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Page A4
March I. 2006
O pinion
Opinion articles do not
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Wealth Gap Widens Under Bush Tax Cuts
Level the
playing field
by
J udge G reg M athis
New data shows that the con­
centration of wealth among the
richest Americans has grown
significantly over the last sev­
eral years; the growth is directly
related to President B ush’s tax
cuts, which provided large tax
breaks for the rich. A ddition­
ally, business owners o f color,
most o f them small business
owners, have received only mi­
nor breaks under Bush’s tax
cuts.
Most tax breaks for busi­
nesses have gone to those who
are wealthy and white, p u sh ’s
never-ending push for
tax cuts seem to all but
g u a ra n te e th a t th e
nation’s rich will only
grow more wealth, while
the poor and middleclass
are left to s tru g g le .
A m e ric a has a lo n g
legacy o f creating ob­
stacles that prevent people of
color from building wealth com ­
parable to that of whites and
these tax cuts only give us more
o f the same.
According to a Congressional
Budget O ffice.analysis o f the
latest income tax data, the top
one p ercen t o f h o u seh o ld s
owned more than 57 percent of
corporate wealth, up from 53.4
percent the year before. In 2003,
the income in the top one per-
pact on the quality o f life for
not only you, but also for your
children. W ealth includes in­
vestm ents in stocks and pen­
sion plans, equity in property
and other assets that can be
used to pay for things like
education or retirement.
According to government
figures, black families have only
10 cents in wealth for every
dollar white families have. Other
data shows that less than half of
black households o w n - their
homes, while 75 percent of white
households do. Home equity is
the leading source o f wealth for
most Americans.
Economic equality has be­
come one o f the key civil rights
issue of this decade; the dispari­
ties highlighted by Hurricane
" As the wealthy continue
to prosper, data shows that
the personal wealth of
families o f color has fallen^
cent o f households ranged from
$237,(XX) to several billion dol­
lars. Two new tax cuts, known
as “PEP" and “ P ease,” that
almost exclusively benefit high-
incom e households recently
went into effect. These wealthy
families already save an aver­
age of $ 103,000 in taxes, thanks
to Bush’s previous cuts. These
tax cuts ensure that the very
rich will keep more o f their
money, thus increasing their bot­
tom line and their access to the
social structures that help grow
and maintain wealth: high-qual­
ity education and capital to launch
and develop businesses among
them.
As the wealthy continue to
prosper, data shows that the
personal wealth o f families of
color has fallen. Incomes have
risen for some but, in the long
run, it is wealth, not annual sal­
ary, which will have a real im ­
An Open Letter To Slipping Through
The Community: Dropouts leave
communities
far behind
Our Health Care Mission
Editor's note: The following letter is from Nurse Prac­
titioner Mariah A. Taylor, the founder o f the North Port­
land Community Health Clinic, a medical office providing
free or low-cost health care to children in our community
fo r 26 years:
Thanks Be to God and to you the supporters and real owners
o f this com m unity based, grass roots, non-profit health clinic.
1 appreciate your support and prayers during the storm,
which hit the clinic in January and continues. As you may
know, the clinic exists because of you. It is not a mere mission,
but is ministry driven. This ministry is ordained by God and will
not be stopped until He says so.
I have literally been held as hostage in my home and locked
out o f the clinic since Jan. 12 due to a process initiated by the
clinic’s board chairman Bud Bylsma and the board o f direc­
tors. To have an extra key to the clinic made would initiate a
charge o f trespassing; to return to provide health care might be
a direct violation and charge o f burglary. The mediation
process has not produced the desired result o f being able to
return. 1 rejected the ultimatum o f “several more months more
off.” It was said that “for health reasons” I should take the time
off, but I have no health issues.
If I were o f a different gender and ethnicity, the outcome
and handling process would have been different. Being a
strong, African American female leader produces challenges
unique to the respect o f such. I believe and declare like Rosa
Parks. “I’m not getting off the bus,” and since I'v e been
fighting since I was four pounds and two ounces, guess what?
God wants to take this clinic to the next level, from great to
greater! I will return, against all odds.
God has the last say so and God. not the board of directors,
orders my footsteps. Being a winner vs. a loser, a victor instead
o f a victim is wha, I am declaring. To God Be all the glory,
praise, and honor. We are the winners in the storm and will be
stronger as a result o f weathering it together.
Thank you for your support and prayers. I can be reached
at 503-240-1824 for further questions and comments.
by
J an R ksskger
The standards movement in public edu­
cation, including the federal No Child Left
Behind Act, has been offered up as the way
to close achievement gaps by raising aca­
demic expectations to confront what Presi­
dent Bush calls “the soft bigotry
of low expectations.”
During the past 15 years
many people of power and in­
fluence worried that American
students are not learning enough
in school. It is a lesser known,
and for me, more worrisome
fact that during this same pe­
riod the high school dropout
rate has grown alarmingly.
According to the Justice De­
partment, two-thirds of prison inmates are
dropouts. High school dropouts average
$9,245 less per year in earnings than peers
who have earned a high school diploma.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University
have discovered that if one compares the
number of students who enter a high school’s
ninth grade to the number who graduate
four years later, there are 2,000 big city high
schools that fail to graduate 40 to 50 percent
of their students in four years. These schools
are overwhelmingly African American, Latino
to the
- Mariah A. Taylor
Katrina only further illuminated
the disparity between the have
and have nots. Government poli-
cies that continue to widen that
gap only serve to force people
into a permanent underclass, a
segment o f society that is be­
com ing harder and harder to
clim b out of. It’s beyond time
for our government to begin
thinking about the needs o f the
‘com m on’ man and to stop ca­
tering to the wealthy few. If
Am erica is to truly live up to its
ideals, the playing field must
finally be leveled.
Judge Greg Mathis is na­
tional vice president o f Rain­
bow PUSH and a national
board member o f the South­
ern Christian Leadership Con­
fere n c e.
the Cracks
and poor, and their number has grown by 75
percent since 1993.
Students who drop out are likely to be
adolescents who cannot see a connection
to a bright future. For these students,
school seems less meaningful over time.
As they enter high school, many students
make choices that lead to dropping out.
Perhaps lacking the reading skills to handle
high school work, many ninth graders
begin ‘cutting’ school. If nobody works
actively to intervene, they continue to cut
school, and without enough credits they
cannot be prom oted to tenth
promoted. Statistics demonstrate that a stu­
dent who has been held back twice (even in
elementary school) has a significantly di­
minished chance of graduating from high
school.
High stakes graduation tests also con­
tribute to dropping out. Even when stu­
dents are given several chances to pass,
some give up. In several states, school
adm inistrators under pressure to raise
scores under the No Child Left Behind
Act have been caught “pushing out” low-
scoring students to increase their school’s
overall score averages.
Most of us have accepted the
rhetoric of the standards move­
ment without thinking much about
it unless we know a child at risk.
The standards movement rests
on the notion of increasing the
value of the diploma. We need to
ask ourselves whether we value
the credential at the expense of
each stu d e n t’s ed u catio n al
experience. What if we paid more
attention to creating educational communi­
ties built around trusting relationships and
creative curricula along with high expecta­
tions?
It is time to worry about the hard bigotry
of sending many children from poor com­
munities into adulthood without the oppor­
tunities created by completing their high
school education.
Jan Resseger is the minister fo r public
education and witness fo r the United Church
o f Christ.
Often dropouts
report that nobody
— parent, teacher or
counselor — tried to
them in school.
^j|
grade.
Because dropping out is highly correlated
with being stuck in ninth grade, educators
need to intervene in middle school and ninth
grade, both academically and socially. Often
dropouts report that nobody — parent,
teacher or counselor — tried to keep them in
school. When they slipped through the
cracks, nobody seemed to notice.
Many school districts have eliminated
social promotion by insisting that students
pass standardized tests in order to be
E ^Setter
SEASONS
M A R K E T
M N M M M a M M N M M M M a M M I
Disbelief at Budget Priorities
I am staring in shocked disbelief at President Bush’s proposed budget
for 2(X)7. It cuts billions in education programs and Medicare subsidies
for the poor while giving tax cuts to the very rich.
Depsite the promise the president made four months ago to “rebuild
New Orleans" and the Gulf Coast, his budget proposal falls short of the
funds required to properly rebuild New Orleans.
Republicans in Congress know the budget is insane. They need to
step up and protect the interests of the poor and middle class majority
of this country and reject President Bush's ludicrous proposal.
M atthew Cox, Southeast Portland
Pkartnaut ¿
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