"Dixieland Blues" The Southern states have a history of refusing help for the needy.

[madfloridian]

There is a good article coming up in The Nation's May 4 issue. It is out in the print issue, and I found it online. I have been so angry with the governors who are refusing the stimulus aid for the unemployed, and those legislators such as in Florida who are planning to refuse almost half a million for those who are jobless.

Apparently the same kind of things happened in the 1930s.

Dixieland Blues

The authors mention that across the country most governors are anxious to get their share of the stimulus to get people back to work, save teachers' job, keep libraries open.

Except in the South. Southern governors--Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Mark Sanford of South Carolina, Haley Barbour of Mississippi--have been pressing the case that the federal stimulus bill is a mistake; they argue the emerging Republican orthodoxy that tax cuts are the only effective way to pull the country out of an economic black hole. With 11 percent unemployment, South Carolina trails only hard-hit Michigan. Nonetheless, Governor Sanford plans to reject funds that would extend unemployment insurance, not to mention federal fiscal stabilization monies slated for schools and public safety, unless he receives assurance that he may use it instead to pay down the state's debt. As ProPublica reports, the state is about to lay off teachers in large numbers as a consequence.

Louisiana's Jindal may reject the unemployment money and $9.5 million in Medicaid funds that would cover health insurance for the recently unemployed in his state.

In Florida Charlie Crist is eager for the money, but the legislature may refuse part of the jobless benefits so as not to hurt businesses. They really have their priorities straight.

More on Louisiana:

This hardhearted pattern is not new. It is a replay of the Southern rejection of Roosevelt's New Deal. During the bleak years of the Depression, politicians below the Mason-Dixon line refused to provide relief to the poor and rebelled against federal intrusion into social policy. When most state governments were hemorrhaging, local and state governments across the South actually ran surpluses. How? They fired government workers and slashed funds for education and healthcare.

New Orleans, Jindal's pride and joy, ranked last among the nation's thirty-one largest metropolitan areas in the amount spent on relief in 1932--and was proud of it. It was the only city that made no provision for family welfare and offered no aid for needy mothers. Historian Roger Biles has pointed out that at the same time, the city council gave $10,000 (an enormous sum then) to the Chamber of Commerce to advertise nationally that the Big Easy was the "home of cheap and docile labor."

"Docile labor"....there is still some of that today.

As FDR pressed the states to join the federal government in providing for the millions who were unemployed, many politicians across the South said they couldn't--or wouldn't--do more for the indigent. Instead, governors accepted funds from the Federal Emergency Relief Administration while cutting the relief rolls or slashing the benefits provided to their most vulnerable citizens. Southern representatives in Congress abetted the governors and were so good at it that by 1939 the region had received only one-sixth of the federal dollars spent in the major New Deal programs, even though they had a quarter of the population. Southerners in Congress also fought for state power to determine who gets benefits and at what level--resulting in tremendous regional variations in the adequacy of public assistance that continue today.

These ideologically driven crusades are not merely historical artifacts. They have left their traces in the economic profile of the Southern states, which contain some of the poorest and least developed regions of the country. We hear a lot about Atlanta and Nashville, but the small-town and rural areas of the Deep South bear more resemblance to a Third World country than we like to acknowledge. That is owing to decades (and even centuries) of allergic reactions to the taxation required to fund the human capital every state needs for quality public school systems, hospitals, colleges and universities.

This is a powerful and uncomfortable article. It does describe so many areas of the South so clearly. This paragraph near the end is strong.

The history of the Great Depression in the Deep South has led directly to the problems we see in these states today. Since they are home to more than 25 percent of the nation's poor, and nearly 5 million of our poor children, what happens in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Texas matters to the rest of the country. FDR spoke of the "millstone" the region represented in his day and moved to create the Tennessee Valley Authority to bring electricity to rural hamlets so that they could join the twentieth century. The region, more than any other part of the country, needs that kind of farsighted investment, but instead it is treated to the shortsighted policies of the Southern politicians of the past.

Yet so many Democrats go along with electing Democrats who support these views in the South. I am not sure how that helps things get better.

I see this stuff happening in Florida right now.

While Republican Gov. Charlie Crist warmly embraced the Democratic spending plan, some Republican state House members suggested they might refuse some of the money. In the end, the Legislature will likely reject about $440 million in additional workers' compensation benefits that could trigger a higher tax on businesses.

Ideologically rejecting that which could help so many.

They plan to transfer the money coming for Medicaid's programs for the needy to other uses. Not a good idea.

The biggest chunk of cash for the state budget: $1.8 billion in Medicaid money. Medicaid rolls grew 9 percent in the past year, punching a $300 million deficit in the state-federal health insurance program. Now, about 14 percent of the state's population is on Medicaid.

But not all the money will remain in the program. About $900 million in Medicaid money is being transferred out to balance the rest of the portion of the budget that's in deficit.

The article ends saying "Playing politics at a time when millions are feeling the brunt of this recession is inexcusable--but it's also nothing new."

[depakid]

1. That's part and parcel to the region's low social capital- which leads to all sorts of dysfunctions

As can be seen in these graphs:



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Check out Robert Putnam's summary paper for more on this: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/25/6/1825848.pdf

[Laelth]

2. Great post. n/t

:dem:

-Laelth

[jwirr]

3. Thank you for posting this. It is a sad state of affairs when rw religion

has influenced these policies for centuries. Many of those religions think that God has a double predestination policy: He damns some while saving others and it is His choice that marks the damned. In other words they think there are people God hates - as they are always claiming in their rw bullshit. This makes it easy for THEM to pick and choose who is damned and who is not - and to most of them it is clear that the poor (indigent) are the damned along with people who are sick, in jail, hungry and homosexual.

Their God is not a loving God but instead a hateful God and that is the ideological basis for these Godless programs in their states.

I honestly do not know how to help the south as the ones running the state do not want to help the people.

Maybe we need to treat them like they were a third world country run by evil dictators and withhold money from the state and somehow give it directly to the people.

[jus_the_facts]

4. WTF ever...here in Louisiana we have charity hospitals...you don't need Medicaid....

.....you don't have the money to pay...you still get healthcare. Thanks to Huey P. Long who trumps FDR in that regard.

[madfloridian]

5. Then people approve of Jindal not taking the stimulus?

Just wondering.

[jus_the_facts]

6. Seems it doesnt' matter...my SO's unemployment benefits went up an extra 25 bucks a week....

....because of Obama....Jindal's refusal didn't obstruct the increase.

[madfloridian]

7. Okay, then it doesn't matter what Jindal does.

:shrug:

I guess that is what you are saying. I only quoted about Louisiana from the article, don't know the facts there.

[KamaAina]

8. "Big Charity" in NOLA has been closed since the Federal Flood

Booby Jindal and others have their hearts set on tearing it down and replacing it with a brand-new, shiny facility co-located with a brand-new, shiny VA hospital -- all on top of a poor, largely African American neighborhood that has been struggling mightily to rebuild. Meanwhile, the city's health care infrastructure stays broken.

http://www.savecharityhospital.com

We are at a critical moment in New Orleans history. Louisiana State University is pushing an ill-conceived and destructive plan for a new medical center that would abandon Charity Hospital and unnecessarily destroy 249 homes and small businesses in historic Lower Mid-City and delay the return world-class health care to New Orleans quickly and affordably.

edit: spelling

[jus_the_facts]

12. Here in my neck of the woods...we were praised for our help with the evacuees from Gustav....

http://www.ulm.edu/universityrelations/news/sept08/evacuees.html

There was also a mobile unit that went to the other evacuation centers located here.

It's a crying shame that the hospital in NOLA hasn't already been completely operational...there is no excuse. :(

[MountainLaurel]

13. If you can drive an hour to get to one

Since there are only 8 in the state. Or, if you can wait a couple weeks for an appointment, which was the standard prior to Katrina. If not, you're in the emergency room with everyone else.

[jus_the_facts]

14. Thanks to Edwin Edwards there's one here in my town....

....I had to go to my GP first but they called and got me into the outpatient diabetes management within 2 weeks...have to wait longer for an orthopedic appointment but I was amazed at how much better the hospital here has improved since LSU took it over...I'd worked as a temp in medical records back in the early 90's and it was absolutely horrible back then.

[DatManFromNawlins]

21. Naw

Don't you know? Louisiana doesn't care about poor people.

Fact of the matter is that without a Louisiana politician named Huey P. Long, you wouldn't have gotten much if any of the New Deal. He essentially forced Roosevelt to embrace a lot of his ideas regarding the poor. He did more for Louisiana in 6 years than the major political parties have done in the last 70.

I almost wish we could invent a time machine and put him against Clinton and Obama at the beginning of the primary race this past election cycle. He'd have eaten both of them for lunch and Biden for dessert. There isn't a politician alive today who compares with the guy.

[ccharles000]

9. It is not all of the southern states NC is taking the money.

[madfloridian]

10. Just posting the article. Doesn't NC have a Democratic governor now?

Yes, some are taking it. They all should.

[ccharles000]

11. no repug has been gov of NC since 1993

[madfloridian]

16. And Florida turned Republican in the 90s.

Governor Chiles, Democrat, died near the end of his term in 98, and then came Jeb and his cronies.

Democrats started becoming Republicans in the 90s during the Clinton impeachment. They were too cowardly to take the heat. And it did get bad here in some fundamentalist areas for sure.

[Alcibiades]

23. Some became republican much earlier

Lots of the Wallace people left the party and have never looked back.

Good riddance to them.

[suzie]

37. Come on, fess up, Madflorida.

Florida didn't just 'turn Republican'. The "liberal Democrats" in the southern part of the state have stuck us with a series of the worst candidates ever seen, in elections that we had a shot to win.

When a decent candidate arises, they form a circular firing squad and get rid of him real quick like.

[barbtries]

29. yes we do

bev purdue.

[ccharles000]

35. I like bev

[moose65]

27. NC is controlled by Dems

We haven't had a Republican governor in 16 years. In fact, we've only had 2 Republican governors since 1901. The state legislature is completely dominated by Democrats, which explains why our school systems and university system are in much better shape than many Southern states.

[Elwood P Dowd]

20. Alabama is also taking the money.

Haven't heard anything here about Riley refusing it.

[Kalyke]

38. So is Tennessee.

[Romulox]

15. Cheap labor and low taxes are the South's only "competitive advantages".

This guarantees a continuing supply of both.

[cherish44]

17. They want all the unemployed and poor "trash" to leave the south

You know, people who vote Democratic :sarcasm:

[AnnInLa]

18. Take a look at this:

Also in Louisiana....seems the professional dentists' organization is up in arms about poor school children getting free dental attention in schools. The story is today's Baton Rouge newspaper:

Six-year-old Timothey Bethley, of Baton Rouge, got a pain-deadening shot earlier this week, then laid back to get a cavity filled in the school library at Melrose Elementary.

Afterward, he returned to class.

Marty Garrett, of the Louisiana Dental Association, said that kind of invasive dental procedure needs to take place in a proper dentist’s office, not among stacks of books.

“This isn’t like an eye screening or a hearing test,” said Garrett, past president of the 1,800-member trade association and a practicing Baton Rouge periodontist.

snip

Earlier this month, the association passed a resolution opposing any delivery of care that “compromises the dental home concept,” meaning treating children outside of a dentist’s permanent office. State Rep. Kevin Pearson, R-Slidell, filed House Bill 687 that would forbid dentists from treating children on school grounds.

HB687 would drive Gregory J. Folse, of Outreach Dentistry in Lafayette, out of business.

Folse said the work done by the six teams he employs to visit schools around the state provides quality and safe care for children who, for the most part, are not being treated by the state’s 2,000 licensed dentists.

Folse and his teams contract with school boards across the state to perform dentistry on schoolchildren who are covered by Medicaid, the government insurance for the poor. The state Department of Health and Hospitals estimates it pays dentists about $50 per Medicaid dentistry treatment.

more at: (The "War on the Poor" effort to stop poor children from receiving these free services....enough to make you sick.)

http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/43406382.html

[madfloridian]

19. Are Texans siding with Perry in his refusal of the jobless stimulus?

http://www.kbtx.com/home/headlines/43246767.html

"AUSTIN, Texas -- Gov. Rick Perry's decision to refuse unemployment law changes needed to qualify for federal stimulus money apparently has a thumbs-up from Texans.

That's at least the picture that emerges from the correspondence coming into his office.

E-mails, faxes, letters and phone call records to the governor's office were released to the Houston Chornicle in response to a public information request. They show Perry's decision favored by a 2-1 margin in the 4,300 messages.

The Chronicle reports that many who e-mailed their support apparently used a circulated form letter. That form described the unemployment stimulus funds as a "Band-Aid approach" and a burden on employers."

I know I hear little outrage here in FL over the fact that the legislature might refuse part of the stimulus. Maybe people really don't care about that. :shrug:

[WolverineDG]

34. 4300 out of how many million?

Yeah, I can see how it's easy to just presume ALL Texans support Perry's stance based on 4,300 emails, most of which appear to be "astro-turf."

:eyes:

dg

[madfloridian]

36. Yes, it does appear to be astro turf. I don't think I presumed it was real support.

:shrug:

It's pretty obvious it is just one side getting the attention. Of course Perry would announce only the ones he approved of.

Like it is in Florida...most want what is best for all the people. But they are not speaking out loudly.

That is what I meant by this statement in that post:

"I know I hear little outrage here in FL over the fact that the legislature might refuse part of the stimulus. Maybe people really don't care about that."

The ones who oppose are not heard from that much.

[madfloridian]

22. Alabama legislature willing to change law to get stimulus, Reilly not sure.

http://www.waff.com/Global/story.asp?S=10183496&nav=0hBEMBXm

"MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - The Alabama Legislature has passed a resolution telling the Obama administration that it wants all unemployment funding available from the federal stimulus package and it is willing to change state law to get it.

The House used a voice vote to approve the resolution Tuesday. The Senate passed it last week, largely with Democratic support. A spokesman for Republican Gov. Bob Riley said he's uncertain whether the governor will sign it. But he said the resolution is meaningless unless the Legislature changes state law.

Alabama could get an extra $100 million to pay unemployment benefits, but the Legislature would have to change state law to make 20,000 more jobless workers eligible for benefits. The governor and several business groups oppose that change because they say businesses would have to pay higher unemployment taxes."

More details about the suffering states and the intent to refuse.

http://www.southernstudies.org/2009/04/governors-from-southern-states-in-need-oppose-stimulus.html

"Governors from four southern states and Alaska have said they'll refuse at least some of the $787 billion stimulus package Congress hopes will rescue the flagging economy. But an analysis of economic indicators shows that these states - each in their own way - are suffering disproportionately from the economic crisis or longstanding social problems."

.."In Texas, where Republican Gov. Rick Perry plan to decline money to expand unemployment insurance, there are also relatively few jobless people, but as ProPublica has reported before, fewer than one in four unemployed Texans ever sees a benefit payment. Like Jindal, Perry said he'd turn away $550 million to extend benefits to 45,000 of those people because he's concerned he'd have to raise taxes in two years to sustain the program after stimulus funding runs out. Haley Barbour, the Republican governor of Mississippi wants to reject $53 million for the same reason."

[Alcibiades]

24. They would like to have workers become helots

Of course, the ruling class here have always liked cheap labor. They've been unhappy ever since they actually had to start paying folks.

[McCamy Taylor]

25. The South promotes a kind of puritanism which says "If you are poor, its because you are shiftless

and God hates you." This benefits the employers, who can then have their pick of "docile" workers. The presence of Blacks and now Latinos who have been the victims of legal and illicit oppression also serves to bring down wages. The employers use Divide and Conquer tactics to pit workers against each other, so that they will not organize. And always, they hold the threat of unemployment with no public assistance over the heads of their workers. Those living in poverty as an object lesson for those who have (shitty) jobs not to rock the boat or bite the hand that holds their leash (pick whichever metaphor you like best).

And the worst thing is you get these people who claim they are from the South spouting all this It ain't so bad down here. At least we got each other bull shit.

I have lived in the South all my life. It is so so bad down here. If not for the warm weather, I would probably leave.

[madfloridian]

26. If you're poor you deserve it...

and are not worthy.

The fundamentalist religion that permeates our area is not what Jesus intended for his followers.

He said we were to take care of the poor and needy.

[No More Bushbots]

30. People choose to be poor

Or the other statement that makes my skin crawl "There has to be poor people"

[Skidmore]

28. Southern states by design created a subclass by maintaining a whole race

in an impoverished state while exploiting them. This statement doesn't even get to the dislocation and/or impoverishment of the native population they found there.

[poboyross]

39. Oh, that's right....I forgot

Outside of the South, the Native Americans were treated *so* much better! The blankets traded for Manhattan were spun with golden silk and those beads...they were diamonds :P

[madfloridian]

41. The poster's point was a good one.

It is a pattern in the South. It has long been. It needs to be addressed and not nitpicked. This was not a post about how Indians were treated, though it was shameful. It was post about patterns in the South.

[poboyross]

42. I'm all for good points

But it doesn't help a valid point by using blanket statements or apply a federal govt. policy of Native American relocation to one region. Slavery, for that matter, took place in all of the colonies...albeit a majority were in the agricultural South. The myth of the "beloved house negro" in the Northern states(taken from historical documents...not my vernacular by any means) is one that persists even today. While the most popular and lion's share of slavery atrocities occurred in the South, the stain of it is still on all of America. Complicity is nearly as bad as direct engagement in an activity, especially when something can be done about it. That stain will always be there, and only by moving on to a post-racial society will we ever get past it.

I live in NJ most of the year, and there's *no* shortage of racism up here, either.....it rivals the deep South that I'm also familiar with. I haven't noticed any significant difference between the two. Where I'm from down South, in TN, it's a vicious cycle...it's not just white folks not liking blacks, but the other way around, too. How many on both sides, who would otherwise move forward, are relegated to some sort of racism by encountering any one of the stereotypes down there? I like Morgan Freeman's statement on 60 minutes about Black History Month, it's on YouTube if you ever want to watch it. He's the last of the great actors of our time, and I wish that people could listen to that video and put it into practice, on all sides.

[SIMPLYB1980]

31. A lot of things you say are true, but not all Southern States

can be lumped together so easily. Also their are a lot of good Southern Democrats, though some may be a little to moderate to you we have to start somewhere. NC is Blue for the first time since I was born that is a very good sign.

[madfloridian]

32. I am moderate.

Or shall we say I was? I am a recovering Southern Baptist and am from a very Republican family. I am now turning to the left very sharply, as I see what the Southern and sometimes midwest Democrats and Blue Dogs have in mind for our party.

We never have had a chance to get progressives elected in these states because the Democratic election committees shoved them out and handpicked the candidates who are mostly former Republicans or Blue Dogs.

There are a lot of good Southern Democrats, they just don't have any say in the party stuff.

Handpicking candidates

Lost Florida seats

[4_TN_TITANS]

33. Just wow....

Can't wait for that issue to arrive in the mail. Talk about going straight to the heart of so many problems here.

[madfloridian]

40. In no way did I or the article I quoted say "all" southern states.

I never said or indicated all southern states...neither did the nation article.

It's frustrating to not be able to get a point across. It's an important article from the Nation, and it needs to get attention.

There is a pattern emerging lately from the South that is like that of the 30s. It needs attention.

The Southern states accepting the stimulus have Democratic governors in most cases. TN and NC for examples. The AL legislature is willing to change the laws to get it but Riley may or may not go along.

[Zambero]

43. An oligarchy needs poverty to sustain itself

If enough people are desperate they'll agree to work for slave wages. Help from the gov't, especially during bad economic times, upsets their apple cart.