Progressive Voices Archive

The epidemic of childhood obesity has recently found a prominent place in our national conversation, bolstered no doubt by the First Lady’s “Let’s Move” campaign, and the “Food Revolution” promoted by crusading British chef Jamie Oliver. Yet, as our nation contemplates the perils of abundance, it is easy to forget that many of our kids aren’t eating enough.

Though it was penned nearly half a century ago in support of a losing candidate, many Americans are still familiar with the phrase, authored by speechwriter, Karl Hess, for presidential candidate, Barry Goldwater, which stated: “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.”

According to recent news reports, a large numbers of Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina customers have been hit with enormous rate increases for their health plans this year. One family received a 54% premium increase for their healthy teenage daughter because - as Blue Cross told her bemused father - she was female and had just turned seventeen. How’s that for one of the private industry “innovations” that the defenders of the health care status quo continually invoke as reasons to resist comprehensive national reform?

Surprisingly, January 2, 2010, was not the end of the world as we know it. North Carolina’s new smoke-free restaurant and bar law went into effect that day and from all reports, North Carolinians are leading healthier lives and commerce in bars and restaurants has not ground to a screeching halt. In fact, some establishments report that business is up since the implementation of the law.

Wondering about the impact of last year’s federal Recovery Act in North Carolina? Here are some scenarios to consider: Imagine 10,000 North Carolina public school teachers receiving pink slips.

It sounds like a conspiracy plot straight out of a Margaret Atwood novel. Within a course of two weeks, mostly behind closed doors, politicians, bureaucrats and trustees strip reproductive health coverage from insurance plans covering thousands of female employees. It sounds like fantasy fiction but the assault on reproductive healthcare coverage in North Carolina is all too real.

Beyond the headlines that have dominated the political landscape over the last few months (health care reform, partisan bickering, too much change or not enough, etc.), are some vital issues that have been too often ignored by politicians and the public alike. Here’s one that deserves a lot more attention: our dysfunctional immigration system which continues to undermine families, employers and workers, while presenting unwinnable choices to local policy makers and law enforcement.

Times are tough right now in North Carolina in the aftermath of the Great Recession. Federal recovery efforts have helped stabilize things and have put us back on a more hopeful track, but for the time being, things remain pretty bleak.

Last month’s Supreme Court decision giving corporations the right to spend unlimited amounts on elections has struck a raw nerve.

It’s time to create a program that extends health coverage to the poor much like Medicare insures older Americans.

From the stern way that President Obama dismissed the Congressional Black Caucus last month, you’d think the CBC had insisted that every last dollar of job-creation money go to African-Americans.

Recently, North Carolina’s law and policy establishments have been up in arms over the issue whether it’s lawful or appropriate to let a private road builder partially fund the last section of the I-485 loop in Charlotte. Lost, however, in this worthwhile discussion is an even larger and more important reality that underlies it: our transportation finance system is failing us and the legislative mechanism by which money is allocated to projects badly needs repair.

Progressives have had plenty of reasons to be discouraged lately-the elections results in Massachusetts, an expanding war in Afghanistan, a White House economic team that often seems more responsive to the needs of investment bankers than working families-but in one corner of the federal bureaucracy, real change is underway.

Some of the local ABC executives around the state must be over-sampling their wares.

Thanks to good reporting by Mark Johnson of the Charlotte Observer, we have learned that Alcoholic Beverage Control Board members are behaving like drunken Wall Street bankers in giving their executives high salaries and raises.

With the congress health reform debate in full force, it’s time to take a close look at what these bills will do - not only to expand coverage and contain costs but also to improve the quality of our health care.