From the Dispatch - News

Federal Recovery Efforts Saved 8.5 Million Jobs, Stopped Depression

Nathan Newman — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 11:49:48 -0400

When big bank speculation crashed the economy, millions were driven into unemployment. But, according to a new study by two leading economists, the combination of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) loans to banks, loosening of the money supply, and federal stimulus funds for states and individuals, helped stop a far worse potential full-out Depression that would have left an additional 8.5 million Americans without jobs on top of the 8 million who have lost their jobs since the recession started-- what would have been a nearly doubling of the job loss due to the economic crisis.

The study was written by the bipartisan team of Alan Blinder, a former Vice-Chair of the Federal Reserve, and Mark Zandi, a former McCain economic advisor and head of Moody Analytics. One thing the authors emphasize is the sheer magnitude of the economic collapse faced by the Obama Administration as it came into office: In early 2009, "Real GDP was falling at about a 6% annual rate, and monthly job losses averaged close to 750,000." While the lost jobs have not been regained, the economy was stabilized and GDP growth of nearly 3% began. As the authors note:

The stimulus has done what it was supposed to do: end the Great Recession and spur recovery. We do not believe it a coincidence that the turnaround from recession to recovery occurred last summer, just as the ARRA [federal stimulus plan] was providing its maximum economic benefit.

To put the cataclysm faced by the Obama administration in perspective, the economists estimate that the direct budgetary costs of the recession plus lost revenue due to the economic collapse added up to $2.35 trillion, or about 16 percent of G.D.P. By comparison, the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s cost only about $350 billion in today’s dollars.

Federal Support of the States Decisive for Economic Stabilization: With state revenues plunging due to the recession, the authors specifically highlight the importance of recovery funds that went to the states to forestall job-destroying budget cuts. The authors emphasize that "[s]tate and local government aid is another especially potent form of stimulus with a large multiplier," creating economic growth for every dollar spent.

Unfortunately, the federal spending for the states mostly just counterbalanced revenue losses at the state level, meaning the federal aid was a "defensive stimulus" that "saves jobs rather than creates them." The federal government needed to commit to a much larger job creation program to really counterbalance the revenue losses at the state level.

TARP Bank Bailout Program More Successful, Less Costly Than Media Hype: One unique aspect of this report is its focus on quantifying the jobs saved by TARP and related programs to restore credit in the financial industry. The authors estimate that "the financial-rescue policies are credited with saving almost 5 million jobs." And while headlines blared that TARP would cost $700 billion, in fact, most of the money spent was in the form of loans and equity investments, part of which have been repaid. In the end, the authors estimate that the TARP program will end up costing taxpayers less than $100 billion.

The economic success of TARP and related programs in saving jobs should not obscure the fact that the money used could have done even more to improve corporate responsibility in the financial industry. Analysts like Dean Baker at the Center on Economic and Policy Research have rightly criticized the fact that companies like Goldman Sachs received billions of financial rescue dollars without being required to restrict executive compensation or take many other actions in the public interest. This all emphasizes the need for both the recently passed financial reform law as well as federal and state revenue increases targetting those who benefited from successful recovery programs to help fund job creation for those who still need help.

A Success Despite Program Limits: Still, as Blinder and Zandi argue, the financial rescue package helped to "restore stability to the financial system and to end the freefall in housing and auto markets" just as the ARRA recovery plan saved jobs throughout the economy. 8.5 million jobs saved is only a start in light of the almost 15 million Americans that still face unemployment, but that success was critical in avoiding a Despression that would have turned a challenging budget and jobs situation into a completely catastrophic one.

Resources:
Alan Blinder and Mark Zandi - How U.S. Policy Ended the Great Recession
Dean Baker - Goldman Sach's Golden Parachute

NJ Privatization Panel Report Pushes Ideology Rather than Facts

Altaf Rahamatulla — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 11:48:07 -0400

Since he took office earlier this year, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has waged an ideological war on state employees and programs, and advocated for unsustainable and costly privatization schemes. Even in light of overwhelming public opposition to privatization and the significant pitfalls associated with these types of initiatives, the Governor established a privatization task force by executive order in early April, seeking to identify $50 million in savings.

The panel, composed of lobbyists, business interests, and pro-privatization advocates, issued its recommendations earlier this month. The report proposes privatizing programs across the board, including toll booth collections, preschools, state parks, prison food services, bus routes, and car emission inspections. However, the report's conclusions unabashedly promote conservative ideological desires in place of hard data or rigorous research. For instance, a recent In The Public Interest article points out:

The report's extravagant cost-saving claims are unsupported by any detailed data (the tables are littered with 'TBD'- cost savings 'to be determined'), and the scarce figures provided raise more questions than they answer... On p.15 the report claims the state can save $3.2 million by privatizing its One Stop Career Centers, then on p. 31 says 'direct state spending' on the program 'is $3.2 million annually.' Are we to believe the private sector will run these centers for free?

The report has been roundly criticized by several sources, from environmental groups to elected officials. New Jersey Senate President Steve Sweeney reflects, "[c]ertainly state government needs to operate in a more cost-effective way, but our history with privatization is dotted with instances where we’ve had to go back and spend more just to clean up mistakes. We cannot rush into privatizing just for privatization’s sake." The state’s troubled history with privatization is well-documented. For instance, the state has dealt with the Motor Vehicles Commission distributing contracts to politically connected vendors in the 1980s, millions of dollars wasted on contractors for vehicle inspections, the imprudent implementation of the E-Z Pass toll system that was fraught with high cost and delays due to private contractors, and currently, the mismanagement of over 200 lease agreements and contracts with private vendors operating on public land.

That privatization continues to move forward despite such a poor track record reflects pure ideology that the private market delivers the most efficient outcomes, even without demonstrable results. As Progressive States Network has previously detailed, legislative action to limit privatization is necessary to safeguard against the loss of accountability and public revenue that these misguided schemes often produce.

Resources:
Food & Water Watch - Has Water Privatization Gone Too Far in New Jersey?
In The Public Interest - NJ Privatization Report Claims Savings without Evidence
The New Jersey Privatization Task Force - Report to Governor Chris Christie
Progressive States Network - Critics Resisting New Jersey Governor's Push for Further Privatization
Progressive States Network - New Jersey Voters Reject Privatization
The Star-Ledger - NJ Environmental Groups Slam State for Mismanaging Private Vendors at State Parks
The Star-Ledger - NJ Democrats Criticize Christie Administration Report Suggesting Privatization

Wage Theft by Employers Surging in Wake of Arizona’s Anti-Immigrant Law, Even as Judge Blocks Implementation of Key Provisions

Suman Raghunathan — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 11:44:07 -0400

The Arizona Interfaith Alliance for Worker Justice, a worker center in Phoenix, has seen a “huge spike” in wage theft -- violations of minimum wage laws -- since the passage of SB 1070, Arizona’s anti-immigrant law. "Employers are even more brazen in their mistreatment of workers," said Executive Director Trina Zelle in an interview with In These Times. "Increasingly, 'Go ahead, try and make me pay you' is the response workers hear when they confront their employers over unpaid wages."

Workers' rights organizers report that the law's passage in April has already begun to drive immigrant workers even further underground, effectively silencing them in the face of rampant workplace rights violations. The irony is that this makes undocumented immigrants an even more attractive workforce for unscrupulous employers, who know they can illegally underpay them without fear of those employees reporting them or taking them to court. “If we ever hope to bring immigrant workers out of the shadows in which they’ve been laboring,” says Kim Bobo, Executive Director of Interfaith Worker Justice, “we need to forcefully oppose anti-immigrant legislation and stand up for both comprehensive immigration reform and vigorous enforcement of the nation’s labor laws.”

Progressive States Network's model legislation for wage law enforcement outlines how wage enforcement campaigns can counter anti-immigrant rhetoric by raising wage standards for all workers and uniting native and immigrant communities to oppose unscrupulous employers.

Judge Strikes Down Worst Provisions of SB 1070: Yesterday, a federal judge struck down key provisions of SB 1070 as likely violating federal law or being unconstitutional, reinvigorating hope among immigrant communities that state anti-immigrant laws will fail to gain traction. Key provisions that were blocked include:

Requiring police officers to investigate the immigration status of individuals they stop who they suspect are undocumented;
Mandatory detention of individuals who are arrested if they cannot verify they are authorized to be in the U.S.;
Imposing state criminal penalties on non-citizens who fail to register with the Department of Homeland Security or failing to carry registration documents;
Warrantless arrests of individuals who are deemed by state or local police officers to be "removable" from the U.S.; and,
State statutes that make it a crime for alleged undocumented immigrants to work.

The initial court injunction will be followed by a full hearing to determine whether these provisions, as well as the law's other troubling components, will be permanently struck down. The ruling echoes numerous other legal decisions that struck down broad state anti-immigrant laws - and should serve as a warning to other states that enacting copycat legislation similar to Arizona's will lead to costly legal proceedings and, as discussed above, only serve to empower unscrupulous employers to violate wage laws.

Resources:
Working In These Times - ‘Go Ahead, Try and Make Me Pay You’: Wage Theft and SB 1070
Progressive States Network - Promoting Wage Law Enforcement Policies in 2010
Interfaith Worker Justice - Thou Shalt Not Steal - A Toolkit on Wage Theft
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) - Court Blocks Implementation of Key Sections of Arizona's Racial Profiling Law
National Employment Law Project (NELP) - Enforcement of Workplace Standards

Anti-immigrant Proposals Continue to Fail in Wake of Arizona’s Law

Suman Raghunathan — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 12:05:36 -0400

In the wake of the April 2010 passage of Arizona’s draconian and misguided anti-immigrant state law, SB 1070, which would give local governments responsibility to enforce federal immigration law, media coverage has focused on the many states, elected officials, and candidates who have voiced their support for similar anti-immigrant legislation. Despite the disturbing situation in Arizona, however, what is increasingly becoming clear is that anti-immigrant policies and initiatives are failing across the country in the wake of SB 1070’s passage, underlining Arizona’s anti-immigrant approach as an outlier.

As this Dispatch will detail, after considerable media hype about Arizona-style bills sweeping across the nation, the reality is that from from Nevada to Arkansas to Massachusetts to Kansas and Rhode Island, anti-immigrant bills and ballot initiatives largely didn't move or failed to make this fall's ballot. A key reason: most state leaders and police chiefs recognize that requiring local governments to assume immigration enforcement responsibilities from the federal government will distract them from fighting violent crime and undermine trust with local residents that are essential to successful community policing.

Table of Contents:

- A Trend of Failed Anti-Immigrant Proposals

- Anti-Immigrant Laws Increase Crime and Hamper Community Policing Efforts

- Lawsuits Against AZ SB 1070 Seek to Maintain Clear Federal Responsibility for Immigration Law

A Trend of Failed Anti-Immigrant Proposals

In the wake of AZ SB 1070’s passage in late April, a far right network of groups and legislators announced plans to move bills in state around the country. But the list of states rejecting those bills continues to grow and efforts to get anti-immigrant proposals on the ballot continue to fail.

Ballot Initiatives Fail in Nevada and Arkansas: The latest state to join this list is Nevada, where Assemblyman Chad Christensen’s effort to gather signatures for an anti-immigrant ballot initiative similar to Arizona’s recently faltered in the face of a lawsuit. Christensen’s effort was challenged by the Nevada Open For Business Coalition, a group that includes State Assemblymen Mo Denis and Ruben Kihuen as well as the Nevada Resort Association, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, the Las Vegas Latin Chamber of Commerce, and the NAACP. The coalition is also working with the Las Vegas Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. The delay caused by the Coalition's multiple legal challenges caused Christensen, who recently lost a June 8 US Senate Primary, to drop his petition rather than attempt to get his broad anti-immigrant proposal on the ballot.

In Arkansas, the anti-immigrant group Secure Arkansas also failed to get its anti-immigrant proposal (which simply re-iterated existing federal law by seeking to bar undocumented immigrants over the age of 14 from receiving public assistance) on the November 2010 ballot. Secretary of State Charlie Daniels rejected the group’s petition after finding they were nearly 10,000 signatures below the minimum required to appear on the ballot.

Anti-Immigrant Legislation Defeated or Blocked in Multiple States: In both Massachusetts and Rhode Island, state leadership refused to allow anti-immigrant legislation to gain traction. In Massachusetts, twenty-seven pages of anti-immigrant budget amendments that resembled Arizona's SB1070 was shot down and ultimately approved as a final bill which simply restated existing federal bars on undocumented immigrants accessing public benefits, and included no new anti-immigrant provisions.

Rhode Island’s anti-immigrant bill, introduced by conservative Democrat State Representative Peter Palumbo, did not even receive a public hearing earlier this summer: the bill was ‘killed’ by House Speaker Gordon Fox, who voiced his opposition to the bill and reiterated that enforcing immigration laws remains the responsibility of the federal government.

And in Kansas, when a conservative legislator sought to attach an Arizona-style anti-immigrant amendment to the state budget, Kansas Representative Delia Garcia challenged its late introduction on procedural grounds and the Republican chair of the chamber's Rules Committee ruled the amendment out of order.

Most High-Immigration States Have Taken a Positive Approach to Integrate New Immigrants: As PSN detailed in a 2008 report, only 11% of undocumented immigrants live in states that have enacted comprehensive punitive anti-immigrant policies. Far more states promote positive integration policies and believe leaving immigration enforcement policy to the federal government is the best approach.

Resources
Colorlines - The Far-Right Movement Behind Arizona Copycat Bill
Progressive States Network - The Anti-Immigrant Movement that Failed: Positive Integration Policies by States Still Far Outweigh Punitive Policies
Progressive States Network - State Immigration Policy to Promote National Change

Anti-Immigrant Laws Increase Crime and Hamper Community Policing Efforts

One reason many leaders are rejecting Arizona-style anti-immigrant policies is the clear evidence that they undermine public safety. Police chiefs nationwide, including the chiefs of Los Angeles, Houston, Philadelphia, New York, Phoenix, and Tucson, have consistently underlined their opposition to local enforcement of federal immigration law, citing the dramatic and negative impact these approaches have on community members’ willingness to cooperate with the police -- and predicted they will increase crime. Law enforcement leaders such as Salt Lake City Chief of Police Chris Burbank have voiced concerns that burdening them with enforcing federal immigration law will actually make communities less safe: witnesses will be less likely to assist police investigations for fear of disclosing their immigration status; women will fear reporting instances of domestic violence, and crimes will go unreported, affecting all residents' safety.

Recent evidence highlights this problem with anti-immigrant legislation.

More Immigrants Means Less Crime, Not More: Overall, states with high immigration levels have actually seen their crime levels decrease; updated FBI and law enforcement data debunk any connection between higher levels of immigration resulting in more crime. The Federal Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that violent crime declined by 35% from 1994 to 2001 -- a period when the nation saw its undocumented population double. This precipitous drop in crime is part of a national trend, one echoed along the U.S.-Mexico border and in immigrant-heavy cities such as San Diego, El Paso, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Miami. In fact, even conservative groups found states with the steepest growth among their immigrant residents also report the lowest crime rates. In these 19 states, the total crime rate declined nearly 14% from 1999 to 2006.

Arizona Itself Shows Failure of Anti-Immigrant Approach: Evidence from Arizona highlights why local immigration enforcement is counterproductive to fighting crime. The FBI reports that violent crime has been falling in Arizona for years -- even as the state’s number of undocumented residents rose.

The glaring exception to this trend in Arizona is Maricopa County, which falls under the jurisdiction of its notorious Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Arpaio has devoted considerable (and often-scarce) law enforcement resources to apprehending undocumented residents county-wide. Arpaio’s insistence on apprehending otherwise law-abiding undocumented residents in high-profile (often televised) raids and routine stops of Latino drivers for immigration checks means the Sheriff’s Department has less time to focus on violent criminals and pursue felony warrants. The East Valley Tribune, an Arizona newspaper, won a 2008 Pulitzer Prize for their multi-part series on the evolution and impact of Arpaio’s anti-immigrant pursuits.

Despite his ‘law and order’ rhetoric, Arpaio’s approach is a failed law enforcement strategy, and one that has apparently served to increase crime in his jurisdiction-contrary to state crime trends. Recent data from the Arizona Department of Public Safety and compiled by America’s Voice found the Maricopa County crime rate increased by 58% from 2002 to 2009, while the state as a whole saw an average 12% decrease in crime rates. Other Arizona localities that did not engage in broad raids and traffic stops saw their crime rates plunge during the same period: Phoenix enjoyed a 14% decrease in crime; Tempe saw a 26% decrease; and Mesa (Senator Pearce’s district) experienced a 31% decrease.

Misinformation from the Anti-Immigrant Right: Many anti-immigrant legislators and candidates have issued a steady drumbeat of misinformation that attempts to draw a connection between immigrants and crime. AZ Governor Jan Brewer, State Sen Russell Pearce, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and national anti-immigrant groups such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) have attempted to justify and explain their efforts toward draconian state immigration legislation by claiming their proposals will make communities safer.

Yet even as Pearce and Brewer have, in fact, predicted that their state’s anti-immigrant measures will result in lower levels of crime throughout Arizona, evidence from Maricopa County shows that exporting Sheriff Joe Arpaio's brand of anti-immigrant policing will likely reverse the progress made in other parts of the state, imposing Maricopa's failed model on the the whole state.

Resources:
Immigration Policy Center - Arizona's Punishment Doesn't Fit the Crime: Studies Show Decrease in Arizona Crime Rates Over Time
Immigration Policy Center - New FBI data Confirms Falling Crime Rates in Arizona: Violent Crimes Are Down in the State's Three Largest Cities
America's Voice - Arizona Immigration Law Could Lead to Surge in Violent Crime
America's Voice - Fact Sheet: Sheriff Joe Arpaio's Notorious Record
East Valley Tribune - Reasonable Doubt Series
Washington Post - US Police Chiefs Say Arizona Immigration Law Will Increase Crime
Americas Majority Foundation - Immigration and Wealth of States

Lawsuits Against AZ SB 1070 Seek to Maintain Clear Federal Responsibility for Immigration Law

As the evidence increasingly points to how local police and sheriffs enforcing immigration law undermines community policing and increases crime rates, it becomes even clearer why the nation has traditionally kept responsibility for enforcing immigration law in the hands of federal officials. But as PSN has detailed before, Arizona’s law, unprecedented in its scope if it is implemented, would land immigration enforcement (a federal responsibility) squarely in the hands of state government.

This blurring of immigration enforcement roles between federal and state officials has already been legally challenged by the U.S. Department of Justice and at least seven prominent national civil rights organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Immigration Law Center, and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund. Both the U.S. Department of Justice and these civil rights groups have filed lawsuits against Arizona’s law which is scheduled to take effect on July 29 if a federal court does not impose an injunction.

Arizona's Law Undermines Federalism and Threatens Racial Profiling: SB 1070’s scope is unprecedented, misguided, and likely unconstitutional: the law not only makes it a crime to lack immigration status, but also allows state and local law enforcement to demand proof of citizenship or immigration status from anyone they believe has ‘reasonable suspicion’ of being undocumented. Apart from greenlighting racial profiling, Arizona’s approach is widely perceived by legal experts as unconstitutional because it requires the state to take on enforcing federal immigration law.

A federal judge heard arguments outlining seven civil rights groups’ opposition to Arizona’s anti-immigrant law on July 22. These groups are asking for a preliminary injunction to freeze implementation of the law, which is scheduled to go into effect on July 29^th.

The lawsuit’s central legal argument (one echoed by the US Department of Justice’s own lawsuit challenging SB 1070) is the law seeks to pre-empt the federal government’s jurisdiction over enforcing federal immigration law, and that it allows the state too much power to enforce immigration law. Finally, the groups’ lawsuit states that implementing the law would cause considerable harm to Arizona residents as a whole. State legislators, immigrant rights advocates, and responsible law enforcement professionals will be hoping the federal courts agree.

Resources:
Progressive States Network - Arizona and the Nation: A Failed State Versus Positive Approaches to Immigrant Integration
Progressive States Network - Arizona Jeopardizes its Economic Future As it Contemplates Passing Anti-Immigrant Law
National Immigration Law Center - NILC and Civil Rights Groups Ask Court to Block Implementation of Arizona Law
American Civil Liberties Union Immigrant Rights Project - Friendly House et.al vs. Halliday et. al: Arizona's Racial Profiling Law
Immigration Policy Center - The Impact of SB 1070: Usurping the Federal Government's Ability to Set Clear Enforcement Priorities
Immigration Policy Center - The Legal Challenges and Economic Realities of Arizona's SB 1070
Progressive States Network - Polling, The Arizona Law, and Majority Support for Comprehensive Immigration Reform
Progressive States Network - Press Call: State Legislators for Progressive Immigration Policy

National Popular Vote Victory in Massachusetts

Cristina Francisco-McGuire — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 11:25:12 -0400

National Popular Vote Victory in Massachusetts Adds Momentum to Changing Presidential Vote System

Last week, the Massachusetts Senate passed National Popular Vote (NPV) legislation by a 28-10 vote, a little more than a month after the state’s House of Representatives approved NPV by an overwhelmingly bipartisan majority.

With final approval by the legislature likely soon, this will add Massachusetts' 12 electoral votes to approval of NPV by Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey and Washington, bringing the electoral votes of states approving the NPV interstate compact to 73. When enough states approve NPV to bring the tally of electoral votes to 270 (the number needed to win an election), the NPV interstate laws will award those state’s electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most votes nationally, replacing the current system where votes are awarded on a winner-take-all system state-by-state.

The momentum nationally for National Popular Vote remains strong: both chambers in four other states (Rhode Island, Vermont, Colorado and California) have approved NPV in the past few years, while at least one chamber in ten other states (Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, and Oregon) have approved it.

Support in Massachusetts reflected broad public support, including a survey of voters conducted in May, which showed that 72% of Bay Staters want a system that will make every vote count, regardless of whether it is from a battleground state or not. Before the bill can go to Governor Deval Patrick for his signature, state law requires that it be formally affirmed, or enacted, one last time by both chambers. The enactment vote passed the House on Tuesday, while the Senate is still working to schedule its final vote.

Resources:
National Popular Vote
Boston Globe- Mass. Legislature Poised to Enact Electoral College Bypass Bill
Progressive States Network- National Popular Vote Approved in Chambers in New York and Massachusetts
Progressive States Network - National Popular Vote - A Voter Turnout and Civil Rights Issue