Augusta focus. ([Augusta, Ga.) 198?-current, January 18, 1996, Image 9

Augusta focus., January 18, 1996, Page 9, Image 9

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Newspaper Page TextCorporate Welfare Survives But Medicare and other social programs face the ax By Cong. Cynthia A. McKinney SPECIAL TO AUGUSTA FOCUS ! The polls are clear: Americans want a balanced budget but not at the expense of Medicare, eduéa tion or the environment. how, then, dowe everreachbalance, let alone deal with the debt? Well, one hugearea of the budget which the Republicans have deemed sa cred is ‘corporate welfare.” Corpo rate welfare can come in the form of direct government subsidies to corporations or in the form of spe cial tax breaks. Over the next seven years, for example, compa nies like McDonald’s, Campbell’s Soup and Mars will receive over S7OO million from the federal gov ernmentinordertoadvertise over seas. In May of this year, I helped write a balanced budget resolu tion which reached balance by 2002, justlike the Republican pro posal. The fundamental differ ence between our two proposals, however, was how we reached balance. The Republicansin Con gress havearhitrarily decided that balancing the budget will require $l6B billion in Medicare reduc tions, SBS Lillion in cuts to Medic aid, at least sls billion in cuts to the EITC, and numerous other reductions in environmental pro tection. However, the balanced budget resolution which I helped write, reached balance by cutting nearly SSOO billion in corporate subsidies while making-Japan and Germany pay for their own de fense. Medicare, school lunches and education funding were not adversely afficted. Not only does the Republican- - Upscale eating ‘ This °9os style of eatery takes some getting used to By Lamar Rush SPECIAL TO AUGUSTA FOCUS One of the delights of my sec ond childhood is my generous, 70-something girlfriend, Maybelle. She called me the oth er day and said she was plumb tired of watching the Blizzard of ’96 making so many people up, North miserable. “Those reports on TV are enough to frost my Georgia bones!” she declared. “My grand daughter, Marzipan, gave me a Christmas certificate for a nice, hot meal for two at It’s Wednes day, Again, that young people’s hangout that’s supposed to be the last thing in up-scale eatin’. ' Gifts .Organ donations extend life; adoptions offer love - By Bernice Powell Jackson © CIVIL RIGHTS JOURNAL _ Arecentarticle in<Jel magazine . pointed out that African Ameri i cans are less likely than whites to i donate their organs or those of . their loved ones who have died , suddenly. Yet for the thousands ~ of African Americans waiting for organs, this would truly be the gift + of life. " I remember when my own hus . band died suddenly and; in the s trauma of it all, organ donation neveroccurred to me, even though i I knew that was what he would i have wanted. No one at the hospi , tal ever asked me if I wanted to . donate his organs and it was not _until T got home that I thought about it. What a missed opportu . nity for someone who was waiting . for a kidney or liver. . But most African Americans refuse to ever consider donating _ their organs. Sometimes it is due to superstition or the belief that you won't get into heaven without _all your body parts. Sometimes it . is due to distrust of the medical community and the belief that _ they will take an organ even ifyou arestillaliveand don’tagree totit. Closer Look Over the next{éeven years, companies like McDonald’s, Campbell’s Soup and Mars will receive over S7OO million from the federal government in order to advertise overseas. controlled Congress insist on shielding the $724 billion worth of corporate subsidies in the budget (as identified by the Congression al Budget Office), but they want to further subsidize Wall Street with even more tax breaks. At a time when we are trying to balance the budget, the GOP wants to elimi nate the Alternative Corporate Minimum Tax, cut the capital gains tax, and allow corporations to write off equipment costs at more than their value. In total, their tax cuts add up to $177 bil lion at a time when seniors, poor children and students aré being asked to sacrifice in ordenito bal ance the budget. These policies have only one purpose, and that is to reward those who finance the Republican party at the ekpense ofthose who cannot afford tomake campaign contributions. Speaker Gingrich and his fol lowers claim that Medicare is go ing broke and we need to cut $l6B billion from the program in order to save it. To me that sounds an awful lot like saying, “we have to destroy the village in ordertosave it.” Medicare’s trustees neversaid that $l6B billion in reductions were necessary to extend the pro gram’s solvency. In fact, just S9O billion in savings would extend I thought you’d like to join me.” I allowed as how I would like to see how The Young, The Rich and Restless generation man aged to make it on a measly thir ty-thousand-a-year. ! | Well, we entered a noisy mega watt Wonderland of Tiffany lamps, gleaming brass and pot ted plants out the gazoo.! Ener getic, young college types flitted about in red-and-white broad stripes and badges taking orders with the efficiency of a ded‘iéated crel of Air Traffic Controllers. The food was good — most of it. What wasn’t so good was drowned in enough cheese' and mushrooms to provide a great diversionary tactic. You got the Sometimes it is due to religious beliefs or even a fear of talking about death. While there are over 11,000 Af rican Americans on waiting lists for organs, in 1993 only 554 Afri can Americans who died donated their organs. An even smaller number donated their organs while they were alive, probably mostly to family members. Similarly, each year 30,000 new patients are diagnosed with leu kemia, aplastic anemia or other life-threatening diseases which require bone marrow transplants. Seventy percent of them will not find a match within their own families. And while it’s possible for an African-American patient to match a donor from any racial or ethnic group, the most likely bone marrow match is from an African-American donor. Bone marrow makes blood cells and because only a small amount is taken from donors, their bodies replace the marrow within weeks. All donor expenses are paid for by the patient and even the initial blood test is free for racial/ethnic minorities because of federal gov ernment grants. Thegift of loveis on the wish list Medicare’s Hospital Insurance (Hl)trust fund until the year 2006, the same year to which the GOP plan would extend the program. Thus, if only S9O billion is needed toextend the trust fund from 2002 to 2006, then where is the rest of the $l6B billion going? Regretta bly, the extra S7B billion in cuts will gointothe general fund where they can be used for any purpose, including tax breaks for the wealthy. I am a co-sponsor of legislation which reduces Medicare spend ing by only S9O billion over the next seven years, not $l6B billion. Thislegislation would achieve the savings needed to extend the HI trust fund simply by maintaining current payment schedules to health care providers, ratherthan letting them drop to their pre -1993 levels. Medicare premiums, deductibles and co-pays would not be increased by this proposal. Moreover, it would establish a blue-ribbon commission to care fully study what changes we re quire in our health care delivery in order to prepare for the baby boom generation, expected to en ter the system in 2010. Ameri cans want Medicare reforms wor thy of the mainstream, not the GOP extreme. impression that the entree was the main thing; the rest was pop art and window dressing. And that’s as it should be, I guess. I think the kicker was when the waiter said he would be our “cashier.” We wanted to leave the tip WE felt comfortable with — and not be subjected to the legalized extortion that has, in explicably, become commonplace these days. On top of that, we noticed on thebill that we had been charged a dollar twenty-nine for an ab breviated glass of iced tea. It was enough to set this over the-hill couple yearning for The Good Old Days when coffee and of thousands of children of color whoare in fostercare or are avail able for adoption. The National Association of Black Social Work ers(NAßSW)issponsoring acam paign called A Fist Full of Fami lies, with the goal of having 1,000 African-American children placed in adoptive families by the end of 1996. i There are 450,000 children in foster homes and institutions na tionwide, about 43 percent of whom are African American. Of the 30,000 African-American chil dren who want tobe adopted, only about 8,600 are legally available for adoption. Historically, African Americans havealways taken in the children of their family members, neigh bors and friends, although most of these adoptions were informal. According to a National Urban League study cited by the NABSW, there are three million African- AUGUSTA FOCUS is a Walker Group Publication Now we find that Republicans have, for the most part, given up on their “we-want-to-save-Medi care” argument. This claim rang most hollow when it was recently revealed that House Speaker Gingrich and Senate Republican Leader Bob Dole were both on record as opposing even the con cept of Medicare. On October 24th, Senator Dole was quoted as boast ing to the American Conservative Union how he was “one of twelve voting against Medicare in 1965.” On that same evening, Speaker Gingrich was talking to a health insurance industry conference about his Medicare proposal and said, “. .. we didn’t get rid of it in round one . . . we believe it’s going to wither on the vine because we think people are going to leave it.” We can have a balanced budget without ravaging the health care of our seniors and jeopardizing the environment. Although cor porate profits are higherthan ever and executive salaries are going through the roof, the Republicans in Congress do not want to consid er cutting corporate welfare. By theirintransigence, they are miss ing a grand opportunity to find common ground with Democrats who support balancing the bud get but cannot support devastat ing reductions in health care and the environment. Even the corpo rate CATO Institute in Washing ton, D.C. supports measures to reduce corporate welfare because such subsidies skew the market. Speaker Gingrich and Bob Dole need to get off their high horses and acknowledge that their way of balancing the budget is not the only way. iced tea were a nickel and dime, respectively. I even remembered my own Dad telling me about when a cup of coffee went from a nickel to a dime during the War. He pro tested by asking for a nickel’s worth. The waitress thought he was crazy. But we were as much out of place as my Pop was — and we came away wishing Marzi had given Maybelle some “Po Folks” certificates where dining out meant ameal we understood and enjoyed. Not something we had to ana lyze and interpret. American families interested in adopting children. Thetask ofthe Fist Full of Families campaign is to find those families, navigate the social services systems for them and get those children, many of whom are older and have spe cial needs, into the homes of adop tive parents. Think about being an organ do nor. Talk with your family about it. Many states allow you to desig nate that on your driver’s license. It will be a gift of life for someone else. Think about adopting our chil dren. It will the gift of love for our future. (Note: for information on organ donation, call The Minority Organ and Tissue Transplant Education Program (MOTTEP) at (800) 393-2839. For information on adopting African-American children, call the National Associ ation of Black Social Workers at (800) 419-1999. AUGUSTA FOCUS READ & Race does matter! White Americans enjoy racial privileges Sonny Pittman’s letter to your January 11 editorial page has left me astounded. Mr. Pittman says race has no place in the superintendent pick. He even accuses your paper of reducing the qualifications for the new school superintendent down to the issue of color. . It’s astonishing to hear a white man talk of eliminating race from anything, especially when he gave it it’s origin. If race didn’t matter as Mr. Pittman suggests, there never would have been sla very, Jim Crow laws, and racial genocide. But let’s focus on to day. If race didn’t matter, the presidency wouldn’t be 100% white, Congress wouldn’t be 92% white, judges 89%, governors 98%, mayors 89%, chief of police 98%, corporate executives 99% End discrimination Judicial decrees can “restrain the heartless” The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said that injustice any where was a threat to justice everywhere. He said this about segregation and discrimination: “Let us never succumb to the temptation of believing that leg islation and judicial decrees play only a minor role in solving this problem. Morality cannot be leg islated, but behavior can be reg ulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.” (Quota tion from Strength to Love.) What might Dr. King have said about our current treatment of the immature members of our species? ; Dr. King devoted his life to opposing the choice to discrimi nateon the basisofrace. Butone Money shuffling City readies for second bailout. After draining sls million of county waterand sewerage fund toward the “bailout” of the city water and sewerage, city “bail out” #2 is about to begin for the replacing of $1 million of general fund money (unrestricted fund) to pay FAA funds back (restrict ed funds) which the city used to purchase the Jack Bowles-Dam ascus Road property. Addition ally, the county general fund will drain at least $500,000 to tear down the buildings on this prop erty. The FAA stated that this ille gal action could mean the loss of future federal grants to the new Bone marrow-donor drives not conducted here - The Augusta area does not presently conduct bone marrow donor drives. For more informa tion, the National Marrow Do nor Program (NMDP) can be reached at 1-800-MARROW2 (1- 800-627-7692). The NMDP was created in 1987 to provide mar row transplants from volunteer unrelated donors to patients with leukemia, aplastic anemia, lymphomas and other life-threat ening diseases. Like Ms. Jack son, NMDP notes that a minori- FOCUS on the Saturday breakfast buffet at BL’s Restaurant 1117 Laney-Walker Blvd. January 18, 1996 and school board presidents 98% white. This sounds to me like there have been alot of set asides and affirmative actions. Mr. Pittman also mentions qualifications. How many school board members have college de grees? One white board member and four black. How many de grees does Augusta’s new mayor hold? Is he qualified? Or is he Jjust the right color? He wonders if Dr. King would support black people’s position. Well, he and his ilk took plenty of precautions to prevent that deci sion almost 30 years ago. As a people, we are simply meek, but no longer gullible. Rev. Willie Cook AUGUSTA week after his birthday, we ob serve the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade decision, which freed us to choose to discriminate fatally on the basis of “wantedness,” phys ical maturity, appearance, sex, health, dependence, sentience, parentage, or any other criteri on, including race, if it is done before birth. Are these criteria any less ar bitrary or subjective than race? By what logic shall we choose criteria for excluding others from the protection of the human com munity? What does the accep tance of such criteria for destruc tion say about the content of our character? S Alfred Lemmo DEARBORN, MI ly merged government. I have a news flash for the reorganized merged county government — since the local legislative delega tion failed to include in the act that “the county to receive any grants or other types of funds or revenues which the former mu nicipality was entitled to receive aswellasgrantsorother types of funds or revenues which the county is entitled to receive.” No former city of Augusta federal grants or revenues are legally required to be dispersed to the new county merged government. Mickey A. Flower AUGUSTA ty patient’s most likely match outside of the immediate family is someone of the same race. Cur rently the organization’s operat ing funds come from the Health Resources and Services Admin istration (HRSA), which is part ofthe U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Office of Naval Research provides spe cial grant funding to pay for tis sue typing of volunteer donors and forspecial projects. — Lillian Wan. 9