Yet sadly, even this modest change to the current rules has already provoked an outpouring of opposition.

The same crowd that is trying to take away collective bargaining rights in the states is opposing a modest improvement to give workers a fairer, more standardized process for voting to join a union. The opposition favors the current system in which elections are frequently delayed and often never happen. Thirty-five percent of the time that workers file a petition for a union election, the election does not occur, according to research by John-Paul Ferguson of Stanford Business School.

Sadly, this kind of opposition to unions is killing our middle class — and thus our economy.
Over the past several decades, the middle class has dramatically weakened as the rich has secured the lion’s share of the economy’s gains. The share of pretax income earned by the richest 1 percent of Americans more than doubled between 1979 and 2007, climbing to 19 percent from 9 percent, according to the most recent data available from the Congressional Budget Office. And for the richest of the rich — the top 0.1 percent — the gains have been even more astronomical — quadrupling over this period.

Over this same time period, both the share of income going to the middle class has decreased sharply – as has the percentage of workers who are unionized. Between 1979 and 2007, the share of the country’s income going to the middle class — defined as the middle 60 percent of households — dropped from 48.9 percent to 40.8 percent, as the unionization rate fell from 24 percent to 12 percent.

Without a strong middle class, our economy suffers. To grow again, our economy needs a strong middle class. And to rebuild the middle class, people need to be able to join unions.

The NLRB’s proposed rule makes relatively modest changes to standardize the union election process. The rule won’t fix every barrier facing workers trying to organize, but it’s a common-sense step to help make the union election process more democratic and restore middle-class Americans’ foothold in the economy.

Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

Today, Secretary Babbitt is back in the spotlight with an important speech about defending these lands from attack and carrying our preservation legacy forward. On this 105th anniversary of the Antiquities Act, signed by Teddy Roosevelt to protect America’s most special natural places, I hope that the President will thoughtfully consider the Secretary’s recommendations.

A first stop should be Fort Monroe. Virginia Senators Jim Webb and Mark Warner, as well as Governor Bob McDonnell, have asked to designate Fort Monroe, an important Civil War landmark once referred to as the “Gibraltar of Chesapeake Bay,” as a national monument. The Fort will be decommissioned in the fall, and designating the post as a National Monument will ensure that the post is preserved for public use for many years to come.

But that’s just the first step. Public lands are about far more than stewardship; they also help revitalize and strengthen local communities. In Utah, the counties surrounding Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument have seen strong economic growth since the designation in 1996: 38 percent growth in jobs and 30 percent growth in per-capita income. Fort Monroe would similarly benefit, as would many other sites around the country. For the sake of communities like these, and the sake of our national heritage, it is critical that we continue to make preservation a priority going forward.

Full text of Secretary Babbitt’s speech:

Secretary Bruce Babbitt

Speech at the National Press Club

Washington, DC

June 8, 2011

Good afternoon.

It is now more than ten years since I left public office. I am returning to the public stage today because I believe that this Congress, in its assaults on our environment, has embarked on the most radical course in our history. The Congress, led by the House of Representatives, has declared war on our land, water and natural resources. And it is time for those of us who support our conservation tradition to raise our voices on behalf of the American people.

It is clear to me that the House of Representatives will not only block progress, but will continue to sustain an assault on our public lands and water. Therefore, it is imperative that President Obama take up the mantle of land and water conservation – something that he has not yet done in a significant way. President Obama and the Executive Branch are the best, and likely only, hope for meaningful progress on this critical issue.

So I am here today to call on the President to lead us in standing up to the radical agenda of the House of Representatives, and to replace their draconian agenda with a bold conservation vision.

The opening salvos in this war were fired in April, when the new Congress enacted a budget measure, called a Continuing Resolution, to appropriate funding for the balance of this fiscal year. Beneath the cover of that budget process, however, the House leadership inserted unrelated “riders” to begin dismantling our environmental laws.

Here are three examples of these “riders.”

– In the April resolution, the Congress removed the grey wolf from the Endangered Species list. The restoration of the grey wolf to Yellowstone and our northern forests was an historic achievement, now threatened by this Congress.

– In the April budget resolution, the Congress terminated an Administration program to rebuild our depleted ocean fisheries. The program, called “catch shares” was amazingly successful in restoring fish populations and providing fishing jobs and was on the way to becoming the most innovative environmental initiative of the Obama Administration.

– In the April budget resolution, Congress axed an initiative by the Secretary of the Interior to identify and maintain the natural character of our most important remaining undesignated public lands.

Viewed singly, in isolation from one another, these rider provisions might not appear to justify my characterization of this Congress as the most radical in history. Yet viewing them together, along with pending legislative proposals, a larger outline emerges. It is a pattern of a broad, sustained assault on nearly all our environmental laws.

The intent is to chip away, a blow at a time, at the edifice of environmental laws and regulations, avoiding a frontal assault that would call attention to the overall objective.

To illustrate, I would like today to single out for discussion, just one such area, and that is the public land laws that are so meaningful to me as a westerner and that are so much a part of our great American heritage.

The best place to observe what is happening is by reference with our two great public laws, the Antiquities Act of 1906 and the Wilderness Act of 1964.

The Antiquities Act is a great American innovation. It was enacted into law in 1906 on June 8th, the very date on which I am making these remarks. It was sponsored by a Republican Congressman and signed by a Republican President, Theodore Roosevelt.

Way then, more than a hundred years ago, the sponsor, Representative John Lacey (R-IA), made this observation: “The immensity of man’s power to destroy imposes a responsibility to preserve.”

Since then the Act has been used by nearly every President, laying the foundation for many of our best known National Parks and other protected areas.

President Clinton used the Antiquities Act to establish the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument, a widely acclaimed decision.

President George W. Bush used the Act to protect the marine reefs and waters of the Northwest Hawaiian Islands, the largest area ever set aside under the Act. The radical leaders of the House voiced few objections to that action by their President, perhaps because oil and gas companies have evinced little interest in the Islands.

This past April, a House rider to gut the Antiquities Act failed by a mere four votes. Now that the public has been awakened, I doubt that Congressional leaders will try another frontal attack.

However, what they are continuing to do is to chip away with piecemeal bills and amendments some of which will likely be transmuted into budget riders during the course of the summer in budget negotiations.

Here are a few examples. Congressman Rehberg (R-MT) has introduced legislation to exempt Montana from the Antiquities Act and Congressman Labrador (R-ID) to exempt Idaho. Similar legislation was introduced in the Senate to exempt Nevada.

Perhaps the ultimate objective of these piecemeal attacks is best revealed by a bill introduced by Representative Rob Bishop of Utah and others that would amend the United States Constitution to grant states the power to nullify Federal law.

The Wilderness Act of 1964 is the other great, generic public land law of our Nation. The National Wilderness Preservation System, with units established by Congress in virtually every state in the Union, is an enduring achievement of many successive Congresses.

The radical leaders of the House, however, are relentlessly attempting to chip away at this law as well. Not only are certain members of congress prohibiting any new Wilderness designations, a bill recently introduced in both houses by Senator Barrasso (R-WY) and Congressman McCarthy (R-CA) would eliminate our nation’s Wilderness Study Areas – millions of acres no longer protected for conservation. In addition it would remove protections for National Forest Roadless Areas – watersheds that provide our drinking water, and protect the best fish and game habitat in the West. In total, this extreme bill would undo protections for more than 40 million acres of public land.

As these attacks escalate the urgent question for those of us who support and advocate for our conservation tradition is how to respond.

One alternative is to lie low, hoping that this storm will soon pass by without too much lasting damage.

Failure to respond, however, is a form of appeasement that has not worked in the past and it will not work this time. Our adversaries prefer to operate in the shadows, outside the sunshine generated by public knowledge and participation. For our opponents know that when anti-environmentalism becomes a public issue they will lose. They know that American support for our environmental heritage is wide and deep.

We made the appeasement mistake when I was Secretary. Back in 1995, another Congress, in thrall to then House Speaker Gingrich, inserted a “salvage rider” to increase logging in our National Forests onto an appropriations bill. Pressured by the timber industry and the House leadership, we capitulated and President Clinton signed the bill with the rider intact.

It was a big mistake that set off a prolonged and destructive episode in the history of our National Forests.

We did learn from that experience however. President Clinton vowed to veto any additional anti-environmental riders. The Congress, aware that when the President commands the high ground, he will carry public opinion, backed off. We did not face another rider crisis.

I’m not here, however, to dwell on the past. I am here to look forward. To sound the alarm about the assault on our natural resources by the Republicans in Congress, and also to remind the President that he has the power, the responsibility and the public support to stand up to those who would destroy our heritage.

The current debt limit and budget negotiations will provide President Obama an opportunity to demonstrate that he has learned from the events of April. He should stand strong against environmental riders, in whatever guise, whether legislative amendments, funding moratoria, or limitations on agency initiatives.

Drawing a line against riders is a good beginning. However, we cannot measure conservation progress by the number of bad ideas that are blocked. We should measure progress in healthy rivers and streams, forests protected, species saved and restored, wilderness areas added and national monuments created.

The Antiquities Act is a good place for this Administration to begin building a conservation legacy. The Antiquities Act is a remarkable conservation tool that has been used to protect renowned areas including Grand Canyon, Zion, Olympic National Park and Joshua Tree National Park. It was used extensively by President Obama’s immediate predecessors. President Clinton used the Act to establish the Grand Staircase and more than twenty other Monuments. President George W. Bush set aside a larger area than any of his predecessors –the marine reefs and waters of the Northwest Hawaiian Islands.

The Antiquities Act has, for more than a hundred years, granted the President authority to establish National Monuments. Monuments should be established through a process of public consultation both local and national, with a chance for all to be heard. But that process cannot begin until the Administration puts forth specific proposals for public consideration.

There are numerous proposals, and many important cultural, historical and environmental sites are awaiting protection. Many of these proposals have wide public support, including the endorsement of members of Congress from the areas in question.

The best way to defend the Antiquities Act is for the President to use it.

The Wilderness Act is also in need of more vigorous advocacy from its friends, including the Administration.

The critics who complain that we already have too much Wilderness have it all wrong. We have too little designated Wilderness.

Here are some facts: the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) administers more than 250 million acres of public land. More than 41 million acres of that land is leased for oil and gas. To date only 9 million acres of public land managed by the BLM has been designated as Wilderness. It is past time to bring some balance back to the public lands with the creation of more Wilderness Areas.

The designation of Wilderness is a Congressional prerogative. And every member of Congress, from whatever part of the country, has an equal voice and vote in designating Wilderness. For the public lands, wherever located, are the common patrimony of this nation, belonging to each and every citizen of this country.

President Obama should call upon the Congress to expand the National Wilderness Preservation System. A good place to begin is with the wilderness bills already introduced, most of them by members of Congress from the states where the lands are located.

And the President should remind the Congress that where wilderness legislation is being bottled up by an intransigent few, that he has the power to designate those areas as National Monuments, a designation which can carry protection comparable to a Wilderness designation.

By voicing his willingness to use the Antiquities Act as an alternative to Wilderness designation, the President can bring Congress to the table to work out conservation measures acceptable to reasonable stakeholders. President Clinton used the Antiquities Act in this fashion to work with the Congress, and it produced good results in such places as Steens Mountain in Oregon, the Colorado Canyons, the San Jacinto Mountains and Otay Mountain in California and Las Cienegas in Arizona, among others.

We also need to hear this Administration in support of protection for our ocean resources. For too long the beauty and diversity and productivity of ocean life and fisheries has been taken for granted, as limitless and beyond destruction. That is no longer the case. Every day we are learning more of the impending destruction of coral reef systems and declining productivity of our oceans.

This Administration has frequently spoken of the need for responsible expansion of offshore oil exploration and production.

Well and good, but we have not heard equally strong support for enhanced conservation and protection of the most important places in our offshore waters and along our coastlines.

The link between offshore oil and the imperative for conservation of our natural resources was recognized by the Congress more than fifty years ago by creating the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). LWCF is based on a simple idea: use revenues from the depletion of one natural resource- offshore oil and gas—to support the conservation of another precious resource -our land and water.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has made a strong and continuing effort to persuade Congress to fund the LWCF at the level originally intended by Congress. He needs the President’s firm support in budget negotiations to assure adequate permanent funding.

The most important place to demonstrate Administration leadership for mitigating the impacts of offshore drilling is in Alaska. Offshore drilling in Arctic waters poses high risks that must be mitigated with strong conservation measures.

Bristol Bay, the passageway for the myriad salmon runs that travel through the rivers system of Alaska is the greatest and most productive fishery on the planet. President Obama should use the Antiquities Act to designate the federal waters of Bristol Bay, as a National Monument, permanently off limits to oil and gas.

And as the Administration opens the western Arctic slope lands to oil and gas leasing, there will be another opportunity to strike a balance between oil production and wildlife conservation. More leasing and drilling on the Arctic slope should await and be conditioned upon passage of legislation establishing protected shoreline areas and wetland regions in the far western Arctic frontier, including breeding and migration corridors for the fabled western Arctic caribou herds.

There is no issue as lasting or as worthy as the preservation of our natural and cultural heritage. Theodore Roosevelt, more than a hundred years ago, put it this way: “We have fallen heir to the most glorious heritage a people ever received, and each one must do his part to show that the nation is worthy of its good fortune.”

Mr. President, America’s great outdoors is under attack as never before. We need you to stand up to this assault as only the President can. You will have the lasting gratitude of the American people for generations to come.

Center for American Progress Action Fund CEO John Podesta and Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA)

Republicans are holding needed middle-class tax cuts hostage in order to give the richest two percent of Americans bonus tax relief in 2011. Republican leaders like to trot out the argument that extension of cuts for the wealthiest is an important tool that will help create jobs.

It’s not. It’s TARP 2, or more Tax Assistance for Rich People. And their rote rhetoric does not obscure the fact that CBO’s analysis of tax policies ranked tax cuts for the wealthiest dead last in terms of its potential to stimulate job growth. It is a highly inefficient, and devastatingly expensive, way to attempt to spur job growth and help our economy’s nascent recovery.

As the White House staff settles on a strategy for the tax cut debate, they should consider an idea put forward by Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA). He has suggested that rather than extending the tax cuts for the top two percent, Congress consider a number of business tax cuts that would be far more likely to spur job creation and more sustained economic growth. He proposed a range of possible business tax cuts to create jobs, but my favorite is a temporary tax credit against payroll taxes. That is a direct way to reduce the costs of businesses hiring new workers, and I hope the White House includes this idea in whatever proposal it puts forward for consideration at next week’s bipartisan Congressional meeting.

The kinds of ideas put forward by Sen. Warner combined with middle class tax cuts and extending unemployment insurance are far sounder as temporary measures to aid economic recovery compared to Republicans’ push to make all the Bush tax cuts permanent. We obviously cannot afford to do that, but as a temporary measure to help American workers and our economy there are better measures than TARP 2 bonuses for millionaires.

Since Joe Lieberman demanded stripping the public option and Medicare buy-in provisions from the merged Senate bill, some strong progressives like Howard Dean have argued that without a public option or a Medicare buy-in provision, the bill is a giveaway to private insurers and should be killed. Other progressive leaders like Senators Jay Rockefeller, Tom Harkin and Sherrod Brown believe that the bill represents the best chance for passing health care reform in the foreseeable future. “I’m going to vote for it,” Brown told reporters. “I can’t imagine I wouldn’t. I mean there’s too much at stake.”

Change of the magnitude envisioned by health care reformers does not come easily. There have been many frustrations and there will be more. But, as a senior White House staffer with a ringside seat for the slow death of comprehensive care in 1994, I am keenly aware of the real alternative to the bills now before us: millions more Americans without health care and billions more for health care spending as the same challenges President Clinton tried to resolve continue to metastasize unchecked.

So while I have great respect for Governor Dean, and we have worked together to provide the strongest health care reform bill for the American people, I come down on the side of the Senate passing the bill.

Here’s why:

The Senate health care bill is not without its problems. But if enacted, it would represent the most significant public reform of our health care system that Congress has passed in the 40 plus years I have worked in politics. The bill will give health care coverage to a record 31 million Americans who are currently uninsured, lay a foundation that will begin to lower costs for millions of families, and provide all Americans with the access to adequate and dependable coverage when they need it most.

All of us are anxious to see the final language from the Senate. And a final bill must ensure that the subsidies provided are sufficient to make insurance truly affordable for working families. But based on what we know, here are my top ten reasons for why progressives should support the Senate passing the bill:

1. Largest Expansion Of Coverage Since Medicare’s Creation: Thirty-one million previously uninsured Americans will have insurance.

2. Low/Middle Income Americans Will Not Go Without Coverage: For low-income Americans struggling near the poverty line, the bill represents the largest single expansion of Medicaid since its inception. Combined with subsidies for middle income families, the bill’s provisions will ensure that working class Americans will no longer go without basic health care coverage.

3. Insurance Companies Will Never Be Able to Drop or Deny You Coverage Because You Are Sick: Insurers can no longer deny coverage because of a pre-existing condition. They can’t rescind coverage or impose lifetime or annual limits on care. Significantly, the bill also ends insurer discrimination against women — who currently pay as much as 48% more for coverage than men — and gives them access preventive services with no cost sharing.

4. Lowers Premiums For Families: The Senate bill could lower premiums for the overall population by 8.4%. For the subsidized population, premiums would decrease even more dramatically. According to the CBO, “the amount that subsidized enrollees would pay for non-group coverage would be roughly 56 percent to 59 percent lower, on average than the nongroup premiums charged under current law.”

5. Invests in Keeping People Healthy: The bill creates a Prevention and Public Health Fund to expand and sustain funding for public prevention programs that prevent disease and promote wellness.

6. Insurers Can’t Offer Subprime Health Care: Insurers operating in the individual and small group markets will no longer sell subprime policies that deny coverage when illness strikes and you need it most. Everyone will be offered an essential benefits package of comprehensive benefits.

7. Helps Businesses Afford Coverage: Small employers can take advantage of large risk pools by purchasing coverage through the bill’s state-based exchanges. Employers with no more than 25 employees would receive a tax credit to help them provide coverage to their employees. The bill also establishes a temporary reinsurance program for employers providing coverage to retirees over the age of 55 who are not eligible for Medicare.

8. Improves Medicare: The bill eliminates the waste and fraud in the Medicare system, gets rid of the special subsidy to private insurers participating in Medicare Advantage and extends the life of the Medicare trust fund by 9 years. It also closes the doughnut hole that affected 3.4 million seniors enrolled in Medicare Part D in 2008.

9. Reduces The Deficit: Not only would the bill expand coverage to 30 million Americans without adding to the nation debt, it would also reduce the deficit by up to $409 billion over 10 years.

10. Reduces National Health Spending: A CAP-Commonwealth Fund analysis concludes the bill could reduce overall spending by close to $683 billion over 10 years – with the potential to save families $2,500. Even the most conservative government estimates conclude that the bill would reduce national health care expenditures by at least 0.3% by 2019.

Change of the magnitude envisioned by health care reformers does not come easily. There have been many frustrations and there will be more. But, as a senior White House staffer with a ringside seat for the slow death of comprehensive care in 1994, I am keenly aware of the real alternative to the bills now before us: millions more Americans without health care and billions more for health care spending as the same challenges President Clinton tried to resolve continue to metastasize unchecked.

So while I have great respect for Governor Dean, and we have worked together to provide the strongest health care reform bill for the American people, I come down on the side of the Senate passing the bill.

Here’s why:

The Senate health care bill is not without its problems. But if enacted, it would represent the most significant public reform of our health care system that Congress has passed in the 40 plus years I have worked in politics. The bill will give health care coverage to a record 31 million Americans who are currently uninsured, lay a foundation that will begin to lower costs for millions of families, and provide all Americans with the access to adequate and dependable coverage when they need it most.

All of us are anxious to see the final language from the Senate. And a final bill must ensure that the subsidies provided are sufficient to make insurance truly affordable for working families. But based on what we know, here are my top ten reasons for why progressives should support the Senate passing the bill:

1. Largest Expansion Of Coverage Since Medicare’s Creation: Thirty-one million previously uninsured Americans will have insurance.

2. Low/Middle Income Americans Will Not Go Without Coverage: For low-income Americans struggling near the poverty line, the bill represents the largest single expansion of Medicaid since its inception. Combined with subsidies for middle income families, the bill’s provisions will ensure that working class Americans will no longer go without basic health care coverage.

3. Insurance Companies Will Never Be Able to Drop or Deny You Coverage Because You Are Sick: Insurers can no longer deny coverage because of a pre-existing condition. They can’t rescind coverage or impose lifetime or annual limits on care. Significantly, the bill also ends insurer discrimination against women — who currently pay as much as 48% more for coverage than men — and gives them access preventive services with no cost sharing.

4. Lowers Premiums For Families: The Senate bill could lower premiums for the overall population by 8.4%. For the subsidized population, premiums would decrease even more dramatically. According to the CBO, “the amount that subsidized enrollees would pay for non-group coverage would be roughly 56 percent to 59 percent lower, on average than the nongroup premiums charged under current law.”

5. Invests in Keeping People Healthy: The bill creates a Prevention and Public Health Fund to expand and sustain funding for public prevention programs that prevent disease and promote wellness.

6. Insurers Can’t Offer Subprime Health Care: Insurers operating in the individual and small group markets will no longer sell subprime policies that deny coverage when illness strikes and you need it most. Everyone will be offered an essential benefits package of comprehensive benefits.

7. Helps Businesses Afford Coverage: Small employers can take advantage of large risk pools by purchasing coverage through the bill’s state-based exchanges. Employers with no more than 25 employees would receive a tax credit to help them provide coverage to their employees. The bill also establishes a temporary reinsurance program for employers providing coverage to retirees over the age of 55 who are not eligible for Medicare.

8. Improves Medicare: The bill eliminates the waste and fraud in the Medicare system, gets rid of the special subsidy to private insurers participating in Medicare Advantage and extends the life of the Medicare trust fund by 9 years. It also closes the doughnut hole that affected 3.4 million seniors enrolled in Medicare Part D in 2008.

9. Reduces The Deficit: Not only would the bill expand coverage to 30 million Americans without adding to the nation debt, it would also reduce the deficit by up to $409 billion over 10 years.

10. Reduces National Health Spending: A CAP-Commonwealth Fund analysis concludes the bill could reduce overall spending by close to $683 billion over 10 years – with the potential to save families $2,500. Even the most conservative government estimates conclude that the bill would reduce national health care expenditures by at least 0.3% by 2019.

The purpose of our September 23 piece was to emphasize the importance of climate change in advance of the G20 meetings and encourage the world’s top emitters to seize an important opportunity to take concrete steps to move forward in advance of December’s summit. It is not news that the divide between the unwieldy groups of developed and developing countries have stalled climate talks in the past and that they are drifting again. It is, however, noteworthy that major emitters have recently utilized new channels — the Administration’s Major Economies Forum, for example, as well as the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue — to lay the groundwork for a new climate agreement in Copenhagen. We think this is an important development and should be pursued whenever opportunities, like this week’s summit, arise. Our piece urged leaders at the G20 to pursue concrete actions prior to Copenhagen on issues such as financing arrangements, technology cooperation, and deforestation prevention to increase the chances of success in December.

Even in the midst of global economic crisis, climate change has remained at the top of the agenda both in the United States and in key countries around the world. There is broad consensus that the effects of climate change are not only real, but will be devastating to developed and developing countries alike if the international community fails to agree on a global emissions reduction strategy soon. The road ahead is not without obstacles, which our piece pointed out. But the fate of Copenhagen is far from sealed — and it is my strong belief that the Obama Administration is committed to doing all it can to lead the world into a low-carbon, clean energy future.

Once again, Mick Jagger is right: “You can’t always get what you want/ But if you try, sometimes you just might find/ You get what you need.” The House of Representatives is poised for its first ever floor debate on legislation to reduce global warming pollution. This landmark bill is revolutionary in its intent and, while imperfect in its means, deserves the support of progressives.

For about the cost of a postage stamp per day, the bill would lay the foundation for a thriving clean energy economy, by establishing greenhouse gas pollution limits, setting the first national renewable electricity and efficiency standards for utilities, and improving efficiency standards for buildings and appliances.

The original draft included a more aggressive 2020 greenhouse gas reduction target and a higher renewable electricity standard, which if restored would create more clean energy jobs than the current compromise.

Unfortunately, Senate passage of similar legislation will be more difficult, and the Senate Energy Committee is off to an inauspicious beginning by passing an energy bill that would do little to boost investments in renewable electricity. The Senate bill is weak, toothless, and unacceptable.

The Congressional will to act lags far behind the scientific evidence that there is little time left to avert the worst impacts of global warming. But passage of the American Clean Energy and Security Act this week by the House will give us a chance to start the critical transition to a low-carbon economy.

Today was an emotional moment for me and for the rest of our delegation. There is so much pain in Rwanda’s past, and out of that pain has come a society that is committed to reconciliation. They are trying to move forward together. This was one of the most powerful experiences I have had in any place. Out of the pain has come great hope. The people are trying to build a new country, where people live together in peace.

It’s wonderful to see this. And it is bringing new hope for the future.

Rwanda has a 2020 plan, to have growth be widespread and successful by the year 2020. We’ve seen a spirit of entrepreneurship today. We saw women sorting coffee and farmers with their specialty crops. In talking with them, there is a lot of spirit and optimism. Grow new opportunities. Put kids in school. Move forward as one country.

The people of America ought to be proud of what’s happened here and our support for the people who have come so far so fast. We’ve helped through USAID with the development of new industry and new entrepreneurs. PEPFAR is making a major difference in fighting AIDS and HIV. There’s still a lot to do, and we can help.

For more coverage of the visit, click here.

Elizabeth is truly a remarkable, dynamic and courageous woman. From her life story, we know that, above all, she is a survivor and a person of deep moral conviction.

Her grace and strength through this battle will continue to serve as an inspiration to us all.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the Edwards family.

To this day, Rove has maintained his security clearance in spite of evidence that he mishandled classified information regarding Valerie Wilson’s position at the CIA. Rove was named as in the indictment of Scooter Libby as “Official A.”

An Executive Order 12958, signed by President Clinton in 1995, states disclosure of an undercover agent is grounds for, at a minimum, losing access to classified information:

Section 5.1: Violation means: any knowing, willful, or negligent action that could reasonably be expected to result in an unauthorized disclosure of classified information.

Section 5.7.d: The agency head, senior agency official, or other supervisory official shall, at a minimum, promptly remove the classification authority of any individual who demonstrates reckless disregard or a pattern of error in applying the classification standards of this order.

In November, Newsweek wrote, “Having his security clearance yanked would not require Rove to resign as deputy chief of staff to President Bush. But it would prevent him from taking part in policymaking that relates to national-security issues, which would mean a much-reduced role in the Bush White House.”

Rove has now resigned his policy-making post and is focusing primarily on politics. Given Rove’s public intentions to make national security the focus of the 2006 elections, the White House should reveal whether Rove will be doing his political job while holding a security clearance.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert has decided to mark the season by loudly insisting that the Capitol’s decorated spruce be called a “Christmas tree,” as opposed to a “Holiday tree.” He is right on this point. It is a Christmas tree. And while the Speaker may consider his action a “work,” the message of Jesus means more.

If Speaker Hastert really wants to put Christ back into Christmas, he should start by joining a long list of religious leaders in supporting a budget that isn’t balanced on the back of the poorest and most vulnerable.

Before the House went on Thanksgiving break, it passed $50 billion in spending cuts that target millions of poor and working-class Americans. The budget’s Medicaid provisions “would allow state governments to impose co-payments even on the poorest beneficiaries for emergency room visits for non-emergency health problems and for drug prescriptions not on a list of preferred treatments.” The Congressional Budget Office estimated the House bill “would cut food stamp benefits by about $45 a month for 225,000 people” and that 40,000 children would lose their eligibility for free meals at school. At the same time, conservatives are seeking to “extend several of Mr. Bush’s biggest tax cuts, including those on stock dividends and capital gains” — over half of the benefits from those cuts go to people earning over $1 million per year.

Hastert should heed the true spirit of Christ by caring for the vulnerable. As Jesus reminds us in Luke 4:18-20, by following his example we can “bring good news to the poor.”

In his confirmation hearing, John Roberts affirmed the right to privacy, agreed with the conclusion of Griswold, and told the Judiciary Committee that he considered Roe v. Wade “settled as a precedent.”

There is much in Harriet Miers’ record to suggest she fell to the right of Roberts’ on the question of abortion rights. She does not consider Griswold settled law and had a record of supporting anti-choice causes.

John Roberts was enthusiastically embraced by right-wing conservatives eager to overturn Roe v. Wade. Harriet Miers was vilified by the exact same people.

Harriet Miers’ nomination has always been controversial, but it was not until comments from a 1993 speech surfaced where she said she believed in “self-determination” that Miers was presumably forced to withdraw.

It is clear that, absent an unambiguous pledge to overturn Roe, the right holds women nominees to a different standard. They do it because they fear a woman justice will feel empathy towards other women making the agonizing choice of whether to have an abortion. They fear that a woman justice would not be willing to use criminal sanctions to regulate other women’s decisions.

No nominee should be subject to a litmus test, especially one that discriminates based on gender.

The truth hurts. More than 60 U.S. troops have died in Iraq since President Bush went on vacation. Iraq’s interim government has twice missed the deadline for presenting a constitution. The current draft of the constitution not only threatens to create an illiberal Shia theocracy that doesn’t respect the rights of women and religious minorities, but also risks intensifying the current undeclared sectarian civil war. And the president’s approval rating has dropped to an all-time low of 36 percent – lower than Richard Nixon’s approval rating at the height of Watergate. Cindy Sheehan is not the only American who thinks that things aren’t going so well in Iraq.

The White House’s solution to its problems? Sending the president to the friendly environs of Utah and Idaho and putting its spinmeister Dan Bartlett on television to simply insist that “we have the right strategy to prevail.”

As a former White House chief of staff, I can say that the most important duty of a senior advisor is not to say “yes, sir,” but to honestly present the facts and the options available to the country. If the president’s advisors can’t confront the truth or don’t have the courage to tell the president the truth, they shouldn’t have taken the job in the first place.

Instead of spending time plotting motorcade routes to avoid Cindy Sheehan protests, the president’s advisors should be spending their time laying out the situation on the ground and the impact the war is having on terrorist networks, regional stability, sectarian conflict within Iraq, our overstretched ground forces, and U.S. security.

The Center for American Progress has drafted a memo that outlines the facts and challenges in Iraq. This is the memo that the White House Iraq Group should – but probably won’t – send the president.

Read it here.

We can all get off ours and sign up for the virtual march. Please join the effort.

Donald Duck and friends are being drawn into an unusual showdown between Western sensitivities and Chinese tradition, setting off a debate that has this city buzzing.

It all began when Hong Kong Disneyland, a new theme park scheduled to open on Sept. 12, announced that it would serve shark’s fin soup – a chewy, sinewy, stringy dish that has been a Chinese favorite for two centuries.

But plans for the culinary delicacy, to be served at wedding banquets, have drawn an outraged response from environmentalists. They say that so many sharks wind up floating in soup these days that there are not enough left swimming in the world’s oceans.

If this concerns you, T-shirts are available:

In this simmering shark-eat-shark dispute, one group, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, has printed T-shirts showing Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck brandishing knives and leering sadistically over three bleeding sharks that have lost their fins.

In the past, some in Congress have viewed “bankruptcy reform” as an easy “pro-business” vote that won’t really hurt working families and won’t matter to Americans anyway.

That’s wrong on all accounts. Proponents say the bill will stop bankruptcy abuse, but the bill lets the biggest and wealthiest abusers off the hook. Even more important–and this is the point proponents are hoping to obscure–the bill does nothing to address why millions of middle-class Americans are going broke in record numbers. In fact, the bill makes life tougher on families who have done everything right but suffered because of structural problems in our economy.

If progressives press these points, Americans will see the fight over bankruptcy reform for what it is: a struggle between progressives defending families who play by the rules and conservatives standing with wealthy individuals and corporations that break those rules.

The Policy

The bankruptcy bill symbolizes much of what’s wrong with Washington today.

1. Manufacturing a crisis. Why are we even talking about this? We’ve seen the Bush Administration inflate the fiscal challenge facing Social Security into a crisis in order to justify a pre-existing agenda. The same has happened with bankruptcy. Advocates of bankruptcy “reform” point to “a crisis of both real and perceived abuse in the bankruptcy system.” (Testimony of Todd Zywicki, Senate Judiciary Committee). But they offer zero hard evidence of the abuse crisis. In fact, the vast majority of families go into bankruptcy because they’ve run out of money for reasons that aren’t their fault. According to a study supported by the American Bankruptcy Institute, 96.3% of people filing for chapter 7 relief just don’t have the money to pay their debts, even under an onerous means test. Half of families filing for bankruptcy have faced illness or high medical costs; nearly 9 out of 10 have faced health care problems, job loss, or divorce and separation. Most of these families have done everything they can to avoid bankruptcy–they’ve skipped doctor’s visits or prescriptions, for example, and a third have had their utilities shut off. As to the “perceived abuse” crisis, we are aware of no data suggesting that the American people are clamoring for this “reform.” Americans see a very real health care crisis that Congress shows little interest in addressing. When people worry about bankruptcy abuse, they worry most about abuses by fat cats that this bill doesn’t even tackle.

2. Ignoring the real crisis. As we all understand, the Bush solution to the Social Security “crisis”–privatization–doesn’t address real challenges like the Social Security shortfall and America’s low savings rate. The same is true here. The real bankruptcy challenge isn’t the 4 percent of debtors who abuse the system. The real crisis is the 96 percent who are broke when they file for bankruptcy. Two million Americans go bankrupt every year–1 every 15 seconds. If current trends continue, 1 in 7 families with children will go bankrupt by the end of the decade. These rising bankruptcy levels directly correlate with rising levels of consumer debt. And those rising debt levels in turn reflect a tectonic shift in our economy–away from a time when families could afford to save, and into a time when their wages are stagnant (+12% since 1978) but the costs of their health premiums (+163% since 1988), their tuitions (+170% since 1978), their mortgages, and their child care have risen dramatically. Because of all these trends, families stand on a precipice, and one sickness or pink slip sends them off the cliff, with no safety net below. Shutting down access to bankruptcy courts of course does absolutely nothing to address these challenges. As Elizabeth Warren has noted, it is like responding to a disease epidemic by shutting down the hospitals.

While conservatives press ugly and inaccurate stereotypes about the “deadbeats” who typically go broke, progressives should tell the truth about an economy that no longer works for the middle class. And while conservatives may want to shut down the hospitals, progressives seek to cure the disease by supporting health reform, help paying for college, and measures to create good middle-class jobs again.

3. Visiting the sins of a few abusers on millions of decent Americans. The central feature of the bill is a “means test” that would require borrowers seeking to discharge their unsecured debts in a chapter 7 bankruptcy to demonstrate their inability to pay. This sounds well and good–why shouldn’t abusers have to pay? But two federal commissions to study bankruptcy reform have rejected this approach for sound reasons. Under this bill, even the 96% of debtors who cannot pay would be required to pass a complicated test with multiple new forms. A credit card company seeking to recover a few extra dollars would be able to trigger a special new hearing. (Apparently, extending litigation is acceptable to the Bush Administration, as long as the parties extending it are mostly corporate creditors.) The result would be high new legal costs and heavy burdens for people with pennies to their names. Because of problems in the test–for example, a rigid method of calculating income based only on the prior six months of work–some people who deserve relief won’t be able to get it at all. In the end, the means-test will raise only modest sums from abusers, but will impose heavy new burdens on families already facing severe hardships.

Make no mistake: Abuse of the bankruptcy system is wrong, and we should support sensible reforms to stop it, from shutting down the homestead exemption to ending repeat filings designed to game the system. But as 92 law professors recently wrote, “this bill seeks to shoot a mosquito with a shotgun.” Hard-working families are standing behind that mosquito.

4. Want to talk about real abuses by the wealthy? No. The worst abuses of the bankruptcy system go unaddressed by this bill. In five states, multimillionaires can go into bankruptcy and keep their mansions because of unlimited homestead exemptions. This bill imposes some new limits on the homestead exemption, but rich people with good lawyers who plan ahead will be able to avoid those limits. The simple solution–capping the exemption–isn’t included in the bill. Just yesterday, the New York Times reported on how five states allow wealthy individuals to set up “asset protection trusts” that can’t be touched in bankruptcy. This bill does nothing to close this millionaire’s loophole either. And then there are the corporations that have used bankruptcy protection to slash the pensions and benefits of long-time employees, even as executives have walked away with sweetheart severance packages. Senator Richard Durbin offered an amendment in the Judiciary Committee to give bankruptcy courts more power to deal with these abuses, but it was also voted down.

Progressives should highlight the message of this bill: If you are a wealthy homeowner or a corporate insider and you can afford a good lawyer, it’s business as usual. But if you are a single mother who just lost her health care, watch out.

5. Rewarding Wrongdoing. We know the biggest winner from bankruptcy reform: the credit card industry. According to a Morgan Stanley Dean Witter analysis in 2001, credit card companies would gain up to 5% in profits from this legislation. (Profits are now $30 billion per year. You do the math.) Yet these same companies have played an integral role in triggering the rise of bankruptcy filings. As several studies have shown, consumer borrowing and consumer bankruptcy increased following a 1978 Supreme Court decision that effectively eliminated states’ ability to regulate credit card interest rates. The pricing structure now used by the credit industry–few up-front charges and enormous fees, penalties, and interest payments when balances are carried or payments missed–is designed to yield as much money as possible from families who are already at the financial edge. The credit card industry mails out an astonishing 5 billion solicitations per year, many targeted at minors with no jobs or income. Some practices of the credit card industry violate basic norms of fairness: for example, companies will now triple interest rates on existing debt based on missed payments to other creditors. (You put the $1000 fridge on the credit card at 12%, but now they are charging 35% on that $1000.) The bill does nothing to rein in any of these practices, nor even to impose the most elemental disclosure requirements. The Senate just rejected Daniel Akaka’s sensible proposal to tell customers how much they will need to spend if they make only minimum payments on their credit card bill.

Instead of taking on the abuses of credit card companies, this bill will encourage further abuse by allowing those companies to squeeze a few more dimes out of struggling families. Progressives should be pointing out the injustice of rewarding the credit industry for bad behavior. This really is Washington at its worst.

Bankruptcy Reform in Larger Context

The debate over bankruptcy reform also offers an opportunity for progressives to stand up for working-class Americans, particularly women. Forty percent of families filing for bankruptcy are in the second income quintile that is above the poverty level but still struggling. Women with children are especially hard hit by bankruptcy. More than one out of every six mothers will go bankrupt by the end of the decade, and families with children are about three times more likely to file for bankruptcy than households without children. Proponents of the bill are doing a great job representing the interests of credit card companies. Progressives need to speak up for the interests of these working class women and families.

Bankruptcy reform can speak to these Americans. Progressives can stand up for the burdened middle class who continue to feel squeezed by this economy, and expose the real agenda of conservatives that support this bill — to aid highly profitable credit card companies, not squeezed middle class Americans.

The basic things expected by our people of their political and economic systems are simple. They are:

Equality of opportunity for youth and for others.

Jobs for those who can work.

Security for those who need it.

The ending of special privilege for the few.

The preservation of civil liberties for all.

The enjoyment of the fruits of scientific progress in a wider and constantly rising standard of living.

These are the simple, the basic things that must never be lost sight of in the turmoil and unbelievable complexity of our modern world.

I was there in the Clinton White House. Let me tell you what actually happened. President Clinton enacted fiscally responsible policies that strengthened Social Security and kept it solvent for more years than anyone thought possible. He made it very clear to the Congress and conservatives there who wanted to send surpluses on tax cuts that we had a moral obligation to “save Social Security first.” That’s what we did.

President Bush has pursued the opposite policy: raid Social Security first. In the first term, he squandered two trillion dollars of the surplus on tax cuts for the wealthy. Now he wants to take us two trillion more dollars into debt to pay for the dismantling of Social Security.

As President Clinton himself was fond of saying — “Mr. President, that dog won’t hunt.”