The economic downturn has had devastating effects on all Americans, and economist are predicting that there are long to be long term affects and that the economy will not recovery fully for a significant amount of time. According to the last report from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, 14.6 million people are currently unemployed, 9.5%. The long term unemployed, those who have been unemployed for 27 weeks or longer, make up 6.8 million of the jobless Americans. However, the economy has had a disproportionate effect on people of color, in an economy where people of color have already long been at a disadvantage. The latest statistics show that while the overall unemployment rate for whites is 8.6%, the unemployment rate for Latinos is 12.4% and the unemployment rate for blacks is 15.4%. While white America may be in the middle of the Great Recession, people of color in America are in the middle of a prolonged depression.
In the 3,413 days of Rick Perry's decade of failure as Texas' Governor, he has failed to adequately address Texas' high school dropout crisis.
Over the last several months, Bill White has campaigned across Texas introducing himself and talking about the need for Texas' elected officials to seriously fix the problem. During the course of campaigning, White takes dead aim at Rick Perry for ignoring the dropout crisis for nearly a decade. Since his remarks change from place to place, I wanted to point to the press release from April 6 which set the message clear and simple: "White challenges Perry: What's happening to Texas students?"
The economic effects are significant for all Texans. A person who does not complete high school can expect to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars less over the course of a lifetime than a person with a high school education. Each class of dropouts is estimated to cost the state and its economy billions of dollars.
"Our state's economic future depends on the workforce we're educating today, and we can't afford to let students slip through the cracks," said Bill White.
Bill White is a problem-solver. As he raises the critical issue of dropouts across the state, he offers his own solutions -- and can point to specific experiences where, as Mayor of Houston, he took direct action to take on the dropout crisis:
As mayor, White and his wife Andrea helped start Expectation Graduation, a program designed to cut high school dropout rates. Alongside hundreds of community volunteers, they went door to door to find young people who did not return to high school for the fall semester in an annual reach out to dropouts.
To date the efforts have brought back more than 8,800 high school students in the Houston area. Because of its success, the program has been repeated in communities across Texas including Dallas, Forth Worth, San Antonio, Corpus Christi and El Paso.
Combine his conversations about the State Board of Education -- another education issue -- with his ones about dropouts, and it's a major message push. Especially when you consider how the success of Texas' future is largely dependent on the future success of our children in school. It may not be as sexy to swoon over as, say, Rick Perry's $250,000 vanity plate or Rick Perry threatening to raise an army against America -- but it's certainly more important and more relevant to the real issues facing Texans.
Fortunately, Bill White's message is being heard across Texas -- even if the Austin echo chamber occassionally misses it. The following is an incomplete list of 19 press stories from every corner of the state talking about Bill White's campaign, his focus on education and dropouts, and how Rick Perry is struggling to come up with any real solutions to this major Texas issue:
If you see more stories on this across Texas, please leave a note in the comments or e-mail them to BOR: press@burntorangereport.com
And the next time you encounter anyone trying to talk to you about Bill White's message, or how his campaign isn't doing enough to define himself, remind them about the list above -- but more importantly, remind them about what each candidate is talking about. Bill White wants to focus on finding solutions to the challenges facing Texas so he can move our state forward. Rick Perry is meeting with Fox News personalities and campaigning for out-of-state Republicans in his quest to become a force in the 2012 Republican Presidential primary.
Only one of the candidates cares about Texas -- Bill White. As he gets the message out, help him get the message out -- learn how to get involved and stay involved.
Vacant car lots, shuttered businesses and the grind of bad economic news is wearing down Texans' belief in a better tomorrow, according to a new survey of state voters, and that could be even worse news for Gov. Rick Perry.
The survey by the national political newsletter Rasmussen Reports found 46 percent of the state's voters believe the economy is getting worse. That's up from 35 percent in January who believed things are getting worse.
The Rick Perry's campaign head exploded on this one. To them, if Forbes Magazine says Texas is doing great, why doesn't everyone else understand it?
The property tax swap Perry passed in '06 created a permanent structural deficit in our state budget, which is contributing to an expected $11-$15 billion shortfall going into the 2011 Legislative Session.
It comes down to how we define economy -- and who gets counted, and what metrics you use. If at the end of the day, a government official doubles the state debt, takes Texas to a record number of unemployed workers, all while tuition, utility, health care and public school costs continue to soar -- then that's not success.
Pocketbook issues are part of the economy, as much as Rick Perry wants to pretend they are not.,
Mitt Romney one of the top Republicans likely to oppose Obama in 2012 will be in Texas on a book tour March 17-18, in Plano, Dallas and Houston. He'll be claiming that as a successful CEO he knows what's wrong with the U.S. economy and how to fix it. He'll be claiming he is the savior who can create new jobs.
We as Texas Democratic activists need to show up in force at these events which are likely to receive significant media attention and ask hard questions.
How does your experience sending jobs offshore translate into knowing how to create American jobs?
You say you know who to create jobs but after your four years as governor Massachusetts job growth was less than 1% while the national average was 5% making it 47th in the nation. What did you learn from your mistakes in Massachusetts?
Can someone explain to me when it became funny to joke about job loss?
Can someone explain to me why the fact that over 62,000 Texans losing their jobs in August 2009 is worth a laugh over?
Can someone please, please tell me why all the coverage about Rick Perry's gaffe is focusing on the politics of everything, instead of the policies of all of this?
Key Point: If we didn't have two career politicians who cared only about themselves -- Hutchison trying to run a Governor's race from Washington, and Rick Perry spending 100% of his time campaigning and 0% of his time governing, even when the Legislature is in session -- then maybe we wouldn't be where we are today.
This is Adios MoFo all over again; only this time unemployed workers are the punchline.
As a matter of fact, just today, I think, Michael, you said someone had put a report out that the first state that’s coming out of the recession is going to be the State of Texas. I told him, I said, ‘We’re in one?’”
There was a kerfuffle within the "gosh, we're bored" political community around Austin about whether or not the video was taken out of context. Here's what's happened since then:
KHOU in Houston was the first to report that Hutchison's team actually put up the video -- showing how incredibly stupid their campaign team really is.
Jason Embry had the full video up for context at his First Reading page this morning.
One of Rick Perry's prominent online supporters -- the Rick vs. Kay blog -- is laying down a thick, thick guilt trip to the press (and to me and Glazer) about the journalistic integrity of reporting on a snippet of a campaign story and not the full piece.
Perry made a mistake. Point to Team Hutchison. Team Hutchison cheated. Point taken away from Team Hutchison. I think that the memory of the joke will be longer lasting than the memory of the mendacious editing.
I think the memory of every reporter, blogger, and political insider in Austin, Texas needs to jerked back into a place where we remember that the Governor of Texas likes to crack jokes about the fact that people don't have jobs.
Here's the basic response you get from Rick Perry and his army of dittoheads (whom the press gives more than ample air time to):
"Oh, but it was out of context -- you are taking what he said out of context! It's a dirty trick -- they did it, not us! They're the bad ones. We're just out there telling jokes to the unemployment lines -- we're the good guys!"
Give me a break.
Rick Perry's actions speak far louder and are far more meaningful than his words. Perry can try and claim credit for the ingenuity of the Texas worker, but who out there really thinks Perry has the intellect to do much more than scrub product into his hair each morning? The guy is a smug, manipulative, power-hungry MoFo who was rejected by 60% of the voters the last time he was on the ballot.
More to the point -- he has a proven record of failure on Texas' economy. The enormous budget hole created by the Rick Perry tax plan in 2006 was filled this time around only by federal stimulus dollars -- something the Austin American-Statesman editorial board loudly pronounced:
During the session, the all-GOP legislative leadership team would grudgingly admit that if it weren't for the federal government's stimulus money, Texas budget cuts would have been wide and deep.
But that didn't keep the governor and others from criticizing Washington for its wasteful ways. At one point, Perry mentioned secession in stoking up an anti-tax crowd.
It was tough talk but as is usually the case in politics, the gap between rhetoric and reality was as wide as the gap between the state's income and demands for services. Without the federal assistance, Texas would be in a tough financial fix.
Rick Perry has failed on numerous economic opportunities, but he still travels the state taking credit for the efforts of Texas small business owners and workers.
So boo-hoo for Rick Perry being taken out of context? Only if you are cravenly selfish about politics. My sympathy is not with Governor Perry, or the shocking fact that someone posted accurate words of him speaking on a website for political gain. The entire Republican primary race has been a small-minded spitting match -- this video is exactly in line with everything that's happened.
What we should be talking about is the state of our economy. We should talk about it in an honest way, that celebrates the innovation and determination of Texas business owners and workers, but that is rightfully critical of the disastrous direction Republicans have taken Texas over the past decade.
A message to my fellow Common Security Club members:
I confess, besides catching up with work and such, I've been lost in space (cyberspace, that is), since our first meeting last weekend. It was just too much fun to be learning all the ins and outs of the twitterverse and following the "journos" (new word for me) at the teabagasm events around the nation. Oh, the tales I could tell, having heard all the quips and "personal" comments from behind the scenes! Lots of fun--almost like "being there".
Which brings me to the point I wanted to communicate today. About how we are all connected. It's a very simple thought, one that makes common sense when you think at a meta level about all life on earth being part of one large ecological system. But it has come more into focus these days in terms of the kind of social networking we do on the internet (Facebook, Linked-In, blogging websites, Twitter, texting, etc).
It seems to be important, though, to combine that e-socializing with the face-to-face in order to build the kind of personal connection needed for a relationship, whether that be a personal, a group, or a community kind of relationship. For example, while the recent political campaign of Barack Obama was successful in its use of the most advanced communication technology, use was also made of town halls and community organizing. In these venues, personal, face to face connections could be made--people could interact with each other and form a sense of kinship that encouraged them to trust each other and work together for their common good. The personal connection is a powerful component in what people can accomplish together because it goes back to the most primal instincts of human beings--that of forming close social groups. By living and working together in social groups, people were able to survive difficult primitive conditions.
The phrase, "Six Degrees of Separation" was coined by John Guare in a play he wrote in 1990. The play explored the existential premise that everyone in the world is connected to everyone else in the world by a chain of no more than six acquaintances, thus, "six degrees of separation."
In the play, one of the characters states:
"I read somewhere that everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people. Six degrees of separation between us and everyone else on this planet. The President of the United States, a gondolier in Venice, just fill in the names. I find it A) extremely comforting that we're so close, and B) like Chinese water torture that we're so close because you have to find the right six people to make the right connection... I am bound to everyone on this planet by a trail of six people."[16] (From Wikipedia).
I must say, I had a most striking experience of this phenomenon, this kind of six degrees of separation just today at lunch. I met a beautiful young African American woman at Kuff's (Charles Kuffner) Democratic lunch bunch. She is the "communications coordinator" for Anise Parker's Houston mayoral candidacy. In talking with her about how her boss, Anise, would be a good mayor, I told her about our meeting to explore how a local community group might provide mutual aid and support to each other in times of economic uncertainty. I told her how we'd talked both about forming a local currency for exchange of goods and talents that may not currently be valued in the mainstream economy.
I told her about how we talked about the possibility that foreclosed houses or apartment buildings inside the loop in Houston could be purchased and remodeled to LEEDS standards with some of the federal stimulus money, and how this could help many people who were struggling to find affordable housing. Moreover I told her how this conversation came about in brainstorming about how there are a rising number of aging single women (and others, of course) who would prefer living in the city where they could form relationships with others who shared their values (and she added, in affirmation, "whether they were brown, black, or white, right?"--to which I added, of course! --She had just told me how she struggled to find affordable housing as a single female when she moved to Houston from Chicago several years ago.) And I added that, in fact, there are several women in our group that fit that characterization I described.
I also told her how we talked about our visions for renewing the city's transportation infrastructure, using federal stimulus money for building a light rail system that would cut down on the fossil fuels being used for suburban-city commuting purposes. Of course, I told her one of Mayor White's reasons for suggesting the idea of making inner city homes desirable, affordable, and energy smart was to cut down on the number of people having to commute into the city, not only because we are using a declining supply of foreign oil, but also because we are polluting our city skies.
After she gave me the answers she thought her boss would support and initiate if elected, we continued to talk more and I found she was enthusiastic about the idea of urban intentional community. She told me the area of town in which she lived might be an excellent starting place for exploring such community building. She expanded upon the thought of a group buying an apartment building to buying up a whole block where everyone knew each other and "had each other's backs".
Before we said our goodbyes, she smiled really big and said she had just been smiling inside the whole time since she'd first heard my name in introductions, (Thurman), because that had been the name of some of her father's people in Illinois. Chicago, I asked, since she'd said she moved here from there? No, she said, her father's people came from southern Illinois. Oh, really, I said, because my grandfather Thurman and grandmother were from that area, and had, in fact, met, swimming where the Missouri and Mississippi rivers converge at Cairo, Illinois. She, looking surprised and kind of amazed, said her father's people only lived about 40 miles from there. We both looked at each other with that kind of "knowing" look, and it was hard to break contact with each other's eyes, because we were likely telepathing (or tel-empathizing) that we were "connected" (who knows, but that we are blood relatives?).
Six degrees of separation?
Back to the line in the play where the character says, "I find it A) extremely comforting that we're so close, and B) like Chinese water torture that we're so close because you have to find the right six people to make the right connection... I am bound to everyone on this planet by a trail of six people."
(Bill Spelman is endorsed by BOR. - promoted by Karl-Thomas Musselman)
We're in a recession, and unemployment is still rising. Should Austin offer tax incentives to bring in new businesses? If sales tax revenue doesn't turn around, should we cut public safety, parks and libraries, or something else? Shouldn't you be involved in making these decisions?
I believe the weak economy and the tight budget are the most pressing issues facing Austin today. Please join us next Tuesday evening for a town hall meeting to discuss them.
COMMUNITY TOWN HALL "Budget & Economy"
Tuesday, April 14
6:00 - 8:00 p.m.
First Unitarian Universalist Church
4700 Grover Ave
Austin, TX 78756
RSVP on Facebook
You're invited to share your ideas and be a part of the solution. Austin faces some tough challenges ahead, but by working together, we can leverage our city resources to get the most bang for our taxpayer buck. If you can't make the event, then please share your ideas online.
Thanks for your support. I look forward to meeting with you personally to hear how you think we can best improve Austin.
Our founding fathers knew that concentrated power hurts society. They wrote a constitution that divided political power into three branches. This system has served us well for over two hundred years, protecting us from tyranny. The founders didn't foresee today's vast concentration of economic power and the destruction it could bring. We, however, can. We should have known the danger it poses to us all.
Ed. Note: TexBlog PAC is trying to raise money to play a serious role in ousting Republicans from the Governor's office so we can take back Texas. Donate today if you want to help us in our fight!
I will use a summary from Rep. Coleman's press release to explain the motion:
Texas law already complies with a portion of the criteria needed to receive the full
Texas law already complies with a portion of the criteria needed to receive the full $555 million from the Recovery Act. To receive the funds, the Legislature must make three modifications to existing law:
~ Alter the base period calculation for unemployment. ~ Alter the compelling reasons criteria for a qualifying job loss. ~ Alter either the training or the part-time worker provisions of Texas law.
The motion also states that the benefit to the state in 2011-2012 "would be approximately $474 million to the Unemployment Compensation Trust Fund" and that, if it is not repealed (as Perry promised and as Hutchison is polling on as we speak), the $555 million would "fully fund the modification until 2017.
The release goes on to state how Republican Party Chair Chairman of the Texas Workforce Commission, Tom Paunken, agrees with the motion that was supported -- by a 5-1 vote -- by the Select Committee on Federal Economic Stabilization Funding. Again, from the release:
Tom Pauken, Chairman of the Texas Workforce Commission, has already indicated that he will work on legislation with Representative Tan Parker and Representative Joe Deshotel that will take the action necessary to draw down federal funds that Texas employers have paid in to, and to prevent an unnecessary increase in deficit taxes.
Remember, Pauken already testified in Senate committee to Austin Senator Kirk Watson that he the state needed the funds. As State Senator Leticia Van de Putte informed us in her interview a few weeks ago:
We are very happy that on record this week Senator Kirk Watson -- who sits on the Senate Nominations Committee -- got Tom Pauken to publicly recognize the fact that, yes, we absolutely need these dollars and we need to change the law in the state of Texas to be able to get those stimulus dollars to the state of Texas.
State Representative Garnet Coleman's release stated that the Select Committee has discovered in their hearings that:
Since the beginning of the economic downturn, over 250,000 Texans have lost their jobs. By September 2009, the state's Unemployment Compensation Trust Fund will have a deficit of at least $800 million, triggering the implementation of a deficit tax on Texas employers. This deficit tax will likely double the overall unemployment tax burden on the average Texas employer.
Texas Democrats are taking direct and responsible action to help unemployed workers in the state of Texas. As Governor Rick Perry crows for his Republican base and Senator Hutchison cowers in D.C. testing a poll-driven message from the cowardice center, Texas Democrats are fighting for Texas families to ensure their tax dollars are delivered straight to their kitchen tables.
Days like today are why I am damn proud to be a Democrat.
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Ed. Note: State Senator Leticia Van de Putte discussed legislation she filed weeks ago to help address the solvency of the unemployment insurance fund in an interview I did with her on BOR. Read my BOR interview with Leticia Van de Putte to learn more.
Texas law already complies with a portion of the criteria needed to receive the full 
The release goes on to state how 
