Womenstake

Weekly Round-Up

by Mary Robbins, Program Assistant
National Women’s Law Center

A poll released Thursday by the Kaiser Family Foundation reveals that 7 percent of Americans say they or someone in their household married in the last year in order to receive health care benefits from their spouse. 

At least 54 women have joined a class-action lawsuit against Bloomberg L.P., accusing the company of discriminating against pregnant employees (via Think Girl).

Columnist Ellen Goodman wrote about the tale of Lilly Ledbetter, calling her “the star of a long-running drama about how hard we have to run to keep from slipping backward.” 

Melissa of Shakesville reflected on the Western Oregon University softball player who was injured after she hit a home run during a game - and wound up getting some unusual support by members of the opposing team.   

Thursday was International Labor Day, or May Day, a day celebrated by workers around the world to send a message that they “want to live in a world where people live in peace and prosperity.” 

The Malaysian government has proposed a requirement for women to obtain written consent from their families or employers before traveling outside the country. Women’s groups in the country “reacted with outrage.” 

WashingtonPost.com launched an interactive series on the Global Food Crisis, which is having a major impact on women and families around the world.

Food Stamps or Tax Breaks for Racehorses? We're Betting on the Ponies

by Joan Entmacher, Vice President for Family Economic Security
and Kristina Gupta, Policy Fellow

We at the National Women’s Law Center have blogged about the Farm Bill before, but for those of you who may not know, the Farm Bill is a massive piece of legislation which includes a variety of programs – including agricultural subsidies, conservation, and nutrition programs. It comes up for reauthorization every five years, and negotiations between the House and Senate – and the White House – have been going on for months.

Reauthorization of the Farm Bill would mean an increase in funding for nutrition programs including food stamps and emergency food assistance. These increases are critically needed at a time when food prices are going through the roof, and are especially important for women – nearly 70 percent of adult food stamp recipients are women.

Yet, action on these critical nutrition improvements is stalled as some members of Congress continue to insist on dubious tax cuts and subsidies for wealthy farmers and agribusinesses.  One that borders on the ridiculous is the tax break for racehorse owners being promoted by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) (racehorse owners would be able to deduct the cost of their racehorse purchases over three years instead of seven). The congressional Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that this provision will cost $61 million in 2009 and $489 million between 2008 and 2017. Just to provide some comparisons: In 2009, the proposed tax break for racehorses could pay for food stamp benefits for an additional 49,000 Americans, Pell grants for an additional 23,000 students, or childcare subsidies for an additional 10,000 children.

Bush Treasury Department Official Tells the Truth about Tax Cuts

by Chad Newcomb, Senior Policy Analyst
National Women’s Law Center

An official from George H. W. Bush’s Treasury Department, that is. Here’s Bruce Bartlett, from today’s LA Times: 

The truth is that President [George W.] Bush's tax cuts didn't do much good for the economy; they were mostly giveaways to GOP political constituencies and were little different conceptually from pork-barrel spending. Although there were some good elements to the tax cuts, such as the reduction in marginal tax rates, they were fatally undermined by their temporary nature.

The fact is that the massive tax increase Republicans claim the Democrats are proposing is entirely the result of the GOP's penny-wise and pound-foolish policies. Rather than expend the effort to make their tax cuts permanent in the first place, they attached expiration dates to every major provision. Most will expire automatically at the end of 2010. The alleged tax increase that would result is simply a consequence of the tax system returning to what it was before 2001, when the first tax cuts were implemented.

…

But this isn't even the worst of the Republican dishonesty. That goes to projections from the Congressional Budget Office showing a sharp reduction in budget deficits after 2010. But these lower deficits result largely from the expiration of the tax cuts and the higher revenues that would result. Thus, Republicans are trying to have their cake and eat it too. They get to blame Democrats for advocating higher taxes while implicitly using those higher taxes to make future deficits smaller.

The Hot Fudge Sundae Diet Doesn't Work - and Cutting Taxes on Capital Gains Doesn't Raise Revenue

by Joan Entmacher, Vice President for Family Economic Security
National Women’s Law Center

There’s been a lot of discussion about the performance of the moderators at last week’s Democratic presidential debate. But not much attention has been paid to a misleading question on an important tax and budget issue posed by Charles Gibson of ABC News.

Gibson asserted that when the tax rate on capital gains was dropped the government took in more revenue, and that 100 million people who own stock would be affected if the rate was increased. Then he asked, “So why raise it?” Both points are seriously misleading, as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities explains.

Cutting tax rates on capital gains income loses revenue over the long term. Extending the capital gains tax cut enacted in 2003, which lowered the tax rate on capital gains income from an already low maximum rate of 20 percent to 15 percent, would cost $100 billion over the next decade. The estimate comes from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on Taxation, and President Bush’s Office of Management and Budget included a similar estimate in the President’s budget. Protecting tax breaks for capital gains income means $100 billion less for investments in our families and communities.

What the Public Is Thinking About Taxes

by Joan Entmacher, Vice President for Family Economic Security
National Women’s Law Center

The results of a recent Gallup poll on taxes show, once again, that the biggest complaint Americans have about the federal income tax isn’t what they pay in taxes, but that the wealthy and corporations aren’t paying their fair share. 

Six out of ten Americans regard the income tax they have to pay as “fair” (and only half thought the amount they have to pay is “too much”), even though the poll was conducted just one week before the tax filing deadline. But 73 percent said corporations paid too little, and 63 percent said the wealthy paid too little. 

The public has it right. Just this week came news of the finding that large corporations are half as likely to be audited by the Internal Revenue Service as they were 20 years ago. The housing bill passed by the Senate includes a lot of new corporate tax breaks that won’t do anything to help homeowners facing foreclosure.  An increase in Food Stamps is still stalled, in part because of the Administration’s determination to protect corporate tax loopholes.  The very highest income Americans -- the "fortunate 400" -- with an average income of $214 million in just one year, paid taxes at an average tax rate of just 18 percent. Yet President Bush and some members of Congress are calling again to extend tax breaks for the very wealthiest.

The needs of women and their families are being sacrificed to pay for tax breaks for the powerful few.  Just think what we could do to advance women’s priorities if corporations and the very wealthy paid their fair share of taxes!

The Media Gets It: Downturn Hitting Poor Women & Families Hard

by Joan Entmacher, Vice President for Family Economic Security
and Kristina Gupta, Policy Fellow 
National Women’s Law Center

We observed a few days ago that the poor finally made it to page one. This week, the media continues to call attention to the ways the downturn is affecting economically vulnerable people, mostly women and children – just in time for the returning Congress to do something about it.

The Washington Post ran two excellent articles about the effects of the economic downturn. The first article talks about how states are dealing with budget shortfalls (unlike the federal government, almost all states must balance their budgets each year). Mostly, states are slashing services instead of looking for ways to raise revenue. The story highlights the effects of these cuts on the most vulnerable, including poor women in Cook County, Illinois, who no longer have access to free mammograms, and low-income Californians with AIDS who are losing access to life-saving retroviral treatments. The second article talks about the impact of rising energy prices on low-income people and the struggling middle-class. According to the article, more and more families are unable to pay their utility bills and are turning to private charities and the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) for aid. But neither private charities nor the underfunded federal program are able to meet current needs.

Weekly Round-Up

by Mary Robbins, Program Assistant
National Women’s Law Center

Meghan Rapp at RH Reality Check discusses the abstinence-only funding flowing into Alabama, and the toll on women’s health.

After the Federal Reserve helped save Bear Stearns from bankruptcy last week, women’s advocates are pushing for similar help for women facing dire economic situations.

The New Hampshire state Senate rejected a bill that would have required minors to meet with a counselor prior to receiving an abortion to discuss the options in pregnancy, including adoption, abortion and keeping the baby.

The National Library of Medicine and the Office of Research on Women’s Health have launched new online resources on women’s health (via Our Bodies Our Blog).

Conde Nast Portfolio takes an in-depth look at sexism in the workplace in its April 2008 issue.

A study in Australia surveyed 13 large Australian companies to discover why there are so few women at senior levels.

The Poor Make It to Page One

by Joan Entmacher, Vice President for Family Economic Security
National Women’s Law Center

Poverty and the poor usually don’t get a lot of attention from the media. But today’s Washington Post tells it like it is on page one: Inflation Hits the Poor Hardest.   

For a family that has barely enough income to make ends meet, any increase in prices is more of a burden than for a family that has more than enough income to cover the basics. But there’s more to the story than that, as the article explains. Prices for basic necessities have risen far more steeply than other items over the past two years. Bread and cereals, up 9.7 percent. Dairy, up 14.8 percent. Fruits and vegetables, up 10.3 percent. Fuel oil, up 31.2 percent. Gasoline, up 17.3 percent. 

So, while the squeeze on the middle-class is real, and bad, the squeeze on the poor is even worse. Thanks for reporting it, Washington Post.

Now, for the follow-up. There are lots more stories out there about what’s been happening to investments in programs to help struggling families under the Bush budget, and how additional stimulus measures could help those most in need.

How about a series?

7 Questions with NWLC's Kristina Gupta

by Jessica Lauredan, Outreach Intern
National Women’s Law Center

This post is part of a weekly series profiling our blog authors.

Kristina Gupta is a Policy Fellow for the Family Economic Security and the Education and Employment Departments of NWLC.

Q: What are your fears for women and their families as our economy continues to take a downturn?

Kristina: Low-income women and their families are already struggling to make ends meet. As the economy enters a downturn, the struggle will become that much more difficult. In addition, social supports for women and their families have eroded over the past seven years – sacrificed in favor of tax cuts for the wealthy and funding for the war in Iraq.

Q: You wrote in a recent blog post that more than 1 in 100 American adults are confined in a prison or jail, and that this prison population is increasingly including women. Do you think there is a correlation between this and the feminization of poverty?

Kristina: Well, women do have higher poverty rates than men – in 2006, the poverty rate for women was over 12 percent, while the poverty rate for men was just under 9 percent. Economic status is related to crime and incarceration rates. Another, and perhaps more immediate, factor driving the growing incarceration rate for women is the so-called “war on drugs” – about one-third of women are incarcerated for drug crimes, compared to about one-fifth of men.

Faith, Hope, and Charity in Health Care - Not Exactly What You Might Think

by Lisa Codispoti, Senior Advisor
and Brigette Courtot, Policy Analyst
National Women’s Law Center

This post is part of a weekly series on Women and Health Reform. 

Since this series began, our health reform blog posts have generally provided graphic examples of the extent of the nation’s health care crisis (with one exception).  As if we needed any more evidence, some recent news stories help make the case for comprehensive health reform:

Faith:  Last week this story described the growing number of faith-based alternatives to health insurance, otherwise known as “faithcares” or “biblical healthcare solutions”. Basically, these are ministry-administered health financing pools that people can join in lieu of purchasing health insurance coverage. For those who don’t have access to affordable real health insurance, faithcares might be the only option for protection against unexpected or catastrophic healthcare costs, since they require lower premiums than that of a typical employer-sponsored or individual health insurance plan. But faithcares sure aren’t for everyone - members must be nonsmokers, moderate- (or non-) drinkers who go to church regularly, don’t have premarital sex, and live by biblical principles. Even for those who fit this description, there is another major problem with faithcares – they are NOT health insurance plans, so they are pretty much unregulated. As the article points out, nothing about these financing models is guaranteed– “If members don’t [send in money] there is nothing to share.” –and this can and has led to problems with members getting their due reimbursement for health costs. Also, because there is little government oversight of faithcares, they are especially vulnerable to fraud or mismanagement. A few years ago a faithcare was required to pay back over $20 million dollars in unpaid claims, because the founder had diverted much of the financing pool to his personal bank accounts.