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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (July 16, 2014)
Opinion Republicans’ Selective Memory “Challenging People to Shape a Better Future Now” B ERNIE F OSTER Founder/Publisher B OBBIE D ORE F OSTER Executive Editor J ERRY F OSTER Advertising Manager L ISA L OVING News Editor H ELEN S ILVIS Multimedia Editor P ATRICIA I RVIN D AVID K IDD Graphic Designer M ONICA J. F OSTER Seattle Office Coordinator J ULIE K EEFE S USAN F RIED Photographers The Skanner Newspaper, established in October 1975, is a weekly publica- tion, published each Wednesday by IMM Publications Inc., 415 N. Killingsworth St., T o paraphrase Ronald Rea- gan, arguably the most overrated U.S. president in history, there they go again. They, of course, are Republicans in the House of Representatives. And they are going after President Obama yet again, this time over his use of executive orders, presi- dential directives that have been issued by every president over the past 73 years. First, let’s brush up on our high school civics. According to a report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), “Presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt through Barack Obama have issued orders that seek to leverage the government’s procurement spending to promote socio-economic policies that some commentators would characterize as extraneous to contractors’ pro- vision of goods or services to the government.” The report, titled “Presidential Authority to Impose Requirements on Federal Contractors,” explained, “Presidential power to issue executive orders must derive from the Constitution or from an act of Congress. Contractor-relat- ed executive orders historically have been issued based upon the President’s powers under Article II of the Constitution or the powers delegated to the President by FPASA,” a reference to the Feder- al Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949. The CRS report noted. “FPASA states that its purpose is to ‘pro- vide the Federal Government with an economical and efficient sys- tem for … [p]rocuring and federally funded construction con- tracts in the Philadelphia area T HE C URRY valued in excess of $500,000 to R EPORT submit ‘acceptable affirmative action program[s],’ including ‘spe- cific goals’ for ‘minority George E. manpower utilization’ in six con- Curry struction trades prior to contract award.” Of the past 10 presidents, begin- ning with Franklin D. Roosevelt, supplying property and nonper- President Obama has issued the sonal services’ and authorizes the fewest executive orders per President to prescribe any ‘poli- year. According to the American cies and directives’ consistent with Presidency Project, Obama issued the act that he ‘considers neces- 147 executive orders during his sary to carry out’ the act’s goals of first term, compared to 504 by FDR, 266 by Dwight D. Eisen- efficiency and economy.” One of the most significant pres- hower, 247 by Richard M. Nixon, idential actions was Executive 213 by Ronald Reagan, 200 by Of the past 10 presidents, beginning with Franklin D. Roosevelt, President Obama has issued the fewest executive orders per year. Order 11246, which was signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson on Sept. 28, 1965. It requires federal contractors to “take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, with- out regard to their race, color, religion, sex or national origin.” According to CRS, “Under the authority of Executive Order 11246, officials of the Department of Labor issued two orders com- monly known as the Philadelphia Plan. The Philadelphia Plan required bidders for federal and Bill Clinton, and 173 by George W. Bush over a similar period. As of June 20, Obama had issued 35 executive orders during his second term. His executive actions have stopped the deportation of immi- grants who entered the U.S. illegally as children, affected cli- mate change by compelling power plants to reduce their emissions by 30 percent by 2030, raised the minimum wage for federal con- tractors to $10.10 an hour, extended rights for same-sex cou- ples and impacted gun control with 23 separate executive orders. Strangely, Republicans, who have voted 54 times over four years to repeal or alter the Afford- able Care Act, are not planning to sue President Obama on any of those issues. Instead, House Speaker John A. Boehner (R- Ohio) has asked Congress for permission to sue Obama because he suspended the start date of the employer mandate provision of the health care law. It doesn’t get more ridiculous than this. Unable to repeal what they call Obamacare, House Republicans are moving faster than the lips of an auctioneer on crack to sue the president because he is making it easier to comply with what everyone except anti- Obama Republicans recognize as the law of the land. As Sabastian Payne wrote in the Washington Post, “… For all the accusations of abuse of power, his [Obama] actual uses of his executive authority so far aren’t that far-reaching: Not so much the smack of firm government, more nudging in a certain direction. George W. Bush for example man- aged to gut the Presidential Records Act (greatly reducing access to presidential records), limit federal funding for stem cell research and sidestep the Geneva Convention on interrogation tech- niques – all through executive orders, even when he had Con- gress on his side. Interestingly, all of these orders were later rescind- ed by Obama.” Read the rest online at www.theskanner.com P.O. Box 5455, Portland, OR 97228. Telephone (503) 285-5555. E-mail: info@theskanner.com World Wide Web site: http://www.theskanner.com Fax: (503) 285-2900 The Skanner is a member of the National Newspaper Pub lishers Associ- ation and West Coast Black Pub lishers Association. All photos submitted become the property of The Skanner. We are not re - spon sible for lost or damaged photos either solicited or unsolicited. © 2014 The Skanner. ALL RIGHTS RE SERVED. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART WITHOUT PERMISSION PROHIBITED. To see The Skanner News on your smart phone go to theskannermobile.com or scan this QR code with your app. • • • • • • • • Local news Opinions Jobs, Bids Sports Entertainment Music reviews Bulletin board RSS feeds Drop in Black Homeownership Rate E ach year the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University assesses the nation’s housing outlook. The recently-released The State of the Nation’s Housing in 2014reveals that troubled housing areas remain in the midst of rising prices, higher interest rates and low inventories. According to the report, “Mil- lions of homeowners, particularly in minority and high-poverty neighborhoods, are still underwa- ter on their mortgages, while millions more renters have been forced to live in housing they can- not afford or is structurally inadequate. And with the ongoing growth in low-income households, housing assistance reaches a shrinking share of those in need.” A few more data points from the 2014 report reveal: • Homeownership rates have fall- en six percentage points among Black households — double that among White households; • In 2011-12, Black applications for conventional mortgages were denied 40 percent of the time; among Hispanics, the denial rate was 25 percent – nearly two to three times that for whites; and • More than 25 percent of mort- gage homeowners in both high-poverty and minority neighborhoods were underwater – owing more than their homes are now worth – in 2013. This rate is nearly twice the shares in Page 2 The Portland and Seattle Skanner July 16, 2014 R ESPONSIBLE L ENDING Charlene Crowell either white or low-poverty neighborhoods. For Mike Calhoun, president of the Center for Responsible Lend- ing, these homeownership disparities reflect a devastating generational loss of wealth. Partic- moderation is likely to persist until job growth manages to lift household incomes. Even amid a broader recovery, though, many hard-hit communities still strug- gle and millions of households continue to pay excessive shares of income for housing.” The combined effects of stu- dent loan burdens and lower median incomes for younger and middle-aged adults are also cited as key factors in the nation’s hous- ing recovery. Median incomes are at their lowest levels in records dating back to 1970, according to the report. With the ongoing growth in low- income households, housing assistance reaches a shrinking share of those in need ipating in a panel discussion with the Joint Center and other housing policy experts, Calhoun noted that the loss of homeownership in Black communities really reflect- ed a one in six reduction, as Black homeownership peaked at 49 per- cent before the housing crisis. “With promising increases in home construction, sales, and prices, the housing market gained steam in early 2013. But when interest rates notched up at mid- year, momentum slowed. . . . This “Between 2001 and 2010, the share of households aged 25-34 with student loan debt soared from 26 percent to 39 percent, with the median amount rising from $10,000 to $15,000 in real terms. Within this group, the share with at least $50,000 in student debt more than tripled from five per- cent to 16 percent. For these borrowers, the need to pay off these outsized loans will likely delay any move to homeowner- ship.” For the ninth consecutive year, the rate of homeownership contin- ues to decline. According to the Housing Vacancy Survey (HVS), it is the lowest level since 1995. Housing rentals, by contrast, show growth doubling the average pace in any decade since the 1960s. Whether owning a home or rent- ing, nearly 41 million households are now paying more than 30 per- cent of their income for housing – 1 million more than last year and 9 million more than a decade earlier. A household is considered ‘hous- ing burdened’ when their monthly housing costs exceeds 30 percent of income. Severely housing bur- dened households where 50 percent or more of income is for housing, now number 5.8 million households. The most cost-burdened house- holds – whether renting or owning in 2012 – earned less than $30,000 per year. Working households would need to earn at least $42,200 a year to afford the $1,052 median monthly gross rent charged for new units built in the past four years – well above the income of many renters. Further in 2012, there were only 3.3 million rental units that were affordable and available to 11.5 million extremely low-income households. Read the rest online at www.theskanner.com
