President Obama’s “Promise Zones” anti-poverty program is a Trojan horse for deregulation.

[n2doc]

by Sam Wetherell

Last week, President Obama announced the creation of a handful of “Promise Zones” in deprived areas of the United States. While the policy sounds like a euphemism from a forty-year-old sex ed pamphlet, it is in fact the administration’s most recent attempt to tackle poverty in the country.

Obama has promised more than twenty such zones before the end of his term — the first five in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Antonio, the Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma, and eight counties in Kentucky. Residents of the zones can expect a bundle of deregulatory measures designed to speed up their access to pre-existing programs and encourage capital investment. These areas will be given bonus points when competing with other locales for aid from various federal programs, and businesses will be given tax breaks as incentives for moving to “Promise Zones.” Some of the locations will receive a handful of AmeriCorps volunteers as part of the program. The policy will also remove “financial deterrents to marriage” for couples on a low income as part of an attempt to “strengthen families.”

Crucially, no new federal money will be allocated.

It should come as no surprise that what might be Obama’s most significant second-term anti-poverty strategy operates through deregulation and tax breaks rather than real redistribution of wealth. The policy itself is couched in the language of individual uplift and self-reform. The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s FAQ on the policy reminds us that “there’s a basic bargain in America … no matter who you are or where you’re from, if you’re willing to work hard and play by the rules you should be able to find a good job, feel secure in your community, and support a family.”

The burden for social mobility lies firmly with the residents of the zones and, to a lesser extent, on charity and businesses. The implicit diagnosis is one of over-regulation and over-taxation, rather than structural unemployment, racism, and a hollowed-out welfare state.

more

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/01/breaking-promises/

[temporary311]

2. Wish I could say I was surprised.

[newfie11]

4. Nothing surprises me anymore

Sadly

[ProSense]

3. This is

"President Obama’s “Promise Zones” anti-poverty program is a Trojan horse for deregulation."

...completely absurd. The initiative has absolutely nothing to do with "deregulation."

Rewards hard work by raising the minimum wage: The President’s plan raises the minimum wage, which would directly boost wages for 15 million workers and reduce poverty and inequality.

http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/documents/huddoc?id=PZFAQ_182014final.pdf

This initiative was announced last year.

In Obama’s Budget, Poverty Initiatives Face an Uphill Battle

by Deborah Weinstein

We’re proud to collaborate with The Nation in sharing insightful journalism related to income inequality in America. The following is an excerpt from The Nation’s “This Week in Poverty” blog.

There are certain facts of life reflected by the FY 2014 Obama budget proposal: first, anything really worth having is going to be hard to get; and, the regrettable corollary — some things you don’t want are a lot closer to reality.

There are new and even historic anti-poverty proposals in this budget. But the better they are, the more they fall into the “hard to get” category. On the other hand, Social Security cuts in the form of smaller cost-of-living adjustments could far more easily become real...President Obama includes thoughtful plans to reduce poverty: targeting job development in the poorest communities; preserving tax credits and food assistance for low-income families; carrying forward health insurance expansions, and promoting the healthy development of children from infancy on...His commitment to improving education for children from birth to five. “Preschool for All” — a $75 billion, 10-year proposal — would ensure that every low- and moderate-income four-year-old has access to a pre-kindergarten education. The money would come from an increase in the tobacco tax. The budget also allocates $1.4 billion next year for Early Head Start and child care partnerships that would increase high-quality early learning programs for infants and toddlers through age three.

The president’s budget attempts a comprehensive approach — using resources from multiple government agencies — to attack both the causes and toxic by-products of poverty. It would create 20 Promise Zones, coordinating housing, education, anti-violence and other economic development initiatives. It would more than triple funds for The Choice Neighborhoods Initiative to improve distressed HUD-assisted housing in very poor communities. It increases Homelessness Assistance Grants by about $350 million, not counting the extra across-the-board cuts now being made. The current sequestration cuts that could end rental housing vouchers for 140,000 low-income families would be reversed.

The president’s $12.5 billion Pathways Back to Work proposal would provide summer and year-round jobs and training for low-income youth and subsidized jobs and training for the long-term unemployed. There are initiatives to improve high schools and to invest in community colleges. The budget would stop cuts in food stamps scheduled to start in November...Obama budget makes the current levels permanent for the Child Tax Credit, Earned Income Tax Credit and the American Opportunity Tax Credit — lifting more than 9 million low-wage workers and their children above the poverty line and creating greater opportunity for low- and middle-income students to attend college.

- more -

http://billmoyers.com/2013/04/14/in-the-obama-budget-poverty-initiatives-face-an-uphill-battle/

Do you support any of those initiatives?

[cali]

10. the President can hardly simply raise the miniumum wage. Only Congress can do that.

You really think that's gonna happen? And the cuts to food stamps? That happened. You're using an article that's nearly a year old. outdated.

don't you ever get tired of scrambling so desperately?

[ProSense]

14. The fact that

"the President can hardly simply raise the miniumum wage. Only Congress can do that.

You really think that's gonna happen? And the cuts to food stamps? That happened. You're using an article that's nearly a year old. outdated."

...the President cannot "raise the miniumum wage" without Congress clearly validates the BS article in the OP characterizing this initiative as a "Trojan horse for deregulation," right?

Partnering with Local Communities: The First Five “Promise Zones”
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024336893

[Egalitarian Thug]

18. More and typical bullshit. The Choice Neighborhoods Initiative, upon cursory investigation

shows exactly where this money goes. The most popular recipients are the state agencies which have already failed in their tasks, and real estate developers who are always happy to take free cash for building another strip mall for liquor, convenience, and fast food stores.

Oh no! A link to actual information!

[ProSense]

20. WTF?

The Choice Neighborhoods Initiative, upon cursory investigation

shows exactly where this money goes. The most popular recipients are the state agencies which have already failed in their tasks, and real estate developers who are always happy to take free cash for building another strip mall for liquor, convenience, and fast food stores.

A link to a list of grant recipients is a "cursory investigation"?

Speaking of "more and typical bullshit," that response is typical knee-jerk nonsense to anything the President proposes.

[Egalitarian Thug]

21. Didn't read the list and automatically disregarded the statement. Whose knee is in spasm?

[ProSense]

22. Got

"Didn't read the list and automatically disregarded the statement. Whose knee is in spasm?"

...anything besides a list of grants from HUD? I mean, the statement is BS. The list of grants is a list of grants.

Here's another initiative that met with the typical knee-jerk BS, but the original detractors have disappeared.

Salt Lake City joins Phoenix in ending veteran homelessness

By Sara Kugler

Salt Lake City, Utah, is the second city in the United States to end chronic homelessness amongst military veterans, Mayor Ralph Becker said on Sunday’s Melissa Harris-Perry. The first was Phoenix, Ariz., which declared an end to the issue on Dec. 18...Salt Lake City now has only eight veterans who remain homeless, but only because they have said those individuals say they do not want homes. Becker pledged the city would continue to work with them.

Calling it “inexcusable” and “unacceptable” for homelessness to be a persistent problem “in a society like ours,” the mayor praised the collaboration between all levels of government and the private sector in achieving the goal. “This is a decision that was made by the whole community, and we’ve been dedicated to it for many years,” Becker explained. “The resources, while never enough, have come forward from every part of the community.”

Becker also credited the Obama administration, saying their focus on homeless veterans has made it easier to access resources and support for the initiative. “The federal government is a critical partner in providing resources in many ways – some of it financial, some of it expertise, some of it sharing ideas that come from other areas,” he said.

The federal government unveiled a ten-year plan to prevent and end homelessnessm in 2010...More than 600,000 people experience homelessness on any given night. About 9% of them are veterans...Salt Lake City has focused first on homeless veterans, but is committed to working to reduce the greater homeless population in the city. The December 2013 United States Conference of Mayors Hunger and Homelessness Survey reported that the number homeless families in Salt Lake City decreased by 20% and homeless individuals by 10% last year.

- more -

http://www.msnbc.com/melissa-harris-perry/mayor-declares-end-vet-homelessness

Phoenix Becomes First City To End Chronic Homelessness Among Veterans
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024217875

[Egalitarian Thug]

23. OMG! Somebody looked at the program details! Quick, put up an old and unrelated story!

There's a celebrity name in it, so it trumps, right?

[ProSense]

24. OMG!

OMG!

You have nothing, do you?

OMG!

[Egalitarian Thug]

32. I do. I'm sorry it is beyond your capacity to read plain text data that shows exactly who gets what.

I'm really very, very sorry that you, due I'm sure to your unfortunate condition, are unable to understand the names on a simple list, that HUD put puts out specifically to inform.

I'm sure this all has you very confused, is there somebody around that you could ask for help?

[NuclearDem]

31. Oh, please, "promise zones" are just repackaged "enterprise zones."

Which, instead of alleviating poverty, only resulted in gentrification.

http://m.thefiscaltimes.com/fiscaltimes/#!/entry/enterprise-zones-a-bipartisan-failure,52cfd2f0025312186cb4e3a2

Unfortunately, the evidence shows that enterprise zones are at best a very weak generator of jobs. The U.S. Government Accountability Office has done several studies and concluded that there was no significant difference in economic growth or job creation inside the enterprise zones from the surrounding area.

...

There are a variety of reasons for why enterprise zones have failed. One is that businesses simply gamed the system and figured out ways to get the tax cuts without doing much of anything in return, something economists call “rent-seeking.” Often, the “job creation” in the zones resulted simply from the relocation of business just outside the zone into the zone. Another problem is that high taxes are not a significant reason why businesses don’t invest in the inner cities now. It’s more because they lack an educated labor force, transportation, a local population with purchasing power and other factors that the enterprise zone concept didn’t address.

I guess I should avoid pointing out how Rand Paul is working on similar proposals. That might make a Democrat embracing bullshit neoliberalism look like a bad thing.

[ProSense]

33. It's the same, I tell you!

Oh, please, "promise zones" are just repackaged "enterprise zones."

The same. Not a damn difference. It's not gonna work, see. No need to even implement this initiative. It's a big FAIL.


LOL!

[NuclearDem]

35. Of course you have no argument.

Just the same bullshit. Find a post critical of the administration, half-assed "defense", then snark at people who point out how you're wrong.

Yes, they're the same damn thing, just with a different name. It's a Republican idea that failed miserably, but since a Democrat is doing it, you're more than happy to defend it, no matter how much it fucks the poor. Unbelievable.

Obama has proven to be, at best, an economic moderate who talks economic populist, and this is just more of the same.

[ProSense]

36. Like

"Of course you have no argument. Just the same bullshit."

...claiming that it's the same as something else is a valid "argument."

The "same bullshit" is the knee-jerk declaration that anything proposed sucks based on mischaracterizations.

[NuclearDem]

37. For all intents and purposes, it IS the same.

Same neoliberal nonsense that results in gentrification. Fine, some aspects may be different, but substantively, that won't change how these place-oriented "zone" programs just don't attack the underlying causes of poverty at all.

And you're probably the last person who should be giving lectures on logical fallacies or what constitutes a "valid argument."

[ProSense]

38. Actually,

For all intents and purposes, it IS the same.

Same neoliberal nonsense that results in gentrification. Fine, some aspects may be different, but substantively, that won't change how these place-oriented "zone" programs just don't attack the underlying causes of poverty at all.

And you're probably the last person who should be giving lectures on logical fallacies or what constitutes a "valid argument."

..."for all intents and purposes," your argument amounts to your gut feeling.

You're the one who needs to get off the "lecture" circuit. I mean, "For all intents and purposes, it IS the same," is nonsense.

[NuclearDem]

39. Whatever you say, Pro.

[bobduca]

34. I predict a full throated

refutation of the very existence of these so-called "neo-liberals"

"THE DLC DOES NOT EXIST ANYMORE, THE THIRD WAY DOES NOT EXIST!!!111"

[Scuba]

6. ...

[G_j]

12. now I get it

nuff said..

[El_Johns]

7. "Crucially, no new federal money will be allocated." Just tax breaks & volunteers. Whee!

Old wine in a new bottle: "Enterprise Zones" (a Republican brainchild)

[NM_Birder]

8. Old wine, old bottle,...new pretty stick-on label with a nice smile.

[Shandris]

9. WTH am I reading?

The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s FAQ on the policy reminds us that “there’s a basic bargain in America … no matter who you are or where you’re from, if you’re willing to work hard and play by the rules you should be able to find a good job, feel secure in your community, and support a family.”

Really? When when the hell are they going to get around to, you know, supporting that 'basic bargain'? Because right now you have to be dumb, drunk, or dead to believe that line of horsecrap!

[rhett o rick]

11. "It should come as no surprise that what might be Obama’s most significant second-term anti-poverty

strategy operates through deregulation and tax breaks rather than real redistribution of wealth."

Pres Obama is clearly a fiscal conservative. And we wont get any relief if we elect Ms. Clinton-Sachs.

[Taitertots]

13. Isn't deregulation and tax breaks (not money) the Republican's solution to poverty

The whole idea that lower taxes and deregulation create jobs is nothing but a myth. All it does is shift the geographic location of existing and new jobs (whose creation is unrelated to deregulation and tax cuts).

[El_Johns]

15. Indeed, with a history of failure.

Jack French Kemp (July 13, 1935 – May 2, 2009) was an American politician and a collegiate and professional football player. A Republican, he served as Housing Secretary in the administration of President George H. W. Bush from 1989 to 1993, having previously served nine terms as a congressman for Western New York's 31st congressional district from 1971 to 1989. He was the Republican Party's nominee for Vice President in the 1996 election, where he was the running mate of presidential nominee Bob Dole.

Kemp championed several Chicago school and supply-side economics issues: economic growth, free markets, free trade, tax simplification and lower tax rates on both employment and investment income.[86] He was a long-time proponent of the flat tax.[87] He also defended the use of anti-Communist contra forces in Central America,[88] supported the gold standard, spoke for civil rights legislation, opposed abortion, and was the first lawmaker to popularize enterprise zones,[5] which he supported to foster entrepreneurship and job creation and expand homeownership among public housing tenants

Kemp was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009 by President Barack Obama.[1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Kemp



Overall, the consensus on the effectiveness of enterprise zones in the US is mixed at best. Lambert and Coomes (2001) found that the Louisville, Kentucky enterprise zone mostly benefited large corporations rather than small entrepreneurs and did not benefit local neighborhoods at all, even though community re-development was a goal. More importantly, in a book that reviewed most major enterprise zone studies done in the 1980s and 1990s as well as conducting its own original work, Peters and Fisher (2002) consider most state and local enterprise zone programs to have come up short in achieving their goals and objectives. [14] [15]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_Enterprise_Zone

[pa28]

16. Yes. As the poster above pointed out this is another Republican idea.

Paul Ryan and Jack Kemp developed the thinking behind concept. Existing companies who want to do business in a deregulated setting can move operations to a free enterprise zone which give people like the Koch brothers leverage to break down existing environmental regulation outside the zone.

It's just another trojan horse.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

17. Trickle-down 2.0

[Egalitarian Thug]

19. "Deregulation" and free money for rich people! Yay! How very Democratic! n/t

[bobduca]

26. don't hate on our big money donors!!!111

It's not their fault they were forced to exploit the poor and reap the profits while working wages stagnated, or felt so bad about that that they had to actively undermine every regulatory agency that threaten their god-given right to amass larger and larger sums of capital and finally infiltrate and co-opt any liberal movement in favor of tax-cuts for corporate persons, but benefit cuts for non-corporate persons.

Hater.

[Egalitarian Thug]

30. I am, I know. I was also blatantly mean to the dreamy one. Sometimes I just can't help myself,

I keep reading all these facts and stuff, and then compounding the sin by remembering things.

I'm so bad. I should be punished.

[dionysus]

25. "rather than real redistribution of wealth." yes, we could easily pass such a bill...

[ProSense]

27. Yeah, but

Obama is going to take your gun. That's like the "trojan horse."

I remember when Obama announced these programs, revamped to eliminate the ones that weren't effective and better target the funds, the same people screaming that these programs aren't effective now, were screaming that Obama was destroying them by cutting back on the funding then.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

28. We have this in SF -

The mid-Market Street tax free zone started by Gavin Newsom. Twitter is the most famous new mid-Market business. The point really isn't to help the poor and needy people who live in that area, the point it to push them out. And it is working.

[bobduca]

29. bipartisan double plus good

Thank goodness that DU's official poster can keep the rabble in check here.

[liberal_at_heart]

40. Why is he so enamored by republican ideas?

[Fumesucker]

42. All the Very Serious People are enamored of Republican ideas

Otherwise they would be unserious moonbats.

[Enthusiast]

41. Kicked and Recommended!

[octoberlib]

43. One of the problems is

Obama can't get the money from Congress to implement anything . He was in NC yesterday and announced the first manufacturing hub is going to be in Raleigh. Obama said they have the money for one but have to go to Congress to get money for the other hubs. That's probably why these zones don't involve federal money. I' m probably a lot further left than Obama is on the economy but the Republicans aren't about to let a Democrat have access to funds that might help implement a program that would actually help people. Their goal is sabotage.