through mid-November, the federal government will have to postpone payment on about $100 billion in payments if the debt ceiling is not raised. This comes to almost 8% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP, the standard measure of the size of the economy based on production of goods and services) on an annual basis, enough to throw the economy in a recession even worse than the one following the financial crisis in 2008.

Background to the crisis

The looming debt crisis has several roots. The first are the budget deficits of the federal government, where it spends more than it collects in taxes, so it has to borrow the difference by selling bonds. The federal government budget deficit ballooned to about $1.4 trillion (or $1400 billion), equal to 10% of GDP, in 2009 because the deep recession lowered tax revenues and the federal government increased spending to bail out Wall Street and stimulate the economy. Since then, a combination of higher tax revenues, spending cuts and economic growth have reduced the deficit to almost $600 billion, or about 4% of GDP in 2012, a decline of 60% in relation to the size of the economy.

The total amount of bonds that the U.S. government sells to pay for the budget deficit is the public debt, which is now $16.75 trillion ($16,750 billion). The federal government has a self-imposed limit on the public debt of $16.7 trillion, which means that the government can no longer borrow more money. The reported debt is slightly higher than the limit because the federal government has been shifting money around to avoid running out of cash for the last five months.

While there have been disputes over the debt ceiling in the past, they have been largely partisan affairs that did not come close to forcing the government to actually delay payment. But the recent rise of Tea Party Republicans means that the Republicans, especially in the House of Representatives, are controlled by right wingers who are more than willing to shut down the government and even force the government not to pay its bills in order to achieve their goal of ending Obama’s health care reform known as Obamacare.

What drives the Tea Party

Many Republican members of congress were denying the possibility of a partial shutdown of the federal government right up to the point that the government shut down. Their behavior is similar to their stance on climate change – just deny that it is happening so one doesn’t have to do anything.

Digging a little deeper, one sees that the government agencies that were most affected by the shutdown, such as the Department of Education, Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Labor, are the programs most hated by the right wing.

There is also an extreme free-market logic among Tea Party Republicans that the government is bad for business and the economy and that a shutdown of the government will be good for business.

What is likely to happen

The world isn’t going to end on Oct. 17 if the debt ceiling is not raised. But the economic effects are already being felt, as the uncertainty of repayment of bonds after that date is causing the prices of bonds coming due soon to fall, which leads to higher interest rates. The interest rate on the shortest term U.S. bonds (called bills), which come due in 30 days, has now tripled and is higher than the interest rates on 60-day bills, which come due later.

While Democrats and the Obama administration are warning of the danger of default, which is what happens when the federal government does not repay its bonds or interest payment, it is hard to see how the government won’t give Wall Street what it wants. But there is chance that some bank or financial institution will find itself in a squeeze if the federal government doesn’t pay on time, triggering another financial crisis.

What is more likely is that the sudden drop in federal government spending will trigger a new recession. This could quickly feed upon itself in what economists call the ‘multiplier effect,’ where the individuals, businesses and institutions that aren’t being paid by the federal government then cut back their own purchases and payments, putting the economy into a downward spiral.

What a debt crisis would mean

If the House Republicans do manage to block any agreement to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling, the self-inflicted crisis will mark another step in the decline of the U.S. as a world power. Ever since World War II, the U.S. government has been both a protector of Wall Street and big business and the head of worldwide empire of pro-U.S. governments that protect U.S. financial and business interests, backed by the U.S. military.

From an economic point of view, the end in 1971 of the post-World War II system of fixed exchange rates centered on the U.S. dollar, called Bretton Woods, was an early sign of the decline of the U.S. relative to the rising nations of Europe and Japan. This was followed by the OPEC oil boycott in 1973, and then the U.S. military defeat in Vietnam in 1975, showing the rise of the Third World.

Today the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and coming U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan shows that the U.S., despite using hundreds of thousands of troops and spending trillions of dollars, is no longer to set up stable, pro-U.S. governments that can defend U.S. business interests. With the looming debt crisis, more and more governments around the world are losing faith in the economic power of the U.S. and the safety of U.S. government bonds. Foreign governments and investors now own more than $5.5 trillion of U.S. government bonds, and any sell-off in the bond market triggered by a debt crisis would quickly spread a financial crisis around the world.

But even if a financial crisis is avoided, a deep recession in the U.S. will also spread around the world. Europe’s economy is still in a depression with the euro-zone crisis and many economies in the Third World are slowing down already. Another worldwide recession, following so closely on the 2008-2009 so-called Great Depression, could again shake the very foundations of the world capitalist economy.

#SanJoséCA #capitalistCrisis #recession #RepublicanAgenda #TeaParty #governmentShutdown #DebtCeiling

In the first four years of the Obama administration, there were as many deportations of undocumented immigrants as in the eight years of Bush. Deportations under Obama are now on track to hit 2 million by the end of this year.

While the Obama administration claims that this crackdown is necessary to pass Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR), it is pretty clear that the bipartisan CIR is dead for now. There is no bipartisan House bill, with the Republicans who were working with Democrats on a bill backing out. The federal government is partially shut down – not Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) repression though – and the gap between the Democrats and Republicans has never been wider. With the upcoming debt ceiling limit looming, Washington D.C. is all about the budget, not immigration reform.

The Obama administration is also claiming that it is focusing on criminals. But most of those deported have committed no crime. In addition, hundreds of thousands of undocumented parents of U.S. citizen children, and even more parents of undocumented children, have been deported, tearing apart families.

ICE is also doing another round of workplace audits, the so-called ‘silent raids’ that can force the firing of thousands of undocumented workers. While they are not deported, they are driven further underground. Further, their chances of legalization under a future CIR bill could be harmed, in that the current CIR calls for a continuous work record, which won’t exist for undocumented forced to work totally off the books and under the table.

There is a growing demand in the Chicano, Mexicano, Central American and Latino communities for the president to expand the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program to all undocumented. Why is the government deporting people who might be eligible to legalize under a future immigration reform bill?

Ultimately, what is needed is legalization for all undocumented. But with no legalization law on the horizon, partial steps such as Deferred Action would help the undocumented. They would be able to work legally and would not be subject to ICE raids. Deferred Action also doesn’t have all of the bad elements of the Senate CIR bill, which would further militarize the border, increase workplace repression, reduce family reunification and end the diversity visa program that brings in about half the immigrants from Africa.

There are shortcomings to Deferred Action. While some states are trying to deny those receiving DACA driver's licenses, many others would allow them to drive. Those on Deferred Action would still not eligible for Medicaid or federal subsidies for health insurance under the new Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). And of course there is always the possibility that a new administration would even target those on Deferred Action for future deportation.

But by allowing the undocumented to come out of the shadows, they would not only benefit personally, but the movement would have a stronger basis to press for full legalization. The editors of Fight Back! support the growing demand for Deferred Action for All as a practical way to push back against the tsunami of deportations that is happening right now.

#UnitedStates #deportations #governmentShutdown #deferredAction #comprehensiveImmigrationReform #legalizationForAll #DACA #driversLicences

Kelly, who has paid the value of her home five times over, was scheduled to be evicted by Freddie Mac and the Hennepin County sheriff's department at 10:30 this morning, on her daughter Sinead's 23rd birthday, but a rapid community response forced the sheriffs' deputies to reschedule.

“The government is shut down, but Freddie Mac evictions are still considered an essential service. But the power of community is too big to fail,” said Kelly. “Today's blocked eviction is the greatest birthday present I could give my daughter. I am not moving, and my neighbors stand with me.”

Freddie Mac, which operates under the federal agency FHFA, is continuing its evictions of Kelly and others in spite of the government shutdown.

“Sheriff Stanek and the big banks don't want to do their dirty work in front of 150 community members,” said Nick Espinosa, an organizer with Occupy Homes MN whose family successfully fought off foreclosure last year. “But we will be ready for them at any hour of the day or night. Jaymie's not going anywhere, and neither are we.”

#MinneapolisMN #HousingStruggles #Evictions #governmentShutdown #HomeForeclosures #OccupyHomesMN #HouseStruggles #JaymieKelly #FreddieMac

Behind the partial shutdown of the federal government was the leadership of the House Republicans, who followed the lead of their right-wing Tea Party congress people. They needed to pass a bill to continue funding the government, since no budget for the 2014 Fiscal Year, which began Oct. 1, had passed. Instead, the House Republicans insisted on using the threat of a government shutdown to get what they wanted, which was to derail the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, even though the Senate, the president and the Supreme Court were against them.

The House Republicans’ willingness to seemingly burn down their own house to rid it of what they saw as vermin (Obamacare), is not only extremism, but also comes from their right-wing view of the government. It was under the Reagan presidency in the 1980s that the term “Starving the beast” arose, as right-wingers targeted the federal government as a “beast” for its social-welfare functions, wanting to pare down the role of the government to basically prisons to protect property rights of the rich and the military to maintain the empire.

Looking at a list of how agencies are being hit by the partial government shutdown, it is clear that many of the programs that the right wing hates will be hardest hit. Among the departments with the highest percentage of furloughed workers are the Department of Education (95%), Housing and Urban Development or HUD (95%), the Environmental Protection Agency or EPA (90%), and the Department of Labor (80%).

On the other hand, the Department of Homeland Security, which includes the Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE, has only 15% furloughs, so one can expect the record deportations to continue. The Department of Justice, which includes the FBI, also has only a 15% furlough, so no let-up in spying and harassments of Muslim Americans, Arab Americans and anti-war and international solidarity activists is in sight.

While the House Republicans say that they are targeting Obamacare, by and large the rollout of the Affordable Care Act set for October 1 was unaffected. While there were long waits for web sites to load and phones to get answered, this was largely because nearly 3 million people flocked to the U.S. government web site www.healthcare.gov and more went to state web sites such as www.coverca.gov in California.

In contrast, Senate Democrats and the Obama administration value the role of the government, both to subsidize big corporations (as Obamacare does with big health insurance companies) and to maintain social peace through social welfare programs such as Social Security and Medicare. But they also support the military and policing functions of the government, as seen in the Obama administration’s attempt to unleash a military attack on Syria and the FBI coordination of local police efforts to smash the Occupy movements.

#SanJoséCA #TeaParty #governmentShutdown #Obamacare #AffordableCareAct

This so-called shutdown would not actually shut down the federal government. Social Security checks would continue to go out, mail will be delivered, and other “essential” services would continue. Ironically, this includes most of the funding for the Affordable Care Act, which like Medicare and Medicaid, is considered an essential service.

But without any spending authorization for Fiscal Year 2014, which starts Oct. 1, “non-essential” federal services will shut down. This would include the closing of about 400 National Parks, monuments and museums. Social Security applications, the passport office, Small Business Administration loans, mortgage guarantees from the Federal Housing Authority (FHA), could all be stopped in their tracks. Up to 800,000 federal workers, or 40% of the federal government workforce, could be furloughed without pay.

There could be a larger economic impact of a loss of up to 1.4% of Gross Domestic Product, which measures the output of goods and services in the U.S. With the U.S. economy only growing at a 1.8% rate in the first half of this past year, this could put the economy close to tipping into another recession.

Even worse, the House Republicans are vowing to repeat this later in October when the federal government hits its borrowing limit. If the House Republicans refuse to raise the debt limit, the federal government will not have enough cash to make good on its promises to pay. If the federal government does not pay interest on the federal debt or pay for its bonds that come due, this would be a debt default that would echo through the entire world economy, as the rest of the world holds more than $5 trillion of U.S. government bonds, which could drop in price, sending interest rates up.

#SanJoséCA #RepublicanAgenda #governmentShutdown

On July 14, Gov. Dayton proclaimed that he would accept a previous Republican budget offer, in order to end the shutdown. Before that, Dayton had already given up on many proposals to tax the rich in Minnesota, even though he campaigned on increasing taxes to the wealthy as a way to solve the deficit.

It is broadly acknowledged that the budget signed into law on July 20 relies on unprecedented amounts of borrowing. Less publicized is reliance on taking money from dedicated funds for the poor.

Secret deal: $58 million from the poorest of the poor

Most of the issues that involve programs for poor people are in the Health and Human Services bill. The 286-page HHS bill is the most complex of the budget bills. It is full of references to various laws and hard to follow. The government did not make the bill available to the public until the session was six hours along, only a few hours before it was voted on. As an example of the difficulty of the bill, the plain English ‘summary’ of the HHS bill had dozens of items such as: “[section] 27 – Citizenship requirements. Amends § 256B.06, subd. 4.” And that was it.

However, for some programs, the spreadsheets made it clear. “No wonder they didn't release the HHS budget until late in the night of the Special Session, July 19. The spreadsheets show a total theft of $58 million from TANF funds over the biennium,” says a statement issued by the Welfare Rights Committee.

TANF is the federal money that goes to states for welfare for families. In Minnesota, welfare grants put families 60% below the federal poverty line. The Welfare Rights Committee has fought for years against the state stealing TANF money, under the slogan, “TANF money for TANF families.” The 2011 theft of TANF money is one of the largest in history.

Welfare Rights Committee takes action

Since July 1 the WRC held many call-in campaigns to Gov. Dayton, demanding that he not give in to certain Republican cuts to welfare and insisting that they a tax on the wealthy. The call was, “Tax the rich or shut the government down!”

Late at night on July 18, Dayton abruptly announced that the Capitol building would open up the next day. Welfare Rights Committee members were there at 8:45 a.m., July 19, holding signs that read, “Vote no on the Dayton/G.O.P Budget. Tax the rich.” They met Minnesota legislators as the capitol doors opened for the first time in 19 days. The capitol complex’s buildings had been closed to the public since July 1, when the government shutdown went into effect.

“I was in the last group of people the cops pushed out of the capitol June 30,” says the Welfare Rights Committee’s Kim DeFranco. “I’m glad WRC was there to be the first at the re-opening.”

On the same day the capitol re-opened, Governor Dayton announced a special session for 3:00 p.m. Most of the bills that were to be taken up were not available to the public (or to most legislators) in paper or electronic form. Welfare Rights Committee members mobilized to be outside the doors of the House and Senate chambers with “Vote no” signs as the legislators filed in.

Budget deal aftermath

Much of the budget and how it will play out still needs to be analyzed. But there is general agreement that poor and working people, the elderly and disabled, and students from pre-K to college will be suffering from the cuts.

The ‘financing’ of the budget deal will make trouble down the road. Once money is taken away for the poor, it’s hard to get back. Angel Buechner, of the Welfare Rights Committee said, “This budget deal just sets us up for more cuts to the poor next year.”

#StPaulMN #PoorPeoplesMovements #BudgetCuts #MinnesotaWelfareRightsCoalition #GovernorMarkDayton #governmentShutdown

Saint Paul, MN – Amidst the flurry of budget cuts hastily pushed through on July 19 and signed on July 20 on the 20th day of the state government shutdown, immigrant rights activists claimed one victory and one defeat amidst the chaos.

The victory is that the Secure Communities deportation program was not included in the final Public Safety/Judiciary budget bill. This makes Minnesota one of the states that continues to refuse to implement the controversial fingerprint-sharing deportation program that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Obama administration are trying to implement nationwide. It was recently revealed that the program has a behind-the-scenes push from the FBI, which is hungry to universalize such programs that gather biometric data on as many people as possible.

The absence of the Secure Communities program from the Public Safety bill was a reversal from the version of the bill that passed at the end of the legislative session in late May. About a week before the Minnesota legislative session ended, Sen. Ortman ® snuck the deportation program into SF1143, an omnibus bill, with no debate, discussion or committee hearings, and it quickly passed with an unanimous 57-0 vote. Then just before the end of the session, Secure Communities was transferred into SF958, the Public Safety bill, which the legislature passed just before the session ended on May 23. However, on May 24, Governor Dayton vetoed SF958, along with all the other budget bills.

According to Anh Pham of the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAc), “Preventing Secure Communities deportation program from being implemented in Minnesota is a victory. Because of this, there will be fewer families torn apart over the next year. The No More Deportations campaign will continue working to stop the other deportation programs that are already separating families in Minnesota. Even one separated family is too many.”

The setback for immigrant rights this session is that the national E-Verify program was inserted into the State Government Finance bill. The new law says that any company with contracts with the state of Minnesota over $50,000 will need to use E-Verify to screen their workers for immigration status. In 2008 Governor Pawlenty implemented this same policy administratively through an executive order. When Dayton became governor last year, he decided to let this and another of Pawlenty’s anti-immigrant executive orders expire without renewing them. According to Anh Pham, “It was a step forward when Gov. Dayton let Pawlenty’s anti-immigrant executive orders expire. Now it’s a step back to have the unreliable and unfair e-verify program put into law in Minnesota. The Republican leadership and Governor Dayton shouldn't have done this.”

Battle over Cuts and Taxing the Rich Led to Shutdown

At the end of the regular legislative session in May, Governor Dayton’s vetoed all the Republican-crafted budget bills that contained severe budget cuts with no new revenue. Dayton instead favored an approach of keeping some budget cuts, but cutting less severely by raising taxes on the richest 2% of Minnesota. The Republicans wouldn’t budge from their all-cuts and ‘no new taxes’ pledge, protecting the richest 2% of Minnesotans from paying even a tiny bit more in taxes while the budgets for education, transit, health and human services programs are gutted. This impasse led to the state government shutdown on July 1.

In mid-July Gov. Dayton finally gave in to the obstinate Republicans, announcing he would accept their June 30 budget proposal made right before the shutdown. This led to a sudden and furious push by the governor and the Republican legislative leadership to hastily rewrite all nine budget bills behind closed doors, without debate or time for public review, at the special legislative session that Gov. Dayton initiated on July 19 with only a couple hours notice.

The Health and Human Services bill has severe cuts. Among other things, $58 million are taken from TANF funds designated for poor people. According to Linden Gawboy of the Welfare Rights Committee, “TANF is supposed to be used for poor families, but because they didn't tax the rich, they had to steal from the poorest of the poor.” Education, transit and other key services are not spared either.

One Front in the State-by-State Battle Over Immigrant Rights

In the absence of national immigrant rights legislation, battles are being fought state-by-state. Over the last few years, deportations that separate immigrant families have increased around the country to levels not seen even under the Bush administration. Secure Communities is a program that is responsible for a large part of this increase in deportations. States opt in to the ICE program, and then force counties to connect booking information from county jails to a federal database used by both ICE and the FBI. ICE claims that Secure Communities focuses on deporting “dangerous criminals”. But over 70% of the people deported under Secure Communities have not been convicted of any crime or have only been convicted of minor traffic-type offenses.

While harsh anti-immigrant laws are being passed in states like Arizona, Georgia and Alabama, immigrant rights activists have struck back against repressive ICE programs in other states. Specifically ICE and the Obama administration are on the defensive around the country about the Secure Communities deportation program. Illinois, Massachusetts and New York announced they want to get out of the program. California’s Assembly voted to allow it’s counties to opt out if they want to. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus came out against it as well as many other congresspeople. Dozens of counties and cities around the country have also tried to opt out of Secure Communities.

In response, ICE told states and counties that they can not opt out, but this just caused more states and counties to say they don’t want to participate. In damage control mode as more states abandoned ship, the Obama administration finally announced in mid-June that they would make minor reforms to the embattled program. But most activist groups see this as too little too late. Dozens of immigrant rights and civil liberties organizations jointly signed a letter to ICE director John Morton on July 20 condemning their inadequate review and reforms of Secure Communities, and instead demanding that a moratorium be called to halt the program entirely.

#SaintPaulMN #ICE #deportations #MIRAc #ImmigrationAndCustomsEnforcementICE #MinnesotaImmigrantRightsActionCommittee #NoMoreDeportationsCampaign #SecureCommunities #GovernorMarkDayton #governmentShutdown #everify

Schnell stated, “To protect Minnesota families from the most draconian cuts in the short term, Governor Dayton felt that he must concede to the fiscally irresponsible budget demands of the GOP leadership who have used their government shutdown to take middle class and working Minnesota families hostage in an effort to protect the richest 7700 Minnesota tax filers, over half of which aren’t even Minnesotans.”

“On the contrary, SEIU does not believe that we should give in to the demands of the GOP leadership, who have refused to negotiate in good faith and who would use the state’s children, middle class and working families as a human shield to protect 7700 multi-millionaires from having to share any of the burden of the state’s fiscal problems, resulting from the past eight years of shifts and gimmicks under Tim Pawlenty.” said Schnell.

#SaintPaulMN #SEIU #governmentShutdown

While the many of the specifics of the budget will be worked out over the next few days, the broad outline of what’s intended is clear. Governor Dayton decided to take one of the pre-shutdown Republican offers, which means that payments to school districts will be delayed and bonds will be issued for tobacco settlement money. Dayton abandoned the approach of taxing Minnesota’s rich – even though that is what he campaigned on and why he got elected. Get ready for a wave of attacks on programs that serve working and low income Minnesotans. Health and Human Services will be the number one target for the proposed cuts.

That said, the future is unwritten. In the days ahead, it is vital that progressive forces work to torpedo the budget agreement and insist that cuts be voted down in the special session of the legislature.

Minnesota’s budget crisis did just happen. It is not an act of God nor is the result of ‘mistakes.’ Instead, it is a recurring, politician-made problem that gets worse every time there is an economic crisis. Since the mid 1990s corporate taxes have been cut. Individuals making big money have gotten break after break. The abolition of the corporate sales tax, the abolition of corporate property taxes, $300 million here another few million there (with local property taxes going up) and we arrive at a place where there is a budget crisis all the time. And for that matter, there will be one when the legislature meets next year.

While it is better to have funding shifts than cuts, all the shifts do is delay the day of reckoning. Take for example the funding shift that delays payments for schools. School districts will have to borrow money and pay interest on it to make up for the delayed state payments. The added costs will be made up on a local level. In the next state budget you will have a corresponding shortfall for the delayed state payment to schools (about $700 million) and you will a have the same reactionary politicians who endorsed this approach saying this is evidence that the state “is not living within its means.”

The only reasonable and progressive approach to the state budget is to tax the rich. The rich are the ones who have the money. Far from being job creators, the big corporations that lay people off are in reality job destroyers. The rich have done really well these past few years. They are the ones who should pay for the crisis.

#MinneapolisMN #PublicSectorUnions #GovernorMarkDayton #republicanParty #governmentShutdown #Minnesota

St. Paul, MN – On July 13, members of the Welfare Rights Committee rolled out a huge banner on the steps of the Minnesota state capitol building. The Republicans have pushed the state into a shutdown, throwing more than 22,000 state employees out of work and causing dramatic cuts to state services. The banner reads, “Tax the rich! No cuts to poor and working people!”

#SaintPaulMN #CapitalismAndEconomy #PoorPeoplesMovements #TaxTheRich #GovernorMarkDayton #governmentShutdown

St. Paul, MN – Members and supporters of the Welfare Rights Committee gathered on the steps of the state capitol building here, June 30, unfurling a huge banner reading “Tax the rich! No cuts to poor and working people.” Unless Democrat Governor Mark Dayton goes along with the Republican plan to slash the social safety net, the government will shut down at midnight.

“Time is quickly running out. Rather than make the rich pay one dime for the budget deficit, the Republicans are set on pushing our state into a government shutdown. For working and poor, disabled and elderly Minnesotans, a government shut-down would by far be a better outcome than the deadly cuts that Republicans are trying to force down our throats,” stated Angel Buechner of the Welfare Rights Committee.

Republican politicians have staked out a ‘no new taxes’ position and want to balance the budget with massive cuts to programs that serve poor and working people. Dayton’s original budget also contained huge cuts to health and human services. Also, in March, the governor backed down on his proposal for a surcharge on the very richest and increased taxes on million-dollar homes. In addition, Dayton has also floated proposals attacking Indian gaming, a move that would balance the budget on the backs of Native Americans.

The governor has stated recently that he wants to compromise 50-50 with the republicans. The Welfare Rights Committee asserts that Dayton has compromised enough. Kim DeFranco of the Welfare Rights Committee said, “We are against any budget compromise that comes at the expense of the people of Minnesota. The rich need to pay for this crisis.”

#SaintPaulMN #PoorPeoplesMovements #WelfareRightsCommittee #TaxTheRich #GovernorMarkDayton #governmentShutdown

St Paul, MN – As the legislative session nears its final day, Republicans continue to push the state toward a government shutdown. For working and poor, disabled and elderly Minnesotans, a government shutdown would by far be a better outcome than the deadly cuts that Republicans are trying to force down our throats.

“The Republicans are acting like school yard bullies, threatening the people of Minnesota with their deadly cuts and refusing to make the rich pay even one dime!” stated Kim DeFranco of the Welfare Rights Committee.

The Richest in Minnesota Have Not Paid One Dime for the Past Decade of Budget Deficits

While working and poor people have paid for past budget deficits, the wealthiest in Minnesota have not paid even one dime. In fact they have gotten richer and richer at the expense of poor and working Minnesotans. Look at the facts: if the governor’s original proposal to raise taxes on 5% of the population with the most income results in over $3 billion, this signifies just how much the State of Minnesota has been losing in tax income, year after year after year because the rich have not paid enough and because of the massive tax breaks they have benefitted from. This is incredible. It also means that the richest have amassed billions of dollars in extra income year after year while the rest of the people in the state have been living in desperate times.

“We live in the one of the wealthiest states in the country and one of the richest countries in the world,” stated Angel Buechner of the Welfare Rights Committee. “Yet our kids are homeless, going hungry and being kicked off health care! We did not make this crisis and we should not be the ones to pay for it.”

The Rich Created the Budget Crisis, The Rich Should Pay!

The fact is, if the rich paid enough taxes we would not even be in a budget deficit. The rich should actually pay back the wealth they have gained at the expense of poor and working people. In this time of budget crisis this state should be prioritizing the survival needs of the families and individuals in who are coping with disabilities and unemployment.

The Republican’s Health and Human Services Bill Butchers the Safety Net for Working and Poor Minnesotans! Governor Dayton must veto this bill.

The Governor must veto SF760 because it would cut the cash portion of the MFIP (Minnesota’s public assistance program) grant by $50 per adult SSI recipient who resides in the household. This uses disabled people’s federal SSI funds as a bludgeon against their impoverished family members. A cut such as this has never been carried out in any other state in the country. Also, it basically forces parents to break federal law by using the federal SSI grant for living expenses for the entire family rather than for the disabled family member as intended.

The Governor must veto SF760 because of the 60-residency requirement. It’s unconstitutional.

At least half of the MFIP grant is federal money and if we’re eligible, we’re eligible. When we are that broke and desperate, we don’t move to other states for “fun” or for “great benefits.” We move because we have concrete hopes and plans to make a better life. In this time of economic crisis, everyone in this country should have equal rights at survival.

The Governor must veto SF760 because it eliminates General Assistance and emergency programs, by folding them into under-funded county block grants. General Assistance is not a supplement to other income, it all people have; it’s GA or zilch. These programs are there to keep disabled people alive based on clear need.

The Governor must veto SF760 because it slashes health care for the poor and working people. It cuts our PCA services that allow us to live independently.

And, after the Governor vetoes the bill, we will call on him to reject all of these cuts to the disabled, poor and working people in the Special Session.

Who should be paying for the budget crisis – the children living deep in poverty or the rich who get big fat tax breaks to pad their already stuffed pockets?

A family of three on MFIP gets only $532 per month – far below the federal poverty level. A disabled person on GA gets a whopping $203 to live on. When we are forced onto assistance, life is already a miserable struggle, 24-7. We don’t need any more hate-driven laws to make things even worse.

We say, “Not one dime in cuts to poor and working Minnesotans! We call on Dayton to stand up to those who are threatening devastation on the people of Minnesota and veto all cuts!”

#SaintPaulMN #PoorPeoplesMovements #WelfareRightsCommittee #BudgetCuts #GovernorMarkDayton #governmentShutdown