The truth, however, is that the opposite is almost always the case: Extremism – particularly as it has come to be practiced in modern, “libertarian” conservatism – is a very destructive vice. And the dangers posed by this extremism go well beyond the threats posed to civil liberties. One can see evidence of this in the “libertarian” argument that property rights should always trump employee rights, consumer and environmental protections, minority discrimination statutes, and union formation and bargaining rights.

At first read, though, libertarianism and the case for a minimal state have a great deal of persuasive appeal and clarity. Progressive and liberal views can seem messy and complicated in comparison.

Libertarians possess a simple rule to be applied in all circumstances: “Everyone has the right to carry on his or her own affairs as long as one does not violate others’ similar rights.”

This point of view means that government’s only role is securing these individual rights. Property rights are absolute and coercion is not permitted – even if it could help to achieve another good end, such as curbing racial discrimination. Further, taxation is “theft.” Contracts between consenting adults rule.

In every legislative, judicial, and executive situation, one basic rule governs: use state power to protect or advance property rights.

So, in this drama, there is a clear good and bad option.

But, of course, the real world is messier than such a simplistic ideology implies. Most political and policy controversies entail trade-offs and wrestling with the fact that both sides can be right about something.

We need to be exploring more inventive and inclusive choices, not polarizing or over-simplifying the issues.

This is not to fall into relativism and imply one choice is good as the next.

It is to claim the following:

• Property rights do not “pre-exist”: they are conventions that are grounded by state actions to make and enforce contracts and ownership.

• Individual freedom to shape one’s life can be constrained not only by an over-stepping, coercive state, but also by limits imposed by private economic power and social institutions that give privileged access to political influence, personal security, economic opportunity, and criminal justice.

• We must “remember the little people” – children. Kids are not equipped to look after themselves. They have little control over their choice of parents and vulnerability to poverty and its negative effects. And as economist Nancy Folbre puts it: “You can’t create human capital without creating and nurturing, as well as educating little humans.”

• Libertarians also confuse the issues of consent. Not all obligations are contractual. (Think about sons’ and daughters’ duties to their parents or what we owe our country.) And we will never obtain total and willing consent to governmental actions. This is why democracy and the Bill of Rights and the US Constitution matter.

• Taxation cannot be replaced by charity, because of severe free rider problems. This is why fairness in ability to pay and the actual benefits provided are so important to citizenry.

This not to say that government can or should do it all. To the contrary, individual freedom and liberty are absolutely essential components of the American experiment. Often, however, freedom and liberty are dependent upon government intervention to limit the excesses of private wealth and power. At some point, we need thoughtful, right-sized government, not just the arbitrarily limited government urged by modern “extremist” conservatives. Let’s hope that, in the long run, these forces meet with as much success as their hero did in 1964.

William Schweke is a Senior Fellow at CFED in their Durham, NC office.

Here is a list of the top ten such "innovations" that Americans with private health insurance must currently endure:

10. The "in-network" and "out-of-network" doctor. Want to choose your own doctor? Sorry, not with private insurance. To get covered you have to go to the right doctor and the right hospital. If you guess wrong and go to an unapproved hospital you could get stuck paying thousands of dollars in medical bills.

9. Bills that aren't bills. After any hospital stay the paper begins to pile up. Some of the papers say that you owe money and some say that you don't owe money and some say that you might owe money at some unspecified later date. Many of the papers will look exactly like bills but red writing across the top will helpfully explain "This is not a bill".

8. The for-profit "nonprofit." Many Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies across the country are nonprofit, but they often act like for-profit companies. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina owns subsidiary for-profit entities and pays its CEO more than $4 million per year. But BCBSNC does not have any real oversight from shareholders or the Securities and Exchange Commission.

7. Charging women more than men for the same coverage. Let's face it, women keep having children. When women have children they demand a room and a bed and all kinds of services that men of the same age rarely use. Luckily, insurance companies have figured out how to saddle women with the expenses of childbirth instead of making men, and society at large, share the costs. After all, men didn't have anything to do with the pregnancy.

6. Medical underwriting. Slicing and dicing the risk pool doesn't end with charging women more than men for the same coverage. Insurance companies have developed elaborate models to justify charging people more or less according to geographic area, age, gender, height, weight, eye color, shoe size, etc.

5. Drive-through deliveries. Speaking of childbirth, one of the things some women want to do after having a baby is to spend at least sometime in the hospital recovering. Insurance companies tried to end this blatantly lazy behavior by kicking women out of the hospital after less than a day. Pesky government meddlers enacted new regulations that allow women to malinger for a full 48 hours after childbirth.

4. Lifetime caps. If you break an arm or scrape a knee you should know that your insurance company is there to help you pay the bill. But if you are going to get hit by a car or take a trip to intensive care, well, the insurance company isn't going to sit around paying bills forever. After a certain amount you reach your lifetime insurance limit. That will teach you not to get cancer.

3. Rescission. We can all agree that people with sloppy handwriting or those who lie about acne medication don't deserve health insurance. To help fight this scourge, insurance companies developed something called "rescission." If you get sick then insurance companies will pore over your application to find mistakes or omissions. If you forgot to include something then you can get booted off of insurance and the insurance company can even pursue you for back payments.

2. Swiss cheese health insurance policies. People keep complaining about expensive health insurance but we see ads everyday stapled to telephone poles for plans that cost only $39.99 per month. You can't beat that. Some will complain that these policies don't cover heart attacks, ambulance rides, hospital stays, doctor visits, internal injuries, external injuries, broken bones, or cancer. But you can't please everyone.

1. The pre-existing condition. This is the king of insurance industry "innovations." Medicare will cover you even with a preexisting condition, but why would a private company that is trying to pad its bottom line want to offer coverage to someone who might get sick? Insurance companies want to collect money, not pay it out. So if you've ever had an illness insurance companies will refuse to offer you coverage. Or better yet, the insurance company will offer coverage for a mere $2,000 per month.

Federal health care reform may be imperfect, but it would spare Americans from most of these ridiculous practices. Now that's an innovation worth having.

Adam Searing and Adam Linker work for the North Carolina Health Access Coalition

As of January 2, 395,000 bar and restaurant workers can go to work knowing that their hearts and lungs are protected by this new smoke-free policy. Even more exciting, millions of North Carolinians will be protected from secondhand smoke while spending time in bars and restaurants in our state. No longer will our state's residents have to put their health at risk if they want to go out to eat with their family or have a drink with friends.

The 2006 Surgeon General's Report on the Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Secondhand Smoke found that there is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke. Additionally, a recent study by the National Institute of Medicine, reported that as little as thirty minutes of exposure can trigger a heart attack in someone with heart disease or risk factors for heart disease. The IOM study also reported that smoke-free laws like the one adopted in North Carolina can cause a substantial reduction in the number of deaths and hospital admissions due to heart attack. In North Carolina, this would translate to a reduction of nearly 4,400 admissions and 1,100 deaths due to heart attacks. A reduction of this nature will save North Carolina tens of millions of dollars in health care costs.

The law implemented on January 2 not only made most dining and drinking establishments smoke free, but local communities will now have the authority to pass local ordinances restricting smoking in other indoor, public places to further protect additional workers and visitors from the dangers of secondhand smoke.

A year from now, we will ask ourselves, "Why did it take so long for North Carolina to make its bars and restaurants smoke-free?" However, it took a lot of hard work from many individuals and organizations to get us here. The North Carolina Alliance for Health lead a broad coalition of health and environmental groups to get the new law passed, but it was the vision of the law's main sponsors, Representative Hugh Holliman and Senator William Purcell that made this policy a reality.

Back in 2005, Representative Holliman began the uphill fight to challenge the perception that a state in the heart of tobacco country could never go smoke-free. No legislator takes on the tobacco industry in this state without substantial political risk. In addition, the North Carolina Restaurant and Lodging Association was an essential partner with the Alliance and the broader health community in getting this law passed. It could not have happened without their support.

With rare exception, the implementation of new law has been well received by the bar and restaurant owners across the state. As of February 7, only 615 complaints (from 456 businesses) have been filed across the state. There are almost 24,000 businesses subject to this new law! What is most interesting is that this number dropped from a high of 198 complaints in week two of the new law to 71 complaints by the beginning of February.

Credit for this smooth implementation goes to the educational efforts of local health directors and early work on the part of restaurant and bar owners in preparing for the new law. It also demonstrates overwhelming public support for clean smoke-free environments.

January 2, 2010 was great day for North Carolina. Our new law is a good one and was a great step forward for the health of our state, but there is still work to do. Even with its passage, hundreds of thousands of workers are still not protected from exposure to secondhand smoke in the workplace and there are significant disparities in the type of workers who are unprotected.

For the most part, white collar workers are safe from secondhand smoke in the work place, but many blue collar and services workers (other than in bars and restaurants) are still at risk for this deadly exposure. Don't the people who work in factories and shops deserve the same protections as office workers, teachers and state employees?

The North Carolina Alliance for Health is committed to making all worksites in our state smoke-free and will continue to push for comprehensive legislation to protect every worker because everyone deserves the right to breathe smoke-free air.

Betsy Vetter is the North Carolina Director of Government Relations for the American Heart Association and chair of the North Carolina Alliance for Health. Pam Seamans is the Executive Director for the Alliance.

Imagine 10,000 North Carolina public school teachers receiving pink slips. Imagine an announcement that the school year would be shortened and that two to three more kids would be placed in every public school classroom, even kindergarten. Imagine that your neighbor of modest-income who has a child with special needs requiring special care such as speech therapy gets a notice saying that the family will now have to absorb this impossible cost all on their own.

Or, how about these?

Imagine the state's 58 community colleges turning away laid-off workers who show up to enroll courses during their new, albeit unwanted, free time. Imagine a low-income disabled adult receiving a notice that says that their publicly-funded health insurance, Medicaid, is no longer going to cover ambulance rides or amputations or eyeglasses. Imagine fewer highway patrolmen on the streets making longer delays for emergency assistance and prisons with three inmates per cell and overworked guards who are working extra hours because of a state hiring freeze.

These scenarios might well have become reality in our state if the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) had not included $137 billion in fiscal aid to state governments, roughly $3.5 billion of which will flow to North Carolina over three fiscal years.

These are choices that would have devastated people's lives. Moreover, making these choices would have dealt a blow to an already fragile economic recovery. Without this assistance the state would have had to lay off workers, cut services or raise taxes even further - all of which would have harmed the state's economy.

Nationally, it is estimated that the fiscal aid to the states is saving some 900,000 jobs - by directly staving off public sector layoffs for jobs like teachers and prison guards as well as saving private sector jobs that would be lost when laid-off public workers and contractors are forced to cut back their spending.

One year ago when the recovery act was passed it was impossible to know exactly what the financial status of the states would look like at this point. But it is now clear as states prepare their budgets for the upcoming fiscal year that now is no time for the federal government to retreat. State budgets, including North Carolina's, are not likely to recover anytime soon though most of the fiscal aid to the states will expire in the next several months.

It is clear from examining recent recessions that recovery in state tax revenues lags months, if not years, behind the general economic recovery. Sales tax collections may be depressed for some time because of stubbornly high unemployment and a return to a more normal national savings rate. In addition, personal and corporate income tax losses can be carried forward for several years holding down payments from these taxpayers. Finally, higher demands for some state services won't recede to pre-recession levels for many years. The state's portion of the Medicaid program's cost is already $250 million over budget during the current fiscal year and community college enrollment is 20,000 students higher than the budgeted projection.

The sluggish revenue forecast combined with ongoing spending pressures means that the state will face budget shortfalls for the foreseeable future. That's why it's critical that Congress act, sooner rather than later, to extend the state fiscal relief that was part of the original recovery act - 900,000 jobs hang in the balance. The jobs bill passed by the US House of Representatives at the end of 2009 included approximately $46 billion in additional state fiscal relief to help with Medicaid costs and to prevent cuts to education funding. The Senate's more scaled-down jobs bill does not contain additional fiscal aid to states. Regardless of whether or not additional fiscal relief is included when these two competing bills are reconciled or if it is addressed separately, it must be done.

Perhaps state Senate Majority Leader Martin Nesbitt of Asheville said it best when he remarked at a recent public event that he has no doubts that the federal stimulus funds saved the state of North Carolina from an economic meltdown last spring. He was absolutely correct in his assessment. The threat of that meltdown has not ended, however, and it's up to Congress to do the right thing. If they do act, then North Carolina's leaders can leave the worst scenarios to their imaginations and stay focused the state's responsibilities like educating our children, keeping our communities safe and protecting our environment.

Elaine Mejia is the Director of the NC Budget & Tax Center

In late January, the Apex Town Council voted unanimously to eliminate abortion coverage from their town employee's health plan. In short order, Wake County moved to deny all county employees abortion coverage without holding a public debate or vote.

Within two days of Wake County's decision, the trustees of the NC League of Municipalities voted to remove abortion care from their Cigna administered plan. This decision, made entirely behind closed doors, affects more than 9,000 town and city employees.

As soon as Wake County's decision became public, news reports revealed that state Representative Paul Stam from Apex was behind the alarming move. Newspaper and television accounts suggest he threatened a lawsuit against city and county officials if they did not drop abortion coverage. His threat stemmed from an almost thirty year old case, Stam v. North Carolina, in which citizen Paul Stam sued the state for helping low-income women pay for abortion care.

Legal minds, including those constitutional experts American Civil Liberties Union disagree. They have stated repeatedly that North Carolina law gives towns, municipalities and counties broad authority in offering their employees benefits. Surely, comprehensive healthcare qualifies as a benefit.

If there are clear disagreements about the merits of a potential lawsuit, then why are those in power jumping voluntarily to cut workers' benefits? The timing is interesting to say the least.

Healthcare reform on the national scene is stalled but that doesn't mean the divisive rancor has stopped. Those who oppose any government action to expand healthcare know full well that exploiting the most contentious elements of the debate feed their side and rally their troops.

In the final weeks of December, both bodies of Congress passed vastly different versions of healthcare reform. In the end, one element united the two-in both bills, abortion care was the only safe and legal medical procedure excluded from coverage.

The Democrats gave in to members of their own party who swore they would never vote for a healthcare bill that included abortion. Many of these Democrats were never going to vote for healthcare reform anyway.

Certainly, the Republicans who joined the Democrats in supporting the anti-abortion amendments to healthcare, known as Stupak and Nelson, respectively in the U.S. House and Senate, were never going to vote for healthcare reform.

Strategically, women's reproductive healthcare made an easy target. It kept the debate roiling for weeks. Of course, many fought valiantly to keep abortion care coverage as part of the comprehensive plan. But, in the end, leadership was willing to compromise on women's health. And it got them nowhere.

Abortion is a safe and legal medical procedure. One out of every three women will have an abortion in her lifetime. It is part of comprehensive healthcare, which is why more than 80% of health plans currently cover abortion.

It would be a bitter irony if the dream of large scale healthcare reform in this country led to a steady reduction in the number of healthcare plans covering abortion. This is exactly what's happening in North Carolina.

Tony Gurley, Chair of the Wake County Board of Commissioners, was quoted in the Lincoln Tribune saying he wasn't afraid "to use the abortion coverage issue as a political issue." It seems those who oppose a woman's right to choose never are.

There is no decision more profound than deciding when or whether to be a parent. There is nothing more fundamental to a woman's health and well-being than her ability make childbearing decisions.

Perhaps the next round of the national healthcare debate has already started in North Carolina. If so, let's make sure we understand that women's health should not be made worse because of it.

Paige Johnson is the Director of Public Affairs at Planned Parenthood of Central North Carolina

This spring, we have the historic opportunity to bring our immigration policies into the 21^st century. We don't need more sound bites; we need workable solutions that uphold our values and help us move forward together.

And make no mistake; our immigration system is in bad shape. Parents and children are separated by more than distance; miles of red tape, waiting periods measured in years, and outdated rules all combine to prevent fathers and sons, mothers and daughters from living together as families. Currently, a green card-holding mother from the Philippines, for example, can expect to wait at least 5 years to see her young children join her in the U.S. The system doesn't work for families.

The system doesn't work for employers, workers, or our economy either. Right now unscrupulous employers who break the law can gain a competitive advantage by paying lower wages to undocumented workers. These bad actors increase their profits at the expense of worker health and safety.

For a few on the ideological right, the solution is to spend billions rounding up hardworking unauthorized immigrants from homes and factories across the country. But this does nothing to address the underlying problem. We need reforms that will put all workers on a level playing field, thereby removing the economic incentives for employers to break the law. Reforming immigration will help protect all workers from exploitation and unfair competition.

But "why now?" you ask. We're in tough economic times with millions of Americans out of work. Politicians in Washington usually seem more interested in scoring political points than actually solving the problems we face. Why is now the right time to deal with a controversial topic like comprehensive immigration reform?

Here's why: Voters want pragmatic solutions to complex problems. In the wake of the recent election for the Senate seat in Massachusetts, it's clear that most voters are looking for results, not partisan bickering. In addition, voters recognize that spending billions in tax dollars to build a bigger fence won't work. We need solutions that fix our broken immigration system rather than just more enforcement alone.

Another reason: Comprehensive immigration reform is a bipartisan issue. In 2006 and 2007, Republicans and Democrats reached across the aisle to work together on comprehensive reform bills - with the full support of President Bush. Though these efforts eventually stalled, the potential for bipartisanship remains. In the Senate, Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Lindsay Graham (R-SC) are working together on a bill that should receive broad support from both the right and the left.

And another: Latino voters are increasingly influential. Election results from the last few years demonstrate that Latino voters are becoming politically engaged in historic proportions. Politicians who cynically adopt a "get-tough-on-immigrants" platform have been punished at the polls, and demographic trends indicate that Latino voters will only become more important in the future.

Finally, it's the right thing to do. Unfortunately, this reason doesn't always connect with politicians, but it does with North Carolinians from Asheville to Wilmington. We are a state and a nation of immigrants. Most Americans hold positive views of immigrants, immigration, and their place in our shared history. People of faith find in their traditions the call to "welcome the immigrant" and to treat all people with respect and dignity. The things that unite us are stronger than our differences. We need to reform immigration to restore fairness and the rule of law, as well as compassion, humanity and justice to how we treat all families.

So, what would comprehensive immigration reform mean for us? Imagine having a system that reflected both the realities of a global economy and our best values. Families would be stronger, enforcement would be more effective, workers would be better paid and protected, and American workers would not face discrimination from unscrupulous employers.

It may be a long-shot to think that the President and Congress will pass comprehensive immigration reform this session. The public has come to expect little more than calculated short-term bandages from Washington. But now is the time for leadership on immigration reform. For the sake of our families and our values, we need to work together to get this done. It can't wait any longer.

Chris Liu-Beers is a Program Associate at the N.C. Council of Churches where he coordinates the N.C. Religious Coalition for Justice for Immigrants

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. Unemployment and poverty rates are well into the double digits and the gap between "haves" and "have nots" continues to grow. At the end of 2009, more than 1.3 million North Carolinians were receiving Food Stamps - 41% more than just two years ago. Around one in six lacks health insurance.

So what is the best and most obvious remedy? Better and healthier public services? A fairer tax system that stops taking a higher share of income from people in the middle and at the bottom than it does from the rich? How about new investments in better schools, roads and public transit?

Don't tell those ideas to the state's high cost, small consumer loan industry. Here's its solution for what ails people of modest means: higher interest rates and fees on small loans.

No, this is not a bad joke. At a time when millions of people are hurting - many because of the devastating effects of mortgage foreclosures resulting from shady, often predatory, home lending practices - the big companies that make up North Carolina's small consumer loan industry are pushing state legislators to raise the caps on interest rates and fees that they are allowed to charge.

Got it? The same companies that already make a profit off of the people who've been excluded from the mainstream lending industry want to extract even more.

"Well," you say, "there must be more to it. This must be because North Carolina's rates and fees have become obsolete and unfair to lenders. Perhaps we're not giving them a fair shake to make an honest buck."

Think again.

Published data from the office of the state Commissioner of Banks shows that the majority of the industry remains profitable, even in this economy. What's more, according to a 2008 report by the highly-respected National Consumer Law Center, North Carolina already allows lenders to charge much higher rates than most other states. According to that study, 36 states have at least one small loan interest rate cap that is lower than North Carolina. Indeed, the report gave North Carolina's current small loan rates an "F" when it came to protecting consumers in two different categories.

"Well," you say, "this is just a fringe business catering to the poor. It may be sad, but it's not that big of a deal."

Wrong again. As the National Consumer Law Center report stated:

"Abusive lending practices not only harm individual consumers, but they place a needless drag on the overall U.S. economy….Consumers experiencing abusive lending practices pay more for their loans and often get trapped in cycles of debt from which they cannot emerge. As a result, these consumers have fewer resources to devote toward building family wealth."

In other words, bad, exploitative loans to people of modest means are not just bad for the poor folks who get suckered into them; they're bad for their children, for communities, and for the public institutions that must come to the rescue. In short, they're bad for all of us.

So what should lawmakers do? The small loan companies claim that their profits are down.

The answer is simple and straightforward; it's what lawmakers should have done when the predatory mortgage lending crisis was predicted by consumer advocates more than a decade ago, namely, to follow the lead of 36 other states by lowering the interest rates and fees charged to consumers. If loan companies that are already charging effective rates of 50% or more can't make a satisfactory profit, then perhaps they need to find another business.

There are a whole host of products and services from which responsible governments have long protected vulnerable, overmatched consumers. If a company's product is inherently dangerous or otherwise harmful to huge proportions of those who would buy it, public safety and well-being demands that regulators act.

That's why we have meat inspectors and rules on new pharmaceuticals. Just because some people might be okay with uninspected hamburger or untested drugs isn't enough reason to allow every meat processor or drug company to simply do whatever it wants.

The same ought to be true for 50% or 100% loans. Let's hope state lawmakers remember this simple truth.

Al Ripley is Counsel for Consumer and Housing Affairs at the North Carolina Justice Center.

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

In newspapers across the country, spontaneous letters to the editor decrying the ruling have poured in. Facebook and Twitter are teeming with rookie judicial analysis. Petitions to “abolish corporate personhood” have found a new life. Even President Barack Obama has weighed in, condemning the ruling in front of the Supreme Court justices themselves during his State of the Union address.

Indeed, the ruling in Citizens United v. FEC is so far-reaching and so unprecedented that some are saying it could produce a “true populist moment in American politics.” As more Americans realize what unlimited corporate spending will do to our already shaky democratic system, could a new progressive populism be afoot? And can this populism be used as a tool to revitalize campaign finance reforms?

The answer to these questions depends upon how, we, the progressive community, respond.

The Supreme Court’s ruling undoubtedly angers many people. It gives corporations more political power at a time when most people are still fuming from last year’s bank bailouts. And it flies against Americans’ basic sense of fairness, common sense, and democracy.

But this anger is also, for the most part, largely diffused. Outrage is coming from across the political spectrum—with many conservatives almost as worked up as mad-as-heck liberals—but much of this ire is being expressed in incoherent and isolated ways. For this angry populism to translate into a progressive force—and not just another justification for cynicism—we need these angry people to become part of a sustained political community that is connected to a real political program. To do this, progressive leaders need to find a way to tap into and feed this energy and help transform it into a sustainable, broad-based movement. Looking at how conservatives have utilized the tea bagger movement over the last year might be a good place to start.

But for this “populist moment,” to become a meaningful campaign reform moment, even more work will be required. To succeed, we need a renewed populist-progressive alliance—a fusion of popular anger with calls for common sense government reforms that change the structures and rules of the game. And we need to educate people about why these reforms would actually make a difference in the way the system works.

Campaign reformers and other policy experts can play an instructive role here by providing a specific policy course of action. Reformers need to remind people that although the U.S. Supreme Court has reduced the campaign finance reform tool kit, there are still meaningful things that we can do. And they must propose a reform package that not only addresses the specific problems that the Citizens United creates, but that also deals with the underlying money-in-politics crisis more generally.

Groups like Public Campaign and the Brennan Center for Justice at the national level and our campaign reform coalition here in North Carolina have provided a good blueprint. These groups are calling for a package of reforms that include new regulations on corporate governance in combination with public campaign financing options that allows candidates to run without a single dollar of special interest money. Smartly, they are presenting public financing not only as the most meaningful response to the Citizens United ruling, but as the only constitutionally viable way to level the playing field in an environment where corporations can take out million dollar attack ads. They’ve built a huge coalition of support for the Fair Elections Now Act, which would create a public financing option in all U.S. House and Senate races, and have created the infrastructure that other groups can use to organize around this effort.

But for these efforts to succeed, we need smart, sophisticated organizing. Advocates need to excite people about public financing’s potential to enlarge their voice and to elect candidates who better serve their interests. And they need to convince people that publicly-funded elections would be an effective antidote to special interest elections; that they would allow candidates to win elections without being a part of the corporate money monopoly. In other words, that they would really work.

Even more importantly, people need to feel like their involvement matters, and that they’re part of a real movement. Town halls need to be organized and local meet-ups scheduled. We need lobby days and letter drives, petitions and picketing. We need new groups to join the reform efforts and a wide array of government, non-profits, religious institutions, and civic organizations to endorse comprehensive campaign reform.

The potential for this populist moment to contribute to progressive reform is right in front of us. But it won’t happen without a smart package of policy proposals, good organizing, and a broad coalition. This might be the best opportunity for fundamental government reform that we’ve seen since the Watergate era, but it will be lost if we don’t seize it.

Chase Foster is the Director of North Carolina Voters for Clean Elections

You might think that such a program already exists: Medicaid. In political rhetoric and casual conversation Medicaid is referred to as an insurance program for those with low incomes. That is not the case.

Medicaid is a patchy social safety net covering mostly children, the disabled and pregnant women. Some parents qualify for Medicaid but are subject to strict income tests. A family of four, for example, may not earn more than $594 per month or have more than $3,000 in assets such as a savings account.

Coverage is better for children. A family of four earning up to $3,534 per month can get Medicaid for their children from birth to five years old. Once that child reaches six then the monthly income limit drops by several hundred dollars. In some cases families with higher incomes can qualify for Medicaid with a deductible.

As you can see, qualifying for Medicaid is no easy task. Even experts have trouble discerning whether or not a particular person without insurance qualifies for the program. If we pass comprehensive health reform, this would change.

Under the health care bill passed by the Senate, which is the piece of reform legislation still alive, Medicaid would cover all those with incomes below 133 percent of federal poverty level. For a single individual that's $14,404 per year. For a family of four it's $29,327 per year. There would be no more asset limits.

This would make Medicaid a program that truly covers low-income Americans. It would also create a strong social safety net to catch anyone in economic free fall.

The Senate health reform legislation would also begin lifting the Medicaid burden off of states.

Medicaid is funded by state and federal governments. The feds pay more than half of North Carolina's Medicaid bill, but Medicaid still eats up 15 percent of the state's budget. That is more than we appropriate to the University of North Carolina system and more than we spend on public safety. Medicaid is an enormous expense for every state.

Reform opponents have made much ado about a "deal" that bill sponsors crafted for the state of Nebraska whereby the federal government would cover the entire cost of covering the newly eligible Medicaid enrollees. But the truth is that the feds would pay most of the tab for almost every state. Michigan, Nevada, Oregon and Rhode Island would essentially get the same deal as Nebraska due to a combination of factors such as high unemployment and low Medicaid enrollment.

In North Carolina, the federal government would cover 95 percent of the costs for our Medicaid expansion. And the expansion would mean that more than 50 percent of North Carolina's uninsured residents would qualify for Medicaid.

Reform could eventually shift almost all Medicaid funding to the federal government. That would be a great relief to North Carolina. We are required to balance the state budget every year, whereas the federal government can borrow money during hard times to keep the economy afloat and continue providing services. During economic downturns people lose jobs and health coverage and Medicaid rolls swell. That forces the state into crisis.

Currently the state's Medicaid program is hundreds of millions over budget. Something has to change.

The good news is that our state has a great Medicaid program called Community Care of North Carolina or "CCNC." CCNC coordinates the care of Medicaid recipients and ensures access to primary care physicians and pediatricians. Medicaid in North Carolina could provide excellent care to low-income residents, if only they could qualify.

After the recent special election in Massachusetts health reform negotiations are in disarray. But the Senate bill sets in motion a range of reforms that are too important to abandon.

And if we are going to retool the health care system, Medicaid is a good place to start.

Adam Linker is a Policy Analyst at the N.C. Health Access Coalition

And from the way some conservative pundits responded (columnist Michelle Malkin, for instance, called it a "shake down"), you'd think the CBC had demanded that the Secret Service round up white folks and force them to empty their bank accounts and hand the money over to black folks.But of course they didn't. The Congressional Black Caucus made the very reasonable suggestion that 10 percent of the stimulus be targeted to the poorest urban areas, where so many African Americans live. Given that African Americans are about 13 percent of the US population, 10 is actually a very modest request.

Yes, people of all races are suffering mightily in the Great Recession, the worst in 25 years. One in eight families receives food stamps now. But as our grandmothers used to say, when whites catch a cold, Blacks catch pneumonia. December's white unemployment rate of 9% is bad, though better than November's; but the Black and Latino rates jumped to the devastating levels of 16.2% and 12.9%, a 27-year high.

Families survive unemployment better or worse depending on how much of a cushion they have. African American and Latino families entered the recession with a dangerously low median net worth, according to a new report by United for a Fair Economy, The State of the Dream 2010. In 2007, the typical Black household had a net worth of $17,100; the typical Latino family had $21,000; and the typical white family had $170,400. In other words, Blacks had a dime of assets for every white dollar.

African Americans have gotten less than their share of every federal benefit since the Homestead Act handed out land to white settlers in 1865; since Social Security was set up to exclude domestic and agricultural workers; and since the Urban Renewal program of the 1960s was nicknamed "Negro Removal" because it replaced torn-down white apartments but rarely black apartments.

But with the first Black president, and with a Democratic majority swept into office by high Black voter turn-out, we would expect better than this tilt to the white.

It goes without saying that the recent Wall Street bailout saved the jobs of a bunch of rich white men. And of course letting the estate tax expire was a big giveaway to mostly white multimillionaire heirs, since African Americans are 34 times less likely to die with the $3.5 million needed to trigger that most progressive of all taxes.

But even the aid for Main Street favors less-needy whites. By asking states for "shovel-ready" infrastructure projects, the President steered the money towards laid-off construction workers, disproportionately white men who recently had good jobs, rather than to human services and other more diverse occupations. The Associated Press reviewed more than 5,500 transportation projects using federal stimulus money, and found that 50 percent more per person will be spent in the lowest-unemployment places than in the communities that need the jobs most.

By boycotting a key Financial Services Committee vote, the CBC got $6 billion for Black communities added to two bills. Six billion may sound like a lot of money, but it's just one percent the size of the TARP financial bailout.

When President Obama didn't refuse Van Jones's resignation, when he didn't contest the smokescreen charges of flakey-petition-signing and swear-words, he took a dangerous step back from the goal Jones had championed: targeting the new "green jobs" for the urban poor.

A fair jobs policy would not have to explicitly spell out race-equity; literal racial quotas might be controversial enough to kill a bill. But as the 2009 "Put America to Work Act" proposed, it could require the government to target job-creation spending to communities with the highest unemployment rates, or to the workers who have been jobless for the longest time.

President Obama has acknowledged the existence of structural racism. He knows that poor people of color face additional obstacles that poor whites don't have to deal with.

But when he told the CBC that all he "can do for the African-American community is the same thing [he] can do for the American community, period," he was operating as if he believed the tired, old, color-blind myth that general anti-poverty programs will reach every group in need. Only by affirmatively targeting the communities pushed backwards by historic racial injustice will recovery efforts reach everyone.

Ajamu Dillahunt is the Community Outreach Coordinator at the North Carolina Justice Center
(This column first appeared on the national political website, The Huffington Post.)