Grading the Administration: 17

Weekly Grades for the Obama Administration on Poverty: C-

Grades are slipping this last week. There was a lot of work done over the last week on health care reform. There was a great deal of discussion, but I am not sure on the progress. The health care industry promised to control costs over the next 10 years. This seems bogus to me. They have raised the rates on my employees health care between 8-16% EVERY YEAR over the last 10 years. So, how about a rollback? Not raising rates as much does not seem to be much of a compromise. I actually think that they realize that the jig is almost up, and they are trying to get some sympathy from the public as this debate starts. The health care insurance companies, drug industry, and health care corporations are the main source of the crisis and should not be at the table for this upcoming debate.

Other things that happened last week in the struggle to end poverty include:

1. A town hall forum on the problems of debt and the problems in the credit card industry.
2. A progress report was issued on the Stimulus dollars. This did not get much attention because only 6% of the funds are out the door. But the www.recovery.gov site has a lot of great data. They break up the funds by state or by agency, and everyone has the opportunity to see how their federal dollars are being used. It is actually interesting to see the large amount of funds being spent on bridges and roads compared to housing and health care. I like it, and for the policy wonks out there, it is a virtual schmorgaborg of information.
   
3. $1 Billion was released for housing renovation at Public Housing last week.
   
4. $1.79 Billion was released to help those living with AIDS be able to pay for medicine.

Still nothing on New Orleans, and hurricane season is fast approaching. Still most of the goals under "Poverty" on the White House website have very little details and are not even started. Some of the plans have begun to trickle in over the last few days regarding preventing homelessness in various cities. It will be interesting to see if HUD allows some of these plans to go forward. For example, Las Vegas is going to use its $2 million to remove a tent city from the area. This does not seem to be consistent with the goals of the funds to set up a system to prevent people from entering shelters. There is a long way to go to fill the holes we dug for ourselves over the last 40 years in creating generational poverty. Semester grades come out the second week in June.

Brian
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