Bishop Statement Following Trump Proposal
BRIGHAM CITY, UT – Following the January 19th address by President Trump from the White House, wherein the President presented a deal that would fully fund the government, extend protections for DACA recipients, and provide funding for border security, Rep. Rob Bishop (UT-01) released this statement:
“I like it. Let’s vote.”
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The Shame of the One Percent Continues
by Mel Gurtov
350 words
Speaking at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Sir David Attenborough called on government and business leaders to support, with practical plans, “United Nations decisions on climate change, sustainable
development, and a new deal for nature.”
“What we do now, and in the next few years, will profoundly affect the next few thousand years,” he said. True enough, but politically speaking, Sir David probably knows as well as anyone that precious few in his audience will be motivated to act decisively in the human interest—no more so than at any previous Davos meeting.
At this very moment, in fact, Oxfam published its latest data on global wealth distribution. It’s another sad rendition of an old theme: the rich are getting richer, the poor poorer. Notwithstanding China’s remarkable poverty reduction, the rest of the world’s poor are getting a decreasing share of the economic pie. As a result, Oxfam reports, “the 26 richest billionaires own as many assets as the 3.8 billion people who make up the poorest half of the planet’s population.” In 2016 it took 61 billionaires to match the wealth
of the world’s 50 percent in poverty, and 43 billionaires in 2017.
For the world’s 2,200 billionaires, wealth rose an astounding $2.5 billion a day in 2018. These people—the global one percent—typically take in
27 cents on every dollar of global income growth, compared with 12 cents on the dollar for the global 50 percent. It doesn’t take much imagination to
understand the real-world consequences of those figures—for example, that “about 10,000 people per day die for lack of healthcare and there were 262 million children not in school, often because their parents were unable to afford the fees, uniforms or textbooks,” according to Oxfam.”
As we in the US celebrate Martin Luther King Day, we might consider what a single decision by those Davos participants would mean: a one percent tax on the one percent, which today would raise about $418 billion, enough to meet those health and education needs just mentioned. Think they’ll do that, in between glasses of Champagne?
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Mel Gurtov, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Portland State University.
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#EIE18 VIDEO RELEASE
Dr. Howard Fuller
"I will stand as long as I can to fight for the right of poor people to have choice in America."
Last month, ExcelinEd hosted a thousand state and national policymakers, education leaders and advocates at the 2018 National Summit on Education Reform (#EIE18). Today, we’ve released videos of keynote speaker Dr. Howard Fuller.
A longtime civil rights activist, Dr. Fuller was instrumental in launching the nation’s first school voucher program in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He provides a unique perspective—and unmatched passion—on the subject of education choice.
Highlights from Dr. Fuller's opening keynote at the 2018 National Summit on Education Reform.
Full-length recording of Dr. Fuller's opening keynote at the 2018 National Summit on Education Reform.
