Dear Democratic Friends
REDISTRICTING FOR JAMES CITY COUNTY—IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM JIM ICENHOUR
That giant sucking sound you may have heard today was the credibility of the James City County Board of Supervisors and its Citizen Redistricting Committee going down the toilet.
At its initial meeting Thursday night the redistricting committee was presented a proposed redistricting map by professional Republican operative Jeff Ryer. In a truly astonishing display of arrogance, this "citizen" committee then voted 6 to 4 to deny its fellow citizens immediate access to that map - saying that it might be released at some unspecified future time when all sorts of "technical" issues were resolved.
Today John McGlennon and I tried in vain to get our fellow supervisors to reverse that committee decision and post the map on the county website, but Supervisors Jones, Goodson and Kennedy adamantly refused. So much for openness and transparency in local government. So effective this afternoon I made the map available to the public on my website: www.jimicenhour.com. The map was also sent to the Virginia Gazette and the Williamsburg Yorktown Daily and may be available on their websites soon.
Please pass this on to as many of your fellow James City County citizens as possible.
Jim Icenhour
Powhatan District Supervisor
April 1
TODAY’S PRESS ON REDISTRICTING
Read more about the Republican proposal under which “both Democratic supervisors and three School Board members are gerrymandered out of office under a plan devised by the controversial chairman of the Redistricting Committee, Jeff Ryer” in the Virginia Gazette.
There are also good articles on the proposed new districts for the House of Delegates and Senate in the Gazette and the Daily Press.
GROWING INEQUALITY IN AMERICA—COLUMN IN GAZETTE
Today’s Gazette carries another excellent column by David Jarman, this one on inequality. Even as the Tea Party and many local residents talk incessantly about America going Socialist, in fact the rich keep increasing their already huge share of the pie. No one can match David in setting out a clear analysis of a problem in a short essay. In case you do not take the Gazette I have copied the text at the end of this email.
UPCOMING EVENTS
TODAY, SATURDAY, APRIL 2—GRASSROOTS TRAINING IN NEWPORT NEWS
The state party and Organizing for America are offering grassroots training throughout Virginia.
Registration Begins at 1:45 PM
Training 2:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Location: Plumbers & Steamfitters Local Union 540
7812 Warwick Blvd, Newport News
Light Refreshments will be provided.
CARPOOLING
We will carpool leaving the Starbucks on Pocahontas Trail (rte 60) at 1 PM.
THURSDAY, APRIL 7 AT 6:30—CONSTITUTIONAL CONVERSATIONS
This free program takes place in the Williamsburg Library, 515 Scotland St.; reservations are not needed.
The U.S. Constitution’s Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments protect the substantive and procedural rights of the criminally accused. Protection of rights for the criminally accused can often clash with competing American values that emphasize the control of crime and the provision of security for law-abiding citizens.
Join the Constitutional Conversation program, WRL, and the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation as we explore foundational and challenging questions related to: (1) searches and seizures; (2) arrest and detainment; (3) police interrogations and the right against self-incrimination; (4) the right to counsel; (5) the right to a jury trial; and (6) the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
More information on the series can be found at the website constitutionalconversations.org.
SATURDAY, APRIL 9—STATE YD CONVENTION BANQUET WITH BOBBY SCOTT
Message from W&M YD Vice President:
The William and Mary Young Democrats are hosting this years annual Virginia Young Democrats Convention! VAYD Convention is the one time every year when Young Dems from across the Commonwealth gather to elect new officers, hear speakers, and attend trainings on a variety of issues. For more information visit www.vayd2011.org or e-mail vaydconvention2011@gmail.com with questions.
We want to see you there, too! Please attend our banquet on April 9 reception at 6pm, dinner at 7pm, at the brand-new William and Mary School of Education. Our keynote speaker is Congressman Bobby Scott, and we expect to have many other elected officials there as well.
Tickets are $50; please make checks payable to the William and Mary Young Democrats, and mail them to W&M Young Democrats, CSU 6094, PO Box 8703, Williamsburg, VA 23187. Make sure to include your name and the names of any others in your party along with any dietary restrictions. You can also pay online by credit card: https://secure.actblue.com/page/vayd2011.
If you cannot attend but would still like to support the W&M YDs and VAYD, we invite you to donate any amount either online or by check.
We are very grateful for your continued support of our club, and hope that you will join us in this important event.
Jenny Fornoff
Convention Chair 2011
W&M YD Vice President
vaydconvention2011@gmail.com
MONDAY, APRIL 11 at 7 PM—LARRY WILKERSON SPEAKS AT WILLIAMSBURG LIBRARY
We are pleased that Larry has agreed to speak yet again; his lectures are always provocative and informative. Larry’s topic will be "U.S. Policy in Western Asia and North Africa: A Shambles or An Opportunity?"
Larry Wilkerson was Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell. He appears regularly on network news programs, lectures across the country, and his columns are carried in many newspapers and magazines.
Williamsburg Regional Library Theater
515 Scotland Street
Free and open to the public
THURSDAY, APRIL 21—JAMES CITY COUNTY DEMOCRATS MEET
Delegates Barlow and Abbott will brief us on the results of this year’s General Assembly.
We hold our meetings at the James City County Human Services Center at 5249 Olde Towne Road at 7 PM. Email me at Ralph.bresler@gmail.com if you have questions or need directions.
SATURDAY, APRIL 23--NAACP BANQUET AT COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG LODGE
The James City County Democratic Committee has again purchased a table for this year’s event. All area Democrats are invited to join us as we celebrate the accomplishments of this great organization at its thirty-first annual banquet. We are fortunate that our NAACP branch is a strong voice for equal opportunity in the Williamsburg/James City/York area.
U.S. Representative Robert C. "Bobby" Scott will be the keynote speaker.
The event begins with a silent auction at 5 PM, followed by dinner and program at 6:30 PM.
Please send your check for $50 per person to JCC Democrats, P. O. Box 2032, Williamsburg, VA 23187 if you would like to join us at our table.
MONDAY, APRIL 25—WILLIAMSBURG COMMITTEE MEETS; STEVE VAUGHAN TO SPEAK
7 p.m. Stryker Building, Williamsburg
Presenter: Steve Vaughan, Virginia Gazette reporter shares 'What I Hear, See and Write: Perspectives of a daily observer about local issues’.
WEDNESDAY, MAY 4--FUND RAISER FOR ERASE THE NEED
We will be having another charity fundraiser with area Democrats and Republicans on Wednesday, May 4, from 7 to 8:30 at Art Café, 5107-2 Center St, New Town. Art Cafe's excellent hors d'oeuvres will be served; drinks will be cash.
We are asking attendees to make a donation of $30 per person for Erase the Need. If you are in a position to do so, please consider writing a larger check. Donations to the program can be made payable to “WJCC Schools” with “Erase The Need” on the memo line.
If you would like to help, but will not be able to attend, please send your check to JCC Democrats, P. O. Box 2032, Williamsburg, VA 23187 and we will take care of delivering it.
WEDNESDAY, MAY 25—JCC DEMOCRATS MEET
Our speaker will be the new Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Steven Constantino.
We hold our meetings at the James City County Human Services Center at 5249 Olde Towne Road at 7 PM. Email me at Ralph.bresler@gmail.com if you have questions or need directions.
Inequality—Essay by David Jarman
The rich are getting richer; everyone else is getting poorer. Over the last forty years the trend is clear: incomes at the very top are ballooning, while incomes in the middle and the bottom are stagnating. The share of total income going to the top one percent has increased from eight percent in the 1960s to 12.3% in 1987 and to 23.5% today. At the same time the share of the bottom half of the population has fallen from 15.6% in 1987 to 12.2% now. Income inequality is higher in the United States than in any other advanced industrial democracy. The Gini coefficient, the most common measure of inequality (a score of zero means perfect equality, a score of one means one person owns everything), shows a worsening of this measure from 0.34 to 0.38 in the last 25 years.
Does this matter? Isn’t overall economic growth more important? Those who believe it matters cite studies that suggest that greater inequality leads to more crime, higher infant mortality, fatter citizens, shorter lives, more teenage pregnancies and more political polarization. In the latter case, witness the increasing animosity directed at “fatcat” bankers who “caused the recent financial crisis” and have benefited mightily from the recovery and public workers whose pension benefits and overall compensation “exceed” that of comparable workers in the private workforce. The opposing argument is that rising inequality is a natural effect of a growing and free market economy and cannot be redressed without adverse effects on overall growth.
So what is truth? Can we at least agree on the reasons for this growing inequality? Oft-cited reasons include:
- Economic factors. Technological changes, i.e. the information revolution, have transformed the economy, made workers more productive and placed a premium on better educated workers. Globalization has negatively impacted the U.S. manufacturing sector, where higher paying, union-based positions predominated. The growth of the service economy rewards the educated, professional groups, particularly in finance, healthcare and information technology.
- Political factors. Congress has cut tax rates on high incomes and reduced the tax rates on capital gains. Labor policies have made it harder to organize workers and reduced the power of labor unions (Note: unions now represent less than 10% of the private work force), which have historically served as a countervailing force to corporate power. Deregulation of financial markets has enabled large bank and other financial institutions to grow dramatically and profitably, enabling great riches to be distributed amongst top managers (Note: the average banker now makes twice the average compensation of private sector employees, versus equal compensation in the 1980s).
- Social factors. Highly educated workers tend to marry equally highly educated spouses. They tend to ensure their children receive the best education, either in private schools or in upscale communities with the best public school systems.
Any strategy to reverse this long-term trend of increasing inequality should recognize a few principles. First, “do no harm”; avoid introduction of policies that will make the situation worse. Second, address distortions in the current environment which favor some and discriminate against others. Third, introduce policies that favor growth to ensure a larger pie to be shared by all parties.
An example of the “do no harm” principle would be a movement to replace free trade with fair trade. Over the decades free trade has created vastly more jobs than have been lost and has benefited tremendously all consumers with lower cost foreign goods.
The second principle, addressing current discriminatory practices, is most important. There are many examples. Current educational practices discriminate against poorer Americans, preventing them from obtaining the requisite skills that would allow them to compete fairly in today’s competitive workplace. Governments need to abolish a myriad of rigged rules and subsidies that favor specific industries and insiders. In particular, forcing bankers to hold more capital and pay for the implicit government-provided safety net is a good idea. Labor practices should be modified to make it easier for private labor unions to organize. It’s ironic that more than 50% of public employees are unionized and less than 10% of private employees are - and it’s in the private arena where inequalities are the most egregious.
Growth-oriented policies, the third principle, include measures to bulk up the manufacturing sector, perhaps by providing greater incentives for foreign investment in low wage areas of the United States. Tax reform should address the inequities which favor higher income individuals and corporations - e.g. the deduction for employer-based healthcare, the regressive mortgage interest deduction, the other highly discriminatory tax expenditures - and replacement with lower personal and corporate income tax rates and introduction of a modest value-added tax. In addition, a shifting of a portion of the payroll tax to a carbon tax makes sense. These changes would shift resources from unproductive consumption to more productive investment and would shift money to the struggling young from the affluent elderly.
If we worry about the growing income disparity in America and the negative consequences, it is imperative that we honestly address the problem and reverse the policies that have given rise to this divergence.
Best regards,
Ralph Bresler